Rebane's Ruminations

Our Financial Mess is Bigger Than You Think

George Rebane

Most of us concerned about the future of the Republic have been following the subprime mess and its larger implications for our nation and way of life.  For those passengers not concerned about why the cabin floor is beginning to tilt, this is the time to hit the exit button and go find an empty deck chair.

Michael Lewitt of Harch Capital has written an extremely well-composed analysis of the ragged edge on which we find ourselves financially, and a prescription for how to put ourselves back on a firm footing.  This piece is especially important now that Secretary of Treasury Paulson is proposing the next pallet of palliatives to fix the US financial system.  Whatever will be implemented will affect all of us.  Lewitt’s article, ‘How To Fix It’, is not a sound bite but grist for the serious reader.  You may not agree with all of it – it shakes some of my long-held beliefs – but it is an education about the edge of our financial cliff and also a stake in the ground. And as such, it marks a place to take a stand and communicate your own thoughts to the local politician who in all likelihood doesn’t have a clue about what is going on and just keeps an eye on the polls.  Well, here’s your chance to find out how you want to affect the polls.

Kudos to John Mauldin for making this piece of clear thinking available to wider audiences.

PS.  Check out this little piece and glue it together with Lewitt's article.

Is there really no one who knows how to plan our economic development?

George Rebane

Today Russ Steele highlights the latest wallowing in the process to come up with a plan for economic development in our county (here).  There can be no sane plan to get from here to there if we don’t first define ‘there’.  I have written about this straightforward process and spoken about it in a number of public forums on economic development over the last year (see here).

It is amazing that there is no one visible in our county’s leadership who either understands and can implement the steps required to do such planning, or has the cojones to say that such steps don’t work for Nevada County and we are going to go down another road.  Were I king, I would not allocate one red cent of county monies for any economic development effort that first doesn’t spell out our goal in a way that allows us to measure our success in achieving it.  Without an explicit statement of that, we will continue blathering platitudes about 'expanding the tax base' and ‘smart growth’ and ‘balanced community’ and ‘traffic congestion’ while busily molding ourselves into a backwater bedroom community to serve economic growth that’s happening elsewhere.  Let’s get on with the program!

Stay tuned as we continue to monitor this muddle.

Filecarding the Future

Evan Jones, Guest Commentator*

You have already outlined the problem: I agree with your description and analysis of the limited capacity of any individual. Where I differ with you somewhat is with your tinge of pessimism. Yes, if knowledge is wealth, we have amassed too much for any one man to carry. But we must not fall into Yogi’s fallacy that “the place is so crowded that no one goes there anymore”.

Mankind has worked long and hard in order to learn what he has learned. The problem is that it all seems so overwhelming. The solution lies in finding an effective way to manage and access this knowledge. We live in such a complex world that the Enlightenment definition of the “universal man” is no longer possible. Yet it should be noted that the Enlightenment itself is to a great extent responsible for setting in motion what has become our current state of affairs. We must not shrink from this, we must embrace it.

A Free-Market Libertarian Immigrant on Obama's Speech

George Rebane

Senator Obama made a landmark speech last week on race and the broader aspirations of all Americans.  First, it is important to note that I feel privileged in this presidential election year that my country gives equal opportunity for a black man, a white woman, and a senior citizen to equally and concurrently compete for the highest office in the land – only in America.  In the remarks below I fulfill my part of the agreement with James R. 'Dick' Dickenson (his article here) to analyze and comment on the Senator’s speech.  Instead of writing a separate piece on the subject, I have chosen to submit a detailed annotation of the speech itself.  My bold italicized comments are preceded by ‘Gjr’.

Memories of Arthur C. Clarke (1917- 2008)

Wayne Watson, Guest Commentator*

Clarke died last week, March 18. His background has been written about extensively in the intervening time on the internet and media. Over many years, my wife and I have often followed his writings, contributions to technology, movies, and efforts to promote science. I'll only provide a few personal comment here.

My favorite short story was "History Lesson", which I read in high school, and I certainly had a strong attachment for the movie "2001".  My wife got caught up in pentominoes as a result of reading his "Imperial Earth". She managed to work her way through well over a thousand solutions to the total to 2,339 possible ones before computers came along and provided all the solutions. Somewhere in our games closet may be her solutions,  or they are on a old computer that has long disappeared from our house, but the good memories of his works remain within us.

