Rebane's Ruminations

Border Security, Barriers, and Porosity (updated)

George Rebane

No nation-state can long maintain its culture and sovereignty without the ability and will to control its borders.

“Sounds like a lack of technology rather than the porosity of a wall”, replied a commenter who had just finished celebrating the capture of illegals who had tunneled under an old, shallow, and unmanned remote section of our southern border.  He and others like him gleefully pointed that out as evidence supporting the Left’s new narrative that border barriers (walls, fences, …) are “ineffective” and “don’t work”.  And then he posted the above statement which confused (i.e. “rather than”) barrier system design with a metric of its performance.  Such mistakes from the Left abound today in the media and these pages.  We can leave the question of how much these erroneous statements are forged through simple ignorance vs promoting the ‘hate Trump’ agenda.  There is little we can do to heal their TDS, however there is an outside chance that their ignorance can be alleviated (given that there is no stupidity – i.e. processing deficit – at play).

Motivated by the above general principle, border control is defined as the ability to determine the ingress and egress of people and goods across geographical boundaries which delineate the jurisdictional limits of a sovereign nation-state.  Border controls are implemented by many means, depending on the border geography, implemented border security systems, and the cost burden the nation is willing to bear to implement its border security policies which should include one or more publicly known border control performance metrics that are part of the nation’s overall border control (multi-attribute) utility function.  The most meaningful attribute is the border’s overall porosity metric.

Border porosity is a bidirectional measure of the rate of illegal crossings in either the egress or ingress directions across the national boundary.  Today we are overwhelmingly concerned with only the ingress of illegal aliens.  In practice, porosity will vary over a range of values along a long, complex border having varying physical and political attributes that come into play.  Here we have to be careful in how we apply the above definition of porosity.  Specifically, the ingress porosity metric does NOT include the accretion of illegal aliens through non-border means such as overstaying their visa permissions.  Aliens who entered legally under various immigration, tourist, and guest-worker policies, and then ‘went illegal’ are a concern for our internal alien tracking and policing systems.

So when we want to have a meaningful discussion of border security, we must start with at least the statement of an acceptable ‘mean porosity’ level that, if exceeded, alerts us to discover and fix the cause of having violated the policy threshold.  As RR readers may be aware, my own considered border porosity threshold is a quite generous annual entry of 15,000 illegal aliens who are not intercepted/captured at the border, and successfully meld into our population.  These illegals then become fugitives from our laws, and are to be brought back into our legal system by our internal alien tracking and policing systems.

Now regarding physical border barriers (in military jargon known as ‘fixed field fortifications’) – I will not waste readers’ time countering the ignorant and inane critics who suddenly maintain that such barriers are “ineffective” and “don’t work”.  (And to address the question of their ‘morality’ is for me beyond accessible levels of idiocy.)  The main purpose of such physical barriers has always been to reduce the boundary or border manning requirements wherever they are constructed.  As we are taught in the military, all unmanned fixed field fortifications can be penetrated by a determined enemy, and that goes for desperate migrants breaching unguarded segments of our southern border.  The question on what to build where depends strictly on how we must share the ‘hardware’ (walls, fences, surveillance/tracking/penetration detection systems, etc) costs with the costs of staffing our boots-on-the-ground Border Patrol, ICE, and other border interdiction units in order to maintain the acceptable porosity levels along the border.

The Left’s current narrative about whether we need walls, or slats, or fences, or whatever, and that Trump lied if he doesn’t really intend to build some ridiculously high concrete wall from the Pacific to the Gulf, is just unmitigated bullshit that diverts the national attention from border security.  This narrative panders to the nation’s Latinos, and seeks to increase the inflow of future Democrat voters who will join the ranks of those who already are working to bring America to its knees as one more compliant complement that genuflects to the brave new world of one global government.

(Now let’s see what President Trump has to say about this in his imminent speech at noon (PST) from the Oval Office.)

[update] President Trump’s short speech was full of compromises that traded multiple tranches of benefits to resident illegal aliens, including extending the DACA stays to three years, in return for the next $5.7B for border security which includes barrier systems.  He also invited the Dems to an accelerated bipartisan program to hammer out a new comprehensive immigration policy and implementing laws. (more here)  The Republican majority Senate will now draft and pass a bill that incorporates the President’s compromise proposal to terminated the partial shutdown and proceed on the road to immigration reform putatively desired by both sides.  It will be up to the Pelosi House to pass and work out with the Senate a compromise bill that the President will sign.  If Team Pelosi continues to tell the President to stuff it where the sun don’t shine, then that should remove the last shreds of doubt as to who has been stonewalling the shutdown from the gitgo.

Ruminations - 18jan19 (updated)

Federal workers demonstrate because they don't have the money to buy food or pay the rent. Why haven't some of the nation's major lenders stepped forward to lend them money at low/no interest rates until they start getting a check again?  The money so lent would be at minimal risk since the borrowers have their government jobs and their back-pay checks as collateral of equal quality to US Treasury bonds.  Where are all these rightwing bankers who could lend Trump and the Republicans a political hand while reaping beaucoup PR rewards? ...  OK, then where are the leftwing lenders since the overwhelming share of government workers are Democrat voters?

[update]  RR contributor and blogger Russ Steele wrote and excellent Other Voices in the 18jan19 Union making the case for “upskilling” your workplace talents in the age of galloping AI.  In his ‘STEM for all’ he also pointed out what SESF has been doing in promoting and supporting STEM education in Nevada County.

