Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox – 27jan24

[Law professor Turley of George Washington University makes the case that in the Texas vs Feds border tussle, Biden has the upper hand over Gov Abbot.  And it’s got nothing to do with justice, executive responsibility, or what the Constitution requires.  It’s all about how our corrupt courts will adjudicate the matter in favor of the administration (more here and here).  gjr]

Scattershots – 25jan24 (updated 4feb24)

George Rebane

Evidence of the impassable gulf between the minds of dedicated collectivists (leftists, progressives, Marxists, wokes, …) and forms or reasoning/logic that work.  From that tribe a local worthy (Richard Howell here) contends that California’s offering free health care to illegal aliens does not impact their decisions to make our state their new home.  His understanding of human nature is that offering more benefit for some behavior does NOT encourage more of such behavior (Pavlov and Skinner call your office).  This fundamental chasm of ignorance is shared by members of our one-party state legislature who continue to make the public policies that power the Great California Exodus.

“I am SOMEBODY and I deserve full equality” reads one of the signs held by some of California's universities’ hunger-striking students here illegally.  The Daily Californian describes the participating students’ hope “that the strike will encourage the university to accept a proposal allowing for the hiring of undocumented students. Currently, undocumented students cannot hold any campus job, including research and teaching assistant positions.”  Apparently the plethora of benefits they already receive for being ‘somebody’ able to fog a mirror in California are not sufficient.  Nowhere in this discussion is mentioned the current availability of such jobs for students here legally.  (more here)

[31jan24 update]  The Pentagon prepares its cadres to fight domestic “rightwing terrorism” as one of its high hard operational objectives.  No one knows from what basis the DOD has adopted the suppression of domestic terrorism of any hue as one of its operational mandates.  Here is the latest on its internal efforts to spread the word and alert its cadres to imminent danger.  From their announcement of the meeting we read, “They (… the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol) are the latest flashpoints in a process that has been unfolding for decades, in which vast conspiracy theories and radical ideologies such as white supremacism, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and hostility to government converge into a deadly threat to democracy. … This talk, derived from the speakers’ new book, God, Guns, and Sedition (Columbia Univ. Press) discusses the rise of far-right terrorism in the United States, the impact of U.S. domestic terrorism on our foreign policy and our allies, and policy recommendations to counter far-right terrorism.”

[4feb24 update]  Illegals can vote in Arizona, “even though it’s a felony under federal law for an alien to register and vote”.  And then receiving a voter registration card, the illegal alien can use that as a bona fide identity to apply for and qualify for all kinds of additional government goodies.  Anti-American Democrats are, of course, all for it as another of their reliable vote buying gimmicks.  (more here)

Gavin Newsom, the Brylcreem Kid, let slip again how incredibly ignorant he is about almost everything to do with what’s happening in California, and how Democrat policies continue to damage California and its wealth producing citizens.  He was shopping in retail store while it was being openly robbed by a gang of thieves.  When they left, he excoriated the store’s staff for not doing anything to stop them.  His diatribe made it clear that he had no idea that today such thievery is perfectly legal in California, and the store’s employees are legally liable if they do anything to impede the thugs or the robbery in progress.  Police no longer respond to nor do the district attorneys prosecute such obvious criminality.  In response, stores are now moving out of (mostly poor) neighborhoods where such behavior has become the norm.  Another Democratic gift that keeps on giving as our culture spirals into the mud. (more here)

                                                   

A Worthy Extension of Federalism

George Rebane

We see that SCOTUS has given the feds permission to remove some razor wire barricades from federal land on the Mexican border.  This permission enables the anti-American Biden administration to enable more illegals to easily enter the United States.  No consideration was given to national security in the ruling which included two so-called conservative justices. (more here)

Most of us know that the US Constitution primarily limits the powers of the federal government to those specifically delineated in the document.  Powers absent are reserved for the states and its more local jurisdictions.  The federal government is mandated by law to carry out and implement certain specified powers, among the leading is to provide for and maintain national security.  This definitely includes securing the nation’s borders so that only lawful transit is both authorized and made possible.

