Rebane's Ruminations

Face Masks – A considered view

[Dr Hullett is a longtime friend, colleague, and RR reader.  As systems engineers and developers, we have traveled much of the long road together.  He has given permission to publish this personal correspondence.]

Wayne Hullett, PhD

The coronavirus particles are too small to be seen. A doctor on Youtube suggested thinking about coronavirus particles as the glitter worn by some people at festive events. If you have ever gotten any glitter on you, then you know how difficult it is to get off. As George has pointed out, the source of this glitter is the lungs of people who have the disease, most of whom do not yet have symptoms and thus probably do not know they have it. The glitter exits their bodies with normal breathing, talking, coughs and sneezes, and becomes an aerosol in the air. It can float in the air for several minutes before it settles on the floor, on nearby surfaces, or gets inhaled into the lungs of someone nearby. Those who inhale enough of it also become infected, and after an incubation period, they too become a source of the glitter. Anyone who touches a surface that has accumulated some glitter and then touches their mouth, nose or eyes also lets it into their system and can also become infected, thus becoming another source. This is how it spreads exponentially.

Here is a good discussion of the size of virus particles (the glitter) and how well mask materials trap them.

Three common materials and the amount of virus particles they trap are:

Hankerchief    28%
Surgical Mask    80%
N95 Mask    96%

There are two reasons to wear a mask: 1. to keep particles out and 2. to keep particles in. If you wear a mask to keep from catching the virus, you would want an N95 mask, which requires some care and training in fitting. This is what our doctors and nurses wear when treating coronavirus patients. And the patients (I hope) wear surgical masks to protect the medical personnel.

Now, I am guessing (I am an engineer, not a medical doctor), that the body's immune system can deal with a small number of particles, which is why the N95 masks, at 96% effectiveness) seem to work. Also, older people's immune system does not work as well as when they were young, which would explain the increased mortality with age.

The best reason to wear a mask, it seems to me, is to keep the particles IN; to keep from spreading them. A surgical mask (the blue pleated mask you see in hospital TV shows and any street scene of an Asian country) traps 80% of the particles. This, to me, is huge. If only 20% of the particles are getting into the air and on surfaces, then much fewer people will get infected. I am not sure whether it is 1 for 1 (80% fewer infections), but if the body's immune system is able to handle a small amount of particles, then common sense tells me that there will me many fewer infections, thus reducing the impact on the hospital system and buying us more time to develop an effective treatment or vaccine, resulting in fewer deaths.

So, while social distancing is effective, the next best thing we can do is for EVERYONE, especially the younger who may have only a mild case and not even know they are carriers, to wear surgical masks most of the time. Older folks should stay at home, and wear N95 masks when they have to emerge to buy groceries.

I am troubled by the CDC party line that masks do not help. I think they issued that statement because there is a shortage of masks, and by claiming that they do not help they hope to avert a rush to buy and horde masks, thus denying them to the medical professionals who have a greater need. Even the Surgeon General was defending that lie on TV today. I think the correct approach is to not lie, but to tell the truth and to cure the shortage. There are around 330 million people in the country, and the masks are single use, so I am thinking that we need a production capacity of somewhere between 100 million and 500 million surgical masks per day, and maybe 10% to 20% of that of N95 masks. Considering production capability this country developed in WWII, I would think that is readily achievable, for as long as it takes to develop and get approval for a vaccine. They should be on the supermarket shelves next to the bread and milk (and beer), and cost less than a penny each. In the interim, the CDC and Surgeon General could help not by lying but by showing us how to make the most effective homemade masks from commonly available materials. There are already a number of Youtube videos that show how to make masks of various qualities.

So, the key, for most people, is not to wear the mask to keep from getting the virus, but to keep everyone else from getting it from you, because you may not know you are a carrier. Protect your fellow citizens by wearing a mask.

**** [In my reply I included the following.}

Thanks much Wayne, I will definitely post this.  My take on masks may be a bit more broader than yours.  Not only do they reduce the fraction/size of the exhaled aerosols, but also capture a significant fraction (perhaps not as great as the exhaled part) of the infectious aerosol particles during inhalation.  Bottom line, a wide use of masks will help in two ways to reduce the ‘reproduction’ factor/rate among a population of infected pre-symptomatic and vulnerable uninfected people. 

Scattershots – 31mar20 (update 1apr20)

George Rebane

The US has five times as many per capita ventilators as does the UK.  This was reported on the news tonight along with other real stats showing the comparative lead the US has over other countries in fighting C19.  Concurrently we have the Democrats doing everything they can to lie, misconstrue, block, extend, dun, … any and every area of progress we have been making in tackling this global disaster, one that the country has not experienced in at least a century or perhaps ever.  Team Pelosi/Schumer are filling the lamestream’s bandwidth with snark, lies, and misrepresentations of data in order to pave the way for Bumblebrain Biden in the fall.  They blame it all on Trump in the most vicious ways possible.  None of them mention that the bat-originated coronaviruses were identified and the warnings published in October 2007 as the Bush2 administration was ending (one of our readers dug it up for us here).  Obama did NOTHING over his eight years to prepare the country.  In states, governors like our Moonbeam dismantled the preparations that Schwarzenegger had put in place.  EU nations with socialized healthcare have responded woefully late and ineffectively to the virus, as we have shown in these pages, while attempting to replicate US policies.  None of this makes no never mind to our socialist Left.  After spending three extremely disruptive years to impeach Trump the first time, Pelosi is already making plans to start impeaching the President once more should he be re-elected.  The Demonic Party cares only for the power over the people that they can garner if they can make Trump look like he delivered too little too late, and then only when the Dems made him do it.  Ignoring Trump’s way with words, he is doing the right thing at every turn with the information and wherewithal the country has.  Just calling out the Dems’s Big Lies grossly understates what those people are really doing to our country.

[1apr20 update]  Multi-attribute utility – that is the set of horns America is attempting to balance on today.  Such a utility does not present a stark choice as in ‘Your money or your life?!’, it’s more nuanced and real like ‘Your health or your economy?’.  In the latter you can see the utility of maximizing measures of the country’s health through policies that minimize the near-term C19 morbidity and mortality, while teetering on the other end is maximizing measures of our economy like continuing employment and GDP.  In decision theory these are competing attributes of a single utility function (Figure of Merit, if you prefer) that computes to a single number which you try to maximize through correct decisions.  Coming up with a broadly accepted utility is ALWAYS an exercise in compromising subjective values, and therefore always hard.  Even if you agree on the attributes to be included, placing weights on them becomes the next contention to overcome – say, you accept U = w1*(GDP) – w2*(total deaths) to be maximized over the next twelve months.  What values should we accept for the weights w1 and w2?  Capice?  That’s the kind of exercise staffers versed in this art are attempting to educate their principals so that more rigorous analytics can then be brought to bear on candidate policies (i.e. the decisions) to evaluate their relative merits.  For a variety of reasons, most politicians hate utility functions and rigorous analytics.

Eschewing President Trump’s daily C19 briefings.  The demonic Dems have a conundrum since all but FN have decided not to broadcast the briefings, labeling them as nothing but ‘Trump campaign rallies’.  The problem is that these cynical dufuses know that these are anything but political rallies.  They consist of factual information and data delivered by domain (here, healthcare) experts in understandable formats that summarize the progress of C19 across the land and explain the technologies and logistics brought to bear in fighting the pandemic.  They include our political leader’s exhortations, apprehensions of policy, and expressions of hope – all proper content in a perilous time such as this.  And then all of them can be questioned by the few attending reporters (most there for 'gotcha' questions).  His political enemies, media mouthpieces, and the country’s inculcated pretend to abhor and ignore these daily sessions, all the while carefully watching FN so that they can have something to say during their hours of vituperation.  The Dems really have a problem – no viable candidate, no policies, nothing but TDS to tell Americans, and now how to pick and promote an alternative (e.g. Cuomo) during our national hunkering down time when the election has taken a back seat, and all attention is focused on the doings of Team Trump.