Former Trump attorney Cohen’s most recent allegations about candidate Trump’s real estate dealings with Russia are making big headlines that have every Dem and all their cousins calling for more investigations, and definitely for the president’s impeachment.  But no one is lifting an eyebrow about what was just released about Bruce Ohr’s testimony last August that revealed a string of lies the FBI told Congress and on its FISA application to investigate Trump’s campaign.  And also that two of the liars have been key members of Mueller’s team continuing to investigate the president.  The magnitude of such misdirection of national attention is beyond astounding and does not portend well for our beloved republic.  (more here)

‘If Weed Is Medicine, So Is Budweiser’, so goes a convincing argument by Dr Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  He points out that MJ “is a toxin, not a medicine” per se as its adherents claim for ailments ranging from hepatitis to Parkinson’s.  Citing studies, Bach tells us that “if weed is a pain reliever, so is Budweiser.”  His message of “Legalize marijuana, but don’t pretend it’s therapeutic” come with the bottom line that MJ “belongs in the same category as alcohol an tobacco – harmful products that adults can choose to enjoy”, and they need to be regulated as such.

"Trump's Shutdown" - Here's a quiz, how is this government shutdown significantly different from Obama's shutdown, and previous ones?  And here is the answer.

Swedish Rhapsody

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 16 January 2019.]

George Rebane

Today our socialist politicians feel that they have the wind at their back to fundamentally transform our country into the Socialist States of America.  And that may well be the case as poll after poll shows that for most Americans capitalism has fallen out of favor, or at best they are indifferent to its existence and role in supporting their quality of life.  The Millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, are now the major voting block, having taken their positions in government and the private sector workforce.  Their attitudes reflect the education they received in our unionized public schools, and most are definitely in favor of socialism as the better way to organize society and our economy – over half prefer socialism to capitalism.

For most Americans, tilting leftward or already there, Scandinavia is their siren song of socialism.  And among those nations, Sweden is the posterchild and most frequent answer to, ‘Why can’t we be more like …?’  Sweden is held up to us by both progressive politicians and their handmaiden media as the paragon of how to correctly do government.

Sandbox - 14jan19

[Why would the president's AG nominee William Barr telegraph the preposterous statement that he will tell the Senate judiciary committee that he would unconditionally allow Mueller to finish whatever he's been doing in the attempt to bring down the administration?  gjr]

MIM’s first major 2019 concert

[Mr Nowlen, is a major mover in Northern California’s classical music community.  He is a longtime musician, educator, conductor, and senior staffer for several of the region's musical organizations and performing groups.  His activities range from teaching at UC Davis to Music in the Mountains here in Nevada County where he has been involved for years bringing and making music for us.  He also currently serves as MIM’s Artistic Director, and submitted this invitation for your kind consideration.]

Pete Nowlen

Happy New Year! 

I’m so looking forward to our first Music in the Mountains major concert of 2019, when we feature my good friend Maestro Leo Eylar and the California Youth Symphony for a fantastic matinee concert on Sunday March 10. You are going to go crazy for this amazing group of more than 100 young performers. (details and tickets here)

The California Youth Symphony is one America’s top youth orchestras. It was the first such orchestra to tour abroad in 1963, and continues to tour internationally every other year, performing in many of the world’s great venues. It is a past first prize winner of the International Youth and Music Festival Competition in Vienna.

Our March 10 performance includes works of Rachmaninoff, Chabrier and Strauss, and will particularly feature two amazing 16-year-old performers, pianist Catherine Huang and cellist Davis You.

Catherine will be featured in Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini as winner of CYS’ annual Young Artist Competition. Davis, a past Young Artist winner, will be featured as the cello soloist and protagonist in Richard Strauss’ tone poem, Don Quixote. 

You can learn more about these amazing young performers below. I promise you that you do not want to miss this performance. It is sure to be the largest orchestra, and one of the most inspiring programs that Music in the Mountains has ever put on stage.

Sixteen-year-old pianist Catherine Huang is a sophomore at Lynbrook High School and studies piano with Professor Hans Boepple. She won first prize and the young jury award at the 2017 Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition and appeared on Kansas Public Radio as the first prize winner of the 2016 International Institute for Young Musicians (IIYM) International Piano Competition.

Davis You, 16, is a junior at Palo Alto High School. He studies cello with Jonathan Koh and previously studied with Irene Sharp. His awards include first place in the 2016 California ASTA solo competition, first place in the 2017 California Youth Symphony Young Artist Competition, and five invitations to perform in the Junior Bach Festival

 

Scattershots – 11jan19 (updated 17jan19)

George Rebane

None of the rabid opposition to border security makes sense, and even less so with the passing months. We supposedly look at and experience the same world, yet obviously live in different universes. Physics may have an answer for that, but everyday logic in the conduct of human affairs does not, especially if we assume that both sides are working for a strong, independent, free, and prosperous America. Logic clicks back into place when we remove that assumption.

Israel’s wall costs $2M/mile. (more here)  That is a good stake in the ground to estimate the cost of our border security infrastructure which would not be a 2,000-mile concrete wall, but would instead consist of other barrier approaches and supportive detection and localization systems.  Posit $3M/mile for our southern border, and the cost would come to $6B.  And that includes all of the overhead.  Claiming that our border property owners will fight the increased border security is a red herring that does not jibe with what actual property owners are saying.  It is they who have suffered at the hands of illegal entrants whose criminal activities transiting their property has made living on the border dangerous.

Was sorry to see today’s (11jan19) Union column by publisher Don Rogers. His arguments against border security ignored all the marginal impacts on crime, culture, and costs of a porous border outlined in ‘The mangling of managed minds’.  It seems that being blind to that line of reasoning is a widespread malady among our Left, for it always appears to form the basis of their resulting fractured logic for opposing Trump’s border security policies, aka the same ones that the congressional Left supported not so long ago.

Bright fiber in Nevada County is a reported go, but details about the scope of the project are less than skimpy.  All that’s reported in The Union (here and here) is that 2,000 homes along Hwy 174 will be getting enhanced broadband in about a year.  But there is more than enough detail on the bureaucratics and the funding to roll your eyes.  However, people who don’t happen to live along 174 haven’t a clue as to how this project will advance the rest of the county toward 21^st century connectivity.  In short, after reading the reportage I again had to strap on my ‘Pardon me but you have me confused with someone who cares’ button.  Maybe more informed readers will provide the much needed information.

