Rebane's Ruminations

‘You Are Not a Gadget’

George Rebane

Thus argues secular humanist author, musician, and self-educated techie Jaron Lanier.  His cleverly titled book came out earlier this year, and I received it as a birthday present from old friends in soCal who are of a similar philosophical vein.  The book is a fascinating cobble of various articles and pieces Lanier has written over the last twenty years or so.  The jacket blurb would have you believe that it is also “controversial”, but only if enough people would read it to create controversy.

The essay itself is a rambling yet engaging collection of historical observations, experiences recounted, and musings philosophical of the current pre-Singularity years as Man collides and couples with machine.  I found it interesting because of my own work in the same vineyards, but in many places I saw different things happening for different reasons than did Lanier.

In the book he shows us the impact on society – ‘technical and cultural problems’ – that “can grow out of poorly considered digital design", although I didn’t find cited examples compelling.  He does seem to be concerned about a genre of computer programs (machine intelligence) and the new celebration of ‘mob wisdom’ that yields various algorithmic cook-ups of what groups of people purport to say and do.  These he sees as beginning to trump “over the intelligence and judgment of individuals” in advanced societies.

Finally, he argues for the advent of a “humanistic technology” that somehow will maintain the primacy of human individualism and creativity in a world facing the onslaught of ever more intelligent machines.  Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear navy, introduced the notion of humanistic technology in a 1964 speech at Georgetown University.  He was worried that technology might be developed for its own sake instead of for solving specific human problems.  And high thinking people have been so worried ever since.

Why doesn’t this go away?

George Rebane

The media calls people ‘Birthers’ who are in doubt as to Barack Obama’s place of birth.  The official White House story is that our President was born in Honolulu on 4 August 1961.  For the country this statement rests on evidence reported in media sources like USA Today (here).

Yet no previous US president has spent so much and made such an heroic effort to have ALL records of his life sealed and kept from public view.  For a controversial occupant of the most powerful office in the world, it seems that he would want to be very forthcoming about his legitimacy and past history.  It is only natural for people to raise their eyebrows when Obama erects barriers to legitimate enquiry at every turn.

And the pot just keeps bubbling with allegations from Kenya, Indonesia, … on record that point to everywhere but Honolulu as his birthplace.  Now the latest (10 June 2010) piece to surface is the report by a former Hawaii senior elections clerk, who had verifiable access to all kinds of personal information data bases as part of his job, stating that it was confirmed to him that Obama was not born in Honolulu.  He has now gone public with the details of his allegations (see YouTube video).  My immediate question is why did the clerk wait so long?

Assuming that he can answer that question and convince a court of the evidence he purports, the country has a problem.  Previous suits of this nature have all been thrown out peremptorily for what the plaintiffs claim were arbitrary reasons.  But the fundamental question remains - since it is so easy to put the matter to rest, why does President Obama keep it alive?

The Charade of Supremes

George Rebane

Does anyone know of any Supreme Court justice who didn’t vote their ideology because of something they said or promised during their Senate confirmation hearing?  Is there any record of any justice being so restricted or constrained?  I know of no such event or ruling that history records.

Then how are we to interpret the pious mouthings of senators in front of a mike, pledging to take the latest nominee Elena Kagan through a rigorous questioning, and getting her to somehow pledge that she will straighten out and fly right while on the bench.  Since none of this is possible, representing the current constitutional charade as somehow verifying her bona fides for a lifetime sinecure confirms that the politicians know they are just soothing the sheeple.

This is particularly true of the Republican worthies on the Judiciary Committee.  They of all people know they are powerless to stop this legal lightweight from being sworn in.  They know that the country is now getting a long-lived justice whose resume contains only partisan arguments while in court and in front of Congress, and whose writings on the law are at best minimal but sobering.  No one even knows her marital status.

In her inexperience and strong progressive ideology she will add to the common denominator of the Obama administration, starting with the President himself.  But the woman is smart, knows how to work organizations and bureaucracies, and will become an effective progressive anchor to our third branch of government.  And she will do this in spite of her promises that she will be a constitutional “originalist” hewing to the original intent of the Founders.

The deal was done weeks ago.  Let’s swear in the woman, and get on with arguing the next stimulus or 'jobs' bill, or whatever  piece of legislation will hasten the crisis.

The ‘Rebane Ratio’ Lives ;-)

George Rebane

For quite some time now (most recently here) I have been a lonely voice from the hills of Nevada County trying to convince people that our country’s financial crisis is not measured or reported properly.  Hyperventilation on the impending disasters of debt and deficits are presented as debt to GDP and deficit to federal budget ratios, and so published by economists and finance mavens through their foundations/blogs/websites.  This incomprehensible gibberish leaves people yawning.

