Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox – 30jan16

[Was interested in reading The Union’s editorial position on SoJ today (here).  The SoJ steering committee is preparing a response.  IMHO, it's important to keep in mind two items regarding the opposition to SoJ – 1) the opposition offers no alternative to the formation of North California (my preferred name) than the lame same ol’ same ol’ dictum that defines insanity, and 2) their material opposition is based on the stasist paradigm of human behavior so favored by collectivists.  The first is wrapped in the pabulum of “… we believe solving problems requires taking a seat at the table, not leaving it altogether.” which ignores that we have been denied a seat for decades and offers no alternative to continued compliance to the growing cohort of Sacramento progressives.  The second ignores the demonstrated benefits to an economy of lowered tax rates, fewer and less intrusive regulations, and a smaller government that has fewer things to sell to special interests.  Both are notions that the Left will never accept. gjr]

AI masters Go – time to apply brakes? (updated 30jan16)

George Rebane

A couple of days ago Google’s parent Alphabet (actually its DeepMind division) announced that their AlphaGo deep-learned software system has mastered the ancient Chinese board game Go.  This is a very big deal during these pre-Singularity years and marks a milestone toward intellectual peerage with humans.  AlphaGo is not just a souped-up version of Deep Blue that defeated chess champion Kasparov.

The number of possible moves in Go is trans-astronomically bigger than those in chess for which the next good move can be discovered by generating an expanding search tree of possible future move sequences.  In Go such search trees are literally not possible to either construct or ‘grow’ in any useful manner.  The alternative approach is to mimic the human brain in its ability to assess the current situation through abstracting board patterns, and then derive the best move by evolving more possible future patterns from alternate courses of action.  That in essence is what we do when we play Go, and more importantly, attack myriads of other problems in our daily round.  (more here and here)

Alphabet intends to productize and promote various versions of AlphaGo into a number of markets which require high levels of performance within large data and complex image environments.  For example, most experts foresee that skilled and experienced physicians and medical practitioners who interpret diagnostic imagery (MRI, CAT, X-ray, sonograms, …) will quickly be surpassed by the new machines.  Similar results are expected in fields such as finance, genomics, athletics, complex design, decision making and planning, and so on.  The portents here are that large cadres of very highly educated and experienced workers will become increasingly redundant as customers demand state-of-art performance at lowest cost, and companies compete to satisfy such demands.

Given the recent turn of our socio-political expectations, it will not be long until some politicians will argue that it is a human right for everyone to obtain such ‘best practices’ goods and services.  But before we go sailing off into that future fraught with unknowns, there are other voices rising to be heard.  The 28jan16 WSJ reports that an emerging cadre of ‘experts’ is now considering how to put the brakes on AI developments.

The advance, published in the journal Nature, impressed artificial-intelligence experts and revived a debate about whether limits should be placed on computer programs that gain humanlike abilities to learn by themselves.

In any event,  DeepMind CEO Demis Hannabis is “thinking very carefully about how to ethically use and responsibly deploy” the technology. When DeepMind was acquired in 2014, its founders required Google to agree not to use the technology for military purposes. Google has created an ethics committee to ensure such benefits “accrue to the many, not the few,” he added.

I urge you to evaluate these sentiments in light of the countless enterprises worldwide which are developing, advancing, and racing to market the latest concepts in AI.  Putting on the brakes?! - talk about pissing into the wind.

[30jan16 update] Robots will devastate third world jobs; robots will replace most white collar jobs; robots will do all future manufacturing; robotic vehicles will replace all transport jobs; … .  The Financial Times reports that “The Rise of the Robots Threatens the Poor”; and studies from prestigious universities are now coming in telling us that the robotic “revolution could leave up to 35% of all workers in the UK, and 47% of those in the US, at risk of being displaced by technology over the next 20 years, according to Oxford University research”.  (also google ‘robots, job loss’)

RR has been a little alarm bell for the last decade relating news and prognostications in these pre-Singularity years about the growth of systemic unemployment due to accelerating technology. Now finally there emerge some louder voices repeating this message, but still not getting it quite right.  Meanwhile, the socialists among us are proposing policies which will guarantee a future world of tyranny much as foreseen by Orwell in the 1940s – recall that tyranny is the most stable form of governance against which ‘democracy by the dumb’ doesn’t stand a chance.  And technology-augmented tyranny is a rock stable slam dunk.

