Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox – 22jan25

[I think the Dems will put up a greater and more desperate ‘resistance’ to the Trump2 administration that they did to Trump1 and also the interregnum Trump.  The poor bastards have nothing else to offer thinking Americans – i.e. no policy alternatives that anyone who pays attention would accept.  All they have left is a pathetic program of digging up dirt that doesn’t stick to anything that Trump proposes.  And that effort is patently silly to all except their own hard core socialists/communists and media lackeys.  gjr]

Trump is Inaugurated

George Rebane

Long wait, but Trump was finally inaugurated. Most of the country, including the Rebanes, celebrated. There were scattered demonstrations by leftwing socialists and shills protesting the election and calling President Trump a “fascist”. The leftwing media (I watched CNN and MSNBC) saw no hypocrisy in their version of what happened yesterday. Only that an evil has descended on the land. They live in a different universe to which there is no bridge from here to there.

[The following was generated by MS Copilot as a test from a few simple phrases that I input.  Thoughts?]

As we embark on this new chapter, it is imperative that we focus on the future and the opportunities that lie ahead. Our nation stands at a crossroads, and it is our collective responsibility to work together towards a brighter and more prosperous tomorrow. We must prioritize policies that foster economic growth, strengthen our national security, and promote unity among our citizens.

Let us channel our energies into constructive dialogue and collaboration, setting aside divisiveness to build a stronger, more resilient nation. Our commitment to the fundamental principles of democracy and freedom will guide us as we strive to achieve the aspirations of all Americans. The challenges may be great, but with determination and unity, we can overcome them and ensure a legacy of progress and hope for future generations.

Scattershots – 19jan25

George Rebane

Democrats’ demonstrators are paid shills.  There is no end to the evil that this political party practices and foists on the country.  There is actually a booming business for outfits like Crowds on Demand who hire low-lifes to masquerade as concerned citizens expressing their scripted First Amendment rights in the streets.  And the Democrats are their prime politically oriented market.  This is just one more confirmation that the party is historically and organically evil.  It all began in the ante-bellum years when the Democrats promoted and fought for slavery, then they became the sponsors of corrupt unions, then they promoted eugenics and the KKK, then they latched on to socialism cum communism, now they seek to control the country through ever bigger government, higher taxes, and stifling regulations.  The individual means nothing to them, only his class membership matters.  (more here)

Trump wants Greenland for enhancing national security and controlling America’s access to important minerals and ‘rare earths’.  This isn’t the first time America has had its eye on a closer relationship with the frozen Arctic island that historically belongs to Denmark.  Since WW2 we have had military bases there and continue to maintain a radar early warning base.  To me it makes a lot of sense for Greenland to become at least an American protectorate.  Given a properly negotiated agreement, I think the Danes and the Greenlanders would enjoy such a relationship for all the obvious security and economic reasons.  Puzzling over this I have a proposal for a treaty that would be a consistent addition to Rebane Doctrine.  The outcome of the negotiations would have America assume military and foreign policy control of Greenland, in addition to the economic control of its natural resources.  America would also commit to insuring the security of Denmark in perpetuity against all foreign aggression by a status of forces agreement that allows us to maintain air and naval bases on the Jutland peninsula.  This would provide a triple economic boon to both Greenland and Denmark.  The presence of American bases bolsters the host country’s economy, here the host country/territory would no longer have to spend monies on its military, only on in-country police and coast guard, and the hosts would share in the economic gains from the plethora of new mines on Greenland.  Local governments, control, and cultures would not be affected by the American presence.  What’s not to like?

The resurrection of yesteryear’s stars is now possible and will be demonstrated this year through Bollywood’s release of a feature length film that is completely AI generated by Intelliflicks Studios in India. I started describing this future to friends over fifty years ago when I first got into AI in defense work.  Now it has arrived as you can see from the movie’s trailer (here and here).  The making of movies will never be the same.  As the software and hardware becomes cheaper, we will all be able to compose stories, write the screenplays, and produce realistic films.  Selling them will still be a problem with a flooded marketplace.  I wonder who owns the intellectual property for John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Marilyn Monroe, … ?

On to the inauguration - hallelujah!

California Wildfires – a politician who gets it

George Rebane

Not all California politicians are double dummies, but enough of them are to have put in place horrible public policies mis-designed to preserve our lands and quality of life.  The main fault, of course, lies with our dismally ignorant electorate who year after year have voted these clowns into office.  But we also have some outnumbered heads-up politicos who warn us regularly about the follies of California governments.  Tom McClintock (R-CA5) is one such congress critter who has been prescient and a voice of reason for years.  He writes the following commentary in the 12jan25 WSJ.

