Rebane's Ruminations

Delegitimizing Trump

[This commentary was submitted by Norm Sauer who is on the editorial board of The Union and often contributes his views to these pages.  The same piece appeared in the 26apr17 edition of the newspaper's op-ed section.  It appears below as received.  gjr]

Norm Sauer

In my column last month (http://www.theunion.com/opinion/norm-sauer-the-progressive-swamp-of-washington-d-c/), I predicted the surveillance of Trump and his team by the  Obama administration may be a story bigger than Watergate.

To date an enormous amount of media attention and investigations about direct Russian collusion with Trump have found no evidence.  However, little attention has been given to improper unmasking of surveillance and leaking, and yet this has far more credibility based on contradictory statements by Susan Rice, the reported data on unmasking, and Obama’s expansion of access to intercepts. 

On March 22, House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced that he had learned that members of President Donald Trump’s transition team had been under surveillance by the Obama administration, that individual names had been “unmasked” by the intelligence community, and that those names had been leaked to the media.  Nunes said that while there was no direct “wiretap” by President Barack Obama of Trump Tower, there was indeed surveillance — perhaps collected incidentally — of people close to Trump, possibly including Trump himself. 

TT2017 Survivors’ Breakfast

George Rebane

This morning we held the annual Survivors’ Breakfast for TechTest2017 at our usual venue, Tofanelli’s in Grass Valley.  The event was scheduled earlier than usual (0730) due to some school needs; after all this is a school day and we wanted to hold the lollygagging to a minimum.  This was the eleventh breakfast that feted the test takers who numbered 20 this year with 14 of those able to attend along with divers parents, sponsors, friends, and SESF directors.

Executive Director Russ Steele started off the hearty breakfast with some opening remarks, which were expanded upon by board member and former 7-Hills math teacher Robert Sharpe and yours truly.  Everyone had a chance to tell the gathering about their college plans and career hopes.  It was truly inspiring to hear about the futures to which these accomplished students were bound.  It’s good for the soul to be uplifted by such young people after being bombarded by America’s, and especially California’s, stats on STEM educational performance.

I am fortunate to have been able to work with many of these students during the preparatory TT seminars over the last years since juniors and some qualified lower-class students may take the test for practice before going for the money in their senior year.  TT is a four-hour, college level, merit scholarship examination - only your resulting test score counts in ranking the winners.  (All past TT solution sets are available on sesfoundation.org.)  The test is administered and graded by the Nevada Joint Union High School District – Ms Barbara Ross, academic committee chair - and draws scholars from all the county’s high schools as recommended by their science/math teachers.  SESF writes the test and, with participating sponsors, underwrites the scholarship awards.

Besides the coveted Survivors’ t-shirt, the top three scoring seniors receive scholarships of $6K, $4K, and $2K.  Additionally, $300 honoraria are awarded to the next several highest test scores.  Pictured in the above collage we have this year’s Survivor attendees and the three top money winners – l2r Harrison Constantino, Keegan Zetterberg, Jack Devlin – whose scores were within three points of each other.  (Thanks to Ellen Steele for the photos.)  The ranking of the top three will be announced during the county’s annual awards ceremony later this spring at which time all TT awardees will receive their checks.

The third picture with the four students (and the old guy in the back) includes Ryan Brott, this year a junior, who turned in TT2017’s very impressive top score.   Ryan is an academic all-star, respected and acknowledged by his peers, who excels in several different fields, and who definitely needs a dedicated post to do justice to all his accomplishments.

And now we start preparing for TT2018.

Scattershots - 25apr17 (updated)

George Rebane

College grads of 2017.  The good news is that enough workers have retired, been laid off, or just left the work force that is this “another healthy year for college hiring” report in the 25apr17 WSJ.  The bad news is that “this year’s job-seeking seniors are ill-prepared for the job hunt and many coveted positions”.  The chart below tells the story.  It’s clear that employers overwhelmingly want people who have some skills that can translate into delivering marketable products/services.  And it’s also clear that too few students want to major in fields that are needed in the wealth creating enterprises when schools denigrate capitalistic pursuits and hold out government and feel-good NGOs as the professional destinations of choice for correctly thinking people.  Note also that the percent of seniors in that pretty broad spectrum of creditable major fields totals only 58.3%.  The question that begs an answer is, ‘What in hell did it say on the degrees of the other 41.7% of graduating seniors?’