Ex-Muslims of North America is an organization of former American and Canadian Muslims united to spread word about ‘the religion of peace’ and support those who have left and are contemplating leaving Islam.  Their position on their former faith parallels that of RR.  Islam is still in its ‘Accept Allah or die!’ phase of maturing.  But unfortunately this is happening in a much more connected world laced with an abundance of very deadly technologies.  Just to be clear, all major religions have and/or are still going through such a violent and uncompromising phase.  Christianity most certainly had its ‘Accept Jesus or die!’ epoch in the centuries after Rome, starting coincidentally about when Islam was born on the Arabian peninsula. 

[12jan19 update]  Fact checking Trump.  Leftwing readers here have been taking President Trump to task for his ‘lies’, the overwhelming share of such are easily identified as political bluster of the kind that can be tallied for any politician on either side of the aisle.  There are however certain statements from a politician that are intended to elicit and/or support public support for government policy.  Such weighty claims are usually easy to fact-check either at the time of delivery or subsequently.  President Trump’s recent border security speech from the Oval Office contained a number of such statements.  Here is a fact-check summary of five of the most important ones from that speech.

Venice, CA now importing SF values. Beautiful seaside community of Venice in SoCal is rapidly becoming the next ‘sierra hotel’ city in the state, joining Anaheim and the long-enduring People's Republic of Santa Monica as newly risen exemplars of socialist governance.  The Hollywood Reporter has the details in its ‘LA's Battle for Venice Beach: Homeless Surge Puts Hollywood's Progressive Ideals to the Test’.  There “with swelling transient encampments abutting seven-figure homes, the beachside enclave has emerged as a flashpoint for the inequality shaping Los Angeles — and a real-world test case for the liberal ideology of the area’s showbiz residents.” (H/T to correspondent)

[13jan19 update]  Conjecture: NYC mayor Bill deBlasio is a communist, having passed to the left of all remaining progressive milestones. (more here)

[14jan19 update] Whether you like or regret (like me) many of our President's tweets and hipshot repartees, this is what many Americans believe is really the case.

[17jan19 update]  Border barriers (walls, fences, ...) "don't work and are ineffective" maintains the Democrat leadership and their nationwide constituents.  Border security officers with long years of experience maintain exactly the opposite.  I have not found any journalist with the wit or temerity to ask people like Pelosi, 'What evidence do you have about border barrier systems that overrides the testimony of our border security professionals and which supports you continued assertions that such border security infrastructure "doesn't work"?  (We'll address the "immorality" question another time.)  Asking the Democrats to produce such evidence would put this debate on the fast track to resolution, not only with regard to border security funding, but also the government shutdown.  RR readers know the disdain I have for the journalistic profession, I have found almost all journalists to be alarmingly ignorant hacks with little or no spine to seek out and report truth that is counter to their publishers' and/or editors' agendas.

The mangling of managed minds

George Rebane

People who are informed primarily through media soundbites have been shown to have very volatile opinions.  When a new and contrary tranche of soundbites comes along, such people more often than not change their minds and follow the new direction of the most recent compelling soundbite.  This is because soundbite driven opinions are reactionary and not reasoned.  That is simply because the individual takes no time or effort to develop any depth of understanding in what he currently believes.  Finicky and fleeting feelings drive decisions for such people.  Bryan Caplan, in his The Myth of the Rational Voter, was one of the first to publish the research confirming how voters make decisions about issues and candidates.

The bottom line acceptance of Caplan’s findings is corroborated by how politicians and our news media (specifically the lamestream) construct their messages for soundbite thinkers.  This morning’s analyses of President Trump’s Oval Office speech last night is chuck full of such messaging.

One frequently used ruse is to dismiss stated levels by surreptitiously sliding the argument over to rates, and also dismiss inconvenient rates by citing the more fortuitous change in the offending rate.  [For the technically versed, this well-known process is known as ‘climbing the derivative ladder’ until you find the one that serves your narrative.]  An example here is the President’s citing the high number of illegals currently coming over the border.  This the lamestream journalist brushes off by telling listeners that the rate of illegals entering was higher in the past.  For innumerates and soundbite thinkers, this is an effective way to dismiss concern over the continuing rate of illegal entrants.  Presented in this context, it never occurs to them that what’s happening now is still a huge and preventable problem that overwhelms our border security personnel.

Mending Wall (updated 12jan19)

Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

 

[12jan19 gjr update] From some of the comments below it appears that a word of clarification is required, not only about Frost’s poem but also walls, fences, and other things that demark and control access.  Such constructs are nothing more than the existential and visible attributes of contracts that define property rights within a society.  These transmit the unambiguous message that this side belongs to me, and the other side belongs to someone else; and I don’t want someone from the other side coming unbeknownst to me onto my property from where I have constructed my wall/fence or any other kind of barrier.  For access to my property at certain locations I have provided gates, the states of which I can control, and therefore control access to my property.

People who don’t share the value of such rights, and perhaps feel that these delineated things should be owned in common, or at least be shared unhindered, will oppose physical barriers that unambiguously define ownership and provide for non-owner access only at the pleasure of the owner.

