Rebane's Ruminations

Trump Derangement Syndrome – 31jan23

George Rebane

Per the suggestion of one of our readers to gather under its own category all things concerning the ongoings of our intrepid former president Donald Trump, at Typepad’s pleasure I am attempting to add the category of ‘All Things Trump’ in an effort to cleanse future RR’s comment streams of the years-long repetitive Trump-related flotsam and jetsam, especially the ongoing drone of TDS comments.  Readers who continue to enjoy such affinities now have a place to go, consume, and contribute to these diatribes.  We’ll try inserting here from time-to-time fresh ‘sandbox like’ TDS entries to this category to maintain currency with the 2024 election’s advent.  So this is your first repository for all-things-Trump comments.

I will do my best to delete Trump-drivel from other comment streams.

Mensis Horriblis – January 2023

George Rebane

The month that changed my life and perception of the human condition.  Due to the onset of a number of health related factors last year, including both Jo Ann and me coming down with Covid, my kidneys decided to go into acute renal failure, and I came to within one day of leaving this orb before they put me on dialysis and refined the diagnosis to prescribe the hopeful treatment regimen that allowed me to return home after three dreadful weeks under the tender mercies of my medical team at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley.  (I will write more later about what I learned about our post-Covid healthcare system – it was eye-opening, up close, and very personal.)  I was in the hospital from the first week in January, and returned home last Thursday.

Here I want to thank all of you in our RR community for the outpouring of well-wishes and prayers for my recovery – I am overwhelmed and blessed by all the kindness that you have shown.  My family, of course, rallied around the homestead and helped Jo Ann shoulder the stress of caring that included planning sessions for my on-off incipient death as new test results came in.

So now the prognosis du jour is that my kidneys have a good chance of recovering after an appropriate interval of dialysis and steroid treatment – but no guarantees.  After 80+ years of excellent health, I have now been shown the other side of the coin and understand what it means to be an utterly helpless potted plant.  But today, onward!

Scattershots – 26dec22 (update 29dec22)

George Rebane

Christmas 2022.  Jo Ann and I were again blessed to be in the bosom of our family on Christmas eve and Christmas day.  The whole affair took place at daughter Teine and Dave’s house (head of our Southern Tribe) in Alta Sierra.  Teine organized and put on dinner on the eve, Christmas brunch, and big Christmas dinner.  In attendance were also granddaughter Fiona (with child) with hubby Shawn and their daughter Maybelle, grandson Sean and wife Bella (with child) who arrived late on Christmas eve, driving in one day from snowbound Denver where they live (as part of our Eastern Tribe) along with granddaughter Claire, hubby, and four more great-grandchildren.  Throw into that mix two male dogs and a Maine Coon cat, and you get a rough idea of all the goings on in the house and yard.  Our Northern Tribe, headed by daughter Sini and hubby Roland, was snowbound in their Seattle area home along with their timely assembled kids Elizabeth, Lucas, and Catherine with hubby.  Needless to say, a lot of inter-tribal texting and sending of pics went on the whole time.

‘Into each life some …’  The regular reader will have noticed a drop-off in the frequency of RR posts.  As reported before, Jo Ann and I came down with Covid during Thanksgiving week.  And that malady has lingered with us, mostly me, over the last month.  I had some health issues (inevitable in your 80s) start earlier in the year which Covid compounded.  So anyway, we’re getting tested for this and that, and dragging a mite in the process.  Hope to be back online sooner than later.

[28dec22 update]  Our beloved Union is in the hands of junior varsity journalistic philistines.  Their new managing editor Elias Funez showed his hand in today’s edition by writing a very long, self-adulatory op-ed (here) that leaves no doubt the man either failed Introduction to Composition 1A, or never even gave it a try.

Given my extensive history covering wildfires over my now 17 years of newspaper reporting, It didn’t take me long for me to connect the dots between my penchant for producing breaking news coverage, live video, and print photography.

And I was finding out that not just her, but many many others as well. My live feeds had now have become a resource where folks were exchanging information in real time, and with many other members of the community.

