Ruminations – 8nov19 (updated 13nov19)

George Rebane

Progressives moving to suburbs and small towns after they have soiled their coastal urban areas.  Almost half of San Francisco residents now want to leave the shithole city.  These people – overwhelmingly ignorant and anti-capitalist - are like locusts and will also devastate their new homes wherever they land.  The process will not take place overnight, but it will be inexorable, especially if their states continue to adopt the disastrous policies of California.  Nevada County turning ‘blue’ is a poster child for this migration of socialists blind to socialism.   (more here, here, and here)

James Dean lives again through the magic of CGI (computer generated imagery) in an upcoming movie. (here)  In my field we foresaw the resurrection of dead, iconic movie stars almost 40 years ago when then nascent CGI technologies made their way into smaller companies that started servicing the movie and TV industries. (My own company and Hughes Aircraft were the first two west coast companies to establish the then advanced computer graphics labs for defense work.)  The current owners of these movie stars’ estates will have a chance to cash in again.  The impact of such a CGI resurrection on opportunities for today’s myriads of living actors is TBD.

University of California prepares to abandon academic meritocracy.  The Left’s constant push to compromise America’s future is making additional inroads in a field they pretty much have dominated and devastated our educational systems with their ‘social justice’ organizations now threatening to sue UC if it continues to use standardized testing (think SAT and ACT) as a basis for admittance.  As always, these anti-American warriors use the bogus argument that meritocracy discriminates against minorities.  Has anyone taken a walk on a UC campus lately?  Does anyone think that developing any realworld system - inventing an algorithm, writing a program, or building a bridge - will benefit from fewer or incompetent STEM graduates?

‘California’s Disastrous State Illustrates Limits of Progressivism’ writes Victor Davis Hanson in his lates review of how our state has been turned into a third-world wannabe in the hands of the resurrected Socialist Party of America who still use their old name of Democrats.  Unfortunately, the limits of progressivism will be achieved when California becomes a social wasteland toward which it is now accelerating.  And the local idiots still think it's only some obscure foothill codgers who hallucinate about the state's long downfall.

[10nov19 update]  My skepticism about the reality of preventable man-made global warming is nicely summarized in this article written by climate scientist Dr Jay Lehr.  It incorporates most of the factors that I have addressed over the years about the global warming issues as part of Rebane Doctrine.  (H/T to reader)

[13nov19 update]  Apropos to the above update, another Democrat has outed a previously hushed truth about the public positions and policies of progressives.  Sen Mazie Hirono (D-HI) publicly admonished Americans “to fundamentally change the way they think about climate change” – more specifically, she urged that people “believe in climate change as though it’s a religion, it’s not a science.” (more here)  This, of course, has been a major Rebane Doctrine tenet about preventable manmade global warming in these pages for years.

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

CA exodus, piling on.

“But the largest factor in leading conservative residents to consider leaving California is the state’s increasingly intolerant and authoritarian state government and culture. In many ways, the state’s Democrat officials are straining at gnats — exemplified by the state’s anti-straw regulation — while swallowing camels, as officials loudly declare California a sanctuary state for illegal aliens. While officials continue to pander to leftist social-justice zealots, the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles are covered in feces and syringes, courtesy of a burgeoning homeless population. And then there are the wildfires consuming vast swaths of the state, a problem exacerbated by the state’s ecofascist policies. The response to the fires? Intentional power blackouts.

In times past, California was one of the most welcoming and freest states in the union. Millions flocked to the state seeking to gain from the myriad of opportunities available, and California grew significantly because of it, becoming known the world over. However, those days seem long forgotten, as paradise is being ruined by a regulatory state intent on controlling the populace and a population bent on crushing dissenting opinion rather than espousing the virtues of Liberty. Is it any wonder conservative Californians are leaving?“

https://patriotpost.us/articles/66634-california-conservatives-departing-in-droves-2019-11-07?

Well, that certainly explains why CA is a one party state. All the conservatives and freedom loving people are looking at CA in their rear view mirror. Just goes to show how much District 1 is out of touch with the rest of the state and how much the blue pimple of Nevada City is out of touch with District 1. :)

[Bill Tozer]

Re: Progressives moving to suburbs and small towns after they have soiled their coastal urban areas. Almost half of San Francisco residents now want to leave the shithole.

Well, it’s not like the suburbs and small towns have decided to switch from Red to Blue because they are riding the Blue Wave. Nay, it’s because the Stink-Ass refugees are fleeing the ‘too many rats in the cage utopia’ they built and flooding the formerly nice places to live.