Hunker Down Diary – 30mar20 (updated)

George Rebane

When there's a problem, don't bet against government as being its source.

For the Rebanes today is HD23.  Given the comment stream under the 26mar20 posting of HDD, in addition to sharing my own hunker down doings, I am going to make this an ongoing repository of readers’ experiences, views, and opinions concerning the Covid19 pandemic.  Hopefully we will draw strength and get a laugh or two from each other’s fears, feats, and foibles as we cope and spend time with family (and friends?) in close quarters for the duration.

Jo Ann and I have taken this time to finish long-languishing projects, add to our already extensive reading lists, and continue our normal intercourse with family and friends through new means of distance socializing.  My own direction has been, unsurprisingly, to look at our cultural changes and public policies that are driven by the current social distancing and economic slowdown.   When we emerge on the other side, things are going to be markedly different in how we conduct our lives.  I intend to offer a structured list of the affected areas which I hope will draw some stimulating discussion and, of course, expansion from the fertile minds of RR readers.

In the meantime, I share with you the scariest news I’ve heard about C19 that was just published by the LA Times (here or here) – the virus is definitely and pervasively transmitted by aerosols exhaled by pre-symptomatic infected people, aerosols which can dwell for hours suspended in the air we breathe.

An interim C19 ‘vaccine’?  On the more hopeful side, the biggest and most suppressed news is about the efficacy of hydro-chloroquine (HCQ) in protecting against C19 onset, and the combination of HCQ and azithromycin (AZM) in treating the disease after onset of symptoms.  Multiple reports have now emerged about the successes in the use of these drugs in controlled hospital settings here and abroad. (here and here)  So here’s an idea for a possible interim C19 vaccine from Dr Rebane (PhD NOT MD) – administer a sequence or combination of (weakened if possible) C19 virus and/then HCQ, either one after the other, say, a day apart, or together in a cocktail.  The hopeful idea being that the virus would set off the body’s natural mechanism for producing C19 antibodies, and the presence of HCQ would ameliorate the onset of the disease, allowing the individual to recover with an effective level of immunity.  I wouldn’t recommend this to people with pre-existing medical conditions that already make them more vulnerable to C19.  Anyway, as always, readers’ thoughts on this are most welcome.

On the more mundane side, it’s worth noting with some alarm that our stores continue to be out of sanitary and paper products.  Hunker down hoarding continues to take its toll on many things, and now more than ever since President Trump has extended the HD advisory to last through April.

Sandbox - 29mar20

[Now that we're back to mudball fights, we should take them to a fresh sandbox.  I'm constantly amused by our lefty readers not refuting/citing the facts but simply dismissing them on the basis of their dislike of the publisher or broadcaster.  Haven't seen rightwinger dismiss what came out of Maddow simply because it came out of Maddow, who can report verifiable facts as well as the next talking head.  But some of us do take Maddow et al with a dim view when they offer their opinions and interpretations as being something more than the views from their respective perches.  gjr]

Junk Journalism on Parade

George Rebane

Ignorant, cynical, agenda-driven (you pick) media scribes and talking heads are doing a real disservice to the American public.  Their latest is the reporting of misconstrued pandemic data in ways designed to make the US look like an incompetent laggard in the fight against the virus.  Playing to an innumerate audience, these ‘journalists’ are citing cherry picked raw numbers of everything from total cases, deaths, ventilators, tests, masks, you name it in a way that is totally meaningless.  No one in the audience has any way of understanding the significance of the reported numbers, and more so when these are compared to similar numbers from other countries.

Here’s an example of what I’m trying to convey.  The yellow journalists report the yellow data, and the required information (i.e. data formatted to support decisions) that allows the audience to make meaningful comparisons is in green.  There would be a lot less for the lamestream and progressives to hyperventilate about if comparable per capita rates were reported for morbidity, mortality, materiel shortages/supplies, etc.  From this morning’s Covid19 count we have -

And here is another major contribution of today’s fake news – ‘The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the US to Covid-19’ -  from the fallen NYT that blames the Trump administration for 1) the failures of long dysfunctional federal bureaucracies, 2) not anticipating a black swan, and 3) for not doing something (comprehensive widespread testing) that was impossible, unwarranted at the time, and would not have provided the called-out information.  Their main message, “Aggressive screening might have helped contain the coronavirus in the United States.  But technical flaws, regulatory hurdles, and lapse in leadership let it spread undetected for weeks.”  Six ‘journalists’ participated in this misleading hit job.  Such crap from progressive politicians with terminal TDS are understandable, like the one from Pelosi (here).  It remains clear why this vaunted 'gray lady' continues to be the darling of progressives.

Here’s how to look at aspects of different countries’ healthcare systems – this one from the OECD on what share of out-of-pocket household income people spend on prescription drugs.  Such a presentation allows a more accurate comparison of consumer costs experienced under different healthcare systems and provides a new perspective on the big ‘greedy’ pharma.

In my book there’s a difference between journalists, reporters, and simply media hacks.  Journalists used to hew to a code of ethics about research and reporting – today that practice ranges between rare and long gone.  Reporters are anybody off the street or from another department told to go out for a look-see and type up what they thought they ran into in time for a publishing deadline – these are the learn-while-you-earn types.  A bunch of those still exist.  But today it is the media hacks who fill the overwhelming number of print and broadcast slots.  These are people with good hair and teeth whose job is to shape the news into specified formats that promote the message of the outlet’s political and ideological masters.

Hunker Down Diary – 26mar20 (updated 27mar20)

George Rebane

When there’s a problem, government is guilty until proven innocent.

Today is HD19 for the Rebanes.  We started hunkering down on 8 March 2020, and finally risked it all this morning by showing up at our local Safeway at 7am, the advertised ‘old folks shopping time’.  Apparently the younger people had not gotten the word, and the store was full with a lot of couples like Jo Ann and me pushing two carts.  Most of us wore gloves, a few had on masks, and all of us social distanced as much as possible.  But what we saw was dismal; something you’d experience in a socialist second or third world country – ‘miles’ of empty shelves of the stuff that everyone really wanted to buy.  Still, we all filled our baskets with what there was and substituted a lot of PlanB items.

What surprised me was that today the younger generation of managers have no knowledge, let alone experience, of the buying patterns during times of emergency and need.  With all signs of the coming hunker down time apparent more than a month ago, no one, starting with FEMA, advised the supply system to put the pedal to the metal on obvious staples and sanitary items.  There was no anticipative ‘push’ in the pipeline.  Everything appeared to have continued on with the JIT (just in time) scheme that works so well during happy days.  The makers and distributers are making do with the JIT schema in spite of the enormous consumer ‘pull’ of empty shelves.

The Value of Testing

George Rebane

Trigger warning: The contents of this commentary may not be accessible to the innumerate reader.

As explained in ‘Testing, testing, …’, the value of testing comes to the fore when you have a sufficiently reliable test that can be administered on a regular and scientific basis over a suspect population.  In that case, it could be used to identify concentrations of infections that can be used for a more satisficing allocation of limited healthcare resources.  In an update to the referenced commentary, I illustrated how to determine the reliability of test results given the reliability parameters of the test administered to a walk-in member of a suspect population (country, state, county, city, region, …).