I believe the probability is close to one (certainty) that today we are irredeemably beyond the tipping point. There remain few approaches – e.g. the Non-Profit Service Corporation schema - to implement the required redistribution of wealth which may preserve the Bastiat Triangle of Rights.  However, all of them require an overwhelmingly educated and enlightened citizenry to pull off.  Instead, we are overrun with collectivists and central planners whose interests lie in fomenting class warfare between various manufactured cohorts of ignorant yet compliant voters with scant intellectual assets to figure out where they are being led.  (Today we remain in a government induced Depression2 with a hokey unemployment numbers and GDP growth rates last seen during Depression1.  See also PriceWaterhouse study on millennials.)

A delayed advent of Singularity that could give rise to a transhuman world is looking less like the saving grace that it once did.

 

‘Pelline Protocol’ – exposed again (updated 29jan16)

[Our friends Nancy and Eddie Garcia have been founders and leaders of several organizations favored by Nevada County conservatives, among them the NC Tea Party and the State of Jefferson movement. This week the local SoJ supporters assembled to celebrate having gathered well over 5,000 signatures to petition the Board of Supervisors to put on the June ballot a resolution that will let the county’s voters express their opinions about the formation of SoJ (or ‘North California’) which has been much discussed in these pages (see also).  These signatures are being filed with county clerk as I type.

But true to form, the Union’s coverage of this week’s SoJ activities has drawn the predictably ignorant ire of our fulminating far-left FUE. His off-the-mark comments prompted Nancy Garcia to submit the following response.  To RR readers I recommend the following simple exercise – try to follow the FUE’s logic that led to his very unfounded and uncouth epithet.  gjr]

Nancy Garcia

Imagine my surprise when I read Jeff Pelline’s statement on the State of Jefferson public comments in Tuesday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting. He notes “This part chaps me the most: a new state where we would be guaranteed a voice in the decisions that shape our lives and the future of our children.  What does Eddie Garcia know about my child?  What an ass.”   Obviously, he totally misses the point that parents would have more freedom to shape their own children’s future.  Mr. Pelline’s child would be his own obligation.

I also find it comical, at best, that Mr. Pelline, who revels in pointing out every little one letter error in The Union, did not even correctly identify the author of the statement. I truly resent his calling my wonderful husband of fifty-four years an “ass.” Eddie Garcia did not make that statement – I did.  If you have any journalistic integrity, it is important to get your facts right.

I might also direct Mr. Pelline’s attention to a dictionary where he can check the word “civility.” It was the manner in which we used to conduct respectful discussions even when we did not agree.  If we live by the “Pelline Protocol” we will never cure the deep divide that is the curse preventing progress.

[29jan16 update]  Thank you all for your enlightening and humorous comments on Mr. Fue. As a relative “newbie” here, I am still learning.

One more comment on the constant refrain that we cannot survive financially without the money that comes from the state. If we are such a drain on the already financially floundering government, they surely will be happy for us to remove the burden from their back by separating from the state.  So far, we have not heard a single government official stand up and applaud our resolve. What does that tell us?

The Pope and the Raghead (updated 28jan16)

George Rebane

A few years back when first I had a chance to see the bragsheet on Pope Francis, I voiced some concerns about his political naiveté. The man seemed to have avoided any education in economics, finance, governance, and what social mechanisms actually generate the wealth that he’s so keen on redistributing.  His speeches and writings give ample evidence of that.  Today he is giggling it up with one of the world’s big killers and leading promoters/sponsors of theocratic Islamism through global terror.

Someone should tell the guy with the white beany what President Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran has done, is doing today, and planning for us tomorrow now that we’ve shoved tens of billions of dollars in his shorts and removed economic sanctions to pump up Iran’s anti-western economy. They should slip in a news article or two about Islam’s killing of Christians in their lands, and maybe even inform His Holiness about Islam’s well publicized plans for the infidels of Christendom.

