Rebane's Ruminations

Scattershots – 18mar19

George Rebane

Sen Liz Warren wants to reduce the size of big techs.  As we know, big corporations get that way and survive by practicing the fine art of corporatism.  That means essentially working with politicians and bureaucrats to buy competitive advantage through laws, regs, taxation, etc (all the ways that govt mangles markets) in exchange for contributing their monies through various channels to assure re-election success.  If Warren were an honest woman, she would know that corporations automatically resize themselves once you pull out the mechanisms of govt support.  IBM and GE discovered that for themselves.  There is nothing magical about big centrally controlled bureaucracies in the private sector being more efficient than the same organizational structures in government – both ultimately reach an inefficient size.  Corporations must suffer the uncompromising feedback from competitive markets, while governments – with the power of the gun – are immune to productive feedback and can keep on screwing up forever.  (more here)

TechTestJr 2019 was given on 5-6 March at the corporate campuses of AJA Video and Telestream (NC Tech Connection is also a corporate sponsor).  This year over 100 fifth through eighth graders took the STEM merit scholarship test which is sponsored and administered by the Sierra Economics and Science Foundation.  TTjr was launched eight years ago by Mr Mike McDaniel, and board member Mr David Pistone has been the director of TTjr for the last six years.  TechTest2019 for Nevada County juniors and seniors will be administered again this year on 30 March (9-1pm) in the NUHS Science Lecture Hall.  This is TT’s 13^th year as the county’s premier merit scholarship test for students heading for STEM majors in college.  The annual test is preceded by two seminars of which I gave the last one this past Saturday morning at NUHS.  (I have written the test and given these seminars since the beginning, and am now in the process of turning over the writing and reins of this project to younger turks.)  NUHS math teacher Mr Kevin Baker is the TT Academic Coordinator who will administer the test. (more here)

Union columnist George Boardman followed Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Greg Diaz off the rails with his 18mar19 column repeating the fake news with his “WHY DOES the Nevada County Tea Party want to discourage people from voting in the special election? Are they afraid the wrong Republican will win?”  This politically motivated error was covered in my last KVMR commentary, ‘Election Integrity – one more time’.  Mr Boardman’s insistence that he views our fables and follies “… from the center stripe” continues to bring a smile to those who can clearly see from which side of the road he continues to do his reporting.

 

Election Integrity - one more time

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 13 March 2019.]

We have a special election coming up to fill the state’s Senate seat for District #1.  Nevada County is in District #1 and election day is Tuesday March 26^th.  This special election has again raised concerns about who may and how should people be able to vote.  Mr Greg Diaz, Nevada County’ s Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters has stepped into the dialogue in a highly partisan manner for someone holding a non-partisan office.

He gave an unfortunate interview in the 12mar19 Union (here) in which he falsely characterized Nevada County Tea Party’s position on voting, claiming “I can't have it when someone's telling people not to vote, or not to vote their vote-by-mail ballot”, and stating that “Their true intent: is to make it more difficult for folks to vote.”  These highly political charges are wrong on all counts, since the Tea Party actually supports the advice and counsel of California’s Election Integrity Project, and clearly says that on its website (here).

Quo Vadis Nevada County? (updated 8mar19)

George Rebane

Actually, Nevada County is going nowhere now that it has adopted ‘San Francisco values’ to contribute to the state’s new appellation as the ‘Far Left Coast’ described by Dr Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.  Our Democrat controlled state has seen a steady decline that has recently accelerated as a one-party state with super-majorities everywhere you look.  The last election gave us what can only be called Democrat hyper-majorities that are kicking our adoption of socialism into high gear.  Kesler observes –

The Democrats’ crushing dominance allows them to use California as a progressive policy laboratory. As a result, the state has the highest welfare numbers (a third of all Americans on welfare live in California), the largest contingent of illegal immigrants, a burgeoning homeless population, onerous regulations on business and private property, mediocre public schools, high income taxes (the highest marginal rate is 13.3%) and sales taxes, a yawning gap between rich and poor, its own summer blend of expensive gasoline, bedraggled and crowded roads to punish people further for driving, and a widely mocked high-speed rail boondoggle. (more here)

Not to be a laggard in the race to the Left, Nevada County progressives today are promoting programs that promise to put us at the bottom of the bottom in the state.  It appears that the only community-wide programs and policies we encourage are those designed to attract the poorest, most indigent, homeless, substance abusing, and least educated.  In the latter case the Nevada Joint Union High School District has announced that it will cut the last Advanced Placement Calculus course from its curriculum due to declining enrollment, explaining that "We are not trying to push students to move too fast in math, as the experts in the field have placed greater value in foundational algebraic skills."  According to Dan Frisella, NJUHSD Assistant Superintendent, “the state created new standards five years ago that put a higher emphasis on slowed progression in mathematics. The result was supposed to bring long-term success in the subject.” (more here)  Well, guess what? - their experts’ “result” ain’t doing no such thing; we are instead skidding downward according to state rankings.

Having worked with many of the county’s top STEM students for the last twelve years, I can confirm that the last concern NJUHSD should have is moving their students too fast in math.  The adoption of Common Core has dunned the state’s public education system in more ways than we can count and have covered in these pages.  The result of all this dumbing down of curriculum and tests is that grade school has become an extension of kindergarten, high school has become an extended grade school, and most lower division college curricula are now remediation high schools.  For students already here who desire to pursue STEM careers, they are being told to shift for themselves and find alternative educational outlets in order to find courses that prepare them for the higher education they need to compete in the job markets.

In the meantime, our leftwing political leadership in the county continues to tout their dedication to attracting businesses, high-tech, and middle-class families to these foothills.  However, what they actually promote are programs that “(divert) resources toward students in need of more help, which is a growing population, according to the district.  ‘Forty percent of our students come from low socio-economic status backgrounds, are English language learners, foster youth or homeless youth.’”  It is easy to see what kind of population the county is working to attract, and even easier to see how this cements a voting majority that will continue importing SF values and help insure the permanence of the Democrats’ hyper-majorities in Sacramento and across the state. 

Does any of this give anyone looking at Nevada County reasons why they would want to come here to start a cash-importing business or raise their family?

[8mar19 update]  It appears that the NJUHSD did not terminate the entire AP Calculus offering at NUHS.  The Union published this “clarification” on their website –

Clarification: The entire AP Calculus program was not cut. While AP Calculus BC was phased out at Nevada Union, AP Calculus AB is still ongoing.

However, given what Democrat-controlled Sacramento has done over the decades and continues to inflict on the Golden State, this rollback of STEM curriculum is still part and parcel of both the symptom and expression our state’s progressive disease.

As Nevada County stagnates and our remaining businesses bring in fewer dollars, the maintenance of our quality of life falls more and more on the tenuous tourist business and that silent cohort of resident retirees.  It is the retirees who so generously give of their time, talents, and treasure to support our community services, eateries and other local businesses, and cultural institutions by volunteering, serving on boards, and writing big checks.  And for that contribution to the community, these major cash importers and generous consumers are the same people who tread gently and require so little in return from our city and county governments.  Were these successfully retired residents to be driven out by the ever more visible SF values on our streets, alleys, and surrounding forests, there would be a run on 4x8 sheets of plywood.

Progressive Pilgrims’ Progress

George Rebane

My pal, fellow blogger, and comrade-in-arms for community connectivity and STEM education, Russ Steele wrote the following in the 11feb19 Union (here).

As a proponent of rural broadband, I often read recently published books and articles on broadband technologies.  I am currently reading Susan Crawford's book, "Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution — and Why America Might Miss It." I was surprised by the depiction of Nevada City and Grass Valley as failed communities in their quest for broadband fiber networks with quotes like these:

"Laissez-faire is not working for rural America, particularly in areas like Nevada City/Grass Valley where the local authorities are uninterested in intervening to ensure that their people have communications capacity."  "… one of the key reasons that both Greensboro and Grass Valley/Nevada City are making such slow progress toward any flavor of publicly oriented fiber is that there is no prominent public leader willing to stand behind it."

This is only two, there are more damaging quotes.  After reading this book, it is highly unlikely Nevada City would be on anyone's list as a great place to live and work.  Now that Race Communications will be building out the fiber network which Crawford used to illustrate a failed project, local authorities need to promote a more positive image. More at https://ruraleconomytechnology.com.