There’s much more to lament about this man’s talents in running a newspaper.  I also recommend RR readers take a look at the newspaper’s completely revised website (here).  This monstrosity is basically broken – e.g. it will not accept former account holders, and does not even feature the paper’s Opinion (op-ed) section.  It appears to now start focusing on syndicated writers with a distinct leftward lean.  More about this later.

[29dec22 update]  ‘ICE Admits It Has ‘No Records’ For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Illegal Immigrants Released With Electronic Monitors’  The evidence of government incompetence and criminal fraud pours in daily.  The Biden administration has assured their various departments and agencies fomenting and promoting the illegal alien invasion that they will not be touched by the formerly ‘long arm of the law’.  Future favors accrue to the bureaucrats enabling the now bulging pipeline of future Democrat voters. (more here)

Christmas - 2022

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.  Matthew 1:23

George Rebane

[This Christmas message first appeared here in 2019 and was repeated last year.  It still bears repeating.]

Another tumultuous year is ending with celebrations for peace and joy.  The Rebanes count themselves among the diminishing number of American Christians who still wish their family and friends, and RR readers of all persuasions a season of remembrance and reflection on what has been bestowed on this third planet, circling a modest star, making its way with billions of similar stars in a galaxy that populates this universe with uncounted trillions of other such galaxies.  Christmas still reminds many of us that we are among the blessed in our seeming insignificance.

Thanksgiving 2022

George Rebane

In spite of it all dear readers and RR regulars, we still have so much to be thankful for.  Jo Ann and I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving, and may you be blessed to share it with those you love.

Scattershots – 18aug22 (update 21aug22)

George Rebane

Dear People, we are back from our travels and almost recovered.  Driving endless miles across the country's western deserts and highlands is not recommended for maintaining mental health.  Besides, being on travel is greatly over-promoted.  But everything worked out well; Jo Ann’s new van performed beautifully, and we had a great time with our friends, grandkids, and great-grandkids – they’re still growing like weeds.

So now we have two big reasons the GOP will be split and lose in 2024.  First, Liz Cheney will splinter the party by running for president on a third party ticket if Donald Trump is nominated by the Republicans.  And then again, if the Repubs don’t nominate Donald Trump for president in 2024, he may choose to become the third party candidate.  Either way the Repubs loose the presidency in 2024, and the evil party will be free to continue in the evil ways it has made known to all under the Bumblebrain Administration. 

[21aug22 update]  Raid vs warranted search.  The lamestream is beginning to influence FN et al in eliminating the ‘raid’ label on what happened at Mar-a-Lago.  LE agencies execute search warrants by the hundreds every day across the country.  These are overwhelmingly done during normal waking hours by a small team wearing civilian clothing and packing, at most, an inconspicuous 9mm semi-auto.  When a platoon of FBI descends unannounced in a convoy of flashing lights vehicles during pre-dawn hours on a private residence, armed with sub-machine guns (fully auto assault weapons) to surprise the residence’s skeleton Secret Service detail due each former president, then that is a raid.  Why the heavy artillery?  Did they expect a firefight with fellow feds?  Characterizing the warranted search as a raid was a deliberate political act to fuel and continue the anti-Trump hysteria.  The Left clearly over-played their hand, and therefore immediately quit using ‘raid’ to characterize the historically unprecedented raid.  That some conservative outlets are falling in line confirms that their claims to ‘Fair, balanced, and unafraid’ reporting is bullshit.

Happy Independence Day 2022!

George Rebane

Think of all the things that have happened in and to our beloved Republic during the last twelve months since we last celebrated our country’s birthday.  In this interval the country has again grown more apart than it has been since our 19^th century’s ante-bellum days.  The two sides seek markedly different futures for America – one side decrying the nation’s past and publicly denying their desired destination, while the other side spells it out and celebrates the historic road that, with some miles unpaved, we have traveled.  But even with our life-threatening wounds, we all should celebrate that we still live in a land which allows both sides access to sufficient public podia from which to make their case for America’s best future.  (A couple of years ago this was our 4^th of July outlook.)