In this piece I will answer the questions many reasonable people have about testing – ‘why test if the tests are unreliable?  Why test if the test only provides a snapshot assessment which may change within the next hour?’  We start by recalling the advice from our federal and state medicos.  Given the limited availability of tests and processing labs, we are only supposed to request a test if we are symptomatic – fever, cough, headache, … .  Don’t burden the system if you are asymptomatic.

To read the remainder of this analytical commentary full of some algebra and all kinds of numbers, please download this PDF - Download The Value of Testing

The Demonic Party reveals itself (updated 25mar20)

George Rebane

The congressional Democrats have plumbed new depths of unabashed and sickening sleaze as they block the passage of the Senate bill to provide liquidity and relief to the nation’s economy on the verge of depression.  The multi-trillion dollar aid package is designed to prevent bankruptcies of countless companies that provide jobs to millions of Americans and are now attempting to rapidly retool to supply the medical needs to flatten the Wuhan virus infection curve, thereby saving untold families grief. (more here) Instead, led by Team Pelosi/Schumer, the Dems have attached a socialist wishlist of provisions to the bill that have NOTHING to do with fighting the virus and saving the economy.

Besides demogauging another one of their material Big Lies that the bill is a “slush fund” and a “bailout” of corporations, as if the corporations were the cause of the pandemic, these socialist sleazebags want to piggyback on this crisis to pass anti-capitalist provisions that they could never accomplish during normal times.  The want to revise laws that will implement many of the Green New Deal provisions on corporate board memberships (unions, activists, and workers), and that henceforth the government will have a major say in how individual businesses are run. (more here)

One of their most onerous provisions is a permanent ban on corporate stock buybacks.  It is clear that such buybacks should not be allowed during the time a company receives liquidity funding from the feds, but the Dems want to remove this important financial strategy forever.  They are either ignorant of or just plain evil in denying such an important market strategy that benefits every participant in such buybacks, including the small investors and holders of retirement accounts.  (more here)

Their aim is to finally start the real fundamental transformation of the country through a government ‘rob-and-ruin’ involvement in company operations.  Since the Dems have no positive or productive policies for generating wealth and jobs, they continue to play the only cards they hold – hate capitalism and hate Trump.  And their constituents don’t have the wherewithal to ask ‘what then?’ after their socialist future comes about.

But all of this is part and parcel of a party that has long been the creator and promoter of the nation’s miseries, highlighted by their support of slavery, then decades of Jim Crow, then the destruction of black families and promotion of urban blight launched by their not-so-Great Society, and now continuing with the dismantling and destruction of America’s educational system. (The complete list is too long to recount here.)  While the Republicans also have warts and have not always been our angels, the policies and politics of today’s Democrats have surely made them into our Demonic Party.

[25mar20 update]  Healthy companies create jobs, jobs pay people, people with money can buy things they need, companies make more such things, and the cycle repeats.  I have yet to find a single leftwinger, let alone socialist, who really understands this cycle.  The role of a thriving private sector economy is so obvious that, when told this, almost all folks of the Left will agree to the need for such a cycle that epitomizes a healthy economy.  And then they blow a tire, because invariably their follow-on remarks turn out to promote economy stifling policies, which gives lie to the claim that they understand.  All this is enormously magnified by the nation's political idiot contingency in Washington and other levels of government across the land.  They simply cannot connect the dots when it comes to wealth creation; they sincerely believe that money (wealth) is created simply by government printing the long green as much as is needed.  There is no comprehension as to what has to stand behind those printed slips of paper (or the equivalently fortuitous bit patterns on some mass memory device somewhere in the cloud).  We see that again in the demonic machinations of Team Pelomer in Congress.  Last October “the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise, in New York, NY. The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.” (more here)  Their bottom line, don’t destroy the economy when fighting a pandemic, the resulting damage is a lot worse and longer lasting than what the pandemic can do in an economy that continues to function.  Save the economy to save the people.

‘Your money or your life!’ (updated 21mar20)

George Rebane

Proposition:  Many more lives will be lost and/or ruined by intentionally tanking our economy into a depression, than will be lost to Covid19 going forward with a balanced policy of social distancing and continuing our economic pursuits with due prudence during the waning epidemic.

The iconic and immortal Jack Benny, comic of a bygone era known for portraying a skinflint, performed that classic skit where a robber walks up with a gun and demands, ‘Your money or your life!’.  Benny takes time to react and looks absorbed, prompting the thug to demand ‘Well?!’ to which Jack replies, ‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking.’

At Casa Rebane we are now in HD13 – our 13^th day of hunkering down which began on 8 March.  We are in the so-called most vulnerable age group, even though we are both still healthy, which at our ages can change overnight.  Given this, and the many birthdays under our belts, both of us have had much talk about what direction the country should take going forward.  The alternatives seem to be –

1. Everyone hunkers down, leave home only for the necessaries of life, businesses shut down, millions of jobs are permanently lost, government prints and distributes tons of cash to everyone (with dire fiscal consequences), the morbidity and mortality curves are flattened, and if all ‘goes well’ we emerge losing fewer lives to Covid19 and then dive into a genuine global depression taking years to recover, during which many more (millions) of uncounted lives are lost to poverty and perhaps real war, and more millions of lives are consigned to various stages of destitution.
2. Quickly learn how to manage infection risks with social distancing etc, and go on with prudently modified business practices while preventive medicines/vaccines are discovered and treatments developed to minimize the inevitable morbidity and mortality rates which will rise and take from the oldest and weakest among us. But in doing so keep the wheels of business and industry turning so that we don’t become a second or third world country with the potential for real civil unrest that will inevitably rise from our great and chronic socio-political divisions.

Rebane Doctrine calls for taking #2 as the wisest and best approach.  Executing such a well-considered and purposeful plan forward will allow us to emerge economically strong, and most certainly wiser about how to manage our affairs in preparation for the next pandemic (Covid19 is NOT the last one we will encounter).  And showing leadership with #2 will allow us to set an example to the rest of the world and support them in taking their own prudent risks and cope with small to moderate losses.

If our national measure of utility is to reduce the number of premature deaths over, say, the next five years, then it’s a no-brainer to avoid #1.  So while you are doing your own thinking, consider that no poor and destitute country has ever been able to take care of its own, let alone help others and contribute to preserving the environment and providing a satisfying quality of life for its citizens.  Fearfully hunkering down will guarantee that we will suffer such a dreadful future, in short America opting for #1 will be penny wise and pound foolish.

I am reminded of the encouraging words of Sgt Dan Daly, the holder of two Medals of Honor at Bellau Wood, “Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?!”

[21mar20 update]  ‘Low Wage Workers Face Brunt of Coronavirus Crisis’ (here) is one of the many news articles explaining to us the obvious – it was ever thus.  Yet these low- and mid-wage workers are continuously pandered to about the feds bailing out Wall Street capitalists and greedy corporations.  They don’t grasp that giving money only to such workers will not help, for they will have nowhere to spend it for their necessaries – if only the grassroots libs would attempt to think about that.  But they don’t; they don’t comprehend that the low- and mid-wage workers don’t create jobs, instead, they benefit from having jobs.

It is America’s business owners and investors who create and sustain the companies, and take the risks to make the stuff we need while creating the jobs that make our quality of life possible – it is called capitalism.  But today, one of our political parties and its academia, media and entertainment industry allies are doing everything possible (including crisis enhancement) to convince Americans that government can do it all much better than the private sector – they take pride in being called socialists and communists.