It’s not only that no “prominent public leader” in Nevada County has ever gone to bat for community broadband, instead it’s been exactly the opposite ever since progressives have become the dominant voice in this foothills community.  They have brought their (San Francisco) values with them, and that includes a disdain for business and entrepreneurship, and a profound ignorance of science and technology (e.g. their stance on cell towers, vaccination, consensus science, …).  So, for politicians hereabouts to get re/elected, they need to cater to the sentiments of the local liberals, more and more of whom lack any critical thinking skills, and that means to adopt ‘duck and cover’ when it comes to stepping up to promote any kind of growth that depends on the acquisition of modern broadband.

Our proregressives have now elevated to a nationally prominent level their opposition to growth – we are a modern luddite posterchild.  But hey, that don’t make no never mind since we do have the ERC and various economic development meetings now and then to keep our spirits up.

Ruminations – 25jan19 (updated 29jan19)

George Rebane

Our very own Paul Emery is producing the new Dalrymple MacAlpin musical ‘Make Believe’ that premiers tonight at the Nevada Theater (more here).  Paul is arguably our county’s most prolific producer of both theatrical dramas and musicals, and also musical entertainment events at various venues in our community.  The former hippie cum community icon is also a walking teddy-bear, garnering hugs from ladies on Broad Street every hundred feet or so, and from diverse restaurant patrons when we’re having our regular lunches.  Jo Ann and I will be in the audience tomorrow night to enjoy his latest theatrical enterprise.

The 25jan19 Union ran an Other Voices column by a Mr Joe Keeble who demonstrably has bad luck when he tries to think.  In his contribution to now normative Trump bashing (a good day to do it given the Roger Stone indictment) the gentleman confuses levels with rates (the popular progressive pastime of ‘derivative diving’), and also duns the harvesting of low hanging fruit just because more of it is harder to get.  He applies all this cognitive cogitation to current border security and 'illegal immigration' happenings, real and imagined.  People with fully functioning logics can enjoy his distracted diatribe ‘Proud to be a criminal’ here.

[27jan19 update]  Pelosi ascendant.  President Trump lost big time to the Dems led by Nancy, proving again that elections have consequences.  And I don’t see where this will end since there is nothing in the current state of affairs that would induce the Dems to negotiate in any better faith during the next three weeks than what they have been doing.  They’ve already bagged the political benefit from the Dreamers, and now are focused on keeping the border as porous as possible as more migrant caravans head north.  Can someone explain how this latest decline in American sovereignty will be halted, or are we now finally on the socialist slippery slope?

[28jan19 update]  Our favorite liberal Union columnist and RR reader, George Boardman, recognizes VDH’s recent assessment of California’s decline (here), and then puts up mighty counter arguments that then auto-destruct in his closing paragraphs (here).  Expanding on whether and how California is being taken down is itself worthy of extended debate.

Governor Newsom (apropos the above) is continuing, some say accelerating, CA along the path to an inevitable socialistic abyss.  So argues T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, in his very persuasive ‘Another California Tax Grab’.  Rodgers also points out that no more silicon wafers are manufactured in Silicon Valley – way too expensive, which motivated him along with all the other chip manufacturers to locate out of state.  Comparing his data with Mr Boardman’s arguments is instructive.

America’s cybersecurity war with the world’s bad guys is not going very well.  One of my WashDC spies pointed to some scary reading that made my toes curl the wrong way.  The basic message from a Pentagon assessment report is that our enemies are countering our security measures faster than we can counter their penetrating attacks – and the situation is not getting better.  The big problem is that we don’t have enough tech talent to build and man our cybersecurity barricades.  (more here)

‘UAE Slowly Loosening Constraints on Religious Freedom’ reports the 28jan19 WSJ.  Heartening piece about some commendable progress in Islam – credit where credit is due, but the road ahead to the 21^st century is still long and filled with chuckholes.

[29jan19 update]  Trump ascendant with the Dems' core galloping leftward.  "The energy in the Democratic Party is entirely on the left, and as Hillary Clinton discovered, the nominating process is going to drive the Democratic candidates to get as nutty as necessary to please the new generation of radical bigots."  Newt Gingrich

MIM’s first major 2019 concert

[Mr Nowlen, is a major mover in Northern California’s classical music community.  He is a longtime musician, educator, conductor, and senior staffer for several of the region's musical organizations and performing groups.  His activities range from teaching at UC Davis to Music in the Mountains here in Nevada County where he has been involved for years bringing and making music for us.  He also currently serves as MIM’s Artistic Director, and submitted this invitation for your kind consideration.]

Pete Nowlen

Happy New Year! 

I’m so looking forward to our first Music in the Mountains major concert of 2019, when we feature my good friend Maestro Leo Eylar and the California Youth Symphony for a fantastic matinee concert on Sunday March 10. You are going to go crazy for this amazing group of more than 100 young performers. (details and tickets here)

The California Youth Symphony is one America’s top youth orchestras. It was the first such orchestra to tour abroad in 1963, and continues to tour internationally every other year, performing in many of the world’s great venues. It is a past first prize winner of the International Youth and Music Festival Competition in Vienna.

Our March 10 performance includes works of Rachmaninoff, Chabrier and Strauss, and will particularly feature two amazing 16-year-old performers, pianist Catherine Huang and cellist Davis You.

Catherine will be featured in Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini as winner of CYS’ annual Young Artist Competition. Davis, a past Young Artist winner, will be featured as the cello soloist and protagonist in Richard Strauss’ tone poem, Don Quixote. 

You can learn more about these amazing young performers below. I promise you that you do not want to miss this performance. It is sure to be the largest orchestra, and one of the most inspiring programs that Music in the Mountains has ever put on stage.

Sixteen-year-old pianist Catherine Huang is a sophomore at Lynbrook High School and studies piano with Professor Hans Boepple. She won first prize and the young jury award at the 2017 Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition and appeared on Kansas Public Radio as the first prize winner of the 2016 International Institute for Young Musicians (IIYM) International Piano Competition.

Davis You, 16, is a junior at Palo Alto High School. He studies cello with Jonathan Koh and previously studied with Irene Sharp. His awards include first place in the 2016 California ASTA solo competition, first place in the 2017 California Youth Symphony Young Artist Competition, and five invitations to perform in the Junior Bach Festival

 

Scattershots – 11jan19 (updated 17jan19)

George Rebane

None of the rabid opposition to border security makes sense, and even less so with the passing months. We supposedly look at and experience the same world, yet obviously live in different universes. Physics may have an answer for that, but everyday logic in the conduct of human affairs does not, especially if we assume that both sides are working for a strong, independent, free, and prosperous America. Logic clicks back into place when we remove that assumption.

Israel’s wall costs $2M/mile. (more here)  That is a good stake in the ground to estimate the cost of our border security infrastructure which would not be a 2,000-mile concrete wall, but would instead consist of other barrier approaches and supportive detection and localization systems.  Posit $3M/mile for our southern border, and the cost would come to $6B.  And that includes all of the overhead.  Claiming that our border property owners will fight the increased border security is a red herring that does not jibe with what actual property owners are saying.  It is they who have suffered at the hands of illegal entrants whose criminal activities transiting their property has made living on the border dangerous.

Was sorry to see today’s (11jan19) Union column by publisher Don Rogers. His arguments against border security ignored all the marginal impacts on crime, culture, and costs of a porous border outlined in ‘The mangling of managed minds’.  It seems that being blind to that line of reasoning is a widespread malady among our Left, for it always appears to form the basis of their resulting fractured logic for opposing Trump’s border security policies, aka the same ones that the congressional Left supported not so long ago.

Bright fiber in Nevada County is a reported go, but details about the scope of the project are less than skimpy.  All that’s reported in The Union (here and here) is that 2,000 homes along Hwy 174 will be getting enhanced broadband in about a year.  But there is more than enough detail on the bureaucratics and the funding to roll your eyes.  However, people who don’t happen to live along 174 haven’t a clue as to how this project will advance the rest of the county toward 21^st century connectivity.  In short, after reading the reportage I again had to strap on my ‘Pardon me but you have me confused with someone who cares’ button.  Maybe more informed readers will provide the much needed information.

Ex-Muslims of North America is an organization of former American and Canadian Muslims united to spread word about ‘the religion of peace’ and support those who have left and are contemplating leaving Islam.  Their position on their former faith parallels that of RR.  Islam is still in its ‘Accept Allah or die!’ phase of maturing.  But unfortunately this is happening in a much more connected world laced with an abundance of very deadly technologies.  Just to be clear, all major religions have and/or are still going through such a violent and uncompromising phase.  Christianity most certainly had its ‘Accept Jesus or die!’ epoch in the centuries after Rome, starting coincidentally about when Islam was born on the Arabian peninsula. 