 

He is Risen!

George Rebane

Hearing that strong assertion, the Christian answers joyfully, ‘He is risen indeed!’

For us, Christmas is the promise, and Easter its fulfillment.  The summation of all Christianity is Christ’s covenant in the promised transcendence of Man, all concentrated into one simple declaration – ‘He is risen!’  Without this, our faith is a fraud; with it, Christianity promises Man to become an unending part of God’s love of all Creation.

This is RR's annual message celebrating Easter.

What is truth?

George Rebane

Contrary to common wisdom, in addition to your opinions you can also have your own facts, history, science, logic, sense of justice, fairness, equity, evil, beauty, and, of course, truth.  Rebane Doctrine

Two friends of ours tackled the notion of ‘truth’ in recent issues of The Union.  Jan Tannarome (‘Facts vs Beliefs’) and Terry McLaughlin (‘What is truth, exactly?’) in which each argued the existence of propositions that are universally and unambiguously assessed as being true.  Ms Tannarome leans to the left, and Ms McLaughlin is a conservative.

Tannarome harbors the pejorative view of ‘belief’ as being inimical to a kind and just society.  She writes, “And no matter who is using belief as a weapon or as a shield, this is unforgivable. It is unforgivable on a scale of such magnitude that I can’t think of anything worse at this juncture in our human evolution. I will borrow a phrase from a frequent contributor to this newspaper’s pages and say that using belief as a shield or a weapon is the mother dog of all political mischief, all social and cultural malfeasance, all justification for hatred and its many offspring.”

McLaughlin, while never actually defining ‘absolute truth’, believes it to exist and goes through a litany of misguided notions about truth ranging from relativism, through pluralism, to beliefs.  She writes, “Why is it important to embrace the concept of absolute truth? Because life has consequences for being wrong. … Today, many people seem to fear publicly and honestly stating facts and truth. … If we wish to heal the present divides within our country, our neighborhoods, even our families, we must be willing to share in truthful and honest discourse.”

From my perch (see also my credo) I join with those who have a more precise and, perhaps, technical understanding and definition of belief.  The commonly accepted definition of ‘belief’ is a faith-based proposition.  (Here a proposition is a statement or assertion that expresses a judgment or assessment.)  As such, a belief requires no reasonable basis.

A more nuanced, and technically correct definition, holds that there are two kinds of beliefs – faith-based and falsifiable.  In that sense a person’s worldview or ontology consists of a set of propositions or beliefs which may all be falsifiable or also include some that are faith-based and beyond the pale of reason.  Over the years RR readers who have followed my sermons on Bayesian inference and non-monotonic reasoning know that I and most people of my ilk and background embrace an ontology that consists wholly of potentially falsifiable beliefs.

For the more technical/philosophical reader, the Bayesian measure of verity of a proposition is its probability of being verifiably true.  This measure ranges between zero (impossible proposition) and one (axiomatically true).  Verity measures between zero and one may be updated (by Bayes theorem) with the introduction of new evidence.  Faith-based verity measures at zero and one are immune to new evidence and the ministrations of Bayes.  (more here, here, and here)

Unfortunately, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is belief in the mind (heart?) of the believer.  The pithy shibboleth at the top summarizes the realworld basis for our nation’s polarization, and its negligible prospects for restoring e pluribus unum.  IMHO too many of us paint our views of the world with faith-based colors.  Such people believe in absolute truths beyond those immediately subject to multi-party verification.

An example of such an absolute truth is the proposition that 2+2=4 which can be immediately verified during an ongoing discourse by everyone present who can count.  Claimed absolute truths that are limited to citations of past third-party verifications are immediately open to contention which cannot be resolved in the moment, and therefore give rise to the above pithy shibboleth.  And it is in the moment, that is ripe for taking decisions, that one must accept or reject available paths forward when multiple contending truths (beliefs) do battle – absolute truths have no place is such arenas.  It was ever thus.

With this understanding one can appreciate why appeals based on Rodney King’s ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ fail to unite us.