Unfortunately, the Constitution is silent when it comes to the enforcement and execution of its provisions and derived laws when the federal government cannot or will not carry out its obligations.  According to Rebane Doctrine, in such cases the natural and rational solution is to expand federalism by authorizing the states to fulfill such obligations and implement the functions of the absent federal government.  A corollary to such a ruling would be to then prohibit the federal government from interfering with the states as they fulfill the constitutional obligations abandoned by the feds.

This new protocol could be implemented by a SCOTUS ruling in response to, say, a suit brought by any state harmed by the feds’ delinquent behavior.  The ruling would then set an enduring precedent like other such SCOTUS rulings.  Of course, if it were deemed sufficiently important, then the ruling could be promoted into a constitutional amendment.  According to my lights, recognizing this clarifying extension has become necessary as our country becomes more fractionated with large numbers of states in frequent disagreement with a federal government that often acts unconstitutionally.

AI in the Medium and Message

George Rebane

Argentina’s president Javier Milei delivered an important speech at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  In it he described the history of Argentina’s tragic descent from being one of the world’s leading developed countries, enjoying the fruits of free market capitalism, to a nation today with a destitute and chaotic economy after it began reorganizing itself under various forms of collectivism centered on socialism.  The speech is an excellent and well-delivered warning to that annual conclave of true-believer globalists.  You can view it here in its entirety – I recommend it.

But perhaps the equally or even more important aspect of the speech was the mode of its delivery.  You see, Milei delivered the speech in Spanish to a live audience who wore ear pieces to get a realtime English translation by a human translator. Yet in the above video of the speech Milei delivered it in perfectly accented English in his own voice.  The video was generated offline by an LLM AI that correctly coded his voice and modified the video image to perfectly synchronize his lips to express the English delivery.  (Here is the follow-up to illustrate the human-translated version of the video.)

The astute reader will instantly understand that this speaker could have been made to deliver any kind of speech desired at that WEF venue.  Such translations will soon become realtime in the sense that the actual speaker speaking in language L3 delivering message M7 will be seen and heard on monitors and/or live broadcasts to speak in language L12 delivering message M5.  For the latter we will need the source file to contain metadata on facial expressions and, perhaps, gestures etc – all in the realm of today’s offline large language AI models.

For good or ill, in these pre-Singularity years this is what we now have to look forward to from here on.  And this election season will no doubt provide us with examples of both.

Ruminations – 17jan24 (updated 21jan24)

George Rebane

Threats to democracy?  While the Marxist left continues to trumpet that the elected Trump will be a “threat to democracy” (no evidence of that from his previous administration), the Biden and Newsom administrations are the existential and accomplished threats to democracy as witnessed through the overflowing record of their ‘accomplishments’ to reduce freedoms on all fronts, increase confiscatory tributes on all Americans, trash any notion of national security through our mega-porous southern border, and invite an already growing list of international conflicts through our daily demonstrated national weakness.  Our Left cannot wait to hand over the country to the tender ministrations of the global elites.

Speaking of the mega-influx of illegal aliens, sociologists and political scientists have long demonstrated through the historical record that it takes an influx of only 5% of a foreign cultural element to destabilize the culture and governance of a host country.  The Democrats have reached this threshold through their planned “undocumented immigration” policy by allowing the uncontrolled release of more than twelve million aliens to join the already resident millions of the disaffected counter-cultured who are beholden to the unabashed purchase of their votes through leftwing wealth redistribution programs.

[21jan24 update]  “Iran and Pakistan are both nuclear capable.”  So reported Fox News the other day in covering their recent exchange of missiles.  Now if that were really true, would you not think that this would make banner headlines worldwide, and Israel would be delivering bunker busters to appropriate sites in that terror-sponsoring Islamic republic?  Don’t know how that piece of bull pucky got past their editors.