Today such values are very much the topic of hot debate between ideologically estranged peoples and nations.  Conservatives and libertarians are very much proponents of property rights and such expression of these rights.  They believe that property (and any asset of value) that is owned by everyone is owned by no one, and treated as such.  (cf. Garrett Hardin's 'Tragedy of the Commons')  Everywhere that property is ‘owned by the people’, it is actually owned by their government which visibly deports itself as owner.  The definition of ownership is straightforward – you own something only to the extent that you can dispose of it as you will.  The thinking person immediately understands that ownership is not a simple ‘you own it, or you don’t’.  Instead, they know that ownership is very much nuanced, and that anything owned can also be taken insidiously and stage wise from the weaker by the stronger.  In the US we have seen such erosion of ownership occur with many things, including real property and firearms.  In an autocracy (which we are fast becoming) such subtle transfers of ownership are replaced by more direct and unambiguous methods.

(In understanding ownership, be careful not to confuse that notion with the responsibility for and/or accountability for the disposition of said property by its de juris owner or any third party.)

Sandbox - 8jan19

[Get ready for President Trump's speech from the Oval Office tonight in which he'll try to convince us that there is national security crisis on our southern border, and that spending money to reduce border porosity is now a national priority which the Constitution allows, nay, requires him to exercise executive powers to defend America against an unending influx of poor, ignorant, and destitute foreigners who are told they have the right to illegally enter the country and establish a new life in America.  gjr]

Scoping Your Rifle

George Rebane

OK boys and girls, time to take a break from our usual work of solving the world’s socio-political problems.  Today we’re going to look at a new and, hopefully, better method for scoping your rifle.  I am a lifelong shooter and also a military and NRA trained range safety officer (RSO).  As a longtime member of our local Sportsmen shooting club (rifle, pistol, trap, archery), I do my required club work hours serving several times a year as the rifle/pistol RSO on Sunday afternoons when the club opens its outdoor range to the public.

You shooters can imagine the stories I have stored up over the years helping (the mostly inexperienced) shooters and keeping them from accidentally killing someone.  Well, one of the tasks I’m frequently asked to help with is scoping the rifle of a guest or member who is not quite clear on the concept.  To scope a rifle means to align the scope with the rifle’s barrel so that a shotgroup’s centroid is close to the center of the bullseye at a given range (say, 100 yds) when shot with the scope’s crosshairs, or point of aim (POA), centered on the bullseye.

Mr Boardman’s Bamboozle or Boo-boo?

George Rebane

Intrepid leftwing columnist at The Union, George Boardman, is either trying to bamboozle the lightly-read reader, or was just a bit fast and loose on the keyboard in his 7jan19 submittal to the newspaper.  In his commentary ‘Don’t Expect Reality to Intrude on Trump’s Argument for a Border Wall’, Mr Boardman launches into a sonorous if not somnambulant recounting of the debate about how to secure our southern border.  He repeats the new shibboleths about whether it should really be a solid concrete wall or some other form of possible physical barrier “to cut-off the hordes of illegal immigrants poring(sic) across the border to take good-paying American jobs, commit numerous crimes, and turn our fair country into an outpost of lawlessness.”  Well, he almost got that list right – nobody is worried about our country becoming “an outpost of lawlessness”, just illegals committing the reported numerous crimes and costing a bundle to hunt and house them in our prisons.

But his main argument for ignoring the tens of thousands pouring across our southern border is that they don’t number as many as those who enter the US legally with visas and then overstay.  Boardman quotes the legal entrant overstays for 2016 at 628,799, while the illegal entrants in 2016 number only 170,000.  Countering this, the US Customs and Border Protection arm of the Dept of Homeland Security post the more realistic 553,378 who were apprehended in 2016 (more here).  The number escaping apprehension is unknown, but reasonable estimates place it in the same range as the apprehensions.  And with the advent of the recent mass migrations, this number has increased significantly based on 102,857 apprehensions last year (2018) reported during October and November – the annualized number for this comes to over 600,000.  Again, we don’t know all of those illegals who got through our overwhelmed border security personnel.  The illegals who overstayed their visas in 2017 number 702,000 according to the DHS.  And yes, about half of the illegal aliens in the country today entered legally and overstayed their visas.

From his version of such statistics Mr Boardman concludes with the simple red herring that “If you really want to stop illegal immigration, a wall is not the solution.”  Nobody has maintained that any southern border barrier will stop all illegal aliens from settling in America.  But can his readers see through this little bit of legerdemain?  Nor does our columnist tell us that those entering legally with visas and those crawling through border barriers comprise two distinct cohorts of illegals.  Our immigration and border security people were able to vet those to whom we issued visas.  We know that they weren’t the obvious drug runners, human traffickers, unaccompanied minors, wanted criminals, terrorists, … .  Those coming in across the southern border (sometimes multiple times) do not submit to such examination, and there are enough of them to be of concern to reasonable law-abiding Americans who are not racists, xenophobes, or even nationalists. (more here)

After having convinced his readers that our porous southern border is not a concern, he does a subtle shift to put a cherry on that argument by citing all the benefits to the American economy and workforce contributed by immigrants who make up more than one sixth of our workforce and almost three fourths of our tech workers, many of whom are entrepreneurs starting new companies that grow our economy and maintain our leadership in the world of innovation and commerce.  (I also belong to that cohort.)  Well yes, but all of these people came in legally and are not the under-educated poor illegal entrants from, well, you know, what our fearless leader correctly called "shithole countries".  That subtle semantical pirouette of naming all foreign-born in America as ‘immigrants’, regardless of their mode of entry and legal status, continues to support the bamboozle our Left is successfully dispensing in today’s media.  Everyone is an immigrant, and since we are a nation of immigrants, therefore we must let all immigrants enter and succor their needs.  To do otherwise is heartless and un-American, capice?  (more here and here)

But in the final analysis Mr Boardman is a loyal liberal just soldiering on, polishing the progressive narrative to make it more palatable to the residents of these hinterlands. (Just to be clear, I too am guilty of doing my part to purvey the conservetarian worldview, hopefully with better numbers and reasoning.)