A better course to resolve disputes would be to admit the pithy shibboleth and focus on discovering common aspects in the differing utilities held by contending factions.  Without such a basis for dispute resolution expect no light, only heat. (more here and here)

Ideology and a nitpick with VDH

George Rebane

Readers know that I am a longtime admirer and student of Victor Davis Hanson.  I have met him and spent time talking with him (here).  But when he writes ‘Why Ideology is the Ancient Enemy of Civilization’, I have to pick a nit with him because there he uses a too narrow of a semantical brush to condemn a perfectly good and useful word.  Most dictionaries define –

Ideology – “a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy – e.g. "the ideology of democracy".  The science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature.” (dictionary.com) 

Here on RR I have refined the definition somewhat to ‘A structured and communicable belief system that in its best expression is composed of tenets defendable by and malleable to reason. Ideologue – a person who is willing to communicate and defend his ideology.’

In his referenced essay VDH goes through a litany of current ideologues and historical ideologies, the practice of which devastated the populations under which they were forced to live.  But limiting the definition to only those dark ideologies and their hypocritical ideologues does a disservice to the correct and comprehensive semantics for which these terms were originally fashioned, and have correctly been used over the years.  Peremptorily cutting off the good parts of both is another example of amputating the language and thereby reducing its ability to efficiently convey information.

There is no need for this kind of surgery.  Learning to live with such disabled terms, how then would one describe salutary and beneficial belief systems along with their adherents and practitioners?  

Walk or Run in the Rain?

George Rebane

Time for little respite from matters political and geo-strategic.  Years ago I came up with a TechTest problem that asked if there were an optimal speed that minimized the amount of rain coming through the area of a car’s missing windshield.  A few days ago I ran into another form of this problem in one of my techie subscriptions.  The question this time was whether you would get more wet or less wet if you ran or walked some distance to get to shelter.  These are essentially the same problem, and I learned that the problem has a long history and debated solutions among techies versed in quantitative STEM.

Well, if you frame the problem correctly, the solution readily reveals itself along with an interesting twist.  So, I decided to re-solve it using the missing windshield version because that makes all the variables and resulting math unambiguous and intuitively clear.  We start with an area A, at angle φ to the vertical, moving horizontally at speed v_A through a steady rainfall in which the drops fall at speed v_R at an angle θ off vertical as shown in the figure below.  When you add these two velocities (speeds with angles), you get v_RA at angle α, the windshield-relative velocity of rain coming down.  We need one more parameter to characterize the problem, and that is the water density ρ that characterizes the intensity of the falling rain.  Important to note here is that no matter the resulting v_RA speed and direction, the water density (e.g. gals/ft^3) in the volume that A, the hole of the missing windshield, sweeps out remains unchanged.

The problem then becomes twofold – as a function of the vehicle speed v_A, what is the rate that water comes in through the hole, and if you had a distance D to travel to shelter, how much water will have come through the hole.

Solving this problem requires a bit of trigonometry and some straightforward squiggly pushing that I include in the box below.  Out of this comes the formula for the rate r_R (through the area that is perpendicular to v_RA), and the formula for V_R(D, v_A), the volume of water through the hole until distance D is covered at speed v_A.

To illustrate the answer to the stated problem, I’ve put together a little scenario with actual numerical values as indicated in the figure, and programmed it up in MS Excel™.  The quick answers are shown in the graphs.  The blue line shows how r_R (gals/sec) increases linearly with vehicle speed v_A as expected.  The faster you go, the more water comes pouring through the whole.  As v_A goes to infinity, so does r_R as long as the hole’s orientation φ presents some frontal area to v_RA which approaches v_A as the vehicle’s speed gets very large.  Note that if we make the hole face parallel to v_RA (i.e. - φ = α) then r_R goes to zero, again as expected.