[Walt]

You need not look further than the local LIB rag police blotter to verify city idiots moving here. Gunfire out in the countryside has them pissing themselves. So what does the POS, BOS do? raise the limits on where people can shoot on their own damned property. Now has the county given the shooters a place to shoot in exchange? HELL no.

[George Rebane]

BillT 1117am - Nailed it Mr Tozer.

[Russell Steele]

TWO JERRY BROWNS IN ONE! Gov. Brown vetoed 2016 bill aimed at power line, wildfire safety.

Flash-forward to last Sunday: Trump to Gavin Newsom on California Fires: ‘Get Your Act Together.’ Newsom responded like a snotty teenager, “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation.” Though as Joel Pollak writes at Breitbert.com, “there is no scientific link between the current fires and climate change. Scientists have said that a warmer California could be more susceptible to fire in the future, but recent fires are partly a product of conditions already endemic to California, and wind patterns that have little to do with climate change. One scientist called Jerry Brown’s effort to link wildfires to climate change an example of ‘noble-cause corruption’ — i.e. making incorrect scientific claims in the service of a ‘noble’ cause that most scientists might in fact support politically.”

And then there’s 2015 Jerry Brown versus 1970s Jerry Brown: As Victor Davis Hanson wrote in 2015 during California’s long, largely self-created drought, “Brown and other Democratic leaders will never concede that their own opposition in the 1970s (when California had about half its present population) to the completion of state and federal water projects, along with their more recent allowance of massive water diversions for fish and river enhancement, left no margin for error in a state now home to 40 million people.”

More toilet flushers and less water as we enter the next grand minimum, as colder is dryer -- this will not end well.

[Bill Tozer]

Progressives moving to small towns

Sugarloaf Trail hits a hiccup

https://knco.com/sugarloaf-trail-hits-a-hiccup/

[scenes]

re: [email protected]:32AM

lol. Nice.

Are they living in the gypsy wagons that everyone was so enthusiastic about?

"Olsen say she is going to reach out to the Land Trust and staff to clarify concerns and see if a solution can be developed."

If the city council was in favor of the PD and law enforcement generally, I suspect that a solution would be not so hard to come by.

Truth is that nobody is going to do anything and eventually the 'campers' will burn down the town. In the meantime, the gorillaloveproject is going to send up a few gift bags of toothbrushes and homemade scarves.

[Bill Tozer]

Scenes! I thought you would be Scenes from the Amtrak today. I will sneak this under distrust of government (or some phony topic) to get to my latest interest: The Flynn case.
I am growing fond of the resistance....resistance to the Deep State swamp....especially Underground Huber. Check out his Twitter feed sometime. Anyway, distrust of government.

https://twitter.com/JohnWHuber/status/1190021183510646784

Bookends:
1) https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-michael-flynn-smoking-gun-fbi-headquarters-altered-interview-summary
and
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGsYo79Q2vE&feature=emb_logo

And more distrust of government: fun scrolling. Christopher Steele and the whistleblower “witness”? My, what a small world. :)

[Bill Tozer]

Oh yeah, forget last link.

https://twitter.com/JohnWHuber

[Gregory]

George, how does an ancient PhD in groundwater hydrology translate into becoming a "climate scientist", an authority on the mostly atmospheric heat flows of our climate?

Jay Lehr isn't the sort of "climate scientist" who will seed doubt in anyone's mind, let alone change the mind that hallucinates an oil company lobbyist being under every skeptic's bed.

[Gregory]

"It is time that we all stop fighting alarmist numbers with our small numbers. The only number that matters is ZERO. That is, in fact, the real impact of carbon dioxide on the Earth’s thermostat and sea level rise. We are not in a battle over numbers. We are in a battle to protect our way of life."
-Jay Lehr, the link is above

That is, in fact, total Bullcrap and no real scientist would write such a claim.

IPCC claims the Earth's temperature will rise from 1.5C to 4.5C if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doubles... meaning from 400 to 800ppm... but only a response above 2 degrees for a doubling will cause a dreaded "tipping point".

The scientists (physicists all) who I tend to accept generally put the number from 1 to 1.5 for a doubling, and above 1000ppm there won't be any additional warming because ALL of the heat in the wavelengths CO2 can absorb will already be absorbed.