Revolving doors of rural counties in California.  One of our prominent local liberals wrote a lament in the 25apr17 Union describing the dreadful job situation in Nevada County.  Not that there are no jobs to be had, but that there are no jobs to be had for people with deficient skill sets (see above scattershot).  These folks are drawn here by our progressive community in the scenic forest covered foothills where from a distance it appears that the livin’ is easy.  In her column she seems to think that all that is required for jobs to spring up in a community is the expressed need for such jobs by new arrivals.  There is no hint of understanding in her piece that employers, first and foremost, are in the business of satisfying their customers’ needs, and that labor is a cost to be minimized.  Add to that our notorious reputation as a business friendly county, and the revolving door for such newcomers explains itself.  The blind are those who invite their like-minded friends to come up here with little understanding of the economic straits we have been attempting to navigate as young families move away and the county’s population decreases.  And the future doesn’t look that much better with rumors that our lamenting and lamentable lady seeks to run for office so that she and hers can complete the job of importing the wisdom of our Statehouse to the Rood Center.

[update]  “Border security” is the new term of art bandied about to step back from Trump’s promise to build a “wall” across our southern border.  As mentioned here before, only naïfs and the cynical interpret that as being an ocean-to-gulf 30ft high wall.  The real term of art should be ‘border porosity’ as the parameter of national sovereignty that we desire to control and set limits on – the correct answer for an acceptable porosity is a maximum of 15,000 illegals per year coming into the country from all sides and sources.  Nobody knows what a bullshit term like ‘border security’ means, but define it as ‘porosity’ and give it an upper limit, then we can have a debate about what it should be and how much it should cost.  When we parametize porosity, we can bring in the cadres of barrier technology experts and people knowledgeable about how legal entrants become illegals to shed light on the problem, so that we don’t wind up with another 11,000,000 in-country illegals seeking a free lunch and/or to bring in the rest of their families.  You have to understand, these illegals are either stupid or cynical when they get here, oppose controlled entry, and then scream bloody murder in the public forum, accusing the rest of us of being “anti-immigrant” in a land that has always welcomed the legal immigrants who have done more than their share of making America great.  We will not solve the illegal alien problem until we acknowledge that immigration is a two-party contract (in the same way we will not solve our butt-stupid ‘war against terror’ until we acknowledge that we are instead in a global civilizational conflict against the Islam that seeks to dominate the world.)

Lemmings march for science? (updated 22apr17)

George Rebane

We are told that tomorrow 22 April 2017 is again Earth Day, and are advised to celebrate with all manner of activities and observances designed for people of all ages - just google ‘earth day’ and prepare to be overwhelmed.  One of the more visible activities promoted by the Left is the ‘March for Science’ held in Washington DC and presumably other locales.  The purported purpose of the march is for people to “join the effort to defend the vital public service role science plays in our communities and our world.”  Here the progressives’ propagandized presumption is that such a ‘defense’ is needed because the Right, now on Trumpist steroids (trumpoids?), is hell bent on removing, or at least ignoring, science in coming up with new public policies.  And what better way to deliver the message to POTUS, COTUS, and now SCOTUS than with massive mobs in synchrony shouting slogans on the National Mall.

Despite proclaiming that “science isn’t Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative”, the consensus science promoted by the event sponsors is definitely of the hue that was endorsed by everyone from Ptolemy to the Popes, and for centuries kept people in fear of falling off the edge of the earth. (more here)

How Deictic is Your Ontology?

George Rebane

While our Left, especially of the academic bent, assiduously works to stunt the English language – e.g. reduce/mangle the information carrying capacity of words – our technologists have been very busy expanding the language and introducing new words into English and other tongues.  This battle is both important and its outcome is not yet determined, although for most people the Left’s determination to limit speech and thought along Orwellian newspeak lines seems to be taking hold with their constituents recently from union schools now being tutored by even more radical mentors in our institutions of higher learning.

In the last century we discovered a strong determinant that limits thought is a person’s language(s).  An individual has a hard time thinking thoughts (e.g. formulating concepts and storing them) that his language does not support.  More formally, the structure and breadth of a speaker’s language determines his perception and categorization of experience. This phenomenon is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which we have reviewed here before.