Scattershots – 20mar20 (22mar20)

George Rebane

'Most of us will get the Wuhan virus, a small fraction of us will die.  But we will continue business and commerce as usual with all the prudence we can each muster, because the death and destitution a depression will bring will be much worse for all of us.'  A hoped for statement from President Trump.

The lamestream is very quiet about the Covid19 goings on in Europe.  They are focusing all their reporting on Italy which really screwed the pooch on its handling of the virus, and is now the media’s unavoidable posterchild for all the comparisons with the US.  Even there they like to dun our feds (i.e. Trump) on stats like hospital beds per person, and testing (of uncertain effectiveness and reliability).  However, their unconnected dots involve national preparedness and the response effectiveness of nationalized healthcare – those don’t look so good, so nothing is said about that.  Moreover, similar problems are encountered in the rest of the EU countries starting with France, Germany, Spain, …, about which there seems to be a total blackout.  And for good reason.  Keeping Americans up to date on doings all over the continent would really put a big dent in our socialists’ long- and carefully-concocted narrative about the shortcomings of America under Team Trump.  More comprehensive reporting would reveal that President Trump has really done all the right things with what he inherited, and the Europeans are now playing catch-up, starting with the “racist” sealing of their borders.   But according to the Dems and their media lackeys, we are to pay no attention to what’s going on behind that curtain. (Here is a website that a young man up in Washington (more here) set up to fill in this shortfall of information.)

Trump and his team look and say like they’re trying to make this a ‘V-shaped’ recession.  (See also ‘Your money or …’)  If they succeed, they will come out smelling like a rose in November.  The other side of our political spectrum, the socialists, will be doing everything they can to make the recession be shaped like a ‘lazy L’, steep down and slow up (you know, like we had with Obama).  That will make the case for blaming the whole thing on the Trump administration so much easier.  They care not for lost jobs or businesses, the more misery the better.  Why?  It helps support their anti-capitalist narrative, and gives them a basis for policies to enlarge government, shrink the private sector, and gain firmer control of the lives and fortunes of those pesky liberty-loving Americans.  There will definitely be a mounting tension between the central planners and the free market capitalists as this pandemic matures.

[21mar20 update]  Urban lightweight versions of the heavier Bradley Fighting Vehicles on Manhattan streets (here).  These are actually armored personnel carriers, the modern version of the classic Mk113 APC that yours truly spent some uncomfortable hours in.  The government is making a very strong statement that it will not tolerate armed civil unrest during this crisis.  This show of force had only one message as these armored and armed urban fighting vehicles were moved to pre-arranged ready areas that are being set up in local sports stadiums and school football fields.  The inquisitive readers wants to know why this is not covered on the mainstream media, why only Twitter feeds.  Thoughts?

The thin veil of civilization starting to rip.  This Twitter video of looting at Walmart (here) is probably a harbinger of things to come.  No one will starve to death quietly when there’s food to be had in locations unguarded or easily overcome – write that down somewhere if it’s news to you.  Advent of desperate times, therefore, even if you’re ready unlimber your shootin’ arn, it’s better to get on with Alernative #2 sooner than later (here).

[22mar20 update] Sen Richard Burr (R-NC) should resign and be prosecuted for his 13feb20 cashing out of stocks, in violation of the Congressional Stock Act, after a closed-door (not confidential) meeting of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, the results and reports of which immediately appeared on Twitter – i.e. the information received was public and not privileged, hence no violation of the Stock Act as also interpreted by other senators who sold stock.  Nevertheless, that is the position taken on Sen Burr by the media and many congressional colleagues.  Before running with the herd, I’d like to note from what we’ve been told that 1) no presented testimony foretold stock markets’ behavior, 2) the attendees and the online public had to connect the dots by themselves, 3) there is no law or ethical imperative requiring a legislator to broadcast his personal assessments (especially dire ones that can panic the public) or private transactions from the broadly available information he receives during the course of his congressional duties.  Burr is not a financial expert, but no doubt talked with his financial adviser about the spreading coronavirus.  Given the detailed timeline of who knew/said what and when, Burr’s post-committee statements echoed that of the administration which, in the throes of impeachment proceedings, ballyhooed published data on the economy.  So again, what is the case against Sen Burr?

'We will fight, the virus' is a timely, well-performed, and entertaining remake of the classic 'Sound of Silence' by Simon and Garfunkel.  Enjoy.

Dropout Derby - 19mar20

George Rebane

And then there were two, and what a pair!  Of all the passengers in the Dems' clown car, two of their biggest have managed to hang on, and one of them will now vie for the White House.  Given the attention she received from the DNC and the activity level of her campaigning, I think the woman just forgot that she was still in the race.  A friend must have reminded her, 'Hey Tulsi, don't you think it's time to pull out?' - 'Pull out of what?  Oh yeah.'  And I should point out that our dear departed RussS is doing very well posthumously.

Ruminations – 17mar20 (updated 18mar20)

George Rebane

Swine flu H1N1 Apr09-Jan10.  57M Americans infected, 257K hospitalized, 11,690 died.  Does anyone remember any full court press on Obama by the media and the Repubs as today we witness dished out hourly by the Dems and their lamestream in their vilification of Trump?  (H/T to reader.)

Russia impacted the 2016 election.  Those lyrics of our leftwing loonies still rings out loud and clear across the land.  And since that chorus started, tens of millions have been spent in the attempt to find any evidence, all to no avail.  Admittedly, our Left is not all that good with the finer points of English as they continue to confuse ‘attempt’ and ‘impact’, or is it really one from their repertoire of Big Lies broadcast daily?  That's called trolling for the dummies.

Coronavirus info link for Nevada County – NC Health and Human Services.  The Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital has announced a new testing program; see 17mar20 update here.

[18mar20 update]  Epidemic model used by policy makers revealed, and also news of a stop-gap medicine to prevent and fight Covid19.  See the 18mar20 update to 'Testing, testing, ...' here.

Correlation of the nation's blue concentrations with the incidence of Covid19 was pointed out in a reader's correspondence.  Apparently no one in the media has yet to make the connection.  (more here)

Lots of people buying guns and ammo.  The Left should recognize that these are not the nation’s gun owners who have already laid in their stash of Second Amendment armaments.  It is the latest tranche of newbies who have had their ‘gun epiphanies’ by the tens (hundreds?) of thousands.  The feds confirm this through the surge in background checks, and the dealers confirm it by reporting that these desperate buyers will take any available gun with any kind of ammo that fits.  Those of us who have owned guns for years would never even consider doing that for more reasons that we simply don’t have to.

All the Dems grousing about Trump’s “failure to handle the pandemic” are simply full of horseshit (aka bull pucky).  No one dares to compare America’s response with the actual numbers of what the other Left-celebrated countries have done.  Grab any metric that you have available.  And the biggest farce is the so-implied massive testing that other countries have done.  The challenge is to discover what marginal benefit to prophylactic or prescriptive policies has their testing provided that shows America is somehow behind the response curve.  Nothing – but ‘testing’ is the only thing that the Dems have, with no better (or any) plans of their own, to try to get some traction against the Trump administration.

Ordering out from restaurants.  Lots of people are buying into this alternative as an easy way to get good food without risking Covid19 infection.  Not so advise the thinking medicos.  You have no guarantee of what kind of food was used to prepare in what manner by personnel in what kind of pre-symptomatic condition within kitchens of unknown sanitary state that are frequented by numerous people whose outside contacts are also totally unknown.  The infectious disease experts tell us to order out is still a crapshoot.