But if you only have a certain distance D to go to reach shelter, the orange curve shows that the faster you go (i.e. the higher the v_A) the less water V_R you take through the hole.  The limiting value is just the volume of rain at density ρ swept out when your speed reaches infinity.  In the illustrated scenario this volume of rain V_R (D,∞) = 3,733.5 gallons.  So the answer for 'should you run to get out of the rain?' is a definite YES; however, if you want to minimize the rate of water coming through the hole, then don’t move (i.e. v_A = 0).  As the r_R equation shows, setting v_A = 0 reduces the gals/sec to just the volume to the area perpendicular to and increasing at the rate of v_R.  And its easy to also see that V_R will go to infinity since you will be standing still and making no progress to the shelter at distance D.  (Isn’t math wonderful?)  Bottom line – run, don’t walk to get out of the rain.

Christmas - 2021

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.  Matthew 1:23

George Rebane

[This Christmas message first appeared here in 2019 and was repeated last year.  It still bears repeating.]

Another tumultuous year is ending with celebrations for peace and joy.  The Rebanes count themselves among the diminishing number of American Christians who still wish their family and friends, and RR readers of all persuasions a season of remembrance and reflection on what has been bestowed on this third planet, circling a modest star, making its way with billions of similar stars in a galaxy that populates this universe with uncounted trillions of other such galaxies.  Christmas still reminds many of us that we are among the blessed in our seeming insignificance.

Thanksgiving 2021

George Rebane

In spite of it all dear readers and RR regulars, we still have so much to be thankful for.  Jo Ann and I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving, and may you be blessed to share it with those you love.

River Fire Reflections

George Rebane

Kudos to Yubanet.com for being the most heads up and informative website for wildfire information.  At the same time, government falls short of its function as is apparent to anyone visiting mynevadacounty.com.  Starting yesterday (4aug21) afternoon, all of us in western Nevada County have been on tenterhooks watching the River Fire started by someone at the Bear River Campground near Colfax.

For Jo Ann and me this kind of annual firewatch and evacuation preparedness has been a way of life ever since we moved to Simi Valley in 1968, and then into the Santa Monica Mountains in 1978, and here to Nevada County in 2002.  Every year it’s the same ol’ same ol’ – are we going to lose our home this year?  And frankly, after over fifty years of this and at our age, we’re starting to get a little tired of being puckered up every summer and fall.

In Appreciation – 14jul21

Sell your stuff at the price of courtesy, for that imposes the heaviest obligation; …courtesy not only pays, but it pledges, and it is gallant manner that imposes the greatest obligation; nothing costs a man of conscience more than something given him, for it is sold him twice, and at a double price, that of its own value, and that of politeness.  Nevertheless it remains true, that to men of mean spirit such noble talk is mere gibberish, for they do not understand the idioms of good style.  Gracian #272

George Rebane

Recently I’ve been doing some review and archiving of the last 14 years of RR’s contents.  And in the perusal of the voluminous comment streams in these pages, I am overcome with gratitude for the content of the almost 200,000 comments from readers of all socio-political persuasions.  Most humbling to me are the long, thoughtful, and citation-supported comments that append to and expand on my commentaries.  Most of these, over the years, have come from a small and faithful cadre of regular commenters.  It is a rare blog where comment contents abet and also vie with the topical posts – RR is so blessed.

I am also grateful for the cadre of readers who trade their ideas with me through emails, giving rise to long and fruitful exchanges, some of which I have been able to post.  And lastly, I have to also thank our readers of the Left.  Some of them take me and RR’s more rightwing readers to task on other blogs, whereon they can swim in more comfortable waters without having to match wits with those whom they criticize or seek to silence.

But the greatest thanks go to those liberals, progressives, et al of today’s woke cadres who now and then have the fortitude to take up their lance and do battle in our comment streams.  It is their welcome attendance that gives spice to the debates and that illustrate most clearly how differently our polarized sides see the same world, and the diametrically opposite directions each side wants to guide our republic.  After all, for a more complete telling, we need from all sides the observations and interpretations of events from the last great century of Man.

Happy Independence Day 2021!

George Rebane

And the message from last year (here) bears repeating.