I was hoping that the meeting may have generated some more serious photo-ops to reflect equivalent discussions with the reprobate raghead.

[28jan16 update]­ I call your attention to this morning’s (28jan16) WSJ column ‘The Humbling of the West’ by deputy editorial editor and national columnist Daniel Henninger.  He echoes not only my above sentiments but also the years’ long interpretation in these pages of the growing war between civilizations.  What the informed reader should continue to find remarkable is the narrow field of focus that the Left brings to bear on Islam’s and particularly the Islamists’ advance in the world.

These benighted people, welcomed and well-represented in RR comment streams, continue to show their breathless ignorance of geo-strategic events. They draw great comfort from repeating their well-learned and baseless mantras about the equivalence of Christianity and Islam in their world views, scriptural dictates, existential practices, and the minds of their respective ‘moderates’.  In the latter one needs only observe the silence of Islam’s sheeple in response to the daily (hourly?) atrocities their brethren carry out.  The west is betting the ranch that these Muslims will quietly follow whichever ayatollah can muster enough fanatical guns and knives to enforce their compliance.  The Mideast overflows with examples of such transforming governance that Obama has unleashed on an already cowering Europe.

Rouhani has every reason to smile as he accepts the obeisances of Europe.  Through his mind echoes Lenin's famous 'these capitalists will gladly sell us the very rope with which we will hang them.'

Henninger points out the lengths to which European civic, religious, and business leaders are going to kowtow during the Iranian president’s triumphal progress through lands which have for a millennium been Islam’s prime target for conquest (actually two millennia if you consider what the Persians have had in their sights). The above photo from Henninger’s piece gives stark evidence of the west’s self-depredation, showing classic western art in the form of nude statuary in the Vatican that has been covered so as not to offend the raghead of ragheads during his tour of the museum.  Misplaced humility apparently knows no depth in the progressive western mind as it welcomes its self-declared colonists cum conquerors.

Ruminations - 25jan16 (updated 29jan16)

George Rebane

A couple of quick points to which we’ll add later.

Hillary in an orange jumpsuit?  That was never supposed to happen if we recall our liberal cadres here assuring us that her email imbroglio was a baseless Republican dust devil that would soon be forgotten.  At a lunch today with people who have also held TOP SECRET and above clearances, all of us wondered how meticulous Comey will want to be before sending the very large stack of condemning evidence to the DoJ that the FBI has now dug up.  Her denials about not having anything on her servers marked classified has now become thin gruel in the public media.  Only the leftwing know-nothings still deny that her sins range from a minimum of hubristic criminality to something closer to treason.  Preparing for the inevitable, Democrats in the wings contemplating the race are beginning to form a line.  [29jan16 photo added]

The State of Jefferson movement (I prefer North California) was supposed to be dead and buried, especially in Nevada County, according to the usual platoon of progressive pundits.  Well, Mr Eddie Garcia of the SoJ Steering Committee sent out an email today proudly announcing that there are now more than 5,500 signatures on the petition requesting our county’s BoS to put the SoJ proposition on the ballot.  This would let all Nevada County citizens express their opinion about their desire to see this movement for California’s minority values and legislative representation proceed.  I wonder what message we will hear from our local Left about the prospects for passage of such a proposition.  Well, actually I don’t wonder at all.

Eddie Garcia writes –

TOMORROW - 9:05 AM - Public Comment at the Board of Supervisors meeting - If you plan to address them, please meet me in the lobby at 8:30.  The more of us who talk the better.

TOMORROW - 7:00 PM - Our last meeting before filing the petition,  Bring any completed sheets you have.

THURSDAY - 9:30 AM - Gathering in front of Rood Center to proceed to the Elections office to file the signatures at 10 AM.  I'd love to see it be an "event" that merits media coverage.  Enlist as many people as you can to come.

THURSDAY - 1 PM - Tom Fitzsimmons is giving us an hour on his program on KNCO to bring his audience up-to-date about SOJ!!!

...

At times it seemed like we would never get there, that it was an impossible task to gather the necessary signatures for our petition to qualify!