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* Wayne Watson is a local amateur astronomer and works with young people at the Imaginarium, Nevada City's science museum, where he is known as the 'Astro Guy'.  He has extensive experience including several years as a researcher for the Space Astronomy Department at the University of Arizona. He regularly hosts the Imaginarium's Sky Show and astronomy events.

BigDog - The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth

George Rebane

Looking at the video of this quadruped robot takes one right back to the StarWars films - only this isn't fancy computer graphics animation but the real thing.  A big dog-like pack 'animal' that can handle difficult terrains, ice/snow, piles of concrete blocks, and recover from being kicked in the side while carrying its heavy pack.  Now imagine these things a few years out providing mobility to the disabled through brain-control interfaces, or amplifying the abilities of a fully-functional human (i.e. Machine Amplified Man), or being the mobile platform for your AI-smart household or yard robot. 

And in the larger scheme, keep in mind the number of humans this thing will put out of work.  This, like all other technical advances, will come at a social cost to those workers who can't or won't perform higher level tasks in our society.

This critter was developed by Boston Dynamics under a DARPA contract and is just a harbinger of more wondrous things to come in the near future.  A good YouTube video is available here.  And thanks to correspondent and fellow techie Wayne Watson for bringing this to our attention.

Ruminations - 21mar2008

George Rebane

Climate Change Takes Another Confusing Turn – All of you folks who have un/girded their loins for the upcoming heat wave, take a look at yet another set of scientists who are puzzled about what’s not going on.  Here on NC Media Watch is a revealing report from National Public Radio, a medium that is not exactly your textbook global warming skeptic or denier.  (I was going to post this, but got scooped.)

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Martin Schmitt responded to my recent piece on ‘The Catastrophe of Compassionate Charities’.  He provides more insight about why we succumb to ‘greedy’ choices in helping others.  It is truly a conundrum – how can we bear to look at obvious pain and turn away to work on the fundamental causes of that pain instead of just alleviating the visible pain here and now?

This morning’s Union has a banner piece on Grass Valley’s intention to double traffic impact fees because the “County (is) not moving fast enough to fund projects”.  (BTW, you readers who have been following GV’s affordable housing foibles will get a double charge on how regulations are used to increase the price of houses while more regulations are imposed in vain to reduce the price of houses while everyone in city hall continues to take themselves seriously – amazing!  For more on this debacle, read Mike McDaniel’s piece here.)  But when County Transport Commissioner Russ Steele posts a piece explaining the other side of the issue , editor Pelline is instantly there to chastise him on, of all things, being one sided and “throwing the city under the bus”, apparently under the same bus where the Union and GV have already thrown the county.  For no extra charge Russ gets an extra kick for good measure because his commentary comes from a declared ideology and set of values.  Lord save us from the self-declared ‘unbiased and balanced’ reporters, for we know they lean, my how they lean.

Senator Obama's Speech On Race - Reflections

James R. Dickenson - Guest Commentator*

Senator Obama's speech on race in the United States could well be a historic milestone in American politics, ranking with those of Abraham Lincoln--the country cannot remain "half slave, half free"--Lyndon Johnson in urging the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills in the 1960s, and John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech on Catholicism and his presidential candidacy.

Obama properly started with a fact that many Americans don't realize--that racism is an American "original sin", in his words, which was embedded in some of the compromises that made ratification of the Constitution possible--the "three-fifths" provision that blacks counted only as three-fifths of a human being, which kept them from full human status in the eyes of many whites, but enabled the slave-holding states to at least partially count them toward Congressional representation and the distribution of federal monies to the states.  Slavery was so deeply entwined in the economies of the 13 states by the time of the founding that politically it had to be accommodated (this country has been built on cheap labor).  That and the implication that slaves were chattel and not human are the reasons racism has been such an intransigent problem in our history.

He obviously is right in insisting that the problem can be mitigated and solved only by the efforts of all Americans--whites, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, everyone--working together in the "long march" toward solving our common problems of economic and educational opportunity, justice, and equality.  The first step in this is the realization that racism must be directly addressed, reduced, and ultimately eliminated.