 

The critical measure that will make it all clear is the national debt service to GDP ratio.  That is because this ratio represents the country’s stark cashflow problem and impacts us immediately year-to-year.  Since no one seemed to understand or care, I modestly suggested that this little orphan ratio should be called the Rebane Ratio.

Yesterday an RR reader sent me a link to a video of a Peterson Institute for International Economics presentation given by Harvard historian and business school professor Niall Ferguson.  Here the good professor goes through the arguments already familiar to RR readers on the coming financial brick wall toward which the US and other nations are heading.  Dr Ferguson cites recent IMF and OECD analyses that point to the Rebane Ratio as being the telling metric that informs us of the proximity and magnitude of the calamity.  This comes off as financial rocket science when it really isn’t.  The surprise is that no one has talked about it, and no one in the media publishes a chart or graph of this metric.  Let me explain.

Gun Rights Staunch the Tide

George Rebane

The Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 ruling declaring that private ownership of guns is indeed a constitutionally guaranteed right (here).  Again, the courts have let the total control collectivists know that the “well regulated militia” phrase in the Second Amendment is not the comprehensive gun ban that they have been working towards under various guises since the end of WW2.  Now begin the lower court battles to roll back the byzantine strictures to combat gun ownership/use installed by the left over the years.

As a lifelong NRA member, I will be following and supporting these engagements that also serve to reveal our individual values and concepts of government and governance.

I was thinking about all this yesterday afternoon on our local rifle range owned and operated by the Nevada County Sportsmens’ Club.  As members, we all have to do a certain number of hours of ‘club duty’ each year.  My contribution is to serve as rangemaster for the rifle and pistol range when the club invites the public to shoot noon to 4pm on Sunday afternoons.  So yesterday was my turn again to be ‘sheriff’, and make sure that shooters had a safe and enjoyable time on the range.  I learned this skill in the Army where almost every combat arms officer has to run a firing range to periodically re/qualify the troops under his command.  Being able to make available this community resource then becomes a privilege and an honor for those of us who understand the meaning of liberty and a civilized society that promotes gun ownership and use by law-abiding citizens.

The Khan Academy

George Rebane

The significance of EVERY social problem/issue is due ONLY to the numbers that describe it – i.e. its dimensions and magnitude, rates of change, incidences, likelihoods of occurrence, relation to & impact on other things, and the alternatives, costs, and social utility of solutions.

In response to the deplorable government statistics on the literacy and numeracy of the American electorate and adult population, I designed and presented a series of seminars on numeracy that was sponsored by the Nevada City Rotary Club and given at the Madelyn Helling Library.   This was augmented by the Numeracy Nuggets series on the SESF website (www.sesfoundation.org ) We all know what literacy is (although few know that our functional adult illiteracy rate is over 40%), but not many people understand the notion of numeracy.

Numeracy is the ability to understand and use arithmetic, numerical concepts (ratios, percentages, interest rates, time value of money, etc), simple logic, elementary probability/uncertainty, read graphs and charts, …, in short, numbers based information that is reported daily in the public media.  Numeracy is the minimum skill set that enables critical thinking.  An innumerate person is denied that ability.  The late Arthur C. Clarke said, “In today’s world innumeracy is an even greater danger than illiteracy, and is perhaps even more common.  Advertisers and politicians exploit it, intellectuals (self-styled) even flaunt it.”  How many times have we heard an otherwise seemingly intelligent person say with some hubris, ‘Oh, I don’t do numbers.’?

Our federal government pretty much gave up on attempts to address innumeracy after its incidence, according to its own measures (more here), exceeded about 90% in the adult population.  European governments recognized this scourge for a while longer, funding adult programs to combat innumeracy.  Today, no government is concerned with such efforts, perhaps because innumerate voters are much more malleable, and all political parties are convinced of their superior ability to persuade the great unwashed.

Well, the power of the internet has again come to the rescue of those who want to be rescued.  Mr. Salman Khan has recorded over 1,500 short online YouTube videos on math and science into a collection he calls the Kahn Academy.  These bite-sized gems start with basic arithmetic and go into the heights of differential equations and linear algebra with everything in between.  He also covers physics, chemistry, and elements of finance.  It is a labor of love and free to all who are willing to relinquish an episode or two of Survivors in order to help us all survive.  (short article here)

A Uniquely Internet Colloquium

George Rebane

Here’s something that came with the explosion of weblogs, street corners and soap boxes of opportunity that people can take advantage of as a matter of convenience.  Last March I posted a piece – ‘The Sad Tale of Anna Haynes’ – on the unseemly in-your-face tactics of our local advocate of man-made global warming (AGW).  And after a little passage of time, the comment stream on that post was revived by a group of people debating climate change who apparently were denied a forum on other True Believers’ blogs - a not uncommon occurrence with 'the debate is over' crowd.  I’m not sure how they wound up on RR, but I suspect that Dr Haynes’ high jinks had something to do with it.  Russ Steele, our local well-read purveyor of climate change skepticism on NCMW, probably has more information to share on all this.