PS. Just to pile on, in this scurrilous piece of journalism, Mr Boardman also throws in some red meat for the alt-Left: Because in its op-ed the WSJ deigned to propose a solution to the government shutdown negotiations, our columnist asks, "Who said the fake news media doesn't have any clout in this country?" (emphasis mine)

Pelosi’s “Immoral Wall” (updated 6jan19)

George Rebane

In The Myth of the Rational Voter Bryan Caplan documented a significant body of research which showed that in the US voters in the aggregate are what may be termed formally insane.  The general understanding of this phenomenon applies to populations all over the world, and its general characteristics were even known to the ancients.  Of course, our well-read Founders knew this, and that is why, in order to avoid the mistakes of the past, they wisely did not leave us a democracy.

The democratic republic they did construct and detailed in our Constitution is supposed to keep the hoi polloi’s mitts off the machinery of our federal and state governments.  They inserted a hopefully wiser and more circumspect layer of elected representatives between the mass of citizens and the levers of power.  The idea was that such electeds would be better read and would take a broader view of things that insured the country’s prudent progress.  Unspoken, save in their oaths of office, was the notion that all of these worthies would be pro-American – i.e. legislate so as to assure the republic’s prosperous and permanent future.

Our Founders had no idea of the world order in which America would find itself 250 years after declaring our independence.  Today two major ideologies, founded by Marx and Muhammad, are working to bring all the peoples of the world under one monolithic governing leviathan.  Each, in the interval, willing to work off the gains of the other in the firm belief that they will be the victor when the dust settles.  In the meantime, there will be a need for lots of dust, or ‘cracked eggs’, or whatever to bring the outdated global gaggle of sovereign nation-states to an end.

Marx’s collectivists today march to that brave new world mostly under the socialist banner, although swapping for the colors of communism (already/still solidly ensconced in the community of nations) is always possible were stronger medicine necessary to mind the masses.  Muhammad’s disciples, no matter their current schisms, see the global caliphate under sharia law as the culmination of Allah’s plan for his earthly creation.  Both can accept convenient amalgamations of the two on the road to their glorious destinations.

Sandbox - 3jan19

[A little while back I asked for feedback on the notion of moderating RR comments in the effort to cut out a lot of the naked ad hominem interpersonal crappola comments that contribute nothing to the discussion of ideas, issues, or events.  The plan would be to quit moderating again as soon as the ad hominems were promoted to at least high school, if not churchillian, levels.  The response from all you worthies was a massive yawn.  Silence is also feedback, so I take that as apparently no one cares.  Thank you. gjr]

Dems Embrace Shutdown (updated)

George Rebane (updated)

Now in its second week, the partial (25%) shutdown of the federal government continues with the Democrats refusing to negotiate with President Trump.  The natural deal to be made is for the Dems to accept the $5B for border security (including all means and methods) and the Repubs to accept legalizing the residence of DACA aliens.

The Dems’ position is clear and repeated often – they will refuse Trump any legislative victories and will use their House majority in the attempt to bring down this administration through the launch of a thousand investigations into anything remotely connected with Donald Trump, either now or back then.  The logic behind it is clear.

Let the DACA aliens swing in the wind while the border remains porous and countless thousands continue streaming in.  Sooner or later the illegal alien share of America’s population will be so high (now above 30M by some estimates) that the only non-violent political solution will be granting amnesty to the lot, with border security still unresolved (see also A21).  All of these new residents with a paved path to citizenship will be Democrat voters whose numbers overwhelm the paltry hundreds of thousands in the current DACA cohort.  All that is required is a prudently pernicious patience on the part of the Left.

And during the interval, our lightly-read neighbors will constantly be fed the repeated lies that legal immigration is the same as illegal entry, and that ‘walls don’t work’.  NY’s Gov Cuomo is repeating that lie today on Ellis Island, and history shows that walls are and always have been very effective in preventing both ingress and egress where they have been erected and maintained.  The Dems are placing a smart bet that after three generations their educational systems have produced enough double dummies to swallow whatever is fed to them.

[update]  In ‘Our Exhausted American Mediocracy’ noted historian Victor Davis Hanson takes us through the notable sea change that accompanied and/or was revealed by Donald Trump’s election to the presidency.  It is a marvelous summary of a perspective attempted by many writers over the last two years.  VDH nails it, and includes illuminating sections addressing ‘Earned Hypocrisies?’ and ‘A Case Against Trump?’.  I bring this essay mainly to the attention of our liberal neighbors who seem to get these ideas only through RR – consider it a public service of purview broadening.  (H/T to reader)

More to the point of the contempt with which Democrat politicians hold their constituents, another oft told lie is told in response to every new atrocity committed by an illegal alien – most recently by Gustavo Arriaga murdering police officer Ronil Singh.  The Left glibly counters the violence committed by illegals by the bland claim that ‘immigrants commit fewer crimes than the native born’, which their voters have no capacity to parse as to what that claim means.  In ‘The Immorality of Illegal Immigration’ VDH points out that ‘statisticians argue that immigrants commit fewer crimes than the native born, but never quite calibrate illegal immigrants into the equation (in part because no one has any idea who, where, or how many they are, as estimates range from 11 to 20 million) or note that second-generation native-born children of immigrants have much higher violent-crime rates than do their immigrant parents, and in circular fashion add to the general pool of violent Americans who then are used to contrast immigrants as less violent.’, and then makes the case that “we should redefine the entire morality of multifaceted illegal immigration.”

Ruminations – 1jan19 (updated 5jan19)

George Rebane

First and foremost, Jo Ann and I wish all of our family, friends, and RR readers a healthy and productive 2019 – hopefully, ‘happy’ can also be fit in there somewhere 😉

As things stand now, US economic growth will continue at a brisk rate in 2019 with low unemployment, especially for the historically unemployed minorities.  This is major consternation for the anti-American Left as it prepares for the 2020 elections.  Look for progressive policies aggressively promoted to stop this growth.