Bad Policy Served as Kindling for California’s Wildfires – Rep Tom McClintock

When Juan Cabrillo dropped anchor in what is now Los Angeles’s San Pedro Bay in the autumn of 1542, he promptly named it the Bay of Smokes. Annual wildfires fanned by Santa Ana winds are nothing new in Southern California. This is how nature gardens. She doesn’t care whose lives are destroyed, whose homes are burned, or how long it takes to reclaim the scarred land.

We mortals do. Throughout most of the 20th century, we took measures to minimize the frequency and severity of wildfires. We created land-management agencies to do some of the gardening ourselves. We removed excess timber, creating resilient, fire-resistant forests, thriving mountain economies and a lucrative source of public revenue. We leased public lands to sheep and cattle ranchers whose stock kept brush from building up. We established competent infrastructure to stop fires from getting out of control. We cut firebreaks into the soil to contain flames.

Prior to 1800, California lost an average of around 4.5 million acres to fires every year. As we introduced scientific land-management and fire-suppression measures, by the end of the 20th century that average dropped to around 250,000 acres.

But in 2020 California suffered a single-year loss of 4.3 million acres to wildfires. Between 2019 and 2023, an average of more than 1.5 million acres burned each year. What happened?

The left blames a changing climate. But that doesn’t explain California’s long history with massive wildfires, or why fires became less threatening throughout most of the 20th century.

We can find a more likely culprit in the states’ recent extreme environmental and social policies.

Sandbox - 12jan25

[I'd be interested in readers' comments regarding the information content of today's interminable news conferences during which dozens of bureaucrats high and low take turns expressing their compassion and prayers for the victims, describing how hard everyone in their department/agency is working, how smoothly every level of government is coordinating with every other, and admonishing people to prepare and evacuate when told to do so.  Always omitted is information about the current location/boundaries of the fires and what direction they are spreading and/or predicted to spread.  The information-free images shown ad nauseum are of anonymous burning houses and hillsides while field reporters ask victims how they feel about having lost everything. gjr]

Panama Canal – who should own it?

George Rebane

President Trump’s recent proposal for the US to reacquire control of the Panama Canal has created a lot of controversy – most on the Left oppose such a reacquisition of control as more American imperialism, and most on the Right support it on national security grounds.  Facts about the status and operation of the canal are hard to get.  A contribution to inform the debate was submitted in the 27dec24 letter to Brian Kilmeade by Panama’s former ambassador to the US, Juan B. Sosa (here).

Ambassador Sosa submits a reasonable story that nevertheless overlooks or misunderstands some important factors about the canal’s ownership and administration of the strategic waterway.

1. Sosa asserts that “I can unequivocally say that China does not have control, or even influence on the operations of the Panama Canal.” The Hong Kong based company Hutchison Whampoa administers the canal’s terminal ports of Cristobal and Balboa.  What Sosa misses is that Hong Kong is now part of mainland China, and must respond to the dictates of its CCP no matter what its de juris relationship is to the communists.
2. “The claim that United States’ ships are being ripped off in fees for transiting the Canal is unfounded and far from the truth.” Tariffs and fees are assessed according to a “Neutrality Treaty introduced by the US” which supposedly “obligates the Panama Canal to treat all countries fairly and with the same tariffs”,   However, no one has publicized at what levels these assessments were initially made and how they now stack up as other countries have become more developed and wealthy in the interval.  The economic impact of canal tariffs and fees on the American economy is apparently minimal.
3. Income from the canal is the “lifeline of the economy of Panama”, and the basis for its opposition to relinquishing any part of it. Panama has also widened the alternative channel’s width to 180 feet (from the original channel’s 110 feet) which now permits America’s largest naval vessel’s use of the canal to again use the tactical shortcut in our preparation for a potential conflict with Red China.  It is the absolute control of this resource, most effectively secured by our military presence, that is of strategically paramount importance to the US. 
4. “The threat to ‘take the Canal back’ fails to recognize the history of the treaties’ debate when U.S. military experts widely accepted that the canal, with fifty miles of length and five (on) each side of the canal, is indefensible unless in friendly territory, which would not be the case under a major power imposing its might on Panama, the Canal and its people.” This is a thinly veiled threat that Panamanian insurgents will oppose any retaking of the canal by force and thereby make it an unusable waterway in a contested war zone.