These exchanges are almost all civil and get into some detail on the issue itself.  Even I was taken to task by one of the commenters to explain my unique contribution to AGW skepticism.  Anyway, check out an arbitrary collection of passionate people choosing another convenient streetlight under which to air their points of view.  It could only happen on the 21st century internet.

Ruminations - 26jun2010 (updated)

George Rebane

“Never seek justice, only mercy.” Coach Dick Beede

- NRA’s deal with the devil
- Secular Islam censoring ‘anti-Islam’ search engines
- McChrystal’s substance starting to seep
- Barry Pruett starts blogging

The latest progressive assault on First Amendment rights is in full swing with Charlie Schumer et al leading the way with the ‘Disclose Act’ that would require advocacy groups to run a new regulatory gauntlet to get their word out.  Old and large single issue (Second Amendment) advocacy group, National Rifle Association (of which I am a member), correctly opposed the bill and said so.  The Schumer socialists then replied with a ‘large and old organization set aside’ that would exclude organizations like the NRA and, of course, big unions.  NRA would then withhold its opposition.  But smaller advocacy groups that come into being to oppose/support timely and important issues would have to run the censorship gauntlet.  (more here)

NRA sent out letters to its outraged members (me included) explaining its position, and claiming total victory in avoiding being muzzled by the Disclose Act.  What the NRA seems to have overlooked is that we defend the Second Amendment only because it is the lynchpin for upholding the Constitution, and all the other amendments starting with the First – free speech.  Allowing the smaller advocacy groups to be bundled and thrown under the bus hearkens back to the Germany of the 1930s – ‘First they came for the Jews, but I didn’t complain because I wasn’t a Jew, then they came for …’.  We must recall that the pen is mightier than the sword only to the extent that it can invoke the sword (one of Rebane's Reality Rules).  What will then invoke the sword when that pen is taken away? 

The left stopped direct assault on the Second Amendment a few years back as a losing proposition.  And now we understand the progressives’ game, and why Congress continues to play footsie with the ‘Fairness Doctrine’.

[update] Meanwhile the leftwing beat goes on.  At a recent forum titled 'The Control of Public Media as a Social Justice Issue', Scott Sanders, a Chicago-based 'media activist' said, "social justice movements need to radically re-invision the US public service media system. It would be almost unrecognizable alongside the current version - alternative democratic structures to govern public media and radio.  Democratic participation in cultural civic production only occurs when the powerless speak to themselves and to wider audiences." (more here)

KVMR Commentary - Competence, Complexity, or Complicity

George Rebane

[This is a transcript of my most recent KVMR 89.5FM commentary that was broadcast earlier this evening.]

Competence, complexity, or complicity.  Earlier this week President Obama fired his commander of the Afghanistan war, General Stanley McChrystal.  The president had every right to fire his general, and in this case the general gave the president cause to replace him.  But commentary surrounding this historic dismissal mostly missed a very important point – was there any substance to the general’s criticisms of Obama and his Washington national security staff?

President Obama has surrounded himself with the largest cohort of far left ideologues that includes the smallest number of people with any experience in the private sector of any president on record.  Only about 8% of his senior staff has business experience, the rest are former career politicians and government lawyers.  For other presidents this fraction did not dip below 50%.

And this staff was prepared for bringing about a fundamental transformation in the world’s leading capitalist country.  What was he thinking when he planned to nationalize healthcare, take over major private industries, revamp the country’s energy policy, and stimulate the private sector with an explosion of the government sector and a stifling increase in national debt?

Economic Enlightenment

George Rebane

A lot of the ideological dust ups, both locally and nationally, involve understanding and interpreting some pretty fundamental economic factors.  Zeljka Buturovic and Daniel B. Klein published research (‘Economic Enlightenment in Relation to College-going, Ideology, and Other Variables: A Zogby Survey’) of Americans based on a survey of over four thousand American adults on their beliefs about such economic factors.  The results can be downloaded from here, and are remarkable in that they pretty much follow the plausible path for those leaning to the right.  The work also explains the lack of correlation between economic enlightenment and college education.  It is one that most well-read people already suspect, and those of us who have taught at the university level have directly experienced with our colleagues of the professoriate.  The paper is neither long nor complex, and a pretty quick read with references for digging deeper.  I can already hear the howls.

Oh yes, and here’s this week’s little contribution to curing insomnia.  Big pharma shudders.