While words like ‘discriminate’, ‘immigrant’, ‘hero’, ‘prejudice’, ‘stereotype’, ‘racist’, ‘climate change’, ‘misogynist’, … have been mangled beyond meaning, other words like ‘meme’, ‘network’, ‘hashtag’, ‘feedback’, ‘in-the-loop’, ‘online’, ‘email’, ‘variance’, ‘steady state’, ‘causation’, ‘transient’, ‘algorithm’, … have worked their way into everyday usage as our individual ontologies have expanded to keep pace with the times.  (Ontology? Please stand by.)

California’s Cacophony of Calamities (updated 20apr17)

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 19 April 2017.]

California is, and has been for decades where it matters, a one-party state – the state’s legislature has been dominated by the Democratic Party since 1959.  The Democrats have called the tune and run things pretty much as they see fit.  In this once rich state, whatever is not working fiscally or socially, they now own lock, stock, and barrel.  And with the supermajorities they have in both houses of the legislature, it is clear that the majority of Californians either approve of the state’s downward spiral, or they simply don’t know what’s going on.  All of our wounds are self-inflicted. (more here)

California’s cacophony of calamities grows year after year even as our state now finds itself on or near the bottom of the nation’s barrel as more rankings are compiled.  We lead the country in everything from under-performing public schools, to the various categories of the poor and destitute, to sky high taxes, and the worst business climate.  California companies continue to head for greener pastures taking jobs and tax revenues with them.  New companies and plants are started elsewhere, even right next door in Nevada, as long as they don’t have to put up with what this advanced laboratory in socialism has to offer.

Things have gotten so frustrating that there are now active groups on both the Left and Right seeking to restructure the state.  People on the right correctly feel that Sacramento has ignored them for decades, and today many of them want to split the state into North and South California.  People on the left feel that California’s progress toward socialism is hindered so much by Washington that they want to secede from the Union.  The only really happy campers in the once Golden State live in the coastal clusters of millionaires and billionaires.

The Still Muddled Middle (updated)

George Rebane

Recently consideration of America’s political landscape has resurfaced in these pages, motivated by Nevada County’s self-declared middle roader RL Bob Crabb who published a powerful condemnation of both the Left and Right upon which I expanded in ‘Oh, were it only that simple’.  From that Bob took umbrage at me, RR, and our commenters, and then we were off to the polemical races on his blog and here.

Readers know that I am no fan of the middle roader (MR) approach to our country’s politics, especially when the L/R schism has become a broad chasm over the last decades.  My beliefs about MR ideology have been covered in past posts, summarized most recently in ‘The Muddled Middle’(2012)  and ‘The Muddled Middle – a revealing look’(2015).  But that was then, and this is now when the chasm has widened considerably, and shows no sign of slowing down, let alone beginning to close.  Let me explain.

He Is Risen!

George Rebane

Hearing that strong assertion, the Christian answers joyfully, ‘He is risen indeed!’

For us, Christmas is the promise, and Easter its fulfillment.  The summation of all Christianity is Christ’s covenant in the promised transcendence of Man, all concentrated into one simple declaration – ‘He is risen!’  Without this, our faith is a fraud; with it, Christianity promises Man to become an unending part of God’s love of all of Creation.

Scattershots – 15apr17

George Rebane

California’s new gas tax is the latest fraud from Sacramento, and part and parcel of the state’s progressivist plunge.  News comes in daily of more companies departing California for greener pastures – Texas and Nevada next door remain favorite destinations.  The latest gas tax is rammed through by the perpetually insane Dem supermajority, all members of which know this is nothing but the latest fraud to use our dismal transportation infrastructure to suck more money out of our wallets for directed leftwing vote buying projects.  The deteriorating condition of our roads will remind all who pay attention as to why this state is becoming one big pothole.  It has gotten so egregious that even our Union’s usually leftwing editorial board wrote an op-ed protesting this latest flim-flam (here).

While perusing the 15apr17 Union I came across the latest offering from their columnist Darrell Berkheimer who has cracked the code on ‘What will it take to get real political reform’.  Mr Berkheimer’s solution is the formation of a third party from the disgruntled and querulous crowds of Indivisibles, Centrists, Resist Movement, Modern Whigs, Green Libertarians, and Our Revolution.  These folks should join forces to become the third and prominent stave in the national political structure.  Now in the past we have taken Mr Berkheimer to task for some of his nostrums and poultices to restore communal justice, fair play, and perhaps even the public weal.  But for his most recent helpful contribution to fix our polity, RR can do nothing but wholeheartedly support his third party concept and wish this effort Godspeed.