In the growing assault on the Trump presidency, if the calls from leftwing media outlets like truthout.org and vox.com to take to the streets is answered by the tens of thousands of alt-Left, then there is a good chance for some serious violence.  As most recently being demonstrated by the Democrat leadership, the search for middle-ground is long past.  Now it’s simply a destruction derby going on at the federal level.  The Left has already won several of such derbies at the states level.

Several pollsters tell us that more than half of millennials believe that capitalism is bad and socialism should be given a chance.  Very few of them know the definition of either means of organizing the economy and society.

This may be the year where businesses big and small realize the constructive and disruptive power of AI-based business systems.  No longer do we see all the hopeful arguments that AI will create more jobs.  Instead we (techies) notice a lot of quasi-tutorial pieces (e.g. 'What Exactly Is Artificial Intelligence?') in the world’s leading news media.  Most of them are written by journalists who haven’t quite cracked the code themselves on the topic.  Therefore, some are quite humorous.

Both sides of the climate change war (yes, it’s now a war) claim that 2018 was not a bad year for their respective perspectives.  For the global warmists, the latest IPCC report was their capstone for the unassailable edifice of ‘scientific proof’ that ‘preventable man-made global warming’ is happening and can be stopped without bad economic impacts.  The skeptics saw the report as a final admission that there is still no supporting science behind the whole matter.

California will be the state to watch in 2019 as all the brakes to slow down the long-promised Leftward Leap toward socialism have now been removed.  Keep your eye on the stats for one-way rentals of U-Haul trailers heading east.

RR will be meticulously read and denigrated by our local lefties, both in the blogosphere and in the more established media - we apparently live in their heads.  My wish for 2019 is that our commenters should continue to minimize their ad hominems, and put a churchillian polish on those that must be posted.  Remember, the internet is forever, even if you are a sackhead.

[2jan19 update]  This is actually an addendum to my 650am in the 28dec18 sandbox.  American autocracy, if it comes, will arrive through the ballot box.  This was also anticipated by Jefferson in his ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’  Numerous examples of the Left counting on such ignorance arrive daily – today’s is from Gov Cuomo of NY speaking on Ellis Island.  There he vilifies President Trump and his secure borders initiatives by reminding Americans that both Cuomo’s and Trump’s grandfathers were immigrants who came through Ellis Island.  And then with his loony leftwing logic argues that legal immigration by foreign supplicants to these shores is equivalent to aliens violating our laws by illegally crossing our border and demanding their ‘right’ to residency.  Cuomo and Democrat leaders really believe we Americans are stupid enough to swallow that argument.  If they are right, then Jefferson’s dictum will surely come to pass.

[5jan19 update]  The country’s progressives are giving high fives to the 70% marginal tax policy suggested by the newest proto-communist in Congress.  Congresswoman AOC is lauded as being spot on with her new tax policy on earned income.  Some leftwing worthies point out that in bygone days such high tax rates made the rich keep their money in investments and, therefore, that helped the economy and will do so again.  Their blindspot seems to be in what people do with all their excess disposable income.  The socialists seem to think that such people take that income in cash, and then stow it away under their mattresses – i.e. the money leaves the economy.  That, of course, is not the case at all.  The well-to-do spend that money in maintaining and expanding their expensive lifestyles, which means that it winds up in the revenues of merchants, manufacturers, and purveyors of recreational products/services.  The commerce and jobs that result from such spending constitute a tremendous boost to our entrepreneurial and innovative small and mid-size companies who are the nation’s leading employers.  None of this thinking is accessible to our collectivists and corporatists.

Sandbox - 28dec18

[So, does a president's responsibility to keep the nation secure, in this case via increasing border security (aka reducing border porosity), constitute a sufficiently important issue to warrant standing firm on his request for a minimal amount of funding ($5B or less) to increase that security and plug our very porous border, which the assaulting migrants are now pouring through at historically high rates?  gjr]

Scattershots – 27dec18 (updated 30dec18)

George Rebane

LIBERAL BILLIONAIRE APOLOGIZES FOR FUNDING RUSSIAN BOT ‘FALSE FLAG’  Those fun-loving Democrats just can’t leave well enough alone when the go to work getting out the vote.  In the 2016 national election Crooked Hillary and her DNC had to do some numbers ginning up dirt on the opposition, and even putting down the hammer on one of their own kind who didn’t get the hint that it wasn’t his turn (ever).  But most recently it was “billionaire Reid Hoffman (who) apologized Wednesday for funding an effort to dupe Alabama voters into believing Russian bots were fueling Republican Roy Moore’s failed senatorial bid.”  Yep, you really don’t want to get yourself into the cross-hairs of that bunch.

Truthout.org, the ultra-left (well, actually communist) opinion shaper and progressives’ moral voice, is now calling for acts of sabotage to bring down the Trump administration.  This week the summons went out to Democrat constituencies across the country (‘We Can’t Wait on a Savior to Remove Trump. We Must Resist En Masse’), followed by a specific call directed at government employees for “federal disobedience” and “noncooperation” (‘Federal Disobedience: Why We Must Support Federal Worker Noncooperation’).  It is literally impossible to make this up.  Today’s Left is no different from the Bosheviks of old; when the established (constitutional) order cannot be brought down by their ideas in the public forum, then it must be attacked by all other trans-rational means available.

Most longtime RR readers know that people of the Left get a very one-sided view of the world that is dispensed by their favorite ideological wordsmiths and talking heads.  They stick to their own kind when it comes to forming their picture of the world.  And because of this, our local leftwing contingent continually creates comic relief in these comment streams when they unknowingly show up with their blinders on and claim that RR has a solo hold on ideas that counter their carefully cultivated credos.  When other readers provide links and point out contrary references in my commentaries, that information is simply ignored by our lefties as if it didn’t exist – they just continue their critiques cased in the comfort that not only do these ideas have local provenance, but that they also have limited purview.  Hence, if they can be stamped out here in their cradle, the outside world will not be infected.  BTW, here’s a laundry list of fake news that our progressives swallowed hook, line, and sinker during the past year from their faithful fountains of facts.

