Rebane's Ruminations

Dropout Derby (updated 7jun19)

George Rebane

By last count there were 23 Democrat declared candidates running to become the next POTUS, with two more standing in the wings making up their minds.  And here they are –

Now it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that all but a handful will make it through the debates and primaries, and to the convention floor.  One by one, most of them will start dropping out of the race for one reason or another.  And it occurred to me that trying to noodle the order of such casualties over the coming months would be much like filling in the March Madness basketball championship playoff brackets.  Only here it would be even simpler, and involve just making a list from the first to drop out all the way to the last one surviving as the 2020 Democrat candidate.

TechTest2017 Scholarships Awarded

George Rebane

Last night at the Nevada Union High School awards celebration Ms Barbara Ross of the Nevada Joint Union High School District presented scholarship checks to the top scoring seniors on TechTest2017 which was given on 1 April 2017.   The 1^st prize of $6,000 went to Jack Devlin, the 2^nd prize of $4,000 went to Harrison Costantino, and the 3^rd prize of $2,000 went to Keegan Zetterberg, with nine additional honoraria of $300 each going to the next highest scorers.  (more here)

This was the eleventh annual TechTest which is administered each spring to participating Nevada County high school seniors who are going on to study for their STEM careers.  Ms Ross is the TechTest academic chair under whose auspices the test is administered and graded.  TechTest and TechTestJr are sponsored by the Sierra Economics and Science Foundation.  Both tests are the flagships of SESF’s youth education program.  I have had the privilege of writing TechTest and working with the test takers in their preparation for the merit scholarship competition. 

The test itself is a four-hour ordeal of a level that STEM students will encounter early in their lower division college studies.  Awards are determined strictly on the basis of highest ranked test scores.  The tests and solution sets are available for inspection and download at sesfoundation.org.  

Mr David Pistone, SESF board member, chairs the TechTestJr committee which designs and administers these merit-based tests annually to two cohorts of 5^th – 6^th and 7^th – 8^th graders.  The fifth annual TTJr tests were also given this spring.

Equality Questioned (updated 15jul13)

A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.  Thomas Jefferson

George Rebane

Here’s a notion that should set progressive hearts palpitating, perhaps even inducing a case or two of apoplexy.  Should citizens deemed mentally (not physically) incapable of caring for themselves be granted a full franchise in a republican democracy?

In these pages this notion has risen implicitly over the years, and most recently occurred to me again during a thread on food stamps that developed in the comment stream of ‘Mindbending Marijuana’.  There I was asked whether I supported foodstamps, the 80% hidden component that has historically been included in past farm bills, and that was recently excised from the current House version going through Congress.  I repeat an edited version of my reply.