1 to 1 anna half degrees C for a doubling of CO2, derived not from computer simulations of the world but from measured temperatures, is NOT zero.

[George Rebane]

The carbon cycle we (don't) understand doesn't explain why global temperature rises precede atmospheric CO2 rises.

[Gregory]

I didn't see this response until bedtime, please forgive my delay. A word or two additional might have made your point clearer.

Yes, it's complicated.

Nir Shaviv's take on CO2 sensitivity is here:
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity

CO2 climate sensitivity is generally specified at a steady state... but the temperature rise preceding atmosphereic co2 rise is, I think, pinned on gas solubility (by temperature) in the oceans, the best planetary scale solar energy collectors we got.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: “Unfortunately, the limits of progressivism will be achieved when California becomes a social wasteland toward which it is now accelerating.” —Dr. Rebane
——-
“But San Francisco still keeps bragging rights, and by a lot. After all the ballots were counted, San Francisco narrowly elected Chesa Boudin to be its next district attorney. Who is Chesa Boudin? The Washington Post calls him a “progressive lawyer,” but not until you get far down in the story do you reach some of the relevant biography:

His parents were members of the radical left-wing group the Weather Underground and were imprisoned when he was a child for their role in an armed heist that left three men dead. His mother served 22 years, and his father may spend the rest of his life in prison.

The New York Times offers a little more:

“He was raised in Chicago by Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn before studying law at Yale University. He later won a Rhodes Scholarship and worked as a translator for Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez before coming to San Francisco.”
Boudin has no experience as a prosecutor, but that really doesn’t matter since it appears he doesn’t want to prosecute anyone for much of anything—certainly not if a prosecution would entail a jail sentence. Boudin has said that his main targets will be “mass incarceration, institutionalized racism, and police violence in the city.” Good luck if you are the victim of a property crime in San Francisco these next four years. It is now open season for crime in SF.

“Footnote: Boudin won the election under the “ranked choice” voting system that is all the rage with progressive reformers, under which voters rank the candidates by their supposed preferences, and low-ranked candidates have their votes redistributed to the higher ranking candidates. In a traditional election—you know, the kind where the person with the most votes wins—the appointed incumbent Suzy Loftus would have won.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/11/election-aftermath.php

[Bill Tozer]

VDH.

“When the media proves 90 percent partisan according to its own liberal watchdog institutions, or reports things as true that cannot be true but “should” be true, what are the forces behind that?

When the violence of Antifa is quietly—or sometimes loudly—condoned, who are those who empower it and excuse it?

If a late-term abortion results in a live baby exiting the birth canal only to be liquidated, who exactly would say that is amoral?

If the leading Democratic presidential candidates openly embrace the Green New Deal, reparations, abolishing the Electoral College, welfare for illegal aliens, open borders, amnesties, wealth taxes, a 70-90 percent income tax code, Medicare for all, and legal infanticide—what is the alternative vision and who stands between all that and a targeted traditional America?

Californication Ahead!

In California, the nation’s largest utility preemptively shuts off power to multibillion-dollar industries and two-million customers, given its ossified grid and over-regulated operations, and the deliberate policy of the state not to clean up drought-stricken dead forests and underbrush that are ignited by wind and antiquated transmission cables. So, who or what then in 2020 would oppose all that?

In a state where half the nation’s homeless use the streets as open sewers and receptacles for refuse, incubating medieval diseases and public hazards, who exactly says that is unacceptable? The California attorney general openly boasts that he believes the state is the home for 10 million immigrants of undetermined legal status; is there any pushback to that agenda? If not, would 20 or 30 million immigrants be acceptable for Californians? Why not 50 to 60 million additional residing foreign nationals legal or otherwise?

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/10/the-looming-1984-election/

[Walt]

LIB thinking at it's finest?
You be the judge.
“Trump is taking benefits away from black Americans by giving them jobs! You may think a low unemployment rate is good, but it’s just part of Trump’s evil racist plan to make sure blacks are no longer wards of the state. It’s horribly racist to make them work.”

I'm sure Dougy and Jeffy will agree!!
https://genesiustimes.com/omar-trump-is-taking-benefits-from-blacks-by-giving-them-jobs/

[Scott O]

Walt 1:21 - You had me going for a bit, there.
I did see a story at CBS about the "problems" of low unemployment.
Apparently employers have to pay higher wages. I kid you not. It's a problem! Leave it to the Fake News Media to find a rain cloud in every sunny Trump day!
Darn higher wages! Oh, when we be rid of this evil Trump?