 

ERC Makes It Happen Again

George Rebane

This morning you could not find a parking place within a quarter mile of the Holiday Inn Express in Grass Valley.  The event was the Small Business & Entrepreneur Seminar sponsored by our very own Economic Resource Council.  Speaking to an SRO assembly of small business owners, entrepreneurs, and those thinking about sticking their toe into business ownership was an array of qualified speakers from various local jurisdictions and NGOs all leaning forward to help get something going and going stronger to help our community prosper.

 

Officiating in his finest fettle was Mr Gil Mathew the CEO and head honcho of ERC.  Gil has to be one of our community’s finest gentlemen who is constantly giving of himself to build Nevada County and help others enjoy the business success that he himself created right here where we all live.

I was also particularly impressed by the presentations of Nevada City councilwoman Sally Harris and Grass Valley Mayor Lisa Swarthout.  They spoke about their own business experiences here in Nevada County and how they used available government assisted financing to get things going.  Both women were knowledgeable about their subject and gave a clear, complete, and concise accounting of how it was done.  I am heartened that we have electeds in office with such business backgrounds.

And for you out there contemplating the use of other people’s money to start or grow your business, contact the city halls of Nevada City, Grass Valley, and even the county’s Rood Center to see if you can get your meat hooks into some of the cash they have waiting there for folks just like you.

All in all, it was another good and well-received gathering to promote local wealth generation and prosperity for the place we all call home.  Thank you ERC.

Obama fires his general

George Rebane

President Obama fired General McChrystal this morning for allowing his staff to be frank with at least one Rolling Stone reporter embedded in McChrystal’s headquarters in Kabul.  Apparently it was also no secret that the general did not think highly of Obama’s civilian national security team, nor Obama’s leadership of the entire military effort.  All of this was most certainly adequate grounds for the general’s dismissal, and it’s difficult to conceive how after this our middle east policy could have gone forward with McChrystal and his staff still in Afghanistan.

But in the middle of all the hubbub surrounding this historic act and how the Afghanistan war will now be managed, very little is being said about the substantive aspects of McChrystal’s criticisms.  McChrystal’s points were sufficiently detailed and came from an experienced and highly respected military leader so as to demand examination on their own merits.  The entire episode again shines a light on Obama’s competency to handle the post into which he was emoted with absolutely no credentials beyond looks and elocution.

We should all be keeping an eye on how the various media handle this momentous event.  I predict the lame stream media will not touch it, and Fox News will have difficulty in getting their arms around it.  But not to worry, the blogosphere will no doubt continue to cover the competency controversy, and some of it may even escape out into the airwaves.

Ruminations - 22jun2010

George Rebane

• Lamphier and Diaz victories
• Smart meters and robots
• Overseas Contingency Operations
• Time to blow the well from hell?

I guess if The Union says it’s so, it must be so.  Terry Lamphier’s victory over incumbent John Spencer for District #3 county supervisor was a most curious display of self-interest by the voters.  It wasn’t as if Lamphier’s qualifications were a mystery as RR and other local blogs pointed out months ago.  But for those paying attention, Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter played out right here in Nevada County.  Mr Lamphier simply ran a better campaign, betting that the voter had no clue as to the qualifications and demonstrated experience of both candidates.  He won the bet, and the county lost.

In the Diaz/Pruett race for Clerk-Recorder we had another case of the word not getting out as to Mr Diaz’s competence.  Again local blogs tried to lift the lid on the matter, but Mr Diaz had the support of the county leadership which was a too heavy burden for first-timer Barry Pruett to overcome.  It took an election to confirm the minority opinion about incumbent Diaz’s competence.  I’m sure even more will emerge later, unless, of course, all of it gets buried along with the egg scraped off some pretty prominent faces around here.

Wherever you live, you’ll soon be getting a ‘smart meter’ to measure and control your electricity use.  Then you’ll be buying appliances and other electric powered devices that contain a little chip that tells the powers that be when and how much it is being used.  That little puppy will also allow the powers that be to make it so you can’t use the device when you’re not supposed to use it.  And if you think these things will be just used to control your energy usage, then you should go back to watching American Idol.  For the others, Russ Steele is tracking this brave new world, and has posted an expanded piece on all this here.

Meanwhile smart machines have already invaded the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to an extent that should make all free world citizens thinks twice (thinking twice is not allowed under autocratic governments).  In addition to those Unmanned Aerial Vehicles firing Hellfire missiles down on the ragheads, we have all kinds of other automated thingies that sense, communicate, and kill.  Some of them are very small, some fly, some crawl, some even change shape to get into hard places.  As described in a good Scientific American article here, and here from my friend Dr Larry Press, this field is literally exploding with the advances in AI and computing power.  For some reason the article does not contemplate the use of such technology by a government to suppress dissent within its own borders.  But then, maybe the smart chip in your dishwasher will allow them to nip that kind of dissent in the bud.