[12jan19 update]  Fact checking Trump.  Leftwing readers here have been taking President Trump to task for his ‘lies’, the overwhelming share of such are easily identified as political bluster of the kind that can be tallied for any politician on either side of the aisle.  There are however certain statements from a politician that are intended to elicit and/or support public support for government policy.  Such weighty claims are usually easy to fact-check either at the time of delivery or subsequently.  President Trump’s recent border security speech from the Oval Office contained a number of such statements.  Here is a fact-check summary of five of the most important ones from that speech.

Venice, CA now importing SF values. Beautiful seaside community of Venice in SoCal is rapidly becoming the next ‘sierra hotel’ city in the state, joining Anaheim and the long-enduring People's Republic of Santa Monica as newly risen exemplars of socialist governance.  The Hollywood Reporter has the details in its ‘LA's Battle for Venice Beach: Homeless Surge Puts Hollywood's Progressive Ideals to the Test’.  There “with swelling transient encampments abutting seven-figure homes, the beachside enclave has emerged as a flashpoint for the inequality shaping Los Angeles — and a real-world test case for the liberal ideology of the area’s showbiz residents.” (H/T to correspondent)

[13jan19 update]  Conjecture: NYC mayor Bill deBlasio is a communist, having passed to the left of all remaining progressive milestones. (more here)

[14jan19 update] Whether you like or regret (like me) many of our President's tweets and hipshot repartees, this is what many Americans believe is really the case.

[17jan19 update]  Border barriers (walls, fences, ...) "don't work and are ineffective" maintains the Democrat leadership and their nationwide constituents.  Border security officers with long years of experience maintain exactly the opposite.  I have not found any journalist with the wit or temerity to ask people like Pelosi, 'What evidence do you have about border barrier systems that overrides the testimony of our border security professionals and which supports you continued assertions that such border security infrastructure "doesn't work"?  (We'll address the "immorality" question another time.)  Asking the Democrats to produce such evidence would put this debate on the fast track to resolution, not only with regard to border security funding, but also the government shutdown.  RR readers know the disdain I have for the journalistic profession, I have found almost all journalists to be alarmingly ignorant hacks with little or no spine to seek out and report truth that is counter to their publishers' and/or editors' agendas.

CA Exodus Denied

George Rebane

The exodus of the producers and the productive from California has been a recurring theme on RR ever since the Democrats assumed total control, turned the state into the nation’s home for welfare recipients, started raising taxes and fees as if there were no tomorrow, and opened its gates to illegal aliens.  Essentially, the Democratic super-majority has turned the state into a sanctuary from sanity.  Among the reams of data presented to buttress the exodus argument, a reader sent me the graphic below that highlights just one aspect of nationwide migrations – and these are NET migrations – from/to our country’s prominent metropolitan areas (more here).

This shows that from LA alone we have a net outflow of 46,720 people per year.  And do you think these are the gimmes who think they’ll get more sanctuary protections and better government bennies from some other state?

Nevada County Economic Development – WIP

George Rebane

In recent years the county’s economic development could be charitably described as slow, or even somnambulant if examined more closely.  To promote economic development, the county established the Nevada County Economic Resource Council (ERC) and has been among its steadfast sponsors.  The ERC has launched various initiatives and activities designed to serve its commitment “to ensuring a thriving, attractive business environment in Nevada County.”  (more here)  I had an opportunity to work with the ERC a few years back during which I came to understand the organization, its membership, and the issues that surround business development in our community.  RR has included the ERC’s performance in its commentaries.

Both the county government and the ERC regularly revisit how better to develop and serve local businesses.  The most recent of such efforts involved engaging Larry Burkhardt, a former ERC executive director, as a consultant to examine the state of the county’s economy and make detailed recommendations on how to proceed.  The work product of Mr Burkhardt’s consulting contract was the 20-page 2017 report innocuously titled ‘Development of Performance Metrics and Related Organizational Matters’.  Its author describes the report as follows -

The attached report contains background information along with some level of evaluation of the ERC by a small cross section of the community’s leadership.  It follows with goals, objectives and strategies intended to re-focus on the basics of economic development; a workplan; budget; performance metrics; and finally recommendations regarding Board structure and practice. 

I'm a bit surprised that this report got so little publicity when received by the ERC and submitted to our Board of Supervisors.  The only mention of Mr Burkhardt's involvement in such work appeared in the 7sep17 Union (here).  The report was made known to me by a colleague who has also been involved with the ERC over the years.  He sent me a copy which can be downloaded here.  Download ERC final report 1117

Not everyone I talked to found the report to be exceptionally revelatory or contain material that has not been hashed over before.  From my side, I found the report to contain the most specific metrics, recommendations, and projected costs of a plan forward that I have seen.  This does not mean that I wholly endorse Mr Burkhardt’s take and recommendations, but I do find the report to be a useful and readable stake-in-the-ground from which to launch productive discussions on the county’s economic doldrums and alternatives on how to proceed.  Readers taking part in such discussions should at least be familiar with the points raised in the report.

Scattershots – 13oct18 (updated 17oct18)

George Rebane

Liberal Union columnist Darrell Berkheimer has been delving into the availability of housing in Nevada County.  Today (13oct18 here) he reports that we don’t have enough "affordable housing" in these parts to attract low income families and wage earners, and also make the county more attractive and welcoming to our already large homeless population - “paths to affordable housing must be provided (the homeless) as well as others wishing to live here.”  A good part of the blame he puts on those stupid developers who can’t figure out where the profits are, and “continue to place emphasis on single-family homes for what has been termed the ‘nuclear family’” of which there are precious few left in the country, and apparently of which we already have too many in Nevada County.  He either doesn’t understand the notion of low-cost housing viz affordable housing, and/or the regulatory and cost hurdles that developers must negotiate to build anything in our county.  But, in spite of these problems, Mr Berkheimer does think that the county should become proactive in going after developers in the attempt to convince them to plow through the process anyway, and take the risk in building marginally profitable (if that) affordable housing.  The wonders of a progressive mind at work making Nevada County safe for San Francisco values.

Ms Heather MacDonald, political analyst and author at the Manhattan Institute, was interviewed (13oct18 WSJ) regarding her new book The Diversity Delusion.  Ms MacDonald is one of those refreshingly independent thinkers who, after law school at Stanford, had to wend her way to epiphany by spending her early professional years through clerking for Justice Stephen Reinhardt, volunteering for the Natural Resources Council, and working at the EPA.  She laments what the progressives and other flavors of the Left have done to demolish undergraduate education, especially in the fields of western civilization.  Specifically, she highlights the bloom of lowered standards and newly established majors “focused on identity and oppression” with freshly minted majors, like ‘Social Justice’, coming in the burgeoning field of neo-Marxism.  She sees all of this as leading to a final national confrontation – “One of the great achievements of Western European civilization was to move beyond tribalism, to nation-states, to concepts of citizenship that transcend tribal identity, and we’ve been playing with fire for the last 40 years in thinking we can keep this ethnic warfare thing at a low simmer rather than a hot boil.”

The Union’s Editorial Board advises every franchised citizen to ‘Get educated and vote’ (13oct18) – “everyone who can legally vote should.”  What the good souls at The Union don’t help the reader with is how to get educated in a manner that enables critical thinking about the diametrically opposite prescriptions and policies offered by today's strong ideologues, some obviously tinged and others in more subtle ways.  As many scholars and thinkers (see previous entry) now tell us, the ability to think critically is no longer taught nor even possible by graduates from most of our colleges and almost all of our high schools, simply because they no longer have to learn the knowledge base which enables such thought should even the tools for it be available.

Nevada County’s high school test scores are a disaster.  Only our local liberal contingent is satisfied, since generating generations of such graduates over the last 40 years is just the planned grist for their voting mill.  When others lament this educational deficit, the local liberals point to the Ghidotti Early College High School which ranked #1 in the state tests – why? Because they have a total of only 163 self-selected smart students of which 44 took the cited test.  For the rest we have dropping scores that reveal one of three students is below grade level in reading, and more than two thirds are below grade level in math.  And believe it or not, statewide Nevada County is above average.  Talk about California leading the nation – to where?

[17oct18 update]  What’s happening to destroy STEM and STEM-related education and research in America is even worse than I have been tracking over the recent years.  NSA and NIH, originally launched by Congress to keep us in the lead in physical and health sciences, have now become institutes of identity equalization to satisfy the progressives social justice goals.  H/T to Russ Steele (see his 506pm comment below) for pointing out the latest report on this disaster-in-progress as reported in the City Journal (here).