“Testing, testing, testing” – Really? (updated 23mar20)

George Rebane

Those words from Speaker Pelosi summarized her three most important aspects of the pandemic legislation now going through Congress.  But once more I believe that the lady misses the point here.  Testing will do demonstrably little to stop or even slow down the inevitable and incipient explosion of Covid19 infections in the land.  The emphasis of governments at all levels now should be to facilitate manufacture and distribution of life’s necessaries and healthcare equipment/supplies to treat the daily growing cohort of the infected requiring medical treatment.

A couple of useful definitions for discussing the pandemic – ‘asymptomatic’ means “showing no evidence of disease”, and ‘pre-symptomatic’ means having been infected but not yet showing symptoms.

The pandemic will stop only after 1) all have been infected (meaning it never stopped), or 2) it dies out since no more infections and the lucky infected have survived and are no longer infectious.  The best and fastest way to achieve the latter without inevitably overstressing our healthcare system is to self-quarantine and STAY AT HOME.  The head fed expert on infectious diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci, reinforced this prescription again today when he advised everyone to maximize the time they can “stay at home” (here).

A lot of bullcrap about how the virus is transmitted still pollutes the media channels.  Dr Michael Osterholm, director of University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, gives some extremely important and cogent advice about Covid19 transmission (here) the main takeaways from which are –

1. The virus survives for several days on surfaces, depending on the material and its environment.
2. The virus is readily transmitted via the aerosols (exhalations, sneezes, coughs, …) from infected people. And the scariest part is that in the air the virus can survive for a matter of hours.
3. Pre-symptomatic people can infect others. Just because you are asymptomatic does not guarantee that you are not pre-symptomatic.
4. Available masks do little to nothing to stop your breathing the viral aerosol.
5. No anti-Covid19 vaccine will be available in time to stop the coming national spike in infections.
6. The only way to stop the spread is maximum social distancing, i.e. self-quarantine yourself, stay at home.
7. Our medical infrastructure is woefully inadequate to cope with what is coming; the spike in infections will overwhelm it. We will wind up triaging like the Italians and others are doing now.

So getting back to testing, and how that affects each of us.  I’ve prepared a little flowchart that most people (most certainly the astute RR readers) can understand.  It shows clearly how your being tested for the virus is essentially immaterial as to what you should really do in any event.

In the meantime, our Democrats and lamestream media along with international news outlets like the leftwing Economist, continue to lambast President Trump.  They blame everything from starting the pandemic, through not having the country’s healthcare system prepared and waiting (no nation has achieved this even now), to securing America’s borders as evidence of his “mismanaging” this national emergency.  In the mean time all the EU countries are sealing their own borders and many have already shut down all walk-in businesses and imposed national quarantines.  Any idiot should know that one obvious way the infections will continue to increase is through infectious people uncontrollably crossing borders.  But apparently not.

And finally, I want to make the point that this pandemic may turn into a large-scale emergency for all of us (recall that’s an emergency when 911 calls are not answered).  But however it ends, we will have a national dialogue that will result in new policies calling for major changes in our preparedness for such future catastrophes which will surely pay us another visit.  A discussion of what these may be, I will reserve for a future commentary and comment stream.

[16mar20 update]  It’s worth continuing to pay attention to the Dems’ Big Lie programs.  Most noteworthy now is the continuing lie that we would have done a better job fighting the coronavirus had we already implemented a nationalized healthcare system like Bernie’s ‘Medicare for All’.  If anyone cares to look at how the countries with nationalized healthcare are doing in this pandemic, they would quickly be disabused of any such thing.

The other part of last night’s comedy debate was Bumblebrain’s ongoing claims that somehow he was in the crucial heart of policy making and implementation in the Obama administration.  Listening to him talk, ol’ Bumble was right in the middle of all that was happening.  If anyone cares to check the record, they quickly discover that the man was one watering short of a potted plant during the entire eight years.  VP Biden was trotted out to stand behind Obama during photo ops, dignitary dinners, and other ceremonial occasions, mostly to allay rumors of his early demise.  Oh yes, he was allowed to attend certain meetings as long as he kept his mouth shut.  So you know Bernie has to bite his tongue when, like last night, Bumblebrain claimed to be the “steady hand” that quashed the ebola epidemic and kept it from our shores.

Now, as with Trump’s bravado, I would not count as ‘lies’ these outlandish claims of accomplishment.  But it would be refreshing to hear a progressive see such a common thread that knits together all politicians.

And also, do you note that like socialists, they don’t want to call attention to China’s autocratic mismanagement of when the Wuhan virus epidemic started?  No mention is made of its genesis in China or Wuhan because such attributions would be “racist”.  The lamestream, of course, fell into line immediately.  For them and theirs, President Trump is a much more believable cause of all that’s bad about the Covid19 pandemic.

[17mar20 update]  Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital sent out a notice to their foundation members (of which Jo Ann and I are) regarding their new drive-through testing program.  They also direct you to the county's coronavirus information website is here.

 Drive-through Covid-19 testing now at SNMH

Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital will begin drive-through Covid-19 testing from 3:00-6:00 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday (3/17 & 3/18).

If you are symptomatic and meet criteria for testing, Nevada County residents should call their primary care doctor. If the doctor agrees that an individual needs to be tested, the doctor can fax an order to the hospital.

Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital will call the patient to set up an appointment drive-through time. Please do not attempt to go to the testing drive-through without a previously set-up appointment. 

[18mar20 update]  New epidemic model revealed.  It turns out that the epidemic spread model that’s currently most trusted and used by policy makers in various countries is from the epidemic modeling group at Imperial College. (here, here, and here)  Note the (lack of) emphasis put on testing as a policy tool to affect infection and mortality rates.

Common malaria drug prevents and fights Covid19.  That is claimed in a report announced on Anthony Watts website (here) that was authored in league with Stanford University School of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, among others, and published in several respected journals.  This, of course, would be the best news yet to salve the pandemic until a vaccine arrives.  In the meantime, Dr Rebane advises that you reconsider a gin and tonic as your afternoon preventative; after all, it is made with tonic water.  (H/T to reader)  The summary of the report follows –

Recent guidelines from South Korea and China report that chloroquine is an effective antiviral therapeutic treatment against Coronavirus Disease 2019.  Use of chloroquine (tablets) is showing favorable outcomes in humans infected with Coronavirus including faster time to recovery and shorter hospital stay.  US CDC research shows that chloroquine also has strong potential as a prophylactic (preventative) measure against coronavirus in the lab, while we wait for a vaccine to be developed.  Chloroquine is an inexpensive, globally available drug that has been in widespread human use since 1945 against malaria, autoimmune and various other conditions. 

[23mar20 update]  The reliability of Covid19 tests now reported should give most of us pause.  We are told that existing tests catch about 60% of people infected with the virus, and they test positive from 3% to 50% of those who are not infected.  So what’s the utility of giving a test to an asymptomatic walk-in American?  Well, the good Rev Bayes can help us out (more here).

[Trigger warning: some mild-mannered math ahead.]

Sandbox - 15mar20

[As one reader echoed the warning to Julius - 'Beware the Ides of March!'  Lot is happening in these trying times.  I have posted 'Testing, testing, testing, ...' for the continuing discussion of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Please deposit your topical good thoughts there.  gjr]

The Long Road Back - Loss/Recovery

George Rebane

Given all the problems caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic, we now contemplate your investment portfolio in light of the markets' plunge over the last two weeks - in short, we'll now expand our horizons from the morbid to the macabre.