Sosa concludes with a heartfelt call to not tamper with decades of a successful relationship between the two countries, stating “Panama has always treasured its relationship with United States since it declared its separation from Colombia in November 3, 1903 and was supported militarily by the United States which sealed Panama’s separation followed by the signing of the Canal Treaty. Since the new Treaty was signed in 1977 and began its transition period in 1980.”

Given such a history of good relations between our countries, it seems to me that the whole matter can be resolved with a newly negotiated treaty that re-examines and resets any material inequities in tariffs and fees, and more importantly allows the US to re-establish two or three military bases in what used to be known as the Canal Zone.  These bases would operate under a new status of forces agreement, and initiate another source of income for Panama in providing the support logistics and personnel for base facilities.  This should be much cheaper for the US and eminently more agreeable to the Panamanians.  We don’t have to retake the Canal Zone.  

LA Inferno – Criminal Incompetence on Parade?

George Rebane

The Los Angeles area continues to burn after entire neighborhoods of the city are already heaps of ash and ruin.  What news has been concurrently emerging with videos of burning houses and hills, interviews with residents who lost everything, and endless ‘news conferences’ with obviously incompetent officials who have no useful information and are desperately trying to cover their collective asses.

Jo Ann and I are multi-decade veterans of SoCal wildfires with our valuables and heirlooms packed and ready to go every late summer and fall.  The last 25 years before moving to Nevada County we lived on Saddle Peak Rd in the Santa Monica Mountains on a high ridgeline in a house we built.  The latest information we have right now is that ‘our house’ is gone after dodging dozens of fires and surviving the big Malibu fire of 1993.  I have documented that experience here, here, and especially here.

So what is the takeaway so far from the SoCal fires.  Well, nothing much has changed for the better with the passing of the decades and the incompetently comprehensive governance exercised by the Democratic Party over these years.  But the last two days confirms again that things have gotten much worse as far as the recognition of the nature of the wildfire problem and preparations to prevent and fight such large scale conflagrations.

Some major screwups -

• Reduction of fire and police budgets in favor of succoring illegal aliens, criminals, insane environmentalists in favor of implementing woke DEI policies.
• Dumping about 75% of Sierra Nevada snow melt water into the Pacific Ocean in order to save the smelt – a very much unendangered species no one cares about.
• Eliminating water storage reservoirs by destroying dams and not constructing sufficient water tanks in the mountains to provide gravity fed water for fire fighting.
• Environmentalists opposing building additional reservoirs to collect water during wet years to have for the inevitable 7 to 10 year intervals between statewide droughts.
• Insurance companies abandoning California because they aren’t allowed to raise premiums commensurate with the cost of rebuilding in a state with stifling building regulations (again refer to the insane environmentalists and incompetent politicos).
• Allowing ignorant NIMBYs to oppose/restrict prescribed burns and fuel reduction programs.

Witness the results of elections that have stacked local governments and Sacramento with progressive politicians, and you explain away the above list of devastating deficits. (more here) The general mentality of California’s electorate is corroborated when we consider how the media continues to cover and report on such disasters.  Examples abound.

The most important thing residents, both evacuated and still in place, want to know is where is the fire, and which way is it moving.  Almost all reporters with mic-in-hand in the field do not know where they are and what is happening beyond their visible surroundings.  All they do is repeat the obvious and ask how some devastated resident feels about having lost his home.  Air coverage has provided no more information – one flaming and smoky mountain looks pretty mush like another one.  Although to credit where a little bit of it is due, in Fox’s current coverage they have shown road names superimposed on the large area aerial videos, but only very briefly before switching back to yet another close-up of a burning house.

The last thing they care to look at for hour after hour is close-up videos of flame engulfed houses, and still images of huge flame masses on unknown hillsides.  And the last thing they want to hear are news conferences by phalanxes of politicians, bureaucrats, and officials standing in turn to mouth the same platitudes of how terrible the disaster is, how much they are praying for everyone, how everyone is co-operating with everyone else, and how much the state and federal governments are providing us all that we need while there are way too few firefighters on the line with no water to come out of their hoses.

It is abundantly clear that our political leaders and local responding agencies have been totally incompetent in preparing and/or raising the alarm to current the obvious shortcomings listed above.  Perhaps the inevitable follow-on investigations will even find people who are criminally at fault and make them publicly accountable.

Einsteinian Pacifism

George Rebane

Over the holidays we watched a documentary on the life of Einstein in which his writings, interviews, and speeches were extensively quoted.  One of the social attributes that came out about the famed physicist was that he was a pacifist, more accurately an “active pacifist”.  In his pacifism he publicly rejected imperialism, colonialism, racism, and gratuitous violence in general (e.g. brushfire wars, military actions to overthrow governments or capture territory, etc). 