Ruminations – 17aug18 (updated 19aug18)

George Rebane

Obama’s PPD-20 has hamstrung America’s ability to defend and counter cyberattacks against us.  President Trump is recalling that Presidential Policy Directive to “ to push decision-making authority down the chain of command, could empower military officials to launch more frequent and more aggressive cyberattacks against adversaries like Russia and Iran.”  (more here)

2017 saw 72,287 opioid overdose deaths in the US.  That’s like a jumbo jet crashing every weekday, and it beggars stats on all other human-induced deaths like attributed to ‘gun violence’ and motor vehicle accidents.  America’s murder capital Chicago apparently leads the way here also with progressive policies stifling its LE agencies’ abilities to intervene.  Blacks account for more than 50% of opioid deaths, and, of course, gun deaths on Chicago’s streets.  Progressives care not a whit (actually spelled with an 's') for black lives; for them all such deaths are useful when recognized, and not to be wasted in blaming the whole thing on conservatives.

Arrest of ISIS terrorist and multiple re-entrant Omar Ameen in Sacramento confirms again that our immigrant vetting process is totally broken.  The feds admit that vetting a refugee depends on the story they tell, and not on any required 3^rd party documentation, which either does not exist or will not be provided if the refugee thinks it will be pejorative.  Counter to lamestream claims, President Trump has been correct in his assessment of this.

Russian online influence on America’s thinking about issues and candidates has turned out to be less than insignificant according to recent analysis of foreign placed ads and social media accounts, so reports Bruce Levey of the Institute for Justice (here).  He also points out what we've known for years, that we and other nations place such ads in each other’s jurisdictions whenever it suits our interests to attempt to influence other countries’ decisions.  Bottom line, Russia's influence in our 2016 election was bupkus.

Dumbest cartoon in a coon’s age was published in the 17aug18 Union.  Have no idea how this got by the newspaper’s editorial policy.  Nothing against the paper publishing anti-Trump stuff, but this contribution is simply butt stupid, and doesn’t reflect well on how The Union thinks of its readership.

[More]  Our intelligence institutions (including the retirees) are now totally political.  The letter signed by former intelligence heads claiming that Trump limited Brennan’s speech by revoking his clearance is both false and butt stupid or worse, evil since it is designed to bamboozle the tens of millions of light-thinking Americans.  As President Trump observed, Brennan’s voice will now be louder than ever.  Let’s see how long these newly minted politicians will keep up that spiel.

[18aug18 update]  In ‘The Press Abets a Coverup’ (18aug18 WSJ) Holman Jenkins contributes an incisive and revealing recounting of our intel community’s shenanigans designed to oppose Trump, but that plausibly gave him the necessary push over the top in 2016.

[19aug18 update]  Kudos to columnist (19aug18 Union) George Boardman for outing Mike Dent, director of the county's Department of Child Support, Collection and Housing.  Mr Dent is a prime exemplar of the double dummies ensconced in government.  He is seeking bids to build and operate a homeless shelter for the winter, but doesn't have a clue how much it costs to run such a shelter through the cold months - hence, no bids to build one.  It really irks me and many others that our tax monies have to be diluted to pay the salaries and retirement benefits for the likes of the mentally dented Dents out there.

The Ninth Circuit Court on CCW and Open Carry

George Rebane

Recently a three-judge panel of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantees a right to openly carry a gun in public for self-defense, finding that Hawaii overstepped its authority to regulate firearms possession outside the home.” (more here)

This ruling brought up questions on how we Californians, especially those with Concealed Carry Weapon permits, will be impacted.  Since CCW permits are issued by county sheriffs, in a private communication I asked our Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal –

1. Will current non-CCW permit holders in California now have open-carry included in their 2^nd Amendment rights?
2. What is the impact of the present rulings on existing Nevada County CCW policy?
3. Will California’s sheriffs come out with one unified coherent interpretation of how this impacts our 2^nd Amendment rights, or will we wind up with county-specific interpretations that may or not arbitrarily criminalize the unwary who cross county boundaries, or will everyone remain silent on the matter and let Californians just take chances sorting it out by themselves (sort of like the MJ situation between feds, state, and counties)?

With Sheriff Royal’s permission I share his response with our readers –

“Our current laws stay in effect until a court of competent jurisdiction finds the laws of the State unconstitutional or the laws are changed by the legislature.  Our State Sheriff’s attorney has advised us that the case was remanded back to the trial court to proceed.  Chances are that the case will again end up back before the 9th Circuit for an “en banc” panel review, and based on the outcome, may invalidate California’s current laws and/or then be appealed to the US Supreme Court for final determination.  We have been advised things remain status quo at this time.  Stand by to stand by. … As an FYI, the 9th indicated that the 2nd Amendment does not pertain to or cover CCW’s.  We’ll just (have) to wait to see how it all works out.”

Due to the sheriff’s last observation about the 2A and CCWs, I offered that “it does cause me a bit of puzzlement why the 9th indicated that the 2A doesn’t pertain to cover CCWs.  CCW permit holders are the most law-abiding people in the land according to FBI crime stats.  Sworn LE officers have a very low crime rate, but one that is still SIX times higher than that of CCW holders, and the 2A doesn’t cover (them)?”  Sheriff Royal’s response to this was - 

“Interestingly, the three judge panel were all repub. appointees. I think when this issue comes back to the 9th, they’ll render an opposing decision because the majority of that court is liberal leaning thus forcing the issue to the Supreme Court. In light of the soon to be composition of the Supreme court, you may see the ultimate decision be supportive of open carry.”

So, per Sheriff Royal’s counsel, the open carry and CCW provisions will remain unchanged, and it will be business as usual as we “stand by to stand by.”  Question asked and answered.

Scattershots – 4aug18 (updated 8aug18)

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know that just ain't so.”  Mark Twain, et al

George Rebane

Leftwing columnist Darrell Berkheimer makes his occasional foray into substantive socio-political subjects and blows it again.  In his ‘Will Violence or a Funeral End Incendiary Talk’ (4aug18 Union), the man demonstrates his limited abilities in spades.  He blames today’s politically polarized incendiaries as being solely fomented by President Trump, and executed by rightwingers.  His evidence?  He can only cite the reception of CNN’s extremely virulent leftwing journalist Acosta at a Trump rally who was greeted with shouts of ‘CNN sucks!’, and then some crazy individual (political affiliation unknown) with a bat smashing a TV station’s car.  And there ends his research into the country’s political incendiaries.  He is totally blind to the literally hundreds of incitements from the political left and leftwing public confrontations that by charitable estimates are practiced around 50:1 by Democrat politicians, journalists, and leftwing street mobs.  Nowhere are mentioned such Congress critters as Maxine Waters and Lizzy Warren, and NYT editor Sarah Jeong.  Nowhere does he see the Left’s countless demonstrations and thuggery performed in office buildings, at neighborhood residences, in stores, on blocked streets, college campuses, classrooms and auditoriums, … .  It’s only the Right that is the progenitor and practitioner of hate speech and violent confrontations.  But then, we have never expected anything more from Mr Berkheimer.

The cost in lives and cash of natural and political disasters has declined markedly under the post-war world order led and maintained by America.  The Left would have us believe that all has been going the other way, and they have published reams of fake factual lies to make their case.  The real fact of the matter has been studied and documented by more sober analysts like the late Swedish statistician Hans Rosling, of the Gapminder Foundation documented in his Factfulness (2018).  It turns out that death rates and property losses have plummeted as the world has grown more populous, densely packed, and with enormously more stuff at risk since WW2.  This reality does not fit well into the anti-capitalist progressive narrative, so it has been both suppressed and redecorated into an ongoing political and journalistic barrage to convince the light thinkers and otherwise engaged of exactly the opposite.  It’s easier to argue for more central planning, control, taxes, and regulations if you can make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. (more here)

[6aug18 update]  As many have known for some years, the alternative energy source biofuel mandates have not lived up to their hype.  The EPA recently released its ‘Biofuels and the Environment: The Second Triennial Report to Congress’. (access here)  It turns out that all the extra thousands of acres of corn and soybeans planted to make the ethanol based fuels are “wreaking havoc on the atmosphere and soil” (more here).  So what was initially sold as another feel good alternative to fossil fuels has just had its list of dirty laundry extended by none other than the agency that has been champion of cleaning up the environment.  This is nothing new, the problems with biofuels have been known and reported for years – here’s a 2008 piece from none other than The Washington Post.  But somehow the Left’s narrative on the negative effects of biofuels hasn’t been affected by these longstanding findings.  It seems that environmental quality is really not that high on the progressives’ agenda.  I wonder what their real objective is.