Sandbox - 16jan24

[Trump's Iowa win makes it clear that from here on out only his lip will sink his ship.  gjr]

California Stupid Perseveres (updated 10jan24)

George Rebane

As a part of its latest bevy of idiotic laws and regs, Sacramento continues its perennial attempt to remove the Second Amendment from the Constitution for those of us living in California.  It has passed a new restrictive law (currently appealed) that prevents the state’s CCW holders from carrying their concealed guns in 29 new public areas.  The explanation given to our sheeple is that the new law will save human lives, when in reality it will do anything but that.

The law is nothing less than the latest incremental ratchet to constructively remove firearms from the hands of law-abiding citizens.  However, it does communicate to the mentally deranged killers and terrorists that now here are more areas in the public forum which for them are free-fire zones where they can wantonly murder and create mayhem with no fear of being opposed by a legal gun.

The state’s claim that CCW holders are perpetrators of mass shootings is utterly without merit or evidence.  What the FBI data have consistently shown is that CCW holders are the safest and most responsible gun toters in the nation.  A recent study reveals that sworn law enforcement  officers, already a responsible and trustworthy cohort, are still six times more likely to murder someone than a gun-carrying citizen holding a CCW permit. (more here and here)

But being able to peddle that kind of pabulum to Californians confirms again that as an electorate we suffer from a widespread, massive, and chronic intellectual deficit (aka are butt stupid), which explains why decade after decade we vote for corrupt politicians of the anti-American evil party to make our laws and administer our beautiful state.

[10jan24 update] 'California Stupid Perseveres and Amplifies' - Now the troop of Democrat Socialists in Sacramento are again pushing through a tax on assets.  This is supposed to make the 0.5% Californians who already ante up 40% of state revenues to now start paying their "fair share". (more here)

Ruminations – 5jan24 (updated 9jan24)

George Rebane

‘DEI’ is now the new politically correct attribute that replaces ‘Section 8’ that we have been using for decades.  Referring to that part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for those reeeinving meritless assignments, promotions, and rewards served us well and irked to no end the liberal sponsors of such fractured public policies.  Now we can use the more acceptable ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ modifiers as in ‘The former Harvard president and plagiarist Claudine Gay got her job as a DEI candidate.’

The recent massacre of Iranians by ISIS demonstrates again that the ragheads love killing each other with perhaps even more gusto than they like to murder Jews.  I think the body counts bear out this conclusion.

The reason there are ‘food deserts’ in US cities was again demonstrated in Compton, CA.  There a mad max gang pillaged Ruben’s Bakery & Mexican Food when “a mob of more than 100 rushed into the store, stealing groceries, lottery tickets, and even meat scales, and causing further damage.”  Who today wants to invest their life savings in a retail business located in a Democrat controlled town where a “local small business that braves a rough neighborhood is rewarded with looting and destruction."

[8jan24 update] 'The Real Story of January 6th' is a 1.5 hour online movie produced by Epoch Times.  It's a bit scary to watch as it shows what our government now does to people whom they consider to be their political enemies.  And more scary to see how obvious self-declared anti-American rioters can loot, rob, burn, and riot in our cities with absolutely no recourse from the established authorities.

[9jan24 update]  Readers familiar with my advocacy of all things Bayesian, especially in the area of decision-making and evolutionary progress, will enjoy reading this piece – ‘Bayesian Inference: A Unified Framework for Perception, Reasoning, and Decision-making’ – in the online magazine Medium.  It provides some additional insights into how we (and other critters) are all basically Bayesian, whether we know it or not.

The Sins of Trump

George Rebane

2024 will be a tumultuous year that will tax all of our ‘goodwill toward men’.  The world is full of wars, incipient wars, and hot spots.  In America we and much of the rest of the world will be focused on our November national election.  And embedded in the run-up to that election will be the indictments and trials of former President Trump and the impeachment and scandals of the Biden administration.  RR commenters of all stripes have circled the ‘sins of Trump’ barn innumerable times over the last couple of years.  Here, for the record, I want to enter my own take on Trump’s sins.