An Electoral College dialogue continued

George Rebane

Mr Dick Sciaroni wrote 'Electoral College reform - it's up to us' in the 13mar20 Union, a measured and civil response to my 7mar20 Union column, ‘Democracy Destroys the Electoral College’ (and here), wherein he concludes with, “Is it time to reform the Electoral College system? Perhaps. It’s up to all of us, the citizens, to decide. That means dialogue, not diatribe.”  However, a more careful read of what I wrote would reveal that nowhere did I oppose a national dialogue on the continued utility of the Electoral College in the governance of our republic.  What I do oppose is the current approach to its subrosa and de facto elimination through the little known National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Mr Sciaroni writes, “The Founders’ decision how they should choose a president should have no overriding claim on 21st century America such that we cannot change it. After all, we are talking about our government. It’s ours. Why can’t we change it?”  In this he implies that I oppose any such change.  I don’t, but I do oppose what’s going on now.  The NPVIC is intended to surreptitiously sidestep a national dialogue, and most certainly subvert a constitutional process, through the leftwing mainstream media’s daily diatribes that call for a precipitous elimination of the Electoral College.  I highly doubt that more than one in a hundred Americans are aware of the NPVIC’s existence, its role in eliminating our EC, and current progress toward that goal – all happening without the national dialogue which Mr Sciaroni and I would welcome. 

In his piece, nowhere did Mr Sciaroni acknowledge that my arguments were directed against imposing governance by direct democracy on large diverse populations, in accord with our Framers.  Instead he did repeat the Left’s talking points that the configuration of the EC by our Framers was a devious stratagem to keep wealthy white men in power, and therefore is now a dated construct of our government that needs major overhaul, and perhaps removal altogether.

And his main point about the pervasive role of money in our elections ignores recent evidence that undermines his arguments.  In 2016 Hillary outspent Trump by far, in the current election Steyer, Bloomberg, and Bernie have all outspent our former VP Biden, and most certainly President Trump.  Yes, modern campaigns demand more funding to get out the message, but the evidence at hand is that it still continues to be the message, not the money that shapes the voters’ preferences.  In sum, such evidence should weigh heavily to counter Mr Sciaroni’s “final analysis” wherein he maintains that “the downside of the Electoral College is that it works hand-in-glove with moneyed interests to give a small number of people – not surprisingly, white males – access to the presidency of a country in which they are the decided minority.”  By all means, let us all talk about this.

COVID Testing – Unclear on the Concept (updated 15mar20)

George Rebane

Our dispensers of perennial hate have now fastened on to the shortage of Covid test kits in the land, and claim that the President had two months warning and did nothing.  The fact of the matter, as even reported in the NYT (here), is that no one around the world knew of the actual epidemiological parameters of Covid.  And no one did anything about it, starting with China’s Communist Party which initially tried to hide and play down what was happening in Wuhan.

Another fact of the matter is that there are perhaps tens of infectious disease outbreaks around the globe each year, most in inaccessible places that stay and abate there.  But some do get out into the more traveled parts of the world.  While we may know about each of such outbreaks, gearing up the nation's medical machinery to combat a full-blown epidemic on our shores for each of these has never been either a reasonable or feasible response.  Last December Covid-19 started out just like one of these outbreaks.

In any case, the problem we have with starting up any mass production of medicines and medical supplies is - drum roll please – big government.  The litigious regulatory state has grown to such an extent that everyone who could, moved their manufacturing offshore.  We make less that 10% of the medicines we consume – most are made in Chinese pharma factories.  No one gets extra credit for answering, ‘which of America’s political factions promote high cost of labor, draconian and unfathomable regulations, litigation at the drop of the hat, high taxes and fees on businesses, and overwhelming government bureaucracies to oversee and enforce the whole mess?’  And after that, they scream about high prices for the consumer.

But let’s get back to testing.  The anti-Trump lamestream continues to convince the public that Covid testing is somehow a prophylactic against the virus.  And things would have been much better had we been able to test all Americans from the gitgo.  That, it turns out, is unabashed bull crap.  Princeton’s liberal professor of economics and public policy, Alan Blinder, advises President Trump that ‘The Best Stimulus Is Coronavirus Testing Kits’.  Why? Because testing negative will give comfort to the consumer to go out there and keep shopping, since consumer spending makes up 70% of our GDP.

A little thought reveals that 1) a negative Covid test does not prevent subsequent infection, and 2) since a negative test is only a snapshot in time, we can’t make and distribute enough test kits to give continuous comfort to the consumer.  (We don’t even know the sensitivity of the tests; at what level of pre-symptomatic Covid presence will the test register positive.)  Testing negative on Monday does not guarantee that you will not be infected on Tuesday, nor that you will not be infecting others by Friday.  The only benefit a one-time comprehensive testing provides is to identify potential pockets of infection which might be contained by a timely regional quarantine, a quarantine which no one really knows how to enforce (as our Italian friends have discovered).  And to provide such information for making public policy on an ongoing basis requires testing entire populations also on an ongoing basis.  For that we have neither the funds, the manufacturing capacity, the distribution and administration organization, nor the capable personnel to administer tests and interpret the results – in short, it’s not in the cards.

Given all that, the only ‘benefit’ that the spread of Covid in America provides is ammo for the Democrats to continue lambasting President Trump and his administration, while hoping that their absurd accusations get some traction with the country’s lightly read, and therefore divert attention from the obviously diminished-capacity senior citizen who they’re putting up for President this fall.

[12mar20 update]  The Democrats’ program of Big Lies continues with their and their lamestream lackeys’ assertions that the Trump administration continues to mismanage the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.  This is now asserted as a given on the leftwing broadcast media.  However, the medical professionals who the President has working on the problem is made up of people like the NIH immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci (who has also advised six Presidents on HIV/AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues) .  None of their careers are dependent on their current jobs, but all of their professional credentials are.  And to date none have criticized the federal response as being somehow inadequate in the sense that something else or more could be done today which isn’t being done.  In short, all these health pros agree that what the administration did and continues to do with the information and resources available at the time was aggressively proper.  And compared to what other governments have done, America under Trump is way in the lead in executing its pandemic mitigation policies.  According to my lights, the perniciously partisan public propaganda that the Democrats are trumpeting today puts them squarely in the sleazebag evil category.

Apropos to this politicizing, in 2009-10 we had the H1N1 (swine flu) epidemic under Obama, who could do no wrong.  Around 60,000,000 Americans were infected, and about 12,000 died (its death rate was a bit higher than the annual flu's).  But the pandemic was not politicized, and it finally abated as people took normal precautions with social distancing and the usual care for flu cases.

(H/T to reader for the above graphic.)

Another hot flash from the NC school district nurse who informed the attendees at a service club meeting that keeping hydrated is good, and staying hydrated with hot drinks like tea is better.  It also doesn't like Vitamin C.  The virus does not like wet, and hot wet is especially toxic to it.  Also take a look (here) at how long the virus survives in various non-human environments.

[13mar20 update]  Worthy of note is America’s unique process for most medical tests as outlined by Dr Fauci in his congressional testimony.  It turns out that to get tested for Covid-19 you need to go to your physician who then will decide whether to prescribe that you be tested.  Most EU countries apparently allow the patient to get the test kit on his own recognizance, perform the test, and submit the ‘kit’ for interpretation by medical authorities.  They do this to reduce costs of their national healthcare programs which are already unsustainable and forever seeking to eliminate services in a manner that will evade public attention and response.  We should follow their cost saving example and also allow self-testing, at least during this pandemic.  Longer term consideration of this policy is warranted – e.g. case in point, we allow self-testing for pregnancy with OTC test kits.