However, he did not reject all wars and was adamant in maintaining that organized (evil) force can be successfully countered only by organized force.  He therefore believed in the good guys always being adequately armed to present a deterrence to the bad guys, but never attacking them first.  His most famous expression of this was the letter regarding the development of the atom bomb that he sent to FDR prior to the outbreak of WW2.  In this he strongly urged the US to start development of the bomb to counter Hitler’s efforts to do so (which turned out to be unsuccessful).

To shed more light on his attitude and role in promoting the advent of nuclear weapons and their use in Japan, he deeply regretted sending the letter after hearing of Hitler’s failure to develop the bomb.  He stated unequivocally that had he known that Germany was going to fail in their enterprise, he never would have communicated with FDR.  The documentary did not delve into his attitude about the millions of lives that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs saved by eliminating the need to invade the Japanese home islands.

Having said all this, I had the mild epiphany that I too am and have been an Einsteinian pacifist all my life.  I suspect that many of you may also hold this belief.  It’s good to get such things clarified before it’s too late.

Scattershots – 30dec24 (updated 3jan25)

George Rebane

Yes, Jimmy Carter was a nice and decent man, but he didn’t cut it as our President.  What no one is pointing out in the media is that President Carter took us to the very brink of WW3.  At the time (1977-80) this precarious situation was a highly classified assessment within our military and intelligence agencies.  Since then, the passage of time and the collapse of the USSR have allowed historians to tell us the albeit little read story, and the media have suppressed it as yesterday’s news and its anti-Left message.  As a member of the DoD’s classified research sector, I was constantly made aware of the goings on behind the Iron Curtain that gave obvious evidence of the Red Army’s preparation to come through the Fulda Gap.  Brezhnev told the Politburo that all the signs advised a ‘now-or-never’ opportunity for global communism – a war-weary US, greatly diminished post-Vietnam defense budgets, depleted US military stores, economy in shambles, low morale in the ranks, and a weak-willed President.  Add that to the USSR coming to the end of the line in its ability to keep funding their outsized military, and it was easy to conclude that the time had come to go to Paris.  Then in 1980 along came Reagan who immediately, and against the advice of the Pentagon, invited the Soviet command staff with their experts to visit the US and take a detailed tour of our R&D and defense plants across the country.  As I have described elsewhere, they were blown away and went back to report that the correct decision was ‘never’ – the US had ample military stores left, and had and was building advanced combat systems (many of which were operational) at historical rates with Reagan’s greatly enlarged defense budgets.  As a response, enter Gorbachev with his glasnost and perestroika, and the rest is history.  Now for the last four years and for the same reasons we’ve had that putz Putin dreaming of those glory days and doing all he can to start moving west again.

Dateline Washington – President-elect Donald Trump endorsed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) for another term, working to tamp down rumblings from some Republicans that the party should seek an alternative leader over complaints about spending.  “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.”

From his mouth to God’s ear, let it be so – onward!

[Update 31dec24] And now a Happy 2025 wish for all of the RR readers and commenter crew.  Jo Ann and I wish that you and your families enjoy a healthy, productive, and bountiful new year.

[2jan25 update]  PG&E sends out tree trimming crews to my neighborhood at least once a month.  They’re always a different contractor hired by the utility, and they always find yet another overhanging branch to trim or even cut down a tree.  For the last 20 years they have never finished the job of securing the power lines on my property.  The practice has all the hallmarks of a corrupt scam that contributes to California’s high electricity bills.  There is nothing to prevent the utility from such gratuitous work assignments all in the name of public safety.  The more of these that can be logged per budget cycle the better as far as the PUC and the utility's lawyers are concerned – subsequent rate increases to cover the costs are easily justified.  Of course, nothing prevents kickback monies flowing between the various levels of bureaucrats and tree contractors – for the system it’s a win-win scam as long as the consumer continues to unquestionably pay the bill.

{3jan25 update] "Mike Johnson Wins Speaker Vote on First Ballot After House Drama" - Gott sei Dank!

Sandbox - 30dec24

[Well, the congressional Repubs can really futch up President Trump and the country if they don't settle quickly on selecting a Speaker.  Operational competency of our political parties is in the toilet.  The Dems have historically led the way, but the Repubs are doing their best to now take the title.  gjr]

Christmas - 2024

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

Another year of healing and growth for our family with two more great-grandkiddies on the way.  Thankfully, we are again celebrating Christ’s birth with our local family.  Jo Ann and I wish all of our readers an equally joyous Christmas (or holidays of choice), followed by a healthy and prosperous new year.