Obama offers his own multiracial and multi-culture background, a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya with relatives in several Asian nations, as proof that the dream that "out of many we are truly one" can be realized.  One reason for his political success to date is that that diversity has given him a speaking style and demeanor that is reassuring and persuasive to whites, unlike that of many Afro-American political and religious leaders.  They embody the hardship, humiliations, and bitterness of coming out of slavery and a Jim Crow Reconstruction, as does Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  It's hard to imagine that there is anyone better in this nation to offer leadership of working together to begin solving our deepest and most difficult problem than Barack Obama.

He is also correct in emphasizing that achieving racial equality is not a zero sum game, in which gains by one group come at the expense of others.  This, tragically, is how much of our immigrant assimilation process has worked out--Irish fearing Italian, Polish, and other Eastern Europeans' competition for jobs, schools, and neighborhoods, all of them fearing and resenting Jews, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, and so on. 

His speech can be historic if his candidacy leads to the dialogue that is necessary to solving racism.  Afro-American commentators have noted that black people have a pretty good idea of what whites are thinking and saying but whites don't have that knowledge of blacks.  Rev. Wright's often incendiary comments come as a profound shock to whites but are a common element of the black subculture; Obama refers to them as the sort of remarks blacks share "in the barbershop and over the kitchen table."  These comments reflect the anger and frustration blacks feel about racism and injustice but which largely are muted around whites who as a result believe more progress has been made than blacks do and have experienced shock at Rev. Wright's anger.

In the past few days black religious and educational leaders have pointed out that Wright's remarks are common in "black liberation theology" a field of religion that most whites had never heard of until a week ago.  In this school's reading of the Bible when Rev. Wright says, "Not God bless America, God damn America!" it's not Wright cursing out America, it's black liberation theology's reading of the original Hebrew which states that God (or Yahweh) damns or condemns societies and individuals for cruelties and injustices.  Both whites and blacks who know Rev. Wright say that despite his occasionally inflammatory rhetoric he does not preach hate, he preaches "hope" and his church offers many support programs for his congregation and neighborhood.

Despite the progress of the past half century we desperately need more dialogue between the races and cultures.  Obama is wise to note not only the grievances of blacks but legitimate white fears and frustrations, particularly of more recent immigrants, as well--the zero sum game assumption that their hard-won gains are taken from them by affirmative action, forced busing, and other civil rights initiatives.  He also correctly urges blacks and other minorities to embrace the principles of self-help and the assumption that our society can change and improve, that it is not static.  And, in using Biblical terms such as being "our brothers' (and sisters') keeper" he attempts to unite the religious and secular.

To a considerable extent Obama was forced into this speech by the revelation of Rev. Wright's rhetoric and the attacks on his campaign.  But, if Obama with his impressive oratorical gifts can start the nation on a serious dialogue that recognizes the complexity of our multicultural and multiracial society and face up to the injustices and work that lies ahead his presidential candidacy will prove to be truly historic.

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* James R.(Dick) Dickenson - author, career journalist, former political editor of The Washington Post, student of history - is a friend and correspondent who contributes to Ruminations from time to time.  As a self-declared New Deal Democrat, Dick brings to these pages a perspective often missing from my own views on American history and politics.  As promised, I have added my reflections on this speech here. gjr

Financial Distress Press Release – Grass Valley Style

George Rebane

The mamas and papas of our premier city apparently put out a press release on the town’s financial situation that is supposed to sing a lullaby to all these rumors of police and fire layoffs and even possible bankruptcy.  Their little missive, announced last Tuesday, is dated 18 March 2008 and apparently hit the wires today.  It amazes one that in the 21st century they can’t get the damn thing posted on their web site – as of this post, it still isn’t there.  Any blogger on the web can post it in seconds – here it is Download gv_press_release_3_19_08.pdf .

The statement raises more questions and answers none of the old ones.  It is interesting to note that the announced revenues went up at about 14.5% per year over the last three years, and no one thought to identify this as a bubble since these were growing at more than three times the GDP rate over the same interval.  Police salaries went up at 10.25% annual rate, again where did all these merit raises come from?  The city’s largest cost is salaries and benefits - what made these go up during a time when everyone else was tightening their belts?