Speaking of ragheads, Faisal Shahzad, the American raghead who tried to blow up Times Square, told us again in court that we are in a war against Islam, and deserve to have our women and children blown to smithereens.  Meanwhile our feckless leaders have gone into terminal denial about all of this, not even deigning to call the sumbiches terrorists, and trading in our already weak soup recent ‘war on terror’ for ‘overseas contingency operation’.

 

Finally, is it time to blow the well from hell?  The more we read about that BP blowout in the Gulf, the more it sounds like all the possible risky scenarios of trying to plug it on the seafloor have not been made public nor fully evaluated.  For more on the ongoing saga of this disaster, a RR reader recommends this link.  The relief wells are now within 200 feet of the spewing well casing.  This is within striking distance of what I described here.  Someone somewhere should be considering this alternative before we have a Mt. St. Helens under water.

Why the West is Losing

George Rebane

Western civilization is under attack from many directions.   One of the reasons that we are measurably losing on most fronts is that we have lost the moral authority to defend ourselves.  So argues Shelby Steele, author and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, in the 21jun10 WSJ (here).  He writes –

“… the entire Western world has suffered from a deficit of moral authority for decades now. Today we in the West are reluctant to use our full military might in war lest we seem imperialistic; we hesitate to enforce our borders lest we seem racist; we are reluctant to ask for assimilation from new immigrants lest we seem xenophobic; and we are pained to give Western Civilization primacy in our educational curricula lest we seem supremacist. Today the West lives on the defensive, the very legitimacy of our modern societies requiring constant dissociation from the sins of the Western past—racism, economic exploitation, imperialism and so on.”

We are paying doubly under this administration which has mobilized the country’s dissidents, and is organizing them into cadres preparing America for a future where its sovereignty and European heritage will remain only as dark pages in the revised history of an age that no longer beckons anyone.  As for great cilizations of the past, our greatest threat comes from within.

AWOL Afghans - not an immigration case

George Rebane

Another major lapse in government competence is demonstrated almost daily.  We, of course, know that what we hear about is just the very tip of the iceberg of incompetence.  It is for this reason RR argues that we should minimize the role of government wherever we can.

Now we hear that over the last year and a half 17 Afghan pilot trainees have gone missing in the United States, and somewhere between 6 and 10 (the government reports conflict) are still missing.  And the government does not consider this to be a national security matter, but an “immigration violation”.  The dufus index on this one is pretty much off the scale, but not to worry.  They’re extending the scale for next time.

To illustrate how tangled is the current national debate on ‘immigration’, there is no clear conception of the types and status of aliens currently residing in the US.  An effort was made here to structure and highlight this mish-mash of perception and policy.

These Afghans never were immigrants and are not now 'illegal immigrants'.  They were technically aliens here on work visas the conditions for which they have now violated.  That makes them simply illegal aliens and fugitives from our law.

The fact that they’re Muslims also makes them a national security threat in a Bayesian sense (profiling and all that, gasp!) given the history and experience with Islam’s use of terror against the west.  There is at least one member of Congress (Senator John Cornyn, R TX) who understands this.

Meanwhile the federal inepts mumble, cover up, and argue to take over more of our economy and lives with programs staffed by the dumbest of the dumb placed into organizational structures that have never worked.  And half of us are cheering them on.

A related graphic appears below.

 

The Secrecy of Unnatural Gas Reserves

George Rebane

Every once in a while we hear a peep about huge reserves of natural gas opening up because of new extraction technologies like ‘fracking’.  The US and Canada have reserves that will serve us for over a century.  It is simply political will or its lack that keeps us from reducing, or even completely eliminating our dependence on foreign oil.

 

Natural gas is clean and plentiful, and its extraction is free of the concerns connected with pulling coal and oil out of the ground.  A good survey article on all this is ‘Wonderfuel: Welcome to the age of unconventional gas’ published in the New Scientist.

Green Jobs are like Obscenities

George Rebane

Over a year ago when the left started lathering about cap and tax legislation that was supposed to reduce our need for imported oil and create green jobs, certain observers on the right dared to ask ‘what is a green job?’.  It was not an idle question since the government was going to tax us hundreds of billions, and then give the money to people claiming they knew the answer.  Well, a year later, and as syndicated columnist Byron York in today’s Union points out, no one still knows what a green job is.  In spite of that and the promise of ‘full accountability’, the next version of cap and tax (Kerry/Lieberman) is on the congressional launch pad.

The ignorance and confusion has reached such heights today that the government is asking bidders for green jobs related funding to offer their definitions of what a green job is.  ‘We don’t know what it is, but we’re determined to go into more debt funding it.’  Maybe they can draw from our historical waltz with trying to define what is obscene.  I recall some judge saying that ‘While I can’t define obscenity, but I’ll know one when I see one.’  I predict green jobs will wind up being like that.