“Technology is indeed changing our economy, but in a way that’s leaving more and more people behind.”  So argue the academic dons at MIT when discussing how intelligent machines are changing the world.  They point out that past tech booms used to “lift all boats, but that’s not how it works anymore.”  (more here)  These pages alerted its leaders to this inevitability years ago while the dimwits were still busy preaching that another chapter of ‘creative destruction’ was upon us, and all buggywhip makers would again change jobs to become the moral equivalent of car builders and mechanics of yore.  Well no.  As we have spelled out in chapter and verse, what’s going on is destructive destruction aka the rampant growth of systemic unemployment.  The ugly heads of this societal hydra are now visible to enough politicians and bureaucrats that they have been forced to become creative in how they sauté the economic stats so as to delay alerting the nebbishes.  The truth still hidden is that in its wake freedom creates inequality (Yes Virginia, we are all unequal), and that the hidden hand of the central planners solves this problem by organizing leviathan to create a uniform (aka ‘fair and balanced’) level of misery.

This morning I woke as usual and, still in bed, put my pad on my belly to catch up on what happened while we slept.  There I was greeted by ‘The Profound Connection Between Easter and Passover’, an essay by R.R. Reno, former professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University.  It is an uplifting read for Christians and Jews, especially on this Easter/Passover weekend.

Ruminations – 14apr17 (updated 15apr17)

George Rebane

Judge Andrew Napolitano was right in his report about Obama’s backdoor use of foreign intelligence intercepts of Team Trump’s communications.  An astute reader (cf fish 857pm comment here) alerted us to the now emerging news also confirmed by CNN that the US does indeed trade intelligence, including communications intercepts, in this case to give Obama administraton plausible deniability that they filtered out the Trump commo transcripts from the ‘incidentally’ monitored traffic.  British intelligence just happened to pass that intel to the White House.  The real question I have is that this now represents culpable activity by Obama to thwart Trump’s candidacy, so why are not the media making a federal case of it in banner headlines.  The lamestream I can understand, but the increasingly spineless Fox News (who reinstated Napolitano) continues to be a puzzle and a disappointment to me.  Why the deafening silence?

Another progressive tenet – Admitting poor and unskilled immigrants and illegal aliens into the country does no harm to poor and unskilled Americans in their wallets or job prospects.

Memo to File:  What to do about comment streams that develop widely off-topic threads?  RR is blessed with a readership keenly interested in and aware of the multitude of things happening locally and at the ends of the earth about which they wish to offer their diverse observations, opinions, and to correct other misinformed or wrong-thinking commenters.  The resulting vigorous debates, dismissed and denigrated by the Left and middle roaders, often consume the participants to an extent that it is difficult to follow threads pertinent to the RR post in their comment streams.  My desire here is not to limit the topics of interest, although I am most interested in readers’ opinions about my posts.  But absent that, how to organize these added topics so that subsequent readers and the commenters themselves can find these topic threads and build on previous arguments instead of ‘circling the barn’ – bringing up covered points again and again as if the last commenter keeps hitting the reset button; kinda reminds me of the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ – instead of reaching some point of closure. What to do?

[15apr17 update]  In today's Union cartoonist Bob Crabb claims that the recently organized leftwing mob reception of Congressman Doug LaMalfa at his townhall in Grass Valley was nothing but a 'what goes around comes around' retribution for a similar reception the community's conservatives gave to the Gang of Four supervisors at a NH2020 townhall in 2002.  We moved here in 2002 and quickly started supporting conservative causes, but don't recall any such rowdy or raucous townhall meeting where speakers were shouted down.  Does someone have a recollection of that or can point to a news article (audio snippet?) about such a meeting?

Oh, were it only that simple (updated 13apr17)

George Rebane

Our local graphical commentator RL (Bob) Crabb posted one of his most powerful and well-crafted offerings filched here from the 11apr17 Union.  In it he joins with deep thinkers like (also local commentator) Hilary Hodge and Rodney King to convincingly communicate the ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ message.

Unfortunately, such effective propaganda messages leave out what the world has experienced and continues to do so today.  I summarize it below.