So now they will run out of money before the end of their fiscal year.  The budget process between now and July should be intriguing.  We hope in the future it is covered in the local media with something more than today's repeating the statements from a press release that can only be described as low grade ore.

*** 19mar08 2030 - Check out more thoughts on Russ Steele's NC Media Watch

Our National Priorities - Circuses Űber Alles

George Rebane

While Bill Gates was imploring Congress to raise the cap on H1-B visas that let us import the scientists and engineers needed to keep the nation afloat as a first world country, we have the other view of what actually concerns our colleges and universities as they turn into diploma mills and finishing schools for circus performers.  Our schools no longer graduate the technicians needed to maintain our standard of living or keep us in the forefront of science. 

As we import people to pick our lettuce, we also import people (through the H1-B visa program) to invent our next generation of technology.  However the honorable dummies (I prefer to characterize them as ignorant instead of evil) in Washington who have no trouble letting the borders leak lettuce pickers, maintain a ridiculously low limit on the number of brains we allow in.  Gates told the honorables that “Congress’s failure to pass high-skill immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation, … The current  base cap of 65,000 H1-B visas (per year) is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the U.S. economy’s demand for skilled workers.”

OK, now drive your Tivo from C-SPAN to the NCAA basketball boob side of the tube.  There we see team after team of excellent athletes perform their tricks in the annual tournament - one of the major circuses that the public now demands.  These well-trained young men are hindered by little else than having to drag along a cumbersome, albeit watered-down, college curriculum as they sprint up and down the floor.

Ruminations - 18mar2008

George Rebane

‘War fades as story’ – now that we are making progress, the media’s interest have waned. But then, why advertize the other side’s successes?  As a story it should/could have faded much earlier and saved both American and Iraqi lives.  A broader look at this by the Miami Herald is provided here.

One Biotech Burger Please.  Genetically modified foods are much in the news.  How about genetically cloned as introduced in Popular Science -

If the biotech industry has its way, ordering a hamburger might soon sound something like this: “one charbroiled cloned-beef patty, with genetically modified cheese, lab-grown bacon and vitamin-C-fortified lettuce, on a protein-spiked bun.” The burger of the future is delicious, nutritious and contains more engineering than a stealth bomber.

Here’s the complete article to tell you more.

Some weeks ago Jo Ann and I came upon the recent HBO historical series ‘Rome’ on Netflix. What an awesome and entertaining production that literally pulls no punches on portraying life in ancient Roman during the half century before Christ.  The series is extremely well written and cast.  The production company constructed a large set of many acres depicting ancient Rome with all its mansions, collegiums, and slums.  The story told is of the demise of the Roman Republic and the ascendancy of the autocratic (tyrannical?) caesars, beginning with the tragically short reign of Julius himself, and going through the tumultuous transition to the stability of Augustus which launched the four hundred year autocracy we all learned about in school.  The cast of well known figures includes intimate looks at historical people such as Julius, Octavian (the young Augustus), Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Brutus, Cassius, Cicero, Cato, … and finely honed fictional characters that enable and glue together the historical panorama. The display of Roman values and daily life is nothing short of astounding – the slaves, nobles, freemen, daily grind, endless politics and plots, killing, sex, crime, religion – and is as accurately portrayed as the first person accounts that have come down to us.  This series is not for the sensitive or the impressionable young.  Full nudity, coitus, and gruesome death are displayed without fanfare in the natural (for those times) passage of events.  But after you obtain the appropriate parental guidance to see it, I assure you that you will be not only educated but also regally entertained.

Welcome CABPRO Report

George Rebane

CABPRO Report is the blog voice of Nevada County's California Association of Business, Property, and Resource Owners.  This promises to be an informative outlet of news, features, and opinion representing a large group of our neighbors who have been underheard for too long.  Kudos to new CABPRO Executive Director Martin Light for making it happen.  Ruminations is pleased to include this blog in its column of permanent links.