That old-time religion in America is on the skids.  We have been pointing out for years how the media and our educational systems have been composing recessionals to Christianity as part of their assault on western culture and civilization.  Every time new stats are collected and composed, the story becomes bleaker for our Judeo-Christian heritage.  The evidence for that is most visible during the year-end holiday season when secular humanity makes its strongest assault on the faith of our fathers.  I was directed to a current compendium on this cultural transformation by Joel Kotkin (‘As the Old Faiths Collapse, the Greens, Social Justice Warriors, and Techno-Futurists Aim to Fill the Void’) by a reader and correspondent.  After giving us the dreary numbers of how our traditional religions are being forsaken by the young moderns, despite heroic efforts by churches and temples to inject socio-political ideology into their liturgies, Kotkin documents the parallel social phenomenon of the Left desperately cobbling together new faiths to serve new gods, so that they will not miss out on that ineffable something that they see gracing the lives of the remaining Christian and Jewish holdouts.  (Here is Truthout's report this.) The real interesting news here is about the outliers of secular humanists’ fabricated faiths.  These involve the new trans-humanist faith(s?), and those churches of god without god.  Kotkin concludes his essay with –

The loss here would not only be for the faithful but the entire society. Religious institutions rooted in the past also serve as ideal transmitters of traditional culture and identity; the new ones see themselves largely as warriors of the future, based on perceived social and scientific truths. Trans-humanists, for their part, seek to reduce reality to data, rejecting much of what makes us different not only from other animals, but machines. … Ultimately, the new religions, seeking to fill the void left behind by traditional faiths, offer little to families in search of moral instruction or guidance for how different kinds of people can get along. They have no answers for addressing the reality that almost all of us alive today, despite the scheming of the trans-humanists, eventually will die. A world without the old faiths may still be spiritually engaged, even hysterically so, but we may lose the lessons of community, sacrifice, discipline and faith that the old religions taught to bind our societies together.

[28dec18 update]  “Climate change has always been the cover story, not the real issue which (is) Agenda 21 Sustainability.” writes a reader and correspondent in this morning’s email.  This year’s IPCC special report SR-15 details the real agenda that was pursued at this year’s international climate change conference in Katowice, Poland. (more here)  The global warming bamboozle continues in full force, but the real objectives for arguably the greatest wholesale fraud ever attempted on the entire world’s population are now leaking out, and there to see for everyone who cares to pay attention.  Unfortunately, humans in the aggregate are not that bright.

‘China Reins In Its Tech Giants’ reports the 28dec18 WSJ.  “The closer scrutiny of tech companies comes as Mr. Xi seeks to restore the Communist Party's pre-eminence as a force in people’s lives and to establish that the Party—and not the private sector—is charting the course for China’s future.”  Communism, like our progressive sector, has always claimed to be society’s most reliable moral compass.  Therefore, kowtowing to the Party, China’s industries like ride-sharing Didi are now hiring thousands of “Communist Party members as role models for customer service.”  For our global competitive position, this is the best news coming out of the Middle Kingdom in years.  (Here our Dems will do their best to emulate China starting 3 January 2019.)

Nokidhungry.org maintains that childhood hunger is prevalent in over ten million American households.  And this goes on under governments that have uncountable programs for helping and feeding even mildly or totally unneedy families and individuals.  Congress just passed an $867B (dreadfully misnamed) ‘farm bill’, of which 85% or $737B goes for food stamps for the poor.  For the hungry households, this computes to over $73K for each household’s annual food budget.  Cut that in half and half again, and you’d still come up with over $18K per year for groceries.  What do each of these messages convey about the extent of children going hungry – ‘In America 1 in 6 kids is starving’, ‘- does not have enough to eat’, ‘- faces hunger’.?  (nokidhungry uses the last one in its ads).  But the real question is, what’s wrong with this picture?  (Extra credit:  What’s the political persuasion of the overwhelming share of bureaucrats who have been running the food stamps program for years?)

[30dec18 update]  I was graced by Union columnist George Boardman to appear in his tomorrow's (31dec18) offering.  He quoted from the addendum to my 3jan18 KVMR commentary - "I believe the present state of affairs in the world order are the result of the spontaneously coordinated efforts of fundamental Islam and western socialism’s striving to meet Agenda21 objectives."  I invite readers to reread the complete addendum.

‘Do We Need Our Country Anymore?’

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regularly scheduled KVMR commentary broadcast on 26 December 2018.]

Dr Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, asks that question in the latest (Dec 2018) issue of the Imprimis.  The answer that our public schools have been teaching for the last half century is NO.  As Arnn points out, “World leaders are now accustomed to call for the subordination of the nation for the good of the globe.”  All in preparation for “the peoples of the world (to) enter a new age of global peace, prosperity, and cooperation.”

The latest to call for the abandonment of sovereign nation-states was French president Macron on the 100^th anniversary of the WW1 armistice.  The embrace of nationalism, he argued, is the cause of wars.  And the solution is to rid ourselves of nationalism, which he defines as a people’s desire to put the interests of their nation first and foremost to a degree that ignores all transnational cooperation with other nations.  On a roll, the French leader went on to claim that “patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism.”  In other words, if you’re a patriot, you will work to subsume your country into a larger world order, or in essence, to make it disappear.

Macron called for world leaders to “take the UN’s oath to place peace higher than anything.”  To which Dr Arnn then asks, “Higher than freedom?  Higher than justice?  Higher than the lives of our children?”