[13apr17 update]  A Lament. I discovered at Bob Crabb’s blog that he sees my post above as another episode of “mocking” him. In his post Mr Crabb expanded his own commentary with a thorough drub of RR, to wit –

I see that this latest entry is already being mocked over at Rebane’s Ruminations. I’m not surprised. George and his friends have been doing their endless circle jerk for years on end, now emboldened by the regressive policies of the Trump juggernaut. I’ve long since abandoned any hope of dialog with that snarky crew.

In a futile response I posted this comment –

I am saddened that you consider my critique of your excellent cartoon on RR as being “mocked”. No matter how our worldviews may differ, you have always had a respectful reception and, where necessary, a civil counter. In short, I have never mocked you, but would consider it a boon if you could point out which of my posts covering RL Crabb you consider as being of a mocking nature. Perhaps we have different definitions for the term.

Mocking can apparently be done only in writing but not graphically. To confirm this, readers can review all the Crabb cartoons that have adorned these pages over the years, and then decide whether or not they were floated down to us from the mock-free heights which some cartoonists inhabit.

Admittedly, the ad hominems that some RR commenters insist on inserting between serious analyses and commentaries do detract. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to convince my readers that such inserts reflect poorly on RR and, of course, themselves. (Re ‘snarky’ repartees; the boundary between snark and wit is hazy, save for those with a keen sense of others’ morals. One man’s snark is another’s wit.) However, I have yet to find another blog in these parts that has the breadth and depth of covered topics we do here, while welcoming all comers, and whose comment streams more often than not contain thoughtful, well-formed, and appropriately cited entries that expand on or dispute what I or our byline contributors post here.

In the final analysis RR is what it is, and that itself is variously seen/judged by its readers. As made clear over the years, I don’t pretend to present ‘fair and balanced’ views simply because I am incapable of such rhetorical feats. And moreover, I believe those who claim to be so blessed are really charlatans or simply ignorant. RR will continue to unabashedly reflect the tinted/tainted views which all of its contributors and commenters bring to this forum. Perhaps someday our betters can forgive us, but we are what we are, and it was ever thus.

To Declare Wars or Not

George Rebane

After the end of our last declared war, diplomat extraordinaire and historian George Kennan wrote in 1946 what has come to be known as the ‘Long Telegram’ (q.v.) outlining a policy to contain the post-war global aspirations of the USSR.  That was quickly followed by his now famous ‘X article’ – ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’ in Foreign Affairs – which expanded on the recognition that Stalin’s real objective was to dedicate the USSR to foment revolution to “defeat the capitalist forces in the outside world” which required the overthrow of western governments.  In this piece his oft-quoted seminal observation was that -

“… the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies ... Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.”  (emphasis as in its subsequent references)

This policy with variants was adopted and implemented in its essence by all subsequent US presidents until the USSR collapsed in 1991.  Fundamentally, history has judged the containment policy through “adroit and vigilant applications of counterforce” wherever needed to have been successful.  During the entire period from 1945 to 1991 and to the present, neither the US nor any developed country has bothered to apply force or counterforce under an umbrella of a formal declaration of war.  World order, such as it is, has been maintained by the ad hoc application of military force by individual nation-states acting alone or within some loose alliances cobbled together for political reasons.

But the pragmatism that has underpinned such undeclared hostilities for more than half a century is easy to see.  Three principal reasons to proceed without formal declaration come to mind –

1. A declared war needs to have an objective of victory over an identified enemy that controls territory, people, and resources. The declaring party needs also then to put its nation on a wartime footing with all the concomitant sacrifices in force.
2. Foreign policy objectives can be achieved by the use of many kinds of force without the declaration of war which requires the commitment of foreign powers to declare themselves an ally or some other form of a committed partner of the declaring nation.
3. A formally declared war must continue until some formal instrument of peace or cessation of hostilities is negotiated and signed, else it continues indefinitely. Such terminating negotiations are more often than not difficult, expensive, and take a long time.

Now regarding Islamists and dawa, I tend to hold with Popper and Kennan as far as a responsive policy is concerned.  To understand what I mean, take Kennan’s paragraph above and substitute Islamist et al for the USSR et al.  It would then read –

The main element of any United States policy toward Islamism must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of dawa and Islamist expansive tendencies ... Islamist pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvers of Islamist policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence. 

None of this involves a declaration of war against Islamism, since that in its essence is a state-less distributed assault, especially in its promotion of dawa inside the borders of western countries already suffering from unassimilating Islamic colonization.  Were we to seek the stasist solution, promoted by many libertarians and progressives, of waiting for Islamism to condense into an attackable nation-state, it would be too late for the simple reason that this will never happen.  That kind of a world has passed a good many years ago.