Singularity Signposts - 17mar2008

George Rebane

New Prosthesis has a bigger role to play.  Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and one of the true geniuses of our time, accepted a challenge from the Department of Defense to develop a prosthetic that gives the radical at-the-shoulder amputee an arm and hand that truly replicates almost all the functions of a real arm and hand.  A report and video of this project is available here.

As astounding as this advance is – and this is only the beginning – what occurred to me is that the real benefit from this technology will come from its application to fine resolution manipulanda on remotely operated platforms.  These may range from robots on the moon to surgical theaters on the other side of the world.  The transducers that take the nerve impulses controlling the arm don’t have to come from an amputee, but from anyone who has need to use such a remotely controlled machine for handling and manipulating things with a precision never before possible.  And, oh yes, the next generation of household robots may be able to play a little Chopin at the living room keyboard when asked.

'Mind Gaming' Could Enter Market This Year.  As in the previous SingularitySignposts - 14mar2008, another new user interface is being readied for the commercial markets.  The first application will be in fielding a new genre of games that take direction directly from the player's brain waves.  The picture shows Emotiv Systems' mind-control gaming headset to be introduced later this year.  Image strapping on one of these (of course, reduced into a more discreet form factor) and making all kinds of things happen on your computer or with other gadgets you may have around the house connected to your home wireless network.  More on this can be found here.  Fun times.

Postcards into a Fearsome Future – A Dialogue with Evan Jones

George Rebane

The reader joining this dialogue thread in the middle may want to first read Evan Jones’ piece ‘Who Decides?’ on communicating climate change to the masses (published on Watts Up With That) to which I responded in ‘Who Indeed Decides?’ on Ruminations that drew a thoughtful reply from Evan Jones.  This piece seeks to address the remaining open issues in a more comprehensible manner that extends the scope of the original guest post on Anthony Watts blog.

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What a wonderful and thorough response – thank you Evan!  It appears that we may be in an even wider violent agreement than I had initially thought.  I’d like to address more completely your very hopeful and uplifting ‘postcard pedagogy project’ (PPP) and start by wishing you every success.  I hope that we can stay in touch enough so that I may see the fruits of this project and contribute to it in any way I can.  In the following I will try to 1) lay out a basis for the difficulties that all communications to broad audiences have encountered, 2) connect these difficulties to the global warming debate, and 3) generalize the same to the greater problem of a sustaining a democratic republic in the 21st century.

Ruminations - 15mar2008

George Rebane

Blog does not have to register.  Blogger Art Segal (letorovalleyexcel.blogspot.com) of Oro Valley, Arizona had a brief but illuminating go-around with the town council.  Since he was vocal about which politicians he backed and opposed, the town leaders tried to stifle him by telling him he had to register as a “political committee”.  When the dust settled, the town was advised by outside counsel to leave Mr. Segal alone because “the blog does not raise or accept funds on behalf of candidates, it did not have to register.” Nevada County bloggers and governments take note as the election season heats up.

Grass Valley’s Press Release is Delayed.  Answering my question about emergency responder and staff layoffs and bankruptcy rumors last Tuesday, Mayor Mark Johnson stated that the City would issue a press release in the next few days to clear up such rumors and set the record straight on how the current “financial stresses” would be handled.  Apparently this is a more complicated matter than it then appeared to the leadership of the county’s premier city.  To follow up I called City Administrator Jeff Foltz’s office a couple of days ago.  He has been too busy to return that call so I presume there’s a whole lot of wordsmithing going on to get the promised press release out.  Then again, since even The Union didn’t pick up on the Mayor’s words, perhaps there is nothing to be concerned about and we should all just forget about it.

15mar08-2045 ... and here developing next door in Auburn

Max Hasting’s long-awaited Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45  has just been published.  Students of WW2 and 20th century history have been waiting for this revealing history of the war’s last year in the Pacific since Hasting’s Armageddon appeared four years ago.  In the latter work the celebrated historian gave an account of the European war from D-Day through the summer of 1945 (after VE-Day) revealing a view of what really happened that was not previously available in one coherent and tightly written volume.  It is a treatment definitely not recommended for those in whom that conflict has lain comfortably buried under a tombstone of three or four slogans learned in state-run public schools.  For the rest of us, the long wait is now over.   

