Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox - 8nov19

[So what's Bloomberg's entry into the Dems' presidential race going to do to the Dropout Derby?  Will there be a rush to the exits by those who can't get traction?  How will the current 'Final Four' go after the new white billionaire vying for office?  gjr]

Sandbox - 31oct19

['In life it's important to know when to stop arguing with people, and simply let them be wrong.' - an old shibboleth with conditional wisdom.  Doesn't deciding when to stop arguing also depend on who all are listening to the argument?  gjr]

Sandbox - 24oct19

[Power still out on Cement Hill with no wind, while Sonoma County burns.  Am looking for local readers' reports on the return of power.  gjr]

Sandbox - 19oct19

[Trump keeps sticking his foot in it at every turn.  Now enough crap is starting to pile up so that a significant number of Rs are starting to voice opposition.  That can mushroom in the Senate and end his administration.  Right now the immediate pile consists of 1) Ukrainian pro quids per Mulvaney, 2) Abandoning Kurds in Syria, and 3) holding the G-7 in his Doral digs.  All of which could have been avoided if someone would only tell him, 'Mr President, STFU!!'  gjr]

Sandbox - 8oct19

[On the face of it I am not in favor of withdrawing US troops from Syria, especially viz the Kurds.  My own long-stated Rebane Doctrine is that the US must continue its role as the world's white hat policeman (hegemon) using responses and methods that will evolve with needs and time.  But before we continue hyper-ventilating on the withdrawal, can someone cite the exact parameters of Trump's withdrawal announcement - e.g. is it more than pulling a few tens of troops back from the 20-mile buffer zone?  gjr]

Sandbox - 3oct19

[I did my best to remove some of the irrelevant and ad hominem comments from a couple of my topical commentaries.  Please continue posting your comments under the appropriate recent topical posts or in the Sandbox if I have not recently covered the topic of your interest.  Thanks. gjr]

Sandbox - 25sep19

[Anybody have any thoughts about a workable public policy that would sufficiently shield  PG&E so that it doesn't have to conduct its CYA power outages?  gjr]

Sandbox - 18sep19

[The Union tells us that there will be demonstrations 'Striking for the Earth' at the NC and GV city halls this Friday.  These deluded citizens have no idea that their anthropomorphized Earth doesn't give a big rat's ass about ongoing climate change.  And what still eludes these sincere but factually deficient folks is that consensus science is NOT science - discovering ground truths about our universe is NOT a democratic process.  gjr]

Sandbox - 12sep19

[Back from our travels, and lots of insights about what's going on in the minds of many Europeans.  gjr]

Sandbox - 5sep19

[Apologies for the delay in providing new sand.  You all seem to have covered every imaginable issue in the last Sandbox.  And there is more to be said about it all.  Haven’t heard of more dropouts in the derby beyond Gillibrand - we’ll update scores when I get home.  Sally forth!  gjr]

Sandbox - 28aug19

[How come none of our liberals respond to all the illegal alien rapists and murderers who are continually getting caught and arrested?  How would they respond to a pack of progressive lies like this yayhoo dispenses in his 'Capitalism's Last Gasp'?  BTW, we're going on a little trip that promises iffy connectivity, so please be patient.  Vielen dank.  gjr] 

Sandbox - 20aug19

[I suppose doing the poll dance will continue as the hot topic and entertainment du jour.  At this stage of the campaign, that's much like watching 'snow' on a TV with signal loss.  gjr]

Sandbox - 11aug19

[Gun confiscation in disguise is the topic du jour, and the disguise has now become a very thin, translucent veil still useful for fooling some of the people all of the time.  gjr]

Sandbox - 6aug19

[We will now have to dissect the when and how President Trump was the prime cause of all these massacres.  And one thing is clear to many of our tight thinkers, the man is able to make such things happen in cities where he previously held a campaign rally.  So finally, after all the years of mass shootings, we have identified their cause.  Socialist science marches on.  gjr]

Sandbox - 2aug19

[Interesting discussion from the last sandbox on Baltimore, shithole cities, and the misguided attack on Kushner and other investors in companies willing to provide housing in crime and drug infested ghettos.  The simple-minded accuse such investors of being "slumlords" with the same logic that investors (like me) can be accused of causing the opioid epidemic by investing in pharma companies or killing women and children in the mid-east wars by investing in defense industries.  Go figger.  gjr]