[15mar20 update]  The commentary and discussion on Covid-19 and testing for it is continued here.

Scattershots – 9mar20 (updated 12mar20)

George Rebane

Those whose policies cannot create wealth must champion policies that redistribute existing wealth.

So you think that if you get some flu-like symptoms, just go in and get tested for COVID-19, and then they’ll do the rest and take care of you.  Hah!  My east coast spy sent me the link (here) to a an unfolding saga of what is probably more prevalent than not across the country.  Remember, if there’s a problem ANYWHERE, your first look-see should be the government, on which you can make book on being at fault or the cause.  So enjoy, and don't touch anyone or anything or …;  I think levitation is the best bet if you can do it.

[10mar20 update]  Trump can’t bluff or bully the epidemic, so correctly argues Walter Russell Mead in the 10mar20 WSJ (here). And the hits Trump will take won’t really depend on how the fed responds to COVID-19.  This is a complex nationwide problem affecting multiple fronts, it's a bona fide black swan.  The feds have never responded to such things without big goof-ups here and there, and this time it will be the same, no matter who is in the White House.  But today the TDS crowd, now fervently praying for death and destruction in this election year, has some well-oiled, built-in ammo with its lamestream to fire against the administration.  As WRM says, “the media multitudes who loathe Mr. Trump will do everything they can to turn the epidemic into a Hurricane Katrina event. That would be easy to do even if the government’s response is near-flawless; epidemics are messy. There will almost certainly be heartbreaking tragedies that can plausibly be blamed on administration policies. There will be shortages of medical supplies. Some hospitals will be stretched past the breaking point. The bureaucracy and its leadership will inevitably fall short in many ways. In an election year when health care is a major political issue, every failure and problem in the coronavirus response will be politicized and publicized, putting the administration on the defensive as the economy falters and the virus spreads.”  The coronavirus will indeed be President Trump’s greatest foe, one against which the best policies, let alone his standard repertoire of responses, will be inadequate in many (most?) eyes.

Democracy or Winner-take-all.  The Dems are playing both sides of the street on this for their presidential candidates.  In the primaries they want proportional allocation of delegates to the their July convention.  However, in the November election for president, they want to do winner takes all the Electoral College votes, which disenfranchises the minorities in each state.  Another case of ‘Do as I say, and not …’.

[12mar20 update]  Bernie Sanders claims to have won the ideological battle because he convinced the young that capitalism is bad and socialism is good.  And the young are the future.  But what he and other collectivists have missed in the past is that the young age, gain realworld experience, and change their minds about socialism.  Perhaps this time it will be different.  But Bernie is headed for his political sunset, and he must hope that Bumblebrain Biden will pick up the gauntlet and carry it past goal line.  Bernie’s departing line continues to be that his “democratic socialism” is not what the USSR had which was “autocratic communism”.  According to Bernie and his guileless followers, the slogan to remember is “Real socialism hasn’t been tried!”  David Harsanyi writes (here), “ leftists like Bernie like to act as if socialist ideology is incompatible with totalitarianism, when the opposite is true. The nationalization of industry and dispensing with property rights — necessary for any genuine socialism to occur — can’t be instituted without coercion and a centralized authoritarian effort. And even if the effort to redistribute property is first supported by the majority, as soon the state comes for your stuff — and it always does — the “democratic” part of the equation starts to dissipate.”

Today’s men beware of the women activists who claim to have been victims of sexual harassment and predation.  It is apparently legal for people, especially employers, to ask whether someone is or has been involved in law suits of various kinds before entering into a relationship.  Therefore it might be prudent for a man contemplating a relationship with a woman to find out whether he might be stepping into a snare.  Given the number of websites that offer access to publicly available personal information databases, wouldn’t it be useful to have accessible a database on women who have publicly accused or sued men for sexual issues?  Online dating services could even include that in their clients’ data sheets.  In light of today’s greatly expanded definitions of sexual misconduct, what man would want to get involved with a woman who has a record publicly accusing men of such misconduct?  Making such information readily available would both reduce future issues (real and imagined), and temper such gratuitous allegations in the future.

The Democracy Debate Revisited

George Rebane

On 19 February last, I broadcast on KVMR and posted here a commentary titled ‘Democracy Destroys the Electoral College’.  Subsequently I submitted an edited version of the piece to The Union which published it in its 6mar20 print and online editions (here).  The commentary was of a piece and amplified my longstanding agreement with our Framers who warned us against the dangers of democracy in governance, especially at the federal level where overarching matters of national import are decided. 

The Union’s online version of my commentary has elicited a long comment stream of pros and cons.  By number, most of the comments were con in the sense that they are in support of electing at least the president by popular national vote.  The Left has been a longtime proponent of having us abandon our constitutional republic in favor of maximizing the use of the plebiscite (or referendum if we want to split hairs) to decide matters of governance.  Unfortunately, a number of prominent Republicans have also weighed in on the side of electing the president by popular vote – i.e. bypassing the Electoral College.

The Left’s motivation, in America and elsewhere, has been consistent in their correct assessment that large populations, especially those lightly read and tightly led, are predictably malleable.  This guarantee redoubles when a political ideology gains control of public education for a generation or more – ours since around 1970.  Our history gives pause to many like me as we consider the views of some otherwise more reliable politicians.

In 1913 we took a major step away from what our Founders bequeathed us when we ratified the 17^th Amendment to the Constitution to permit election of federal senators by popular vote.  Since then, the several states have each implemented more pure democracy into their elections, both to politically shield and secure timid politicians and to assure outcomes desired by the party in power.  California again is the posterchild of such ‘progress’ in governance.

But the problem with democracy is the same as with socialism, since they always start their journey hand-in-hand.  Of course, as many of us know, socialism will always at some point along the way begin to dispense with democracy as its governing elites gain power and restructure the state into a derivative form of dismal and stultifying autocracy.  But, like a frog being slowly parboiled, by the time the population realizes this after having been increasingly succored on socialism, it will be too late.  At that point, outside forces notwithstanding, the remaining choices are acceptance of a moribund future, or violent revolution.  With socialism, as with pregnancy, it’s very difficult to remain with just a ‘little bit of it’

Perhaps there is a better way of electing our president.  But today, turning the decision over to an incipient ochlocracy that knows little of the history and operations of governance, and less about how our existing system works, seems to me like a bad idea.  We should make haste slowly to change what we have.

Bernie’s Big Lie – Socialist Sweden

George Rebane

Sen Bernie Sanders’ lies are too many to count, but one that he keeps repeating successfully to the nation’s light thinkers involves the myth of Scandinavian socialism.  This is the kind of socialism that Bernie wants to incorporate in the United States, and he continues to use Sweden as the posterchild of how socialism can be made to work successfully.  Either he is butt stupid or evil as he spreads the lies about Swedish socialism.  Let’s be kind and put Bernie with the butt stupid crowd, that includes the Dem candidates clown car and Team AOC, as they were characterized by Will Rogers’ “It ain’t what you know that worries me, it’s what you know that ain’t so.’