15mar08 - 2100 ... Help the Nevada County Library.  Go to Martin Light's Light on Nevada County for details.

The Catastrophe of Compassionate Charities

George Rebane

A dear friend in the LA area is building a new orphanage in Haiti.  He has always had a weak spot for children in general, and when exposed to the plight of some of Haiti’s little AIDS orphans he responded.  He joined with another friend and partner to found www.wecanbuildanorphanage.com.  Being a sucker for such pursuits, Jo Ann and I have become supporters of this ongoing act of compassion.

I am not trumpeting yet another charity that we support, but offering a candid and, perhaps, coarse examination of what could be argued as irresponsible behavior.  How so?  Well, that orphanage has been built in the middle of a dysfunctional culture and it will be totally dependent on the outside support that my friend is able to muster for it.  If ever he lets go, like so many similar efforts around the world, it will collapse.  The Haitian community cannot support it economically nor does it even see any necessity to keep it going.  The community’s job, it seems, is to continue supplying an endless stream of desperate toddlers for such an orphanage.

Singularity Signposts – 14mar2008

George Rebane

You’re walking down a busy city street and stop at a window that is displaying what the sign says is a Han dynasty bronze lamp.  Intrigued about the beautiful artifact of a bygone age you want to know more about the Han dynasty.  Without moving your lips or making a sound, you form the words in your mind, ‘Wikipedia, Han dynasty’.  In a few seconds over your online iPod’s earbud comes “The Han Dynasty; 206 BC–220 AD followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. The Han Dynasty was ruled by the prominent family known as the Liu  clan. The reign of the Han Dynasty, lasting over 400 years, is commonly considered … “  Your silent access to the internet or your cell phone or any other voice activated device/system is made possible by a new throat pick-off that translates into silent speech the nerve signals going to your larynx.  These can then be converted by voice understanding software into commands for internet access, or directly transmitted over your cell phone.  You are now a walking talking version of a intellectually-augmented human, and this is only the beginning.  See a demonstration here.

Internet AI-based avatars may soon re/act like real people  “Passing the Turing test--the holy grail of artificial intelligence (AI), whereby a human conversing with a computer can't tell it's not human--may now be possible in a limited way with the world's fastest supercomputer (IBM's Blue Gene), according to AI experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI is aiming to pass AI's final exam this fall …”  (more)

Ruminations - 12mar2008

George Rebane

TV is changing.  It is merging with the internet, or is the internet merging with TV.  It doesn’t matter, with broadband connectivity that is not mediated by government, content will follow the eyeballs.  Take at look at this new service www.hulu.com .

Global Warming: No Urgent Danger; No Quick Fix   With a nod to Russ Steele’s (NC Media Watch) tireless efforts to educate us all on the follies of anthropogenic global warming, this piece from Cato is worth a read.

In "Global Warming: No Urgent Danger, No Quick Fix" Cato senior fellow Patrick Michaels writes: "Let's get real and give the politically incorrect answers to global warming's inconvenient questions. Global warming is real, but it does not portend immediate disaster, and there's currently no suite of technologies that can do much about it. The obvious solution is to forgo costs today on ineffective attempts to stop it, and to save our money for investment in future technologies and inevitable adaptation.          

Finally, I was amused to see how the few Spitzer defenders are positioning themselves now that the Great Eastern Moralist has been caught with his hand up a strange woman’s skirt, albeit one that was bought and paid for.  With the scandal less than 48 hours old, we are already told that it is time for New York and country to “move on and put this behind us”.  Holy cow! the tires from the screeching halt to this political poster boy’s career are still smoking, and now we need to move on?  If this guy had been Republican, we’d be just starting to sharpen the knives for an extended butcher job.

As Mike McDaniel and I pointed out in the SESF report on affordable housing, government’s meddling in the housing markets has been a disaster for low-income Americans.  “Affordable housing” is a political definition at odds with what builders want to build and people are willing to pay.  If the community needs low cost housing (defined by the market) then let the builders, lenders, and buyers decide on the products that will serve.  Finally, it seems that Grass Valley’s social engineers are beginning to rethink the damage they have done to this community’s housing market with their 20% “affordable housing” requirement.  Last night’s city council meeting showed a crack in that façade; now they have to figure how they can back out with political hides intact – ‘peace with honor’.