And if people still believe that our current Constitution does not already provide for America to fight for its survival, without the declaration of war, through the timely, adroit, and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, then we should appropriately amend the Constitution to make that possible.

It’s the Dawa, stupid! (updated 10apr17)

George Rebane

‘Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Islam’s Most Eloquent Apostate’ now makes her latest attempt to explain the sum and substance of Islam in a well-summarized interview conducted at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.  Longtime RR readers will recognize that this American scholar, born as a Somalian Muslim, corroborates every point made in these pages about the threat that the spread of Islam portends to western civilization and all non-Islamic cultures.

In the above WSJ article, the multipli-fatwaed Ms Hirsi Ali (portrait by Zina Saunders) issues yet another dire warning to the west while our politically correct cadres continue to blindly support the growing communities of the so-called moderate Muslims in our midst.  As a former Muslim and now a celebrated academic and student of Islam, she cannot underline strongly enough that the west is in a civilizational war with the disciples of the Prophet Muhammad.  An early herald detailing the nature of this war in these pages is my ‘Of Ragheads and Racism’.

Let me attempt a structured summary of Ms Hirsi Ali’s understated yet eloquent cri de Coeur which she expands in her latest and extensively referenced The Challenge of Dawa.  The compact book is published online as a pdf (download here) by the Hoover Institute where she is a research fellow.  She is also a fellow at the Kennedy Government School at Harvard University, and married to Scottish historian and public commentator Dr Niall Ferguson whom we have also met in these pages (here, here, and here).

Ruminations – 7apr17 (updated 13apr17)

George Rebane

Hallelujah!  Judge Neil Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate and will now fill the ‘Scalia seat’ on SCOTUS.  This brilliant constitutional jurist is just what the country needs to slow our headlong rush to socialism, and assure us all that the high court will fulfill its constitutional role without encroaching on Congress or acting in its silence as an extension of the Executive.

The ‘Nuclear Option’ used to confirm Judge Gorsuch does not spell the end of federal governance as we know it, no matter the gnashing of teeth and rending of garment by the Dems.  After all, it was they who came up with that little piece of weaponry in the legislative arsenal.  We are also reminded that the Senate’s 60-vote cloture rule did not come down from Sinai, nor is it ensconced in the Constitution.  Our senators can pretty much do what they like when they cobble together or mend the rules which guide their proceedings.  But having gone nuclear should now make elections and party control of Congress much more interesting, important, and volatile.

Tomahawks over Syria, about time.  Without parsing the exact see-saws of Trump’s or even Washington’s wisdom about escalating the conflict in that part of the Middle (actually Near) East, it is good on its own that the US again showed the willingness to use its tooth and claw.  No matter whether/how the bombardment of Assad’s Syria continues, it is important for bad actors from Putin, through Iran’s mullahs, to the fat kid in North Korea to see that there’s a new order and resolve in Washington.  And the constant carping about ‘consistency’ by our Dems be damned.  Under Obama the world came to know us as consistently lame; now a little sampler of inconsistency should make people appropriately apprehensive about how this man will play the hand he was dealt.

[8apr17 update]  ‘Where Non-Techies Can Get With the Programming’ reports on the growing popularity of computer programming courses across the nation.  These courses range from the introductory/survey type all the way to multi-month programs that pump out certificated coders who are ready to earn a living in industry.  Almost all universities now have programming courses for their non-STEM majors, and for-profit training factories charge in the tens of thousands to make a programmer out of you in three to six months.

The importance of algorithms and the ability to algorize has finally been recognized by our non-techie business and (gasp!) humanities communities as a pre-requisite for critical or systems thinking.  This gospel has been preached here for years, and now it has bubbled up to the level where even folks at the NYT appreciate how algorizing is actually a fundamental skill that is also the foundational common denominator of creativity (more here).  Everyone who learns to code becomes an algorist, and can eventually learn to think thoughts denied to mere mortals (cf. Sapir-Whorf and all that).  For those heading for STEM careers, computer programming is a natural gateway to the systems sciences the tools of which many of us have come to know open up more than a lucrative livelihood for their practitioners. Here is something I wrote years ago as a short intro to algorithmics at a time when using the word algorithm was beyond the communal ken and thought to be only obscure jargon and propeller-head talk.  The times they are a’changin’.