As Russ Steele points out on NCMW, we need to discriminate between green and yellow and purple jobs in California, because we’re getting ready to shoot ourselves in the other foot economically by cobbling together funding programs that will piss away (certified obscenity) billions for little benefit beyond buying Democrat votes.  And in that sense the quixotic quest for green jobs will be an obscene waste of more scarce resources.

I am reminded of the fact that no poor country (read economy) has ever cared for its ecology.  In truth and unarguably, the greenest jobs are those that allow us to create the wealth necessary to provide for a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.   In the end it doesn’t matter, the looney left will again bleat their ultimate raison d’etre for government spending, ‘But we can’t just do nothing!’  Yes we can, give 'nothing' from the government a chance.

Peter and Paul working on their Principle (updated 21jun2010)

George Rebane

When you promise to rob Peter to pay Paul, you will have Paul’s full support.

The latest Gallup poll confirms that only the very poor and young give Obama a slim majority (52%) in his job approval rating.  The remaining demographic classes are all well below majority levels (46%).  More here and here.

 

These ratings are just one of many indicators why our radically progressive President and his equally tilted Congress has had to ram Obamacare through on a bed of lies that now surface daily like the oil in the Gulf.  And it also explains why the same crowd must next ram through Cap and Tax (aka Kerry-Lieberman) under the guise of solving the country’s dependence on foreign oil and preventing accidents like the ongoing BP spill and stopping global warming and reducing deficits and building our economy and creating jobs and ... .  Never mind that the contradictions are big enough allow a CVN to pass through unimpeded.  The administration’s lie machine is well oiled, warmed up, and already working overtime.

'Damn those poor and ignorant people, we are making a new world order for their benefit – they’ll thank us later when they realize all we have done for them.'  (H/T to RR reader.)

[21jun2010 update] The British National Health Service has been cited by the progressives as a model for what Obamacare will ideally become at some future enlightened time.  They are undoubtedly right that Obamacare will become another unsustainable socialized NHS, but I'll bet you won't like it.  Check out the progress going on in Great Britain (here).  (H/T to another RR reader.)

Are the Primaries Over Yet?

George Rebane

Terry Lamphier’s supervisorial victory, announced yesterday, anticipates the closing bell for Round One in this mid-term election year.  We supported Terry’s opponent, incumbent John Spencer.  We also supported Barry Pruett for Clerk-Recorder who lost to incumbent Greg Diaz.  And there’s probably more to be said about that race.  I hope all the irregularities with this primary get sorted out sooner than later so that the office can focus on delivering a clean election in November.

Our winner’s were Sue Horne for Assessor and Doug LaMalfa for state senator.  So, of the four that we actually backed with more than words and votes, we came out batting 500.

The local left has been pounding their collective chest with the gains they have made, and predict that the last conservative strongholds in California’s mountain country will soon collapse under the onslaught of omniscient and omnipotent government.  If you can’t make it, then you gotta take it – a new mantra for those joined under the banner of fundamental transformation.

For a more in depth analysis of the local election scene that puts things into an historical context, please see what my friend Russ Steele has posted on NC Media Watch here, then here.

November draws nigh, we gird our loins.

Ruminations - 15jun2010

George rebane

- Bob Crabb’s new book
- Republican Women’s luncheon – Sheriff Royal
- WSJ Lieberaman article – war on terror
- The old guys celebrate the young

   

Nevada County’s own socio-political cartoonist extraordinaire and author, RL ‘Bob’ Crabb is coming out with a brand new book of his cartoons.  An example of gentle persuasion in an horticultural format is shown above as it appears in the printed edition of the 15jun10 Union.  These graphic commentaries have entertained and piqued thousands over the years, and now you can own your very own copy of his latest.  Go and order the book (here), Bob can always use a few extra bucks.

Sheriff Keith Royal was the featured program at today’s NC Republican Women Federated’s (what a name!) luncheon.  Sheriff Keith is one the county’s positive exemplars of how properly run government should work.  He gave an overview of the county’s crime stats and trends  – good – and recounted how he runs "the largest B&B" in these parts.  The county jail is at 80% of ‘local capacity’ which allows us to rent the rest of the facility out to the feds for housing prisoners at a tidy profit to the county.  The federal prisoners are comprised mostly of women awaiting trial in Sacramento.  The sheriff reported that we could use a bigger jail, but that expansion program would cost upwards of $25 million and is on a prudent hold until our economy can get some wind in its sails.  Russ Steele and I were there as guests of our wives and busy scribbling notes.  Good talk.

