Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox – 17oct20

[I’ve been writing about the contrary Covid counsels coming from science, with each political side finding plenty to support their respective positions on correct response policies.  Isn’t it a bitch now that the Europeans, held up by our Left as the paragons practicing proper pandemic public policies, are now also suffering the resurgence of Covid cases no matter how much they lockdown or not, distance or not, wear masks or not?  Brings out a chuckle or two when I note how the lamestream is trying to hide all this from their double dummies.  gjr]

Sandbox – 10oct20

[Businesses and taxpayers are leaving California, the census stats tell the tale that almost all CA leftwingers deny, especially the really dense local ones.  Recent notable departures are conservative commentators Joe Rogan (moved to Texas) and Ben Shapiro, who is taking his small business with 70 employees to Nashville – he tells his story here.  Even the very liberal Bill Maher when interviewing Rep Schiff takes him to task for the California exodus (more here), and cites a litany of butt stupid Democrat policies (more recent ones here) starting with high taxes and regs, and going all the way down to crap and needles on sidewalks populated by the tents of the untouchable indigents.  Schiff can only manage a lame, ‘I see no reason why progressives and businesses cannot coexist, we should work on that.’  Well no s#!t Red Ryder.  And our local lights of the Left continue denying the whole thing.  gjr]

Sandbox - 5oct20

[Under the last Scattershots reader Mr Bill Tozer posted a link to a very important essay on the migration of California, its current condition, and its journey to becoming the leading shithole state in the Union.  I draw it to your kind attention - 'Be Afraid, Very Afraid: CALIFORNIA AS CASE STUDY OF AMERICA’S POSSIBLE FUTURE'. gjr]

Sandbox – 28sep20

[Pelosi and her team continue to accuse President Trump of having violated laws and the Constitution without providing a shred of evidence or supportive back-up.  And their vastly more college-educated leftwing constituency laps it hook, line, and sinker up without ever asking which laws or constitutional provisions the president has violated.  As we have observed, it all turns out to be part and parcel of progressive jurisprudence - all allegations from the Left are on their face to be accepted as evidence sufficient for indictment.  gjr]

Sandbox – 22sep20

[Reminder to keep all SCOTUS related comments under ‘Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – RIP’ until President Trump announces her replacement nominee.  Then I’ll post a new commentary under which we can comment on and debate the ensuing congressional confirmation hullabaloo.  gjr]

Sandbox – 16sep20

[Today the Dems’ Big Lies are dropping faster than I can record them.  Some major moves in the lamestream include the sudden silence of 1) reports on the progress of fighting C19, and 2) ignoring the historical and momentous progress toward lasting Mideast peace, Palestinian resolution, and thwarting Iran that President Trump’s foreign policies have achieved – not to mention the much-needed realignment of relations with Russia, China, and North Korea.  And, of course, then there’s the robust health of our economy that has been able to weather the C19 lockdowns initiated by the states, and is now on a solid road to pre-C19 recovery.  All of this must be kept from the nation’s sheeple.  gjr]

Sandbox – 8sep20

[Heard of the new leftwing propaganda wave – there is nothing abnormal or extraordinary or illegitimate about elections the results of which are not known for days or weeks after election day.  That is their newest Big Lie.  For at least the last two centuries America’s election results have been known to the public on the eve of election day or the day after.  There has been one exception to that (2000 – Bush2 v Gore) during all this time, and other developed nations have fared equally with their election results.  Given Trump’s recent traction in the polls, the Democrats have now started to prepare us for Bumblebrain’s possible loss in the ballot count, and their Plan B of a subsequent drawn out litigation process to win in the courts.  gjr]

Sandbox – 1sep20

[So here’s the drill about the riots.  According to the Big Liberal Lie Factory, up until last week there were no riots, only peaceful protests for social justice – ask anybody in the Dem leadership including Bumblebrain.  This week this position became ludicrous even for the country’s liberal contingent.  So a massive pivot was necessary and pulled off on the Sunday lamestream talk shows.  This week the riots are suddenly real, and have been so for some months, all caused by President Trump inciting white nationalists to violence from the White House.  Now that’s a more palatable version of reality for all the land's leftists.  gjr]

Sandbox - 24aug20

[The Democrats' damage and destruction to America's black population reaches back to ante-bellum years.  In recent decades they have turned their tender mercies for our African-American neighbors onto cynical avenues that have laid waste to black families and the communities in which they live.  Under decades of Democrat rule we can echo the question asked by an enlightened black candidate for Congress - name any city in which life for blacks has improved over the last, say, forty years.  About all this our leftwingers respond with crickets.  Here is a campaign video that spells it out. (H/T to reader)  gjr]

Sandbox - 19aug20

[Please keep Nevada County fire comments under the appropriate topic headings.  gjr]

Sandbox – 7aug20

[What no one talks about is the blatant fact that Joe Biden is now America’s Manchurian candidate as his platform has migrated from ‘bipartisan civility’ to hard left socialism.  That ol’ Bumblebrain is the ‘safe alternative’ to Trump and will bring the country back on even keel is perhaps the biggest lie that the Dems and their lamestream are foisting on Americans.  Joe has made a bait and switch pact with the devil, and is now our proto-communist candidate a la Bernie and AOC, having publicly accepted and promised to implement their respective policy prescriptions.  And no one knows or even cares about it, as the Hate Trump campaign outshouts all else.  (more here) gjr]

Sandbox - 27jul20

[Does everyone know what Nevada County Supes are planning to vote on tomorrow?  Heidi Hall (District1) plans to introduce Urgency Ordinance Measure 37 that would impose draconian fines on local residents for not wearing a mask, even while social distancing.  This is the latest of the power-mad disease infecting political pinheads across the country.  Write your supervisor or be there.  gjr]