But, thanks to the untiring efforts of your Steering Committee and volunteers, next Thursday January 28th at 10 AM, proudly wearing our green t-shirts we will deliver to the Nevada County Elections Office over 5,500 signatures requesting that our Board of Supervisors put the State of Jefferson proposition on the ballot so that the citizens of Nevada County can express their opinion on whether our County should become part of the effort to form a new state where we would be guaranteed a voice in the decisions that shape our lives and the future of our children.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, we will also be addressing our Board of Supervisors during public comment time at 9:05 AM to inform them about the success of our signature gathering campaign.

Let us turn Thursday into a display of the support our movement has in our County.  Come and join your committee on the front steps of the Rood Center at 9:30 am, wear your green t-shirts, fly the SOJ flag!

[26jan16 update]  Nevada County's big solar panel project was highlighted in the 25jan16 Union in a piece that left many (like me) scratching their heads.  While giving all green thinking people a good belly rub, both the upkeep, long term benefits, and financing remain a jumble.  Today at the Rood Center the BoS will get a prezo on the whole thing (I have a conflict and won't be able to attend.)  A reader and fellow head scratcher sent me an email which expands on some of the puzzling aspects of the project; here it is -

I saw some interesting numbers in The Union article about equipping the County buildings with solar panels using a government grant. I did not see any maintenance costs?  Someone has to keep the dust off, remove the snow in winter.  At the end of 20 years the County will own the system. But, over time the performance of the solar panels decline, at the end to 20 years, the decline is significant. I never see any cost of ownership in these wonderful solar numbers. 

I talked to one of my neighbors who was considering solar and did some research. He mentioned that solar panels for China were less expensive, but after about 5 years they start delaminating, and water penetration is causing some real problems.  Are the County going to insure they have US made panels? 

If you have a chance encounter with a Supervisor, you might ask what the maintenance cost of the systems are, the projected performance at the end of 20 years and will they have a buy US clause in the contract.  

In the aggregate Millenials are not too bright - neither numerate nor knowledgeable in economics and finance.  That is the main reason that the Left is citing their polled opinions and courting their votes; they fit right in.  From Yahoo Finance -

A new study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and George Washington University confirmed that millennials have an alarmingly low level of financial literacy, which could have "disastrous" effects on the economy.  “Of the millennials that we surveyed, only 8% answered five out of five questions correctly and 24% answered three correctly,” lamented Steve Barr, partner at PwC.  The study analyzed the financial characteristics of more than 5,500 people born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s.

‘The Affordable Plumbing Act’

[This little dissertation was forwarded by a friend, and I post it for both its humor and explanatory power of the progressive mind.  Well, maybe it’s not all that humorous, but it does provide a change of pace hereabouts, and perhaps, just perhaps, may give rise to an awakening.  gjr]

Only weeks after leaving office on January 20, 2017, former President Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Troy the Plumber to come out to fix it. Troy drives to President Obama's new house, which is located in a very exclusive, gated community near Chicago, where all the residents have a net income of way more than $250,000 per year.
 
Troy arrives and takes his tools into the house. He is led to the guest bathroom that contains the leaky pipe under the sink. Troy assesses the problem and tells Obama that it's an easy repair, that will take less than 10 minutes. Obama asks Troy how much it will cost. Troy checks his rate chart and says, "$9,500."

Sandbox - 21jan16

[Does anyone have an idea about what the FBI is still doing in its investigation of Hillary.  With the IG's finding it would appear that there's now an overwhelming amount evidence to indict her for multiple crimes.  The investigation itself could continue.  But shouldn't Director Comey take what he has to DoJ and get them started on the next step in the process?  Liz Warren needs time to prepare, and so does ol' Joe.  gjr]

‘Mother May I’ Defense Policy

George Rebane

Did you know that until today American forces fighting in Afghanistan could not initiate operations against ISIS fighters in that country.  By standing orders from Washington our GIs could only attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  ISIS’ presence in Afghanistan has been growing for months, yet we could only shoot at them if they shot at us first.  This insane (traitorous?) policy has been in place while we are engaged with ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and divers other locations around the world, and while they are carrying out murderous attacks in Europe and in our homeland.