[10apr17 update] Regarding this morning’s shootings at a San Bernardino elementary school about which we at this time know very little, but which is again raising all the gun control questions in the minds of our left-leaning neighbors.  A commenter below asks for my “pragmatic approach to the 2^nd Amendment” in view of this latest tragedy, and the question deserves a more considered answer.  For the present let me just reiterate that the 2^nd Amendment is not about duck hunting, and that the right of a large free peoples - now sheltering under a gossamer social contract while sharing fewer cultural assets than ever - to possess firearms does not come without a palpable price.  And that price should be viewed as calmly and reasonably as possible when from time-to-time it must be paid.  For recent readers and those who may have forgotten, my past scribblings – philosophical, pragmatic, and practical – on the private ownership of guns can be reviewed here, here, here, here, and here.

[11apr17 update]  In days of yore when a store had to order some out of stock item for you, the typical wait was usually somewhere between 2-4 weeks.  And we were OK with that.  Today, it’s a given that an online order will arrive tomorrow or the next day; and from a brick and mortar outlet the pressure is to replicate that service or the customer will go elsewhere.  Now that Amazon has set the new standard, there have sprung up dozens of new shipping companies to serve the small retailers desperate to compete.  And the new paradigm is that these shipping companies are offering inventory stocking warehouses to which retailers can have their suppliers deliver the designated SKUs for rapid fulfillment. (more here)  Ever wonder if UPS and FedEx missed the march by not expanding their package shipping/distribution centers to also offer inventory stocking services?  Big online retailers like Amazon are not shy in also entering the shipping business.  Changing times.

[13apr17 update] Softballing the opioid epidemic.  Fox News’ decline as a hard-hitting right-oriented network proceeds apace.  They now want to enlarge their audience from the sea of double dummies.  Covering the opioid epidemic which is reported to kill 91 Americans per day, FN goes into hyper-anecdotal mode reporting on the tragic death of a good looking 20-something young man by sticking a mike into the faces of his bereaved parents.  Opioids have a tremendous salutary effect as a prescribed pain killer that is used properly by millions of Americans.  We can only put the ‘epidemic’ in perspective if given the ratio of opioid abusers (including gateways to heroin) to those consuming it properly to alleviate pain.  But that stat is considered a yawn by the likes of FN.  We already know how to do such tradeoffs for societal benefit.  Traffic accidents also kill about 90 people a day, yet no one is proposing to curb the use of vehicular traffic in the US. Somehow those deaths are worth the price for the benefit we derive from a facile, low cost transportation system.

Sandbox Sayonara

George Rebane

When RR introduced the Sandbox forum to its readers back in 2014 (here) I don’t think any of us knew how popular it would quickly become.  The purpose of the Sandbox was to give RR readers a place to comment on topics of their current interest upon which I had not yet posted or even planned to post, or posted topics that had become dated and required re-invigoration.  The result was that each dated Sandbox acquired a comment stream in excess of one or two hundred comments in no time.

As RR host I felt it my job to monitor Sandbox comments in order to maintain a minimum semblance of decorum, but mainly to be responsive to readers who specifically wanted my opinion/response on an issue.  With the unexpected volume of comments in the rapidly filling Sandboxes over these past years, this monitoring has become quite a time-consuming chore, one that has now crossed into tedium.

As most readers know, my purpose for RR is to memorialize my observations and interpretations of the events of our times, in what I believe to be “the last great century of man”, and to also record the same from readers who are interested in expanding and/or contending what I present and thereby memorialize their views.  As the record shows, RR has always welcomed reasoned responses to and extensions of my posts.  It is my intention for RR to focus on this MO and continue such topical commentaries.

However, in the interval the number and intensity of my other projects has increased to the extent that I have to do a better job of prioritizing how I spend my time.  An obvious activity to cut back on was the Sandbox.  But due to its popularity I’ve been putting this off until it occurred to me that the Sandbox can (does?) have a life of its own, and it doesn’t have to only live and die on RR.  Long story short, I’ve found a new home for the Sandbox on the Sierra Dragon’s Breath blog run by Todd Juvinall, also a longtime RR reader and commenter.  Todd is a strong supporter of conservative ideas and very active on the various social media, which I am not, and he has agreed to welcome the Sandbox and make it a new feature on his blog.