Sandbox - 28jul19

[Was going to intro this sandbox with a comment on the current Trump/Cummings imbroglio, but reader Todd Juvinall's comment in the last Scattershots covers it pretty well.  "Elijah Cummings district is truly a shithole district. Most of the urban blight is contained in the areas represented by the Con Black Caucus. With over 40 members I have watched them most of my political years and they are as impotent (as) Steve Frisch. Their districts are shitholes. We see the same thing now in LA with the Hispanic Caucus. If they would cast off their leftist robes of failure and embrace Republican values and ideas they could revitalize their shitholes. But they won't. The press is siding with these failed politicians against Trump. He sure says what is true."  gjr]

Sandbox - 17jul19

[The Secure Act going through Congress will do a significant modification of how you can and must dispose your retirement accounts, and it will also open the door for the gummint to come in and tax a portion of it.  And we know what will happen to the size of that 'portion' as time passes.  All in favor, say Aye.  gjr]

Sandbox - 9jul19

[Epstein, Epstein, Epstein - how many politicians will you threaten to take down if they send you to the big house?  gjr]

Sandbox - 28jun19

[Facebook Inc. last week unveiled plans to launch Libra, a payment system it describes as a new “global currency.” It’s based on blockchain, the same technology that powers bitcoin, and is backed by real assets and pegged to stable government securities. Over two dozen corporate partners are on board, including financial companies MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc.,PayPal Holdings Inc. and Coinbase. Partners contribute a membership fee of $10 million each. Facebook’s goal is to line up a total of 100 corporate partners and $1 billion in assets. - 28jun19 WSJ]

Sandbox - 22jun19

[Now that President Trump has revealed that he does incorporate reasoned decision processes and make prudent decisions about engaging US forces in response to abundant provocations by murderous dictatorships, I wonder if the Dems will allow their minions to hear any of this on the media.  One can niggle about whether he should have revealed how the latest all came about.  gjr]

Sandbox - 17jun19

[I've been mulling over the utility of these sandboxes again.  More and more they have become the repository of tripe, with interesting threads and tidbits thrown in by readers who occasionally demonstrate that their abundant acumen lies mostly fallow.  I wouldn't mind it if some of the other posted topics that interest me would get more discussion, but too many of them go over with the existing cohort of commenters like a fart in church.  Many of the interesting emails on my topics come from readers who apparently don't want to join into the online fray.  So I keep asking myself, why do I host these sandboxes of scurrilous shit-flinging.  No good answers have risen to the surface.  Thoughts?  gjr]

Sandbox – 12jun19

[It appears that there’s not much else happening in the country or the world to interest our commenters who are locked in a pitched battle debating the deeper meaning of poll and Nevada County vote count percentages all guaranteed to rivet the attention of RR’s other readers.  gjr]

Sandbox – 5jun19

[‘Socialism is good for you.’  Now we have Crazy Bernie and Pocahontas claiming that the USSR, China, Cuba, … weren’t really real socialist countries; that they were ruled by tyrants instead of the finely fashioned fettle of fearless führers that they would become.  Someone should ask them to name a single socialist country that didn’t quickly descend into the tyrannical cesspools that recent history has shown us over and over again.  But the Dems are betting, after having screwed up America’s education system sufficiently, that today none of our younger generation have a clue about the various flavors and evolutions of collectivism, and of the hundreds of millions of their own people that what started out as socialism wound up killing over the last 100 years.  gjr]

Sandbox – 28may19

[It looks like a sea change may have occurred in the RR comment streams.  Absent are the vacuous critiques of everything not supporting our country’s headlong rush to socialism.  These leftwingers seldom countered the message, and always condemned the messengers.  And this absence also appears to have reduced the zeal of our commenting capitalists who usually mass to defend open markets, liberty, and smaller government.  Perhaps it is time for a respite from the raucous. gjr]

Sandbox – 19may19

[AG Barr has hired experienced and highly reputed special investigator John Durham to unscramble the shady doings of and subsequent BS spewing from former FBI director James Comey, and former CIA head John Brennan (you can throw in Clapper for good measure).  The Dems are scared and furious, and desperately looking for ways to sink Durham.  Meanwhile, we’re told that surreptitious gathering of information by our government about our citizens is not ‘spying’, but is merely ‘surveillance’.  It was all those other commie and fascist governments that had and still have extensive networks and institutions that spy on their citizens.  We should all be relieved now that’s cleared up, capice?  OK, here’s your Lucky Strike extra, wanna know who the double dummies are?  Just ask someone whether Comey spied or surveilled.  gjr]