The GV City Council Responds

George Rebane

Just got back from the Grass Valley City Council meeting still in session.  During the early public comments/questions segment I was able to ask the council directly as to the truth of rumors that the city is planning to lay off first responders and staff, and possibly even consider filing for bankruptcy.

Mayor Mark Johnson responded to my question and stated that GV, like many cities today, is concerned about its finances.  He cited that with the current economic situation the city is not at all certain as to the revenues it will receive, and is already in the process of reviewing what steps need to be taken to finalize the city’s budget and meet its financial obligations.  He also stated that he has received calls from the media regarding this situation, and that the City will issue a press release explaining the matter within the next few days.

While not directly answering my question, one could conclude from the light-hearted manner in which it was received and responded to, that the Council clearly wants to communicate that such dire implications as significant staff cuts, let alone declaring bankruptcy, was not being considered.  I am sure that the upcoming press release will answer all remaining questions and put the matter to rest.

GV City Council Meeting Tonight - Tuesday 11 March

Lots of closed door sessions first.  Open meeting agenda here.  Will not be televised in realtime.

Looming GV Crisis? - “…not much meat here.” says professional journalist

George Rebane

Last night Russ Steele of NC Media Watch posted a heads-up piece – ‘Developing story: Grass Valley is struggling’ - about the financial crisis looming over Grass Valley.   Yesterday saw a flurry of emails advising members of the BTA that GV may have a several million dollar budget shortfall that will require it to cut back city staff and services.  If last week’s news about Vallejo was the first shoe, then this portends the dropping of at least the other sock right here in Nevada County.  GV’s growing fiscal problems have made news before, but if true, this development seems to be a big step up or down, if you will, in its ongoing struggles.  Since we heard no one from the city confirm these reports, Russ emailed the Council members for confirmation and offered source confidentiality if it was needed to get information relevant to the developing story. 

So far, there has been no confirmation, so the story’s status must remain as a plausible rumor – or as Drudge would report, as “developing”.  Keep an eye on NC Media Watch for timely updates.  Of course, the next City Council meeting this Thursday at 7pm should be a lot of fun for those who enjoy studying the political class in action.

And all this did not evade the ever watchful Blog Bomber who promptly dropped a load of his wisdom on Russ’ piece to make sure that all unwary readers knew what was what.  As a substitute for wearing a garland of garlic around my neck to ward off similar sorties, I promptly declare that we have recently again contributed to the campaigns of Sue Horne and Nate Beason.  We did this in exchange for their promises to provide Jo Ann and me with more of the same favors and benefits that they faithfully delivered during their past terms as our elected leaders.  Keep a careful eye out for how all this continues to affect the uneven commentary on Ruminations.

Ruminations - 10mar2008

George Rebane

Canadian Healthcare.  If you’re voting for a new president this November, then this short video is worth a look.  http://tinyurl.com/356v7m

Everybody wins - both sides can use this little piece.  Here’s a video by Obama on defense that both Hillary and McCain can use in the coming weeks (supposing, of course, that Hillary still has weeks left).   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs 

“In a massive disaster, care will be scarce. State guidelines lay framework for deliberately letting some people die.” – from the SacBee.  Worth thinking about as we consider how the county is planning to prepare for large scale disasters.  An LSE is one that affects everyone in the county; think dialing 911 and no one answers.  http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/753359.html

Who Indeed Decides?

George Rebane

On Anthony Watts' blog Evan Jones guest-posts a good article on the role of experts informing decisions made by non-experts.  I think Jones’ analysis and advice are right on the mark – mostly.  He almost finishes the article intact, but then concludes it with a leap into a large black hole of hope with –

No matter how complicated an issue may be, it can generally be broken down into basic questions and decision points that can be expressed on the side of a postcard. But in order to do that, the layman requires unbiased advice, or at least the advice of both sides. For the expert to rebuke him with a patronizing “read a book” is an abrogation of responsibility on the part of the expert. It is not the layman’s responsibility to become an expert on every subject requiring a decision. Furthermore, it is a practical impossibility. It is up to the expert to explain his position simply, plainly, and in layman’s terms.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence that such “side of postcard” informatics, generated by experts or anyone else, are possible “(n)o matter how complicated and issue may be”.  This is not only one of the fatal flaws in our legal system of trial by juries judiciously composed of the malleably ignorant, but also a prevailing myth of modern education that directly impacts our survival as a popular democracy.  That everyone can be taught (become sufficiently informed of) anything in a few sound bites scribbled on a postcard is blatantly false as demonstrated daily by almost every published survey, and reading a book is of no help to at least half of us (see the longitudinal study on the literacy of American adults).   