In sum, I thank all RR readers who have ‘used’ the Sandbox over these years and am grateful for their continued interest in RR.  Today I invite you all to continue your lively debates and stinging repartees at Mr Juvinall’s pad where I am sure he will be a more assiduous host than me, and keep the Sandbox refreshed and refreshing with all of your contributions.  Thank you again.

The Wall – Our Porous Sovereignty

George Rebane

Control of its borders is the sine qua non of a sovereign nation-state that intends to remain self-determinant.  And here control means the ability to determine who comes and goes across its borders.  No known nation has ever had 100% secure borders, in other words all borders are porous to some extent.  It is then the level or rate of porosity that is the operational measure of border security and control.  In this piece I want to present some thoughts about America’s border porosity and its continued sovereignty.

‘Fair’ Cost of Goods & Services

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 5 April 2017.]

Capitalism in America is on the ropes and about to take two big hits that most likely will put it down for the count.  The first is to tax automation and technology in the workplace intended to reduce wage inequality and protect jobs for the untrained, the mis-skilled, and the uneducated.  The second is gender pay equality.  Implementing these will enable government to determine and enforce what the labor component of goods and services should cost the employer.  We’ll take each of them in turn.

Ruminations – 3apr17 (updated)

George Rebane

Well, it turns out that Obama's White House was indeed illegally monitoring Team Trump during both the campaign and pre-inaugural transition.  Outlets Bloomberg and the Washington Times (here) report on Susan Rice’s involvement in ordering the unmasking of Team Trump personnel.  This is likely to turn out as a criminal matter that maybe will stick to one of Obama’s most unabashed shills.  The information was revealed to Chairman Nunes during his recent White House intelligence briefing, and explains away why he “was acting so cagey last week.”  This could well turn out to be the gun that has been doing all the smoking lately.

‘Incidental (aka widespread/comprehensive?) monitoring and collection’ of communications data in the US is now confirmed.  The lamestream media along with the more timid Republican MoCs have yet to come to grips with this truth.  The Dems don’t want to touch this aspect of our intelligence industry and the operation of the Deep State, especially now apropos to Susan Rice.  RR recommended this line of questioning for House Intelligence Committee in ‘Questions Unasked and Unanswered’ which was immediately lambasted by the local Left’s intelligentsia who have left their crickets to carry the remaining water on this.

Union columnist George Boardman today brought up an interesting point (here) about our annual trimmigrant invasion and ‘fair trade pot’.  He explains, “Fair trade, the idea that we should care about how the goods and commodities we consume are produced, particularly when they come from developing countries, has gained enough traction to get the attention of manufacturers and retailers.”  And hopefully concludes, “While generally mellow and law abiding, trimmigrants have been known to sleep in their cars or under bridges, and to patronize free meal programs for the homeless, presumably to stretch the money they make harvesting the local pot crop. If they are paid a fair wage under a fair trade program, a lot of these problems disappear. It's a win-win for everybody.”  Now here’s a chance for our progressive purveyors of pot to walk their politically correct talk.

[update]  The battlements for Susan Rice are being rapidly erected by the Left.  The main spin is that ‘unmasking’ is not ‘wiretapping’, which, of course, always meant directed surveillance made possible by requesting selected communications of the comprehensive (aka ‘incidental’) surveillance now conducted by our intelligence community.  That Rice found an unbidden stack of Team Trump communication transcripts on her desk is nothing short of a miracle.  But they do happen, so posit it.  Rice then decided to order the unmasking of the contained US citizen IDs, and had them disseminated over the God’s half-acre conveniently authorized by her boss, the Big O.  Some leftwing worthies who don’t believe in miracles are also arguing that she may have just ‘requested’ those transcripts, which (seatbelts please) is not the same as having ordered them pulled from the database.  Bottom line, President Trump was right, he was ‘wiretapped’ and had to let the evidence find its convoluted way out into the sunshine.

Heard about California’s SB18, the ‘Children’s Bill of Rights’ that leviathan is working on in Sacramento?  The essence of the bill “establishes our state's ULTIMATE control of every aspect of our children's welfare without consideration for the parents' rights or unique knowledge of their child's individual needs. … the draft of the bill contemplates the state’s power to seize or restrict parents' access to children that aren't receiving what they (the state) determines to be the correct ‘research-based essential needs’ and ‘special care’ from their parents and guardians.”  Is this still only advancing toward autocracy, or have we already passed into the suburbs of tyranny?