[7aug18 update]  US land use is an important piece of knowledge for the noggins of those of us debating public policies in these pages.  A reader sent me this link (here) to a Bloomberg news piece that has a whole lot of land use information presented in an interesting graphical format.  Be sure to puzzle on it for the upcoming quiz.

Hilary Hodge is returning to politics after losing in a close race to Supervisor Dan Miller in the June primary. (more here) She will next try to get on the Grass Valley City Council, and she’ll be bringing all her qualifications, enthusiasm, and outside support to her next attempt to enter the local political game.  As most people who recall her Union autobiographical columns know, the lady is woefully short on private sector economics and work experience.  She would greatly bolster her resume and ability to serve the public were she able to show that someone took money out of his own pocket to pay her for demonstrating some productive skills in the job market.  But as most of us have come to know, politicians don’t have to have experience in the private sector before regulating and legislating for it.

[8aug18 update]  The Left (including some locals) claim that the real accomplishment at the 9jun16 Trump Tower meeting with the Russian lawyer was an agreement for the Russians to release Hillary’s emails that were sent and received on her private email server.  However, those emails began to be released prior to 2016 to all, including Wikileaks, by our State Dept, not the Russians.  Wikileaks collected these emails and made them available in a searchable online archive with the included statement – On March 16, 2016 WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive for over 30 thousand emails & email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State. The 50,547 pages of documents span from 30 June 2010 to 12 August 2014. 7,570 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. More PDFs were made available on February 29, 2016, and a set of additional 995 emails was imported up to February 2, 2018.

So it seems that to plan the release of the purported (not confirmed by our intelligence) Russia-hacked Hillary emails after their release had already commenced is a moot argument designed for people not versed in the use of calendars. (more here)

However, our intelligence people state that Russia did hack the DNC email server, and purloined over 100,000 emails with much embarrassing information about the internal operations of the Democratic Party and by Democrat bigwigs. (more here) These were first released to DCLeaks in June 2016 and then later in July 2016 to Wikileaks.  None have claimed that any of these emails were doctored or contained false information.  And no one has tied the Trump campaign to the acquisition and/or release of these emails to the public at large.  All we have is a daily stream of allegations through and by the lamestream that somehow Donald Trump was behind the whole thing since Hillary lost.  And today Mueller stands ready to indict the entire White House in a week or two - as Eliza assured us, 'Just you wait 'Enri 'Iggins, just you wait!'  And waiting we still are.

Scattershots – 23jul18 (updated 26jul18)

George Rebane

In ‘Our country’s future relies on embracing those escaping brutality’ by Ms Judith McCarrick of the Immigration Action Alliance we find some pearls, among them –

• “That migrant parents have broken immigration laws to (surreptitiously) cross our borders is untrue.” Why? Because the legal immigration process is difficult and takes time, and because AG Sessions denies asylum “claims from seekers of protection of gang violence and abusive spouses.”
• “No law mandates that children and parents be separated at the border.” Our immigration and domestic laws specify exactly that when criminal parents are arrested and taken into custody.

These and more like them in her 23jul18 Union piece put Ms McCarrick in the running for the highly competitive designation as Blithering Idiot, 1^st Class.  Unfortunately, given the extensive competition in our county, her latest contribution does not make her a shoo-in.

Kudos to Union columnist and RR reader George Boardman for his timely, comprehensive, and correct vent on the lack of leadership at all levels in our county to expand broadband in our foothills.  Mr Boardman details the sordid history in ‘Bright Fiber, Verizon show what happens when leadership is lacking’.  In that piece he reinforces the recent cri de coeur of the Union's editorial board, and again corroborates the seminal RR dictum, ‘To find the cause of any problem in society, presume that government is guilty until proven innocent.’  Hard to lose with that approach.

[24jul18 update]  Nevada City has now approved 12 pot stores for health reasons.  That’s the same argument the city’s mamas and papas used to deny bringing the town into the 21^st century with appropriate cell phone coverage (let alone broadband).  Consulting their sidewater science, they continue to conclude that cell towers on selected town building will fry the brains of local citizens.  With ample evidence at hand about whom they seat on their city council, many claim that said brains have already been fried for years. (more here)

Two diametrically opposite interpretations of the just released (and deceitfully redacted) FISA application for a warrant to wiretap Carter Page.  All on the Left see no fraud involved and ample evidence for the warrant in the application.  These people don’t think it was material to reveal that the Steele dossier - the prime argument in the application - was scripted, bought, and paid for by Democrats for Hillary.  All on the Right point to the extensive evidence that confirms the fraudulent nature of the application and subsequent FBI testimonies about it.  Within a larger framework, this again proves that no rapprochement is possible, since the opposing parties cannot even agree on the basic facts germane to any subsequent productive conversation.  (more here)

[26jul18 update]  SF Board of Supervisors again certified itself as first class idiots by passing a resolution to screen out insurance companies that invest in fossil fuel businesses.  This because such investments promote climate change, the fight against which the city considers itself among the world’s foremost champions.  So here is a burg, with a history of demonstrably bad decisions and public policies that is drowning in druggies, bums, and their accumulating offal while driving out tourists by the thousands and causing untold losses to their hospitality industry, now preening its deranged ‘values’ for all to see al they attempt to dictate how their insurers should manage their portfolios in order to keep premiums competitive. (more here)  San Francisco values on parade.

Our Little Corner of the Confused

George Rebane

Today’s (9jul18) Union highlights the impact of our county’s left turn with some choice letters to the newspaper and a confusing column on the First Amendment.  Usually the Union has better material to publish on their op-ed pages, but occasionally they must run into a dry spell and use it in fairness to make available some column inches to the incoherent and confused.  After all, such editorial policy does give a more accurate picture of our community.

The two letters are examples of outpourings from the heartfelt but lightly read.  For openers, a Ms Carol Menaker of Nevada City begins her anti-LaMalfa counsel with “If you believe that forcibly separating children from their parents is justifiable, read no further.”  There, that’s it, and no further qualifications or complexities relating to the issue need concern the reader, for most certainly such things never concerned or entered the mind of the writer.  Whether these factors are beyond her, we cannot say, but what follows does not evince a discriminating mind.  (more here)

Then we have the contribution (here) from Mr Ron Lowe, similarly located (our little town is a hotbed of such astute intellects).  His short letter offers condemning and conclusive proof that the Russians indeed “played to the Republicans and swayed the election for Donald Trump.”  Together “Trump, Russians, Republicans, were complicit in wrongdoing in the 2016 presidential election” due to a “full color ad (that) shows Christ and Satan in a struggle to win religious Republican votes”.  The ad appeared on Facebook, and that’s that.  What more proof of perfidy bought and paid for would anyone require?  Roll out the tumbrels!

Finally, we have the ‘other voice’ of a Mr Chuck Frank who has determined that “freedom of the press lies in the balance” (here).  And what powers will tilt that balance to our detriment?  Well, Mr Frank has put his finger on the Dept of Homeland Security and other feds as those who are “planning” to put journalists’ heads on “the chopping block”.  How will they do that?  They will “make lists and spy(sic) on websites, news outlets, articles, blogs, and whistle-blower sites.”  DHS may even hire a contractor to do all the dirty work who will track “hundreds of thousands of persons associated with journalism (by) compiling a database likened to North Korea”.  We kid you not, this individual apparently believes that North Korea has individuals and journalists who criticize the Ugly Fat Kid on the open internet.  In any event, we must all beware that this is “just one example of censorship though(sic) a massive campaign to control mass communications and also hide wrongdoing in government.”

Now RR is on record as being no fan of a large, intrusive, and corrupt counter-constitutional government.  But the confused and breathlessly confusing screed laid down by Mr Frank does not serve his efforts to avert “the New World Order” to be achieved through the destruction of “investigative journalism, alternative news, and accurate reporting.”  The reader comes away from his jumbled revelations shaking his head, and attributing the whole thing again to some anti-government crank.  That he is able to warn all of us of the impending First Amendment’s demise should give us some comfort that such alarums are a bit premature.  Nevertheless, our gimlet eye is ever peeled for such exigencies.  

Scattershots – 3jul18 (updated 4jul18)

George Rebane

It’s Fourth of July time again.  Tonight the gates open at 630pm for the Music in the Mountains Patriotic Pops Concert on the great lawn of our fairgrounds.  Lots of great music and ceremony and flyover and food and drink and … .  Come with your family to celebrate our declaration of independence.  The photo shows the stage last year with the vets saluting the Pledge of Allegiance.  (more here)

Trump removes another Obama-era disaster. "The Trump administration will begin directing schools and colleges to adopt race-neutral admissions standards, the Education Department said Tuesday, reversing Obama-era guidelines that encouraged the use of race to promote diversity."  Perhaps merit will again have top billing in qualifying a student for admission.  Ever thought of having two classes of colleges, one for serious study of productive majors, and another for feel good majors filled with mandated ratios of race, gender, sexual orientation, sensitivity to pressure, safe places, and trigger warnings at every turn.