The Blessings of Inequality

George Rebane

We are in the age of trading equality for equity.  Why?  Because equality at the start of any road quickly leads to inequality among the travelers - given equal opportunities, some get further ahead than others.  That’s how it has been, is now, and always will be the human condition.  To the socialist such results are anathema.  To them an enlightened governance will use force as needed to assure that society advances in a tight equitable cohort in which no one is left too far behind, and no one gets ahead too far.  And the governing elites will decide and manage what is ‘too far’.

As history has shown elsewhere and also in our land, policies that impose such equities produce stagnating economies in which the lot of the citizenry is uniform misery that takes many forms as individual freedoms are pruned over time.

Over the last 250 years, ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the west, we have witnessed an enormous blossoming in the quality of life (QoL) for all classes.  These range from fewer and less menial jobs with shorter hours, better living conditions with more stuff, an explosion of arts and entertainments, and longer lives during which to enjoy all these blessings.  Moreover, these betterments have inevitably spread across the world, raising billions of people out of droll and desperate lives that their ancestors suffered for centuries.

A closer look at how this all came about immediately reveals the role of inequality that sprung up in the new middle classes which were enabled by ever more liberal governments that inherited western culture.  In the 19^th century trade and industry allowed those who could and would to quickly leap ahead of their more sanguine and status quo satisfied neighbors in growing their assets.  The last two centuries contain countless stories of single-generation leaps from abject poverty to undreamed of wealth by entrepreneurs who took risks investing their time, health, money, and comfort to bring something new and useful to market.

And all of them knew that what they introduced would initially garner resistance and criticism in the marketplace.  Their driving hope was always that there would be a cohort of potential customers with the means and curiosity to give the new product or service a try, for these also would be taking a risk to buy something that might not work.  But it was always those having sufficient money set aside who could take that risk to enjoy and/or incorporate the new thing into their lives or businesses.

He is Risen!

George Rebane

Hearing that strong assertion, the Christian answers joyfully, ‘He is risen indeed!’

For us, Christmas is the promise, and Easter its fulfillment.  The summation of all Christianity is Christ’s covenant in the promised transcendence of Man, all concentrated into one simple declaration – ‘He is risen!’  Without this, our faith is a fraud; with it, Christianity promises Man to become an unending part of God’s love of all Creation.

This has now become RR's annual message celebrating Easter.

‘Luxury Floating Real Estate’

George Rebane

Living on a huge manmade island may be the thing of the future for those who can afford it and want to escape from the ever more contested and politically roiling lands that cover about 29% of the Earth’s 197,000,000 sq mi surface.  The first of these islands is being built off the Bahamas by an outfit that calls itself The Blue Estate (here).  Multiples of such islands are planned to reside off Dubai in the Persian Gulf which are advertised to be miniature havens of German, Swiss, Italian, and Swedish culture.  The Blue Estate plan envisions an island measuring 1,500 by 1,000 meters as shown below.

The island’s size, modular construction, and high (130ft) free board, augmented by another 100+ foot extendable windwalls, we are told will assure the structure’s calm survival in the roughest of hurricanes.  The island will also have propulsion and guidance so that it can transit open ocean areas to avoid storms.

Yet to be explained is to what extent the island will be energy self-sufficient using solar, wind, and wave energy extraction technologies.  Its home area will be in international waters, minutes by air away from Miami and Bahamian towns.  Apparently, food and other consumables will be imported.

The community will also be economically self-sufficient by being home to clean commercial enterprises and the successfully retired.  The commercial activities will be heavily IT oriented with ample satellite connectivity.  I can envision that it might also be home to small R&D firms engaged in computer science, genomics, and similar areas.  Located in a tropical sea with abundant (300+ days/yr) sunshine, the island can also operate a sizeable nearby sea farm containing various flora supported by an underwater matrix which will give rise to a whole new ecosystem of rich sea life similar to what exist around oil drilling platforms and the Navy’s ‘kelp farm’ (off San Clemente Island) on which I worked years ago.

One of the potential attractions of such seaborne communities may be their ability to provide social stability through a discriminative selection of residents.  It is clear to me that some such island communities will emphasize cultural cohesion of their residents.  Offering such cohesive environments seems to be the goal of the planned Persian Gulf islands that will focus on providing culture-specific resort living and holidays.