[fish]

Posted by: Walt | 11 November 2019 at 01:21 PM

Best passage Walt!

"Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that we need a high black unemployment rate to ensure the government control over a large voting block.

“Without unemployment, how are we going to control them?” Schumer asked. “And they’re going to stop voting for us if they don’t need our welfare checks.”

Rep. Omar has recently split up with her husband and they’ve decided to see other siblings.

[Walt]

But you know that's what they "really" are saying.
Funny,, the Proggy brothers had nothing to say.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: Update Nov 13.....Give me some of that old time Religion.

“Of course, faith has nothing to do with earth science. The latest IPCC Report (2018), authored by luminaries in the field, looks like the very model of scientific inquiry. It is 618 pages long and packed with graphs, math, and time series. Given the dense academic language, it is doubtful whether anybody apart from the proofreaders has read the tome in its entirety.

Nor is it necessary to run the whole course in order to get at a basic truth—a truth regularly ignored by the media, with its penchant for turning “might be” into “is” and “could happen” into “will happen.” For our purpose, it is enough to read the 24 pages of the “Summary for Policy Makers.” It is preceded by a motto taken from the beloved French children’s book author Antoine de St. Exupéry that gives the game away: The report is about salvation but written in the language of science. The quote reads: “As for the future, the task is not to foresee, but to enable it.”

The data-driven language of the climatologists is more timid than the thunder of the Prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah et al. mince no words when they let loose death and damnation. Unless you repent, God will strike. You will suffer hellish retribution. You will perish. The authors of the IPCC “Summary” hedge their bets. “Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming” (emphasis added). “It is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase” (emphasis in original). Anthropogenic global warming is again “estimated” as such and such. Extreme weather is explained by “attribution studies,” which suggests that the authors are not sure about whether one variable drives another, but they offer probabilistic assessments. Anthropogenic emissions “alone are unlikely to cause global warming of 1.5°C” (emphasis in original). (Note that the media are comfortable bandying around the figure of 2 or even 4 degrees.) Risks are not certain, avers the report, but depend on all kinds of factors, such as the “rate of warming, geographic location, levels of development and vulnerability.” So if X goes up, as assumed, then Y and Z might follow.”

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-religion-of-climatism/

[Bill Tozer]

NYT Attacks EPA Over Rule to Require Disclosure

The Trump administration wants sounds science and transparency. How dare they?

“Cry us a federally protected puddle. What this really means is that it’ll be harder for ecofascists to foist their pseudoscience on the American people through the change-the-world hippies at the EPA. As we’ve said before, in reality, Trump is pushing for the government to return to adhering to sound scientific practice for informing policy decisions — and, in this case, costly environmental regulation — rather than agenda-driven hysterics.”

https://patriotpost.us/articles/66744-nyt-attacks-epa-over-rule-to-require-disclosure-2019-11-13?fbclid=IwAR3AyYOv2LqGXecaH1xIHJPECADli25wevQJjl4avKKpiQCsExRcx6hSbME

[Bill Tozer]

UC isn’t the only one ready to abandon academic meritocracy....every one is ready to lock and load.

“But can “bullying” explain low black enrollment in advanced courses? I doubt it. Nerds have long been bullied at school. This hasn’t prevented them from excelling academically. Arguably, it has motivated them to excel, in part as a way of getting into classes where they were less likely to be bullied.

There is some evidence that the performance of black students is harmed by peer pressure from other black students not to excel. I don’t know whether this dynamic operates in Loudoun County (or anywhere else). However, it’s a more plausible explanation for failure to excel than bullying by members of other races is.

Are we to believe that black students aren’t meeting the rigorous standards for advanced courses because they are sometimes taunted in the hallway or on the playground? Are we to believe that racism is being practiced in the classroom itself to the point that black students can’t learn and/or perform?

What evidence supports these assumptions? They sound like excuses, not reality. Using the catch-phrase “hostile learning environment” isn’t evidence.

No one wants to see advanced courses with low black participation rates. If an anti-bullying program would somehow avoid this outcome, that would be great. If not, the way to avoid it is for black students to raise their performance levels, not for the school system to impose numerical balance.

The result of imposing such balance would be the admission of under qualified students in advanced courses and, as a byproduct, the lowering of the quality of the courses. In other words, the dumbing down of Loudoun County.“

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/11/the-war-on-standards-advanced-courses-edition.php