Churchill maintained that, since time immemorial, “the central principle of civilization is the subordination of the ruling authority to the settled customs of the people, and to their will as expressed through (a) constitution.”  That says civilization is constituted by populations of people with shared customs under a constitutional umbrella that explicitly spells out the communal processes and procedures they agree practice in order to form a mutually sustained society.

And for any population this can only take place under a government that has “received the broad assent of large majorities” of its citizens.  Such broad assent can only occur among a population with broadly shared values, mores, and customs.  Then other people, whose values etc differ, will also want to join with their like-minded brethren; and when they do, another political unit is born, identifying itself as a kingdom or nation distinct from all the others.

A civilized people united under a foundational document or constitution enjoys a government that settles affairs by talking things out.  The alternative is a government by force, one which rules over a fragmented and fearful population not permitted or able to talk things out.  A government that uses force to keep the peace in such a population is known as a tyranny.

There is zero chance that all the world’s peoples under a global government will be of a sufficiently like-mind on any given social issue.  Under such a behemoth government, one that preserves itself through the most sophisticated and efficacious technologies, where then can smaller groups of the like-minded go, save to the re-education camps or worse that Leviathan has prepared for such anti-social miscreants?

The clear alternative to such a future is the maintenance of a world order of sovereign nation-states comprised of peoples capable of giving broad assent for common solutions to shared problems.  With this understanding, today’s real question becomes, ‘Is America any longer such a country?’

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  And in this holiday season Jo Ann and I wish you and our entire KVMR family a healthy and productive new year.  Thank you for listening. 

A joyous Christmas to those who still believe

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.  Matthew 1:23

George Rebane

A merry and joyous Christmas wish from the Rebanes (this year our Southern Tribe – the Esteys, children and grandchildren - moved here to northern California) to all who read these pages - God's annual promise reissued.  And to that, Jo Ann and I add the fervent hope that your new year will be healthy and fulfilling.

Sandbox - 23dec18

[Another hectic week has passed in the Trump administration.  Even FN is aping MSNBC and CNN with gotcha questions to their talking heads, questions like, ‘Now that no person experienced in military affairs would consider serving under a nationalist president like Trump, how is he going get someone qualified to fill the SecDef position?’  To those afflicted with TDS, this question is raw meat, and they will make the most of it describing a hopeless situation that will now compromise US national security.  On the other hand, none of those not so afflicted have brains to say, ‘Whoa!  To begin, I don’t accept your preamble to that question.  You need to make that case before you ask anyone to accept your question.'  Instead, the best these innocent snuffies are able to gurgle up is something like, ‘Well yes, it is a difficult situation and we hope that someone qualified will step up to the job.’  gjr]

A Bayesian Gem - Least Squares

George Rebane

Some readers may have become aware of my involvement with and amazement of Bayesian probability.  Sadly, most RR readers couldn’t care less, and therefore have no idea of the impact that Bayesian inference plays in their daily lives.  I admit that as a techie, my Bayesian bias started early in my career when I learned to design Kalman filters for Uncle Sam’s military systems.  From there I became more immersed in probabilistic models, especially as applied in AI, all powered by Bayes.  Today Bayesian inference is supremely (yes, SUPREMELY!) important in all kinds of systems, devices, social enterprises, and legal proceedings.  Why?  Simply because it is the basis for ALL the correct ways to update current knowledge with new information and data.  If you don’t change your mind based on what the Rev Bayes taught, then you’re not doing it right.

The newest technology buzz to evoke smidgens of lay interest revolves around algorithms developed through the application of machine learning that are based on deep neural nets, which, you guessed it, are based on Bayesian probabilistics.  The net that the good reverend casts today even collects the humble and long-known least squares estimation techniques, many of which can be derived by simple application of the calculus.  But even least squares derives its ubiquitous power from its Bayesian tap root.

I just came across a gem of a very short paper – ‘Where did the least square come from?’ - that gets two birds with one stone.  In there, author Tirthajoty Sarkar (another goddam immigrant 😉) gives a lucid explanation of how Bayes founds least-squares, a well-known estimation technique that forms a key optimizing computation in the guts of deep neural nets, an approach to machine learning which today is used to derive new and awesome capabilities from large datasets that are completely beyond the ken of man (and woman).  If you are numerate, you should really give this little paper a read.

Fearful Writing

“We write at root to make sense of life. And what do we seek to understand more than anything? Our deepest fears.”  Josh Weil

George Rebane

Union publisher Don Rogers’ Friday essay – ‘Write where you fear the most’ – was an unexpected helping of food for thought this morning.  Mr Rogers takes us through a bit of personal history about his education and membership in the guild of wordsmiths, as he promotes our attendance at the Sierra Writers Conference in January at which “top fiction author” Josh Weil of Nevada City will be the keynote speaker.  Weil’s dictum to the rest of us is “Write what scares you.  If what you are writing doesn’t scare you, you probably shouldn’t write it.”

Now Don Rogers reads a lot of books that don’t make it onto my reading list, simply because time is limited and we come at life from different angles.  But his dissertation, with references to multiple authors (mostly unknown to me) and famous personages, on the meta-motivations for good writing struck a chord which I’ll let vibrate a bit in what follows.  I recommend you read Rogers to see what, if anything, starts vibrating in you.

Weil’s observations and advice struck my motivation, for these years of scribbling on RR, right between the eyes – ‘Observations and Interpretations of Events from the Last Great Century of Man’.  My technical training and work in machine intelligence, combined with the experiences in man’s greatest war and its aftermath, has focused my attention on the Singularity and humanity’s race, during these pre-Singularity years of accelerating technology, between proponents of a global tyranny and a stable Westphalian order in which most people will enjoy liberty and their own pursuits of happiness.  Once the Singularity is ensconced, all bets are off – that’s why it’s called a singularity.  And therein lie the things that scare me.