Another of the cascading examples of this dysfunctional and incompetent presidency was highlighted today in Joe Lieberman’s WSJ piece ‘Who’s the Enemy in the War on Terror?’  Pursuant to recent presidential blather about not pissing off the ragheads by referring to our enemy in this war as 'militant Islam' or 'Muslim extremists', the country is turning itself into pretzels in trying to figure out who we are really fighting.  And more importantly, how should the non-militant Muslims deport themselves as they watch us waffle.  Will they then militate their non-militancy, or will they keep waiting for some more resolution before placing their bets?

Old Joe attempts to put his arms around this tricky problem, but his mighty effort falls a bit short because it’s hard to talk a good line of sense when you still have one politically correct foot stuck in the corner of your mouth.  RR readers are familiar with my position on the tragedy of labeling this struggle as a “war on terror”.

Go Figger

George Rebane

Did you know that Pakistan’s primo intelligence agency ISI continues to inform and train the Taliban?  Well, apparently this has been going on for some time says the London School of Economics which just released a report on this little relationship (more here).  Meanwhile we have been pumping billions into Pakistan to buy their tenuous ‘friendship’,  and the bastards are blatantly double-crossing us.  For all we know, we’re directly funding both sides of the Afghanistan war.  Before we thought that only the Saudis and Iranians kept those guys in beans and bullets.  (We, of course, know that Afghanistan's Karzai is rotten to the core.)  Nobody made a peep, that I could tell, about this just released report.

And what about Tory MPs telling their PM David Cameron that Britain’s socialist programs, especially its National Health Service, are taking the country on the road to ruin.  Cameron's caught in the middle of hard facts and political promises.  As reported by the London Times (online here), the MPs have called for massive cutbacks and privatization in order to take their country off the Greek path.  Who picked that up, especially here where the supporters of Obamacare have been lathering over the glories of NHS as an exemplar of how a civilized government runs healthcare?  Again nothing.

Does the Obama administration really control all debate in the country, or is Fox News just going limp?  Go figger.

Re Jeff Pelline – For the Record

George Rebane

RR does its best to avoid referencing the self-aggrandizing postings on Mr Pelline’s blog, nor do I respond to his incessant and ongoing vitriol extended to me personally.  Perhaps the time has come for a short response.

This morning I received an email from a reader who sent me the latest example of the journalism published on jeffpelline.com.  It involves another one of the gratuitous swipes that he often inserts into his copy.  To wit, his recent piece on election results includes  –

With a straight party-line vote, for example, candidates such as clerk-recorder Greg Diaz could have lost. In fact, a significant number of Republicans voted for Greg — throwing cold water on the “analysis” of “far right” bloggers George Rebane and Russ Steele that he was backed largely by “progressives.” Diaz received 13,632 votes, compared with 6,119 for Barry Pruett.

I neither made nor claimed authorship of any such ‘analysis’ of Clerk-Recorder Greg Diaz’s voter support.  I did relay the report that his pre-election support came primarily from the left, as did Barry Pruett’s from the right.

Then there are his frequent descriptions of me as “far right” (in quotes) and even “ultra far right”.  I recall that Mr Pelline was the first to hang that appellation on me in an effort to marginalize my commentary, not for its content but the container from which it issues.  Perhaps, enthralled with that coup, he now continues to quote himself.  No matter how near or “far”, I am in good company.

Not a few people have also noticed that Pelline has a curious way of creating news with the use of quotation marks the protocol for which I am not familiar.  I was taught that full or double quotes are used only when delimiting words that were actually spoken or written by a certain source.  So quoted material can always be attributed.  Semi-quotes are used to emphasize words to indicate an extended contextual meaning, or to approximate the general thrust, direction, or intent of something which originally was said or written but for which the actual quote is not available.  I strive to follow this standard on RR.

I have little idea what all Mr Pelline writes on his blog, but from the copies forwarded to me, I have noticed that nearly everything he says about me, and about other targets of opportunity known to me, is a fabricated falsehood.

Most of our community knows that Mr Pelline constantly claims to be a paragon of journalism, and spends considerable effort publicly burnishing his bona fides.  However, I do believe that no school of journalism taught him any of the truth creating, fact mangling, and personal mis-approbations he practices.  Those he must have developed subsequently to serve his own purposes.

In view of the brand of journalism practiced by Jeff Pelline, and an alarmingly large cadre of others across the land, I am proud to reiterate that I am a commentator and not a journalist (first declared here).

Tea Party Scattershots (edited)

George Rebane

 

We attended the little Tea Party Patriots gathering yesterday afternoon in Penn Valley.  As predicted by the lame stream media for such events, we all showed up with our guns and grenades wearing our knuckle pads so they wouldn’t get skinned.  Everybody felt good because they had recent appreciation checks from BP stuffed in their shorts, checks which the company issued in lieu of its scheduled dividend.  Hell, first things first.