The 20jan16 WSJ reports (here) –

Until now, such action by U.S. forces in the country technically has been limited to targeting al Qaeda and the Taliban—not Islamic State, whose operations primarily have been focused in Iraq and Syria. Only in cases in which commanders believed U.S. forces in Afghanistan were in danger could they conduct operations against members of the militant group, who just months ago were seen as establishing a sleepy outpost with only loose affiliations to Islamic State.

So today, as ISIS numbers in Afghanistan have grown into the thousands, Obama has finally agreed to give our military the right to finally shoot first when we know where they are.  Why the delay?  Because Obama’s political preening required him to maintain the ruse defeating ISIS, that included his promise to stand down in Afghanistan.  Today he must admit that ISIS is expanding into that country and that we therefore need to expand our fight to include them.  This has exposed more evidence of naiveté from this know-nothing president.  The lamestream will do their best to hide that until now political cover had to trump policy while a new element of ragheads was establishing a foothold in Afghanistan that will cost more American lives and treasure to root them out.  And all of it was going on while our SecDef visits our allies urging them to up their participation in the fight against ISIS.  I wish I could say ‘unbelievable’, but that would be unbelievable.

Clashing Cultures Count

George Rebane

We read George Boardman’s 'Nevada County's supervisors cede leadership to sheriff on medical marijuana' in today’s (18jan16) Union on last Tuesday’s BoS MJ prezo by Sheriff Keith Royal et al. Generally it was a good piece, we had some inevitable nits because the changing face of MJ production and consumption in CA is a complicated affair, especially when we translate it down to our county level.  And Nevada County being a nationally known source of prime MJ doesn’t help sorting out how we should conduct business in the coming new world of pot.

Readers know that years ago RR came off the fence on drugs and has supported selective and prudent legalization. Since then the debate has grown on how, when, and under what conditions should the county permit medical marijuana (MMJ) and recreational marijuana (RMJ) production and consumption.  These considerations have been made even more complicated by the existence of conflicting federal and dynamic state laws re MJ in its various forms.  And when we start picking apart all the components of legalizing the growth and consumption of the weed, we wind up as we have, in the weeds.  The recent BoS hearing and vote by supervisors on a revised ‘emergency ordnance’ and the upcoming vote on an MJ initiative have not helped resolve anything in the minds of the two major factions – one facilitating its production and use, and the other essentially opposing all parts of the MJ scene in Nevada County.

What I’d like to discuss here is recognizing the real conflict that is hidden underneath the layers of details of MJ grow parameters, neighborhood nuisance factors, and specifics of RMJ and MMJ distribution and consumption. The anti-MJ folks voice legitimate concerns about neighborhood nuisances, crime, underage consumption, etc.  And these same people are essentially following the tactics of the anti-gun people in wanting to banish MJ from the county – i.e. make the attendant parts of a facile MJ economy so cumbersome and difficult that it will wind up being ‘constructively banned’.

So let’s be clear, all these details and specifics aren’t the real issue – they comprise the fog that hides what really is on the minds of the anti-MJ people who are mostly right-leaning conservatives, and also what is apparent to the more strategically minded left-leaning progressives. The real issue is the ongoing battle for Nevada County between two very different cultures.

Ruminations – 15jan16 (updated 16jan16)

George Rebane

Former AG Mukasey on MSNBC drew our attention to certain paragraphs of US Code, Title 18. Section 2071.

a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.”  (emphasis mine)

We await FBI Director Comey’s finest hour.

Union publisher Jim Hemig writes a cordial salute (here) to his predecessor Jeff Ackerman upon his retirement from the Swift newspaper ‘empire’.  I knew Jeff and considered him a friend as we enjoyed our coffees and lunches when I was one of The Union’s regular columnists.  At that time Jeff was serving as both publisher and editor of the newspaper after informing the former editor that he was redundant.  I’m sure that many of RR readers join me in wishing Jeff a long, healthy, and productive retirement – after all, the man does have trouble sitting still for long.