[4jul18 update]  This version of Putin's Plan was sent by a reader - worth considering.  And as another commenter has astutely asked in these pages, who in America are the people sowing discontent, incivility, and rending the social order?

Socialist Ocasio-Cortez Is “Future Of Our Party” announces DNC chairman Tom Perez.  This vision has been firmly in the mind of our academic types for a generation, and has now been also implanted in the carefully fashioned non-critical minds of their students.  These are the younger people today who neither understand nor see any other future save one with a large government assuring that all will give according to their ability, so that each will receive according to their need. (more here)

Tom Coleman, RIP

George Rebane

My dear friend and one of Nevada County’s iconoclastic gentlemen and longtime community leaders Tom Coleman died last night in Reno of heart failure.  He was playing poker when he collapsed and was taken to the hospital where doctors did all they could, but were not able to save him.  Tom was the longest owner of the recently sold National Hotel in Nevada City, and was to be honored along with his partner Ms Ernie Kehn as the grand marshals of this year’s 4^th of July parade.

Tom was a stalwart and one of the original members of our long running dinner/poker group.  He always sat in his special chair at the octagon, dispensing his wit, wisdom, and stories of Nevada County, and he never let an opening betting round be passed without betting what became known as the ‘Coleman buck’ to get things started.  When it was Tom’s turn to host the dinner, he would order up a sumptuous meal from the hotel’s Hoover Restaurant that always featured a prominent hunk of beef with, of course, all the fixins and a collection of fine wines to lubricate the evening’s labors.

For years we were fellow Rotarians who met regularly at the National.  Tom was also an Elk, and his celebration of life will be held at the Nevada City lodge with date/time to be announced.  Funeral arrangements will be handled by Hooper and Weaver Mortuary.

Over the decades Tom served on many boards, panels, and community associations, always giving freely of his time, talents, and treasure.  He will be missed by his family and the uncountable friends he made as one our community’s most prominent and liked citizens.  We will miss him greatly.

The Old-age Dependency Train Wreck

George Rebane

The baby boomer retirement tsunami is in full swing, and the number of working age Americans whose efforts will support the rapidly growing population of retireds is shrinking at an alarming rate.  Some significant verbiage expanding on the problem is available in ‘A Generation of Americans Is Entering Old Age the Least Prepared in Decades’.  Given what we know today, the following charts tell the quantitative side of the story.

But what really struck me is the graphic below showing the entire country’s aging ratio (more here).  The arithmetically and geographically astute will note that in Nevada County during the last seven years we have gone from almost one-in-three seniors (above 64) to about one-in-two residents of working age (18-64).  This is more than a 50% increase in this ratio, the impact of which is really not appreciated by our local political leaders in the sense that we don’t know how much cash the retirees are importing into our community versus how much of our local services they depend on to live their lives – i.e. how much cash are they pulling out.

This data again gives lie to the local loony lefties who frequently celebrate the myth that Nevada County with its population in stasis is turning younger (the hordes with LA and SF values replace exiting younger middle class workers), and that the older generation hereabouts is on its way out.  As shown above, the reality is the other way around, as I have vainly attempted to educate the ineducable by explaining to them the workings of ingress and egress rates.  Actually, our exiting 'native' middle class workers are being replaced with a constant influx of people with LA and SF values who have soiled their previous nests and promise the same here.  But at the same time our remaining workforce of baby boomers is aging and now replace, at an ever greater rate, the oldsters who are either escaping socialist California for greener pastures or the great beyond.

In any event, the only mitigation of this looming national social catastrophe is a vibrant and growing economy (aka capitalism, entrepreneurship, development), something that the globalist progressives with their grassroots echo chambers are dead set against, since such a state of affairs will work counter to their fervent belief in a big government command economy as the epitome of a social justice delivered.  Whatever your politics, from time to time it pays to review the data tracking this social dynamic.

Scattershots – 8jun18 (updated 9jun18)

George Rebane

That Ted Cruz is a strong anti-abortionist was claimed by a liberal friend and RR reader.  Moreover, the Texas Republican believes that “the continuum of human life begins at the moment of fertilization”, which means at conception.  By reasonable extension, this also means that Cruz is against any and all post-coitus contraception, since this might destroy a fertilized egg (although some eggs may be fertilized many hours after coitus).  I was not aware of that about Sen Cruz and asked my friend to provide some proof, which I promised to post.  He did, and you can inspect his submission here.

Illegal border crossings are down – that is the narrative that the Left (and their lamestream-locked local lackeys) are using to extenuate their criminality with the argument that ‘Dreamers’, illegal alien children (accompanied and unaccompanied), and other labeled groups of “immigrants” (now referenced sans the former ‘illegal’ or ‘undocumented’ modifiers) should be given amnesty to stay here forever, qualify for state offices, and soon obtain the vote (‘they pay taxes too’).  Well, border crossings are actually up since the folks south of the border became convinced that Congress and our courts would override President Trump’s enforcement of illegal alien laws already on the books.  According to the Border Patrol and Homeland Security, the year-to-year number of intercepted and arrested illegal alien families is up 435%, and the number of unaccompanied children is up 329%.  Fox News reported this; haven’t heard/seen it on any lamestream outlets.

Hillary Hodge’s run for District 3 Supervisor has so far garnered her 1,467 votes (to Dan Miller’s 1,713 votes).  Nevada County’s participation in beta testing the new Voters’ Choice Act will delay completing the tally until this coming Monday.  I presume that Dan Miller’s lead will hold and he will be re-elected.  But what I really find remarkable is that so many people actually voted for her.  Let me say at the outset that Ms Hodge is a nice pleasant lady and an upstanding citizen of our county.  But what I find astounding is that someone without any relevant education, total absence of experience, a demonstrated ignorance of issues, and no known life accomplishments (she admits to still coming to grips with being an adult) has the hubris to come in as an unknown, and do so well against the incumbent opponent whose attributes are diametrically opposite hers.  This speaks poorly for our county and, in extension, to our country’s voters who today are so ideologically rent that they will vote for a 2x4 with a painted face if it runs under their preferred party’s banner.  

[9jun18 update]  Union columnist Darrell Berkheimer delivered one of his liberal logrollers – ‘What should America do to be great again’ - in the newspaper’s 9jun18 edition.  He has concluded that America is no longer a great nation, and that is the fault of Republicans and President Trump.  He cites with alarm the upcoming report by the UN’s Human Rights Council, an assemblage dominated by the world’s worthless worthies (here), which contains an amplified and doctored list of America’s sores and carbuncles, leading Mr Berkheimer to conclude that we are indeed the worst of the worst among developed nations.  To be great again, Berkheimer prescribes that we reinstate “the freedom and opportunities to live a better life”, along with the “freedom to innovate” – freedoms which the Left has systematically been removing since the country’s post-war march to socialism was resumed by the Great Society in the 1960s.  Telling of Berkheimer’s prescriptions for America’s future are his mythical interpretations of the governmental “we” who used to “provide” for Americans.  And going forward “it's not just what we provide for those living now, but instead what we provide for the future — for our children, and the next generation after that.” (emphasis mine)  Unless I’m forgetting something fundamental about the greatness of America, it was not government, but the people who were free to innovate and provide for themselves that made us the most sought-after nation in the world.  Government’s constitutional role was to maintain a secure geography in which we could do all these things for ourselves.  Today the Berkheimers in America are working hard and with considerable success to reverse these roles.

Ruminations – 30apr18 (updated 1may18)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.  Winston Churchill

George Rebane

George Boardman, our favorite left-leaning columnist and reader, writes a solid piece (here) in the 30apr18 Union on the effects of taxation on pot in California and our county.  He even brings up the Laffer Curve (gasp!) to illustrate how higher tax rates lower govt revenues and give rise to black markets.  As memorialized by countless citations, comments, and even vituperation in these pages, a sacrosanct tenet of progressive economic theory is that tax rates affect neither production nor consumption.  Do we have here an epiphany in the making?

The Left is now all agog about how we can and should regulate AI – in its development and uses.  The 30apr18 WSJ interviews three “AI experts” on the matter (here) who are really policy lawyers and demonstrate little understanding of AI as they counsel little to a lot of needed regulations.  No one considers that we really need no additional regulation of productized AI because they are at best decision support systems always operating under a responsible human agent for whom all existing laws apply.  It is the human who has the power to employ AI as a tool, and then be responsible for its employment under existing laws.  Things can change later when the AIs become sentient and then sapient.  (See also the post of my recent Union column on this topic.)