Sweden was a model and wealthy capitalist democracy before 1960, having gone through two world wars as a neutral selling their wares to the highest bidders.  Along with the other Nordics, Sweden then tried socialism to redistribute its remarkable wealth and earn votes for its leftwing politicians, and that failed miserably over the next two decades.  As a result, each pulled back toward marked capitalism after enjoying the tender mercies of socialism.  Sweden led the way after having doubled public spending from 31% to 60% in the 1960-80 interval.  And then the real problems started piling on which ended with unemployment surging and budget deficits of 11% of GDP in the late 80s (that’s like almost $3T annually in the US).  The country literally went broke as the wealthy, the producers and entrepreneurs jumped ship.  The pullback to sanity started in 1991 and has been going on ever since.  And that has been the best kept secret of our progressives and their lamestream lackeys (witness its effect on our local liberal commenters).

Swedish historian and author, Johan Norberg (also senior fellow at the Cato Institute) lays out the history of this wise retrenchment to sanity in his ‘Sweden’s Lessons for America’.  Norberg reports that -

Sooner or later, American socialists always return to Sweden and other Nordic countries. There’s a good reason for that. For some reason, the countries that socialists originally tout always end up with bread lines and labor camps. But there’s always Sweden: decent, well‐​functioning, nonthreatening, and with impeccable democratic credentials. … There is just one problem: Sweden is not socialist. … If Sanders and Ocasio‐​Cortez really want to turn America into Sweden, what would that look like? For the United States, it would mean, for example, more free trade and a more deregulated product market, no Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the abolition of occupational licensing and minimum wage laws. The United States would also have to abolish taxes on property, gifts, and inheritance. And even after the recent tax cut, America would still have to slightly reduce its corporate tax. Americans would need to reform Social Security from defined benefits to defined contributions and introduce private accounts. They would also need to adopt a comprehensive school voucher system where private schools get the same per‐​pupil funding as public ones.

Sandbox - 7mar20

[Just happened to visit Nevada County Voices, an info website run by our favorite climate catastrophe czarina, Dr Anna Haynes.  It appears that since the passing of Russ Steele, RR remains as the sole active 'rightwing' website in these parts.  On her resourceful site we are properly relegated to the extreme right column that is off-page, so it will not surprise and offend the more sensitive eyes of her polite company visitors (a trigger warning pointer is provided).  I continue to note over the years that Dr Haynes' political spectrum remains one-winged.  Nowhere are her voluminous lists of left-leaning sites so identified.  I suppose all of those are like our self-proclaimed centrists Bob Crabb and George Boardman - politically vanilla, untinged and untrammeled by any shade of partisanship.  We are properly put in our place.  gjr]

Dropout Derby - 5mar20

George Rebane

Now which one will Pocahontas bless as she rides into the sunset after being rejected by her friends and neighbors, who knew her too well?  And Tulsi, give us a break, please!

Should Our Kids Learn to Code?

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 4 March 2020.]

As more and more young people finish their education today with unemployable skill sets, while employers are looking for people who can think on their feet and solve problems, the question of whether and how to teach high schoolers the elements of programming comes up.  Given that our world is now almost entirely software driven, and will become even more so tomorrow, you would think that programming or learning to code should become one of an educated citizen’s basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic which reached those expectations over a hundred years ago.

But there is a curious mix of people who argue against teaching such a skill to students in our public schools.  Some see acquiring coding skills to be equivalent to vocational training, against which many have argued for decades.  It’s hard to believe that there were educators against teaching high schoolers skills with which to earn a living after graduation, especially when so few students went on to college.  Stanford professor of computer science Robert Sedgewick points out that coding “is not vocational training any more than English is vocational training for journalists or economics is vocational training for business executives.” 

In the early part of the 20^th century more than 90% of students entered the workforce without college degrees.  But our schools did teach them skills beyond literacy and arithmetic that were needed in the workplace.  Yet academics like former Stanford education professor Dr Larry Cuban continue to argue that coding is the same as teaching vocational skills such as machine shop and home economics.  Such courses for them have been a wrong-headed “imposition of those requirements (that) for years served to undermine the broader cultural goals of public schools—such as social mobility, individual development and civic engagement.”  Yet everyone today knows that all of those broader cultural goals are only possible for those who can be gainfully employed.

In response, Dr Sedgewick points out that “teaching students to code introduces them to logical thinking, as well as fostering creativity and problem-solving skills. It encourages experimentation, develops persistence and promotes collaboration. Learning to think as a coder gives one a valuable set of strategies for understanding a variety of situations that one will encounter later in life—particularly those who are working outside of tech.” (more here and here)

In my own teaching experience, I have confirmed that learning to code is also a painless introduction to critical thinking.  The experience provides a gender-free sense of empowerment, as the students make machines and data sing at the touch of their finger.  Coding and algorithmics – devising stepwise procedures for efficiently solving problems - are fields connected at the hip.  Immersive coding is a ‘flow experience’, almost like being in another universe that contains its own resources and rules for new and powerful tools.  Tools which you control and with which you can assemble wondrous machines.  For young people anticipating college or a job after high school, having mastered the elements of coding is tremendously empowering as they experience the opening of new worlds of possibilities and understanding.

But today we also have an emerging dark side of coding and computer science, one more political enterprise that is seeking a foothold in secondary education.  It is called ‘culturally responsive computing’, and is devised by the politically correct mavens of identity politics.  The proposed curriculum is primarily directed at minorities, and claims to educate students through the implementation of “computing-culture connections” that inject such arcane concepts as “African mathematics”.  The entire enterprise is a massive diversion from teaching kids substantive skills valuable for work and further studies.  Fundamentally, it is one more area of ethnic-gender education that would join the other useless but feel-good subjects which already displace substantive learning in our public schools.  Look for it at a school district near you. (more here)

In the meantime, I strongly recommend that you support the advent and expansion of STEM subjects that include computer science and coding in your local high schools.  Our young people need every bit of it that they can handle in a world where they will spend the rest of their lives.

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.  Thank you for listening.

The Socialistic Socialization of Socialism (updated 6mar20)

George Rebane

Some thoughts on Super Tuesday 2020.  Socialism is a form of organizing society and the economy, a form unknown to our younger generations.  They have been taught in our schools all about the mythical glories of socialism, and no history of what actually happens when countries have adopted it.  Today they are saturated by reports of Europe’s socialism as examples of the ‘benefits’ which await America on its adoption here.  These propagandized stories are generated and delivered by our media that are somewhere between incompetent and corruptly partisan.

With today’s stifling political correctness and ongoing deconstruction of our public speech, critical thinking by the young is almost impossible and definitely rare.  It is a field day for corrupt politicians like Senators Sanders and Warren.  This gives the young no choice about their messages, but to simply believe their content, and judge them only by the cosmetics of their delivery.

All of this explains why our millennials and genXrs are so willing and eager to vote away their national inheritance.  The one-world socialist elites know well Thomas Jefferson’s admonition – ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’

[6mar20 update] Super Tuesday's Latinos for Sanders.  We know that Bernie Sanders is an idiot and a demogauge – he has proved it daily for at least the last five years.  But what about the young Latinos whose parents escaped here from dictatorial banana republics in which Sanders’ socialism was on full display, and whose history and leaders Sanders still celebrates today?  What does that say for their socio-political awareness when they have such revealing and enlightening family histories?  Actually, it says the same thing about them as about the more indigenous Americans who make up Bernie’s Bros.  It’s the same 25-30% of unread bad news bears (more in California) who can’t or won’t, and who support every national movement that promises them a workers’ paradise where everything is free.  They will be with us forever, here and elsewhere.  And every so often they are successful in bringing communism to the fore, and dispense wholesale misery to their people for a couple of generations before the next revolution.  All of them now believe it’s finally America’s chance to dumpster dive for a dictatorship of the proletariat.  (more here)