As an entrepreneur and systems nerd, I am drawn to the dreaming and planning of such habitats, and in the present case could go on for pages contemplating different concepts and their supporting technical, commercial, environmental, educational, cultural, … support systems and institutions.  But to me the problem of having the seas support a considerable population of such islands in different parts of the world will come down to the solution of the inevitable political problems that will arise and need solutions that can be implemented globally.

Because these island communities will attract (and be limited to) the smart, productive, and ‘financially capable’ people, they will naturally become hotbeds of wealth generation.  And they will therefore become tax and tariff prey for the land-based political grifters who maintain their collectivist regimes by bamboozling their poor and huddled masses yearning to be free.  These people need state supplied succor that their political leaders will not allow them to generate for all the reasons we have discussed in these pages.

In such political landscapes those who can will escape to available locales with lower taxes, regulations, and abundant liberties.  This we see happening in today’s American migrations, and have witnessed for decades (centuries?) in Europe and Asia where the productive congregate in enclaves such as Singapore, Taiwan, and formerly Hong Kong.  Therefore, new political paradigms need to be discovered if the financially and culturally attractive island communities are to thrive and multiply.  Else the early ones will just be economically harvested to oblivion by the land-based stifling autocracies that see such free and enterprising enclaves as low-hanging fruit.

Much more to be said about all this.

‘2034’

George Rebane

This is a heads-up on a good read – 2034 – A Novel of the Next World War that will be published in early March.  It is written by two military and national security heavyweights – Elliot Ackerman and Adm James Stavridis, both ranking high in our national security apparatus; Ackerman in the White House and Stavridis former CIC of our Southern Command and then head of NATO military.  The first part of the novel took up the entire Jan 2021 issue of Wired.  I started reading it, and it immediately grabbed me.  I’m a kinda finicky reader, especially fiction, reserving time only for geo-political and edge sci-fi written by people who’ve 'been there and done that' – ‘2034’ definitely qualifies and promises to also be an education on a lot of systems and tactics.  Anyway, I thought that you would find this a good and timely read.  Here’s some promotional copy – “From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic, geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034--and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.”

I sent the above notice to a group of friends who may be interested in geo-political thrillers with technical element that is written by knowledgeable authors.  Since then, the book has received some very good reviews from noteworthy people.  (more here and here)

“War with China is the most dangerous scenario facing us and the world. Absent a strategic method to manage our differences, Jim Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman’s chilling novel presents a realistic series of miscalculations leading to the worst consequences. A sobering, cautionary tale for our time.” — Jim Mattis, General, U.S. Marines (Ret.) and 26th Secretary of Defense

“A real page-turner, 2034 is a novel about a conflict we hope never happens. Drawing on their deep operational and diplomatic backgrounds, Admiral Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman have conjured a nightmare we desperately need to avoid. The novel is a cautionary tale for our times, and a reminder how quickly events can spin out of control—even before 2034.” — Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense 2006-2011

‘No Enemies’

George Rebane

Chartist poet Charles Mackay (1814-1889) wrote a poem he titled ‘No Enemies’, which appeared in an anthology of works celebrating and honoring social protest in 19^th century Great Britain, much like the protests that come so naturally to both sides in today’s polarized America.

RR commenters are a blessing

Live with those from whom you can learn; let friendly intercourse be a school for knowledge, and social contact a school for culture; to make teachers of your friends is to join the need of learning to the joy of converse.  Gracian #11

George Rebane

In blog years RR is now considered to be somewhere between long-of-tooth and ancient, along with its host in human years.  Rummaging around the very accessible archive of this online publishing effort, I always find it remarkable to rediscover the breadth of topics we have covered to various levels of depth.  And I’m not only talking about the almost 3,400 posted commentaries, but the extensive comment streams appended to most of the commentaries -  comment streams in which readers expand and amplify the topic, and provide other readers not only with their own insights, but also with informative links that substantiate their assertions.