 

The little gathering attracted over 200 local folks from a Nevada County Tea Party Patriots membership now north of 1,700 and growing fast.  The featured speaker was national TPP coordinator Mark Meckler.  Mark is an excellent public speaker and absolutely devoted to proselytizing the TPP principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free market capitalism.  Principles which scare hell out of the left, and which they misrepresent in their extremes.

 

The TP movement actually consists of at least three grass roots factions, some being more grassy than others.  These are the Tea Party Patriots (the largest and rigorously unaffiliated with any political party), the Tea Party Express (most closely connected with the Republican Party), and the Tea Party Nation (the smallest).  There are a number of other similar and smaller organizations that share the conservative/libertarian values and a common view of the socialist/Marxist direction on which the Obama administration is taking the country.  The movement’s power draws from its distributed and loosely tied organization – it’s hard to herd millions of independently minded cats.

Which way now California?

George Rebane

[This is the submitted version of my column that appears today 12 June 2010 in the printed and online (here) editions of The Union.]

Don’t you love it when everybody wins?  You know, when both sides claim victory or look at the same data, and come to exactly the opposite conclusions, only one of which could ever be true.  My response has usually been, ‘well good for the both of you’, and let a later reality sort it all out.  So after years in a social and economic tailspin, California once more finds its future prognosticated by clear-eyed politicians and pundits, equally persuaded, as they point to every direction on the compass.

Art Laffer of Laffer Curve fame reminds us that taxes on everything from income, dividends, capital gains, toe nail polish, you name it, all are going up big time on 1 January 2011.  And they will keep going up.  So most American companies will be taking every cent of profits they can this year.  This will make the economy’s numbers look good in 2010, even though taxes and debt promise that future real growth will remain anemic.  With the election coming up in November, it’s almost as if someone planned it that way.

Laffer says we will all pay for it next year as the inevitable lower earnings get projected and reported.  As a result, the markets will tank and the country sinks back into a double-dip recession.

Cari Tuna in the Wall Street Journal gets specific about California, and points out that with 12.6% unemployment (US 9.9%) we are a big drag on the national recovery.  Our $19B budget shortfall for 2011 is the wrong kind of light at the end of the Golden State’s DIY tunnel project.  Meanwhile, California’s right continues to see hope with targeted tax cuts, especially for new businesses.  But they have only two chances of turning Sacramento – slim and none.

Those on the left place their bets on the good folks in Ohio to continue funding government ‘investments’ in California to ‘develop’ a passel of new green jobs and subsidized green industries.  And then when these economic mavens also end ‘tax breaks’ for companies sending jobs elsewhere, even more money will flow into our state’s coffers.  We know this will work because those greedy capitalists will have no alternative but to stay here, pay more taxes, and hire California workers at proper wage levels.  There is no end to these kinds of winning strategies, one just has to look.

And to put a real polish on that future, UCLA economist Jerry Nickelsburg tells us that California has already gone through its big “structural adjustment” in construction and manufacturing, and therefore is set to soar in 2011.  Things are looking up!

But here come those pesky conservatives again with their charts and graphs showing how our economy has rocketed when tax cuts kicked in, and tanked with higher taxes.  The left points out that these guys have it all wrong, because they’ve got their charts turned upside down.  It’s always been tax hikes that have kicked the economy into high gear, and they’re determined to prove it again next year.  Just tell them how high you want that old GDP to climb, and they’ll raise taxes accordingly.  How many million more jobs do we need?  Let them know, and with more taxes and debt, they’ll make it so.  Either way we can’t lose, right?

If all that high level economics leaves our heads spinning, then we can listen to the financial advisers who tell us to convert our regular retirement accounts into Roth-IRAs before next January.  They say that is a “no brainer”.  Then again …

In the meantime more than a few folks hereabouts with a keen eye toward the future are buying short lengths of large diameter PVC pipe with end caps.

George Rebane is a retired systems scientist and entrepreneur in Nevada County who regularly expands these and other themes on KVMR and Rebane’s Ruminations (www.georgerebane.com).

We Can Dream, Can’t We?

George Rebane

Long ago Congress became the largest, best armed, corrupt, and most powerful crime syndicate in the nation.  For years we voters have been the compliant lackeys of the self-aggrandized ‘Capitol Honorables’, sending one morally myopic after another to Washington on the promise that they will somehow be clever enough to return us more than the tribute they first harvest from us.  We excuse our folly with the firm belief that only experienced mobsters know how to play in the Washington syndicate, and anyone else we send there would be returned to us in a body bag at the end of his/her term.

Our country was not founded on the premise of perennially supporting a professional political class.  And more and more of us now dream of a return to principled governance that would again unleash the blessings of liberty for which so many have sacrificed.

Today a growing number of Americans believe that this type of reform is fundamental to turning from our present disastrous course.  What will you do if you share this dream?

A long time friend and RR reader sent this expression of hope that appears below with minor edits.