California’s progressive socialism has produced the state with the largest income inequality in the Union, and it’s on the rise as more and more middle-class wage earners are pulling up stakes and moving elsewhere.  Joel Kotkin assembles some of this alarming data (H/T to reader) to give perspective to the Left’s claim that California is the model for tomorrow’s America.  “Today, domestic net out-migration, even after declining in the early years of the recession, has more than doubled between 2013 and 2016. Even worse, according to a recent UC Berkeley study, over a quarter of Californians are considering a move, half of them out of the state, with the strongest proclivity found among people under the age of 50. And contrary to some progressive commentary, those leaving are not necessarily old or losers; according to IRS data, out-migrant households had a higher average income than those households that stayed, or of households that moved in to the state.” (more here)

What level of neurological deficits must a person have to still believe that Mueller's year-plus investigation has turned up the slightest evidence of Trump/Russia collusion that, if it exists, would have been leaked months ago?  Why would that lot of liberal lawyers allow their fellow Dems to look like idiots as they repeatedly squawk evidence-free allegations on the media as 'proof' of Trump's guilt? (more here)

[1may18 update]  The Mueller gauge is still on EMPTY, as the latest spate of leaks confirms.  The list of ‘questions for Trump’ first leaked to the NYT, is an embarrassing fishing expedition that seeks nothing beyond the President’s recollections of his own thoughts about this and that, guesses at what other people might have been thinking, opinions about their pre-campaign activities, notions of the meanings of this or that concept or legal construct, … .  In short, the man has found no definitive actions or occurrences involving the Trump campaign that would support the now tidal wave of lamestream allegations serving as desperate proxies for no evidence of a conspiracy with Russia to influence the 2016 election.  When this is pointed out, all the leftwing choir is able to retort can be set to Lerner and Loewe’s ‘Just you wait ‘Enry ‘Iggins’, just you wait!’

California’s school kids have been had by the unionized public school teachers and leftwing politicians, as noted here for years.  The progressives who have created this disaster refuse to even acknowledge it, guaranteeing that the future will be no better, and probably worse, than the past.  Today 65% of our 8^th graders are NOT PROFICIENT in reading, and 67% of them are NOT PROFICIENT in math.  This places CA 36^th nationwide in reading and math, and that itself is another disaster story – with stats like that, how did we place so high, and still have 14 states scoring lower.  Oi weh!  (H/T to reader and more here)

Gun Violence Community Dialogue & Town Hall Update (updated 21apr18)

George Rebane

Silly me.  And here all along I thought I knew what is a community dialogue in a town hall format.  You know, a gathering for which they make a big announcement for everyone interested to gather together, hear some speaker(s), and then everyone has a chance to be heard.  Au contraire mon ami.  The gun violence town hall we’ve been talking about here for a week or more is really for a restricted audience, a select and correct thinking group perhaps, one that got the flyer you see here below.  If you weren’t in that group, you’re SOL unless you can squeeze in with a last-minute RSVP.  And, of course, RSVPs only work if you have something to respond to, sil vous plait.  So I hope that some politically incorrect members of the community are also allowed to join that exclusive tete-a-tete this coming Friday, otherwise I’m going to be very lonely and may need an armed escort to exit the building.  Bottom line, it ain’t gonna be announced in The Union.

[21apr18 update]  The town hall came off pretty much as advertised; attendance was almost at capacity in the Nevada City council chambers.  However, the way that the discussion was framed for the panel was a bit different than my takeaway from the first meeting.  Actually, the discussion was not framed at all save for asking us all to talk about guns and school safety “on the community level”.

Judge Tom Anderson, who overall did an excellent job a mediator, in his opening remarks specifically stated that this was not to be a discussion on Second Amendment which would “take us all day” to cover.  With this constraint, the rest of the evening consisted of a series of disjointed panel comments and answers that ranged from claiming that we have an ongoing shooting “epidemic” to a “crisis”, to arming teachers or not, to passing more gun regulations since they reduced crime, and on and on.  We were not able to get to any specific problem that the community could get its arms around to solve, and that for the simple reason that none of us knew what acceptable problem domain were we supposed treat or even use as the basis for developing a list.

Lots of anecdotal comments were offered on how horrible it was to get shot at, have a loved one killed by a shooter, and the students’ fear of a massacre that now permeated schools nationwide, including in Nevada County.  The consensus of the four liberal panelists was that the passing of more gun controls, and perhaps confiscating certain types of guns, would keep the kids safe and reduce crime since their data showed ‘more gun controls, less gun violence’.  In actuality, as cited here previously, “there is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates.”

Jarod Johnson, owner of The Range and ex-LE officer, was the only other apparent non-liberal who strongly maintained that schools should each have an armed policeman on duty to stop massacres.  And he agreed that only guns on the premises will stop people with guns.  He didn’t quite finish with ‘when seconds count, police are minutes away’.

My interjected points (only one question was actually posed to me during the evening) included attempts to communicate the following.

• Right and Left agree on neither the facts nor their interpretation. The path toward a solution should start on whatever part of the worldview we do share.
• The search for a community solution should start with identification of a solvable problem and a specific utility (numerical metric) that measures our progress.
• Willing teachers should be trained and armed to reduce the loss of life in school massacres.
• Children learn fear from their elders (parents, teachers, media). Unreasonable fear of in-school massacres has to be carefully taught to young impressionable brains.  Nevada County youth regularly die in traffic accidents at rates at least two orders of magnitude higher than from anything gun related, yet no one is afraid of getting in a car and driving off.  
• Stricter gun controls do not affect suicide rates – committed suicides find alternate means. (Massachusetts was cited where suicide rates were supposed have dropped with increased gun controls – the fact is exactly the opposite, its suicide rates increased by at least 40% in the 2004-14 decade.  More alternate facts.)
• Homicide rates are culture driven, not gun driven – London’s murder rate with knives now exceeds NYC’s with guns.
• The need to include the 2^nd Amendment and its core purpose/meaning in ANY discussion of gun ownership, violence, safety, control, … is seminal because that is the basis for half the country resisting gun confiscators and any incremental ratcheting toward that goal.
• Saving teen lives (i.e. max expected lives saved) in Nevada County should not start with, or perhaps even include, the fortification of schools – drugs, alcohol, suicides, opiates, … should get our first attention and efforts.
• The next town hall on saving teen lives should define and recommend a locally achievable project or program.

Gun violence town hall in Nevada City (updated 7apr18)

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 4 April 2018.]

Today the Second Amendment and gun violence are on the minds of many people.  Both subjects have widely different meanings for Americans, and the usual conversations held on these topics more often than not find people talking past each other because they share no common facts, definitions of terms, knowledge of history, and usually debate only to promote totally different futures for America.  In short, neither their agendas nor narratives are compatible.  On 20 April there will be a town hall meeting in Nevada City to attempt a better understanding of all this that I’ll tell you about in a minute.

Since the Parkland shootings, the Left has again made gun control a national issue, seeing it as the most recent not-to-be-wasted perfect storm to flood the country with the next layer of gun control laws.  What distinguishes their current efforts from the past is that the cat is finally out of the bag – the Left’s goal is not just adopting what they call ‘common sense’ laws and regulations, but the total abrogation of civilian gun ownership.  And former Supreme Court Justice Stevenson openly declared the preferred method to be through the repeal of the Second Amendment.

What continues to fuel the debate in the media is the way that information on guns – their types, functioning, gun deaths, gun violence, (yes, these are different), ownership rates, applicable laws, the effect of various levels of controls, etc – how all this is disseminated.  Listening to the gun confiscation folks, you would think that there has been a dramatic increase in gun violence, however that is characterized.  Looking at the plain facts, gathered and published by outfits like Pew Research, FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, Centers for Disease Control, and other reputable private and public agencies, the reality is quite different.

Here are some “stubborn facts” to consider when you next talk about gun violence and gun control –

• Violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades.
• The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings.
• A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide.
• Gun-related murders are carried out by a predictable pool of people.
• Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of violent crime.
• There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates.
• Legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often, about 450,000 times annually, than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.
• Concealed carry or CCW permit holders are not the problem, but they may be part of the solution. CCW permit holders are arguably the most law-abiding people in the country.  Our police, who are very law-abiding, still commit crimes at 6 to 10 times the rate that CCW holders do.