Muslim migrants are bused to Berlin to protest Angela Merkel’s relocation policy that forces small German towns to resettle thousands of counter-culturated economic refugees seeking to make better lives and establish more Islamic enclaves in Europe.  The protests are not to halt the flood of migrants, but to devote more federal resources to provide for the new arrivals.  Meanwhile, New Year’s Eve revelations gave rise to many more reports of sexist attacks on women from other European capitals and cities with significant Muslim populations.  All this is happening in a background of rising law suits by EU member countries that refuse to admit more refugees while attempting to halt illegal border crossings.  At the same time the American Left maintains its insane stance of inviting unvetted and unvettable Muslims to live among us.

 

Swansong from an Alternate Universe

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 13 January 2016.  An edited version of it was also published in the 16jan16 Union.]

Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night was a bit surreal.  The speech was remarkable in that he clearly described the alternate universe that has been home to his administration for the last seven years.  Our smiling president pridefully peeled off his accomplishments one after the other.  At least half the country had no idea what he was talking about.

Tonight’s SoU and the NRA on Gun Control

George Rebane

I have been an NRA member all my life, and have always held that the Second Amendment is one of the necessary pillars that maintain what today is left of our Constitution and our democratic republic.  Those who promote global governance and central planning by elites know that a legally armed citizenry stands in the way of this fundamental Agenda 21 objective introduced and promoted by the UN.  Over the years, the private ownership and use of guns has been made more and more difficult, with the openly avowed objective of finally banning their ownership altogether.

As we prepare to hear President Obama’s final State of the Union speech, we should note that the current initiative to curb lawful gun ownership and use is promoted under the rubric of halting ‘gun violence’.  As we will witness tonight, the manner in which this notion is communicated is utterly fallacious, cynical, and qualifies it as one of today’s dominant National Lies that our government promotes and the lamestream media dutifully trumpets over the land.

Recognizing the Founders’ Second Amendment intent, the NRA has long been a champion of gun safety and the responsible ownership of firearms.  But under progressive leadership the federal and states governments have abrogated their clearly spelled out duties under current gun laws, and instead seek to incorporate another layer of laws that will do nothing to achieve their claimed benefits.  The Left’s standard response has always been to ignore the verity of the facts, repeat the National Lie, and simply attack the current messenger.  Wayne LaPierre, NRA’s Executive Vice President, spells it out (emphases in the original). 

Here’s what the media won’t tell you. The NRA has fought for 20 years to put the records of those adjudicated mentally incompetent into the National Instant Check System. And until the politicians demand that they are submitted, killers who are legally prohibited from owning firearms will walk into gun stores and pass every background check they take.

So if they really wanted to make a difference, the media would lead every newscast with a reminder that the names of millions of violent felons, criminal gangbangers and adjudicated mentally incompetent and dangerous people are missing from the background check system. But no one gets ratings by telling the truth about how to stop mass killers … so they don’t report that 38 states submit less than 80 percent of their felony convictions to the system, leaving more than 7 million felony convictions in the dark.

Political Expediency Ressurrects Local Tragedy

George Rebane by

In service of the massive 'gun violence' diversion revived and orchestrated by Obama to bolster Democrats' hopes for November, we here in Nevada County have decided to suddenly observe the 15^th anniversary of a local tragedy in which an insane resident went on a rampage and killed three of our neighbors.  Keenly aware that such dire happenings should not be wasted, one of our state’s congressional worthies invited the parents of a victim of the 10jan01 shootings to attend the president’s State of the Union speech.  The 12jan16 gun control extravaganza in the House chambers promises to be a doozy to highlight and advance one of our more prominent National Lies – ‘gun violence is out of control and growing because too many people have guns and there are not enough gun laws on the books’.  The graphic below sheds some light on the matter.

In these pages we have also parsed the 32K+ annual gun deaths record for our readers (e.g. most recently here). But that makes no never mind to leviathan’s central planners whose current worry is that their chosen champion Hellfire Hillary may blow a tire on the way to her nomination.  The latest smoking gun to emerge is incontestable evidence that she intentionally subverted the nation’s security in how she and her instructed subordinates treated classified emails.  This is a curtain behind which no liberal invites a peek, and behind which we presume Director Comely and his investigative team are very busy sorting things out.  We await their finding.