Many of the over 175,000 (to date) appended comments are themselves lengthy essays, sometimes longer than the topical post itself, that highlight the quality of thought by their authors.  And I mean to include in this cohort of thoughtful scribblers a few of our liberal commenters, those who have taken the time to deliver extended arguments for their positions that go beyond countering snarks and ad hominems.

In its 14^th year this blog continues to be a welcoming arena for ideas, opinions, and apologetics from all quarters.  To be sure, ours is an arena in which every contributor should be prepared for dharma battle (q.v.).  And no one should take umbrage that their ideas are assaulted, instead such umbrage should be reserved for ideas ignored.

That said, I thank all RR readers and commenters for their precious hours that they have spent over the years in these pages.

End of an Era

George Rebane

Puna

6 June 2009 – 30 August 2020

Happy Fourth, if you can (redux and up a notch)

George Rebane

On this year’s Fourth our beloved land is in more disarray than in my living memory, and that’s a fer piece in anyone’s book.  Half the country does not know where we have been, what we have done, nor shares a common vision of our future.  These dark clouds were already gathering a year ago during which some prescient words were recorded in these pages (here).

Yet those of us who hold dear what has been and continues to be the America we love will join today in a special celebration of our birthday.  And we do this with the pledge that we with our families and friends will always keep this day a sacrosanct observance, even in the face of sinister forces that now work to erase the greatest country built by people of all races, creeds, and backgrounds joined together.  May God continue to bless the United States of America.

Hunker Down Diary – 23may20

George Rebane

Competition is the only cure for incompetence.

On this Memorial Day weekend today is HD77 for Jo Ann and me.  Even though we have not left the county, we have taken a number of ‘essential’ trips to the grocery, nursery, and hardware store.  We have also had a number of essential dinners with family and local friends, and continue our Facetime cocktail hours.  Jo Ann has her farm planted for this year, and everything appears to be on track for a bountiful summer and fall.  I overdid it on splitting firewood; we now have enough to finish out this season and much of next season.  Both of us keep attending Zoomed meetings of the various organizations in which we are active.

As political animals, we maintain ferocious reading and writing schedules.  For better or worse (currently still worse), we have not touched our portfolio during the recent wild dip and roller coaster recovery.  So far so good.  I am having a great time rummaging around the technical sides of epidemic science and management.  Readers know my thoughts on the amount and kind of ‘science’ that has been brought to bear on this coronavirus pandemic here in America and also in other developed countries.  As more and more people begin to understand and admit, there is little or no science that is evident in the measurement and/or management of this disease (you heard it first here two months ago).  The whole C19 affair is a dreadful self-inflicted farce that continues to play out in the healthcare and economic sectors.

The record of pronouncements by both our national and state healthcare professionals, and political leaders illustrate a growing tsunami of contradictory statements regaling us with predictions, prescriptions, policies, and prohibitions which range between the comical and insane.  Basically, no one knows anything definitive about how/what to measure that can be used to track and support a coherent set of response policies.  Everyone is flying by the seat of their pants under the rubric, repeated with the greatest gravitas, that ‘we will be guided by science and not politics’.  Given the bevy of brown numbers that continue to flow from universities and alphabet-soup agencies, the real national and state responses long ago succumbed to exactly the opposite guidance – what little science there is about dealing with the coronavirus, it doesn’t have a chance.  In the meantime, people are revolting against the lockdowns and betting on herd immunity until a vaccine makes its debut from the wings.  Actually, it’s only half the people who understand the real desolation that economic destitution brings, the other half don’t have a clue and believe in the tooth fairy, endless newly printed money, and the states’ national guards mobilized to work the farms, deliver the goods, and staff the grocery stores, until the all-clear is sounded by Drs Fauci and Brix.  (more here)

And to put a ribbon on it or add insult to injury, we here on Hind Tit Rd (aka Cement Hill Rd) suffered our second power outage in a week.  Don’t know what the boys and girls at PG&E are doing, but they ain’t doing it right.  I again draw your kind attention to my above tagline.