What further chisels this myth into stone is the added dictum that if the intellectually less endowed doesn’t learn, then it’s automatically the teacher’s/expert’s fault.  With these immutable beliefs in place, the ignorant know they understand everything worth understanding, and then enter the voting booth with all the confidence of a child running into the street to retrieve his ball. 

Broad understanding of the complex technical, economic, and social issues surrounding climate change doesn’t have a chance, else those little postcards would already have been written and tempered the growing emotional hype sweeping the world.

The ERC vs Economic Development as Usual

George Rebane

This morning ERC held its annual meeting at the Holiday Inn with over 85 of the community’s leaders and interested parties there to enjoy breakfast and see what will pass for economic development (ED) this year.  Gil Mathew, ERC CEO, presided over a well-organized gathering and gave a fine welcoming speech. In it he pointed out to all that the first thing we really need is to agree on ‘what exactly is ED?’, else down the line some will be zigging while others are zagging.  At the end of his talk each of the tables were given some questions to discuss for about ten minutes and then present their thoughts to the whole group.  Well enough.

We duly bent to the task in the short time allowed, and came up with something between little and not much.  However our table’s leader, as most of the folks in attendance, was no slouch, and when he rose to speak, gave a good demonstration of what may charitably be called realtime synthesis – he put together a fine sounding group of words from which it was hard to get any, well let’s call it, semantic purchase.  Which itself was OK, since we gave him even less to work on.  Other tables delivered similar reports; with the ones who actually took notes doing a bit better.

Calexico, here we come!

George Rebane

One of the least pleasing of my predictions for the next twenty years is the demise of the United States as a democratic republic (see 'Two Twenty-Year Views' ).  Peering into the foggy future, I see our country transforming itself into a loosely formed confederacy, this conclusion is due to a number of geo-political forces working us in that direction.  Recently, this thesis received some more confirmation with Kosovo’s declaration of independence that is being hailed by the international community save Russia and, of course, Serbia from which the breakaway occurred.  The fact that our own government is celebrating this cleaving portends badly for our own future as a sovereign nation-state.

A correspondent in the 3mar08 Wall Street Journal put it very succinctly –

Regarding your editorial "The Birth of Kosovo" (Feb. 19): In 2025 or 2030 or 2035 or whenever, Latinos will constitute the majority of the population in California, Texas, New Mexico and whatever other state.

At that time, reflecting the democratic will of the majority, leaders of the Latino community will appeal to the United Nations and demand that the world body recognize California, Texas, New Mexico and whatever other state as independent countries. A vote in the U.N. will legitimize this demand over the vehement protestations of the U.S. and on July 3, 2025, or whenever, California, Texas, etc., will unilaterally declare their sovereignty.
Russia and other countries will immediately extend diplomatic recognition to the new states whereupon in Washington excited mobs will burn down the Russian embassy in protest. 

You say it's an implausible and ridiculous scenario? Think Kosovo.

As if to underline the long-festering mood in our own southwest, a series of pictures along with the report of a large group of Latino students raising the Mexican flag at southern California’s Montebello High School is now circulating on the internet.  What made this portentous celebration even more sinister was their placement of Old Glory, upside down, under the Mexican flag.  For the civics-challenged, Old Glory flown upside down is our historical distress signal. 

The politically correct mainstream media did not want to touch this incident with a ten-footer - after all, aren’t we multi-cultural and inclusive?  My usual reaction is to check such reports out with Snopes.com, one of the web’s rumor control and verification sites.  Here is what they reported.  For those readers not familiar with major national trends, a perusal of ethnic advocacy organizations such as MALDEF and La Raza is recommended as a start.