Sandbox – 11jul20

[Given this week’s SCOTUS ruling on Indian lands in Oklahoma (here and here), the future of all 19^th century abrogated treaties with our indigenous Americans will come up for review.  All this will create chaos in the governmental jurisdictions involved, not the least being the status of non-Indians and their property rights.  gjr]

Sandbox - 3jul20

[Alex Berenson on the real skinny behind Covid-19 reporting.  Short book and very much worth a read if you’re interested in debating the pandemic, how it’s reported, and various response policies (here).  Apologies for letting the last sandbox languish a bit too long; we're working through a family medical emergency here.  gjr]

Sandbox - 24jun20

[In the intro to the last Sandbox, my invitation to readers to discuss the dollar-value of human life went over like a turd in a punchbowl.  It appears that the best approach to discussing the value of human lives is just to bloviate with a lot of virtue signalling thrown in.  That's supposed to divert the reader from discovering that the writer has no idea what he's talking about.  Public policies are supposed to be made with some regard to a broadly agreed on dollar-value of a human life, but only, I guess, if the public gives a damn.  Oh well.  gjr]

Sandbox - 18jun20

[The value of anything is highly subjective, always determined by a 'seller' and 'buyer' when they strike a deal.  Therefore the value of any given 'thing', e.g. human life, varies according to who is the human and who is the 'buyer'.  Any values set by third parties with no skin in the game are arbitrary and quickly circumvented by/in markets.  So consider the back window yellow diamond sign that reads 'Drive carefully, Baby inside', and another one reading 'Drive carefully, young PhD in neuro-science inside', or even one that reads 'Drive carefully, Community organizer inside'.  How would you rate the implied value of these lives?  to you? to society? gjr]

Sandbox - 12jun20

[The dollar value of human lives was touched on in the last Sandbox.  I predict that this topic will be quickly forgotten by our leftwing readers, since it will be a debate to which they must needs arrive unarmed.  gjr]

Sandbox – 4jun20

[Apologies for letting the 2jun20 Sandbox get out of hand with all of its misplaced comments that I should have deleted as they appeared.  Here I’m talking about the pandemic and George Floyd response comments that had homes under my other topical commentaries.  I’ll try to do a much better job in this sandbox to delete all misplaced comments immediately before they become lengthy discussion threads.  And thanks for your support.  gjr]

Sandbox - 2jun20

[It's now established that we have a full-service House Speaker in Nancy Pelosi.  She has donned the additional mantle of Congressional Spiritual Adviser.  And as her first task in that new responsibility, she has taken the President under her wing with pointed counsel directing his scriptural pursuits.  We already know of her as a woman of manifold talents and a multitude of concerns - her capacity to care knows no bounds.  However, pursuant to this new expansion of duties, were I the current House Chaplain, Fr. Patrick J. Conroy, S.J., I would be very worried.  The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.  gjr]

Sandbox -26may20

[What remains the point of debates which are empty of citations that are commonly accepted by the debating parties?  As I have pontificated here for some years, and am now joined by my betters like Victor Davis Hanson among others, we are so polarized that we no longer share any cognitive common ground.  In other words, we arrive at venues like RR, not only with our own opinions, but also with our own unique ‘facts’ (thereby giving lie to Sen Moynihan’s dictum).  The ensuing melee is then composed of nothing but ejecta of hot air flung at the other which make no lasting impact, let alone changing anyone’s beliefs.  And yet, … and yet we continue to regularly assemble on both sides of this arena to dance our ferocious dances, making threatening sounds while shaking our spears and shields at the other side, like the natives of primitive tribes or beasts of the jungle that learned to wage faux ‘wars’ without really harming each other.  Realizing this, perhaps we can all join in the attempt to discover the point of it all.  gjr]

Sandbox - 20may20

[Apologies for the delay in getting new sand.  In future sandboxes I'll try to notify readers of topics I cover in subsequent commentaries so that their topical comments can find the appropriate comment stream.  gjr]

Sandbox - 10may20

[It's remarkable how well these C19 utility functions perform in their ability to predict the statements - ranging from policies to pabulum - of the three cohorts today exhorting us to do this vs that.

For those comfortable with such models of the realworld, they compress a whole lot of explanatory power about the debate to loosen the lockdown. (more here).  gjr]

Sandbox - 5may20

[Feliz Cinco de Mayo compadres!  And re Corona beer about which you've all heard the story?  You haven't?  Well, they had a big international beer judging competition in Munich to which all the major and wannabe brewers sent their various brews for judging and receiving the prestigious awards.  The Corona folks also sent their finest.  A couple of weeks passed and when the award ceremonies were over, the Corona folks had heard nothing, not even an email acknowledging their entry.  So they inquired, and the next day they got a reply from a German vet in Munich that read 'I was forwarded the specimen you submitted, and am sorry to inform you that your horse has diabetes.' ;-)  gjr]

Sandbox - 28apr20

[Autocracy rising, even more.  Two California docs dared cross the hallowed political divide of rope-selling capitalists at Google’s YouTube and give a reasoned criticism of California’s C19 lockdown diktat.  It made it on to YouTube, and then was promptly taken down by its corporatist toadies. (more here)  Meanwhile, Gov Nuisance appears to start seeing a difference between rural and urban counties in his promised new look at how to release the state from its insane economic self-immolation.  gjr]

Sandbox – 21apr20

[We will now witness the latest tsunami of lies from the demonic Dems as the country begins to loosen its C19 quarantine restrictions state by state, and region by region.  The lamestream’s central theme will be the amplification of ‘profits before people’ that will be carried out by rightwing gun nuts and bible thumpers according to the dictates of Wall Street and its evil corporations.  gjr]