Meanwhile back home today’s (9jan16) Union dutifully devoted its issue to an in depth recounting of the 2001 tragedy, and also honoring the anti-gun work of the Wilcox couple whose daughter Laura was one of those murdered by the mad shooter. I venture it’s safe to say that the 15^th anniversary of pretty much any event is not one of those significant milestones that we normally observe.  So the Union’s extraordinary effort, in devoting its front page and even more real estate in its op-ed section to the shootings, also says/confirms its support of the administration and their war on the Second Amendment.  The Wilcoxes’ political invitation to the SoU extravaganza is definitely a noteworthy local news item, but a newspaper more supportive of gun rights could easily have done their journalistic duty with a less lavish observance of this anniversary.  However, given their established political leaning, none of this should come as a surprise, nor should anyone think less of The Union since they are just exercising their First Amendment rights as they see fit. 

Sandbox - 9jan16

[These sandboxes sure fill up fast with a variety of topics tucked between the mudballs.  One regular commenter made an interesting remark that bears more consideration - under what conditions is it possible for a mixture of devout Muslims and non-Muslims to live in close proximity - e.g. the same neighborhood?  gjr]

Harbingers of Our Demise (updated 7jan16)

George Rebane

Reports of Muslim men assaulting western women in Europe over the recent holidays have been minimized and dismissed by the lamestream media and leftwing pundits. Their meager reporting has even been characterized as being racist since the evidence all points to Islam in the growing episodes of culture clashes in European countries, and that the liberal mind considers discriminatory.  Well, of course it is since such reporting by its very nature points out what is this and is not that.  (See also Peter Hammond's piece reported in 'Ruminations - 3jan16'.)

Giving due credit I must mention this morning’s front page article in the 6jan16 WSJ, ‘In Germany Assaults Test Migrant Policy’, but then the WSJ is not your typical lamestream outlet. To really plumb the depths of some shallow minds, the paper quotes a German leftwinger responding to the outrage being expressed by many Germans by announcing that “rightwingers will use (such expressions) for their cause”.  What the midget mind misses is that opposing the Islamic takeover of Europe, where women will be treated as chattel, IS the rightwingers cause.

Ruminations – 3jan16 (updated 6jan16)

George Rebane

Islamophobia is ill-defined as an unreasonable fear of global Islamism. RR has maintained for years that we are in a renewed war between civilizations – Islam vs the west (or Christianity as they see it).  The west’s Left has identified Islamophobia as a racist reaction by the western Christians.  In the last two years more and more western commentators have begun to agree that the current conflict is much bigger than the ‘war against terror’ caused by western imperialism or bad economies in Muslim countries.  The most recent to expound on the realities facing the west is Scott Richert, executive editor of The Chronicles, in his very readable ‘Thoroughly Modern Muslims’.

Putin will move on the Baltics before Obama leaves office. I make this a high likelihood given the spineless foreign policy of the Obama administration and our president’s patently erroneous calls on the world’s reaction to forcing the US to lead from behind.

The Iranian mullahs will roll up our much celebrated ‘nuclear deal’ into a tight cylinder and tell Obama where to shove it as soon as they get their hands on a sufficient amount of their $100B+ that our president agreed to let them have for reasons which the world to this day has no idea about.

The FBI will find Hillary culpable for unending security violations concerning her private email server and the emails which she claims she didn’t know were classified because they were not so marked. Since AG Lynch will not prosecute Hillary, FBI Director Comey will resign, and that will start others to discover their own reasons for principled resignations.

Sandbox - 1jan16

[Happy New Year! to all RR readers.  This year will turn out more exciting and surprising than any of us can anticipate.  From the socialists' perspective, they are at the cusp of a victory from which they can deal a deathblow to American capitalism and institute their new economic order as part of the country's fundamental transformation that Obama promised and has already launched.  We conservatarians also see this as a cusp year, but given the disarray of the Republicans, it will be one from which a 2016 Democrat defeat will deliver little besides delaying the day of reckoning between collectivism and open markets capitalism.  So I thought it would be appropriate to start the year with a fresh sandbox.  gjr]