To put the loss of human life into some perspective, consider that insect bites kill more people than the criminal use of guns.  More people are stabbed to death each year than are shot with rifles.  Surprisingly, the London murder rate with knives is now higher than the gun murder rate in New York.  And each year medical mistakes kill over 20 times the number of people murdered with guns.  So, there is much more to know about gun violence than what is repeated on every-day media.  (more here)

In light of all this, a group of concerned progressives will gather in the Nevada City Council chambers on the evening of 20 April to hold a town hall in order to “find common ground for efforts that can be initiated right here in Nevada County to make us all safer.”  The meeting, moderated by Judge Tom Anderson, will be a discussion and not a debate.  It will feature a panel that includes Carla Wolfclaw, who wrote on school security measures after the Columbine massacre, and a number of locals to which I have been added to provide either some measure of balance or, perhaps, comic relief, not necessarily in that order.  More information will be available soon on local radio and in The Union.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[6apr18 update]  Until something more formal appears in the media, I am posting below the draft "blurb", as received, from the organizers on the upcoming town hall.  Since the receipt, I have been informed by KVMR that they will do a live broadcast of the event.

Foothill Arts Resources & Media (The FARM) is a 501 C 3 Non-Profit entity.  Our mission is to provide professional assistance & occasional funding to local projects that would be of interest to our community, in addition to producing our own events. Our team is comprised of passionate individuals with long-term experience in activism, organizing and event planning, as well as strong independent media involvement.

Our current project is to produce a Town Hall Meeting on the topic of Guns; this will include gun safety, gun violence, interpretations of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, student input, judicial and law enforcement input, and an opportunity for knowledgeable panelists to share their thoughts, feelings & expertise. The goal is to bridge the gap, and rather than be divisive, to find areas where we, as a community, can find common ground, and begin to find workable solutions to this important, ongoing and highly charged topic.  This will be a forum in which the public can ask questions of the panelists. (These questions will be vetted by our team, and will include all points of view, as our goal is to be inclusive).

The meeting will be carried LIVE on NCTV and streamed over the internet on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 6:30 P.M. and will be held in the Nevada City Council chambers at 317 Broad St. Nevada City, CA.

We are planning to work with KVMR to see if they, too, would be interested in carrying the event. We have received a “thumbs-up” from The Union, as well.

[7apr18 update]  I received the following press release entitled, 'Town Hall Notice - Guns a Community Dialogue' from Ms Patricia Smith of FARM.  It is posted as received.

Press Release:

Guns: A Community Dialog will be the topic of a public Town Hall Meeting to be held on Friday, April 20, from 6:30 - 8:30 pm in the Nevada City Hall Council Chambers, 317 Broad Street. 

The Town Hall is being produced by Foothills Arts Resources & Media (FARM) with partners NCTV and KVMR who will carry a LIVE broadcast of this event. (NCTV, Comcast Ch. 17 or Suddenlink Ch. 16; KVMR, 89.5 FM.) It will also be streamed over the internet at www.kvmr.org and nevadacountytv.org.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Anderson will moderate. The panel consists of Amanda Wilcox, Legislation & Policy Chair of the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign; Carla Holtzclaw, School Safety Trainer & Consultant, retired educator & former Chair of the Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Board; Dr. George Rebane, certified range safety officer, life member of the NRA, who has researched and written extensively on the Second Amendment; Morgan Margulies, a senior at Nevada Union High School and captain of the campus debate team; Jerod Johnson, a retired Grass Valley Police captain, gun safety expert and owner of The Range, and Michael Gomez, former Bureau Chief, California Dept. of Justice Commission on Peace Officer Standards & Training (POST).

Among the topics to be discussed will be school and public safety procedures, warning signs of mental health issues, gun proficiency & safety training, concerns of our youth, and Second Amendment rights.

The goal is to bridge the gap, and rather than be divisive, find areas where we, as a community, can reach common ground. Foremost is finding workable, local solutions to this important, ongoing and highly charged topic.

This will be an inter-active forum in which the public can ask questions of the panelists via written cards. All points of view will be included, however the questions will be vetted to eliminate duplication and remain within the time limitations of a live broadcast.  FARM is a 501 (c) 3, non-profit. Our mission is to provide professional assistance & occasional funding to local projects that would be of interest to our community, in addition to producing our own events.

Seating is limited: Info:530-268-5754 or see FARM's Facebook page, Foothill Arts, Resources and Media FARM where you can reserve a seat.

Scattershots – 24mar18 (updated 28mar18)

George Rebane

Today’s Union has an excellent editorial – ‘Our View: This community is all our backyard’ – in which it takes to task those of us who tend to oppose anything that will bring needed change to our county.  The editorial goes through a number of recent and current development initiatives that have again run into strong headwinds from the usual contingents.  Even though our electeds make a significant contribution to the sand in our gears, but “we can't lay all the problems we face at the doorstep of our elected leaders. Our community could use a sea change about what shape it should take and what direction it should go.”  And in these pages we have been promoting such a sea change for years as our population stagnates, families move elsewhere, and potential new businesses give us a pass once they get a good whiff of the county’s new political face.  I give a big ‘Amen’ to that sea change, and a H/T to Bob Crabb for his contribution (filched from the 24mar18 Union) to the dialogue.

This weekend the nation’s progressively propelled pubertistas are marching in opposition to what they know not, but easily accept as ‘gun violence’.  In a recent post we covered the launch of this nascent lamestream-lauded movement under ‘Progressives Pander Pubertistas’.  What should continue to interest all of us is how the country’s adults view these marches comprised of ignorant and emotional young people, enthralled in the first flood of hormones evolved to mediate the journey from childhood to an adult.  Easily assembled and directed, all of them sport brains that clinical science tells us are yet years from being fully formed for taking reliably rational decisions.  To see who seeks to benefit from franchising these anxious and anxiety ridden works-in-progress, just take a look at the politicians, organizations, and media that promote them.  Long ago our Founders built on the then already known progress of human development, and made it law of the land that no one could be elected into a federal policy making office before the age of twenty-five.  And we also know how past childrens’ crusades have ended.

[25mar18 update]  Meteorologists, you gotta love ‘em.  The recent couple of weeks here in Northern California have again amply demonstrated their prowess at forecasting what they are paid to forecast – the weather.  These guys make economists and stock pickers look good, and I have no idea how they steel themselves before accepting another paycheck for their work.  As one who has some acquaintance with estimation theory, the work of the meteorologists is below sophomoric; most certainly, none of their computer models work.  It is clear that any claim of having improved their sophistry over the years is not due to their increased understanding of the processes that drive the weather.  Their performance, such as it is, can all be laid to having a better view (data and imagery from orbit and reporting surface stations) of what is ‘upstream’ of their prediction area.  Then they look at past records of what such observations have actually delivered, and go from there.  But even then they screw up, apparently never having heard of the good Rev Bayes as their ‘100% chance of rain’ pronouncements confirm.

[28mar18 update]  WSJ's leftwing columnist William Galston may have had an epiphany which, in all fairness, I must recognize.  In the paper's 28mar18 edition he writes a piece on 'The Case for Responsible Nationalism', and surprises us with -

National governments are not required to value the citizens of other countries as highly as their own. A degree of self-preference is morally justified and politically essential. Leaders in advanced countries are not obligated to practice global utilitarianism or lift up the global poor at the expense of their working and middle classes. ... There will probably never be a real world government. There are no “global citizens.” People belong to sovereign states with different languages, cultures and institutions. Free societies are composed of citizens who agree to share a common fate and to work out their destiny through accountable politics. They undertake special responsibilities toward their fellow citizens, and the policies of free governments must take these reciprocal commitments into account.

Ruminations – 13mar18 (updated 14mar18)

George Rebane

College students can’t write, like in cursive handwriting.  More and more are in dire straits at schools that don’t allow laptops in the lecture halls.  Years ago the loss of that ability was described in sci-fi stories of a future when writing skills had withered and people ‘wrote’ by speaking to computers with speech-to-text capability.  Now that future is here, and we shall see how we do when requirements for making some quiet notes arise.

Dollar General in Alta Sierra, what a kerfuffle.  Residents there protest the advent of a store carrying cheap merchandise that will attract a class of people who benefit from such offerings, and whose obvious presence in that neighborhood may lower real estate values.  Mac Young in the 13mar18 Union calls such voices discriminatory (here).  And, of course, they are in both the politically correct and classical meanings of having the ability to make studied distinctions.  These people of Alta Sierra are exercising their right to voice an opinion about a likely effect that such traffic will have on their heretofore pristine community of well-kept and prim houses which dot the hillsides on the road to the county’s premier country club.

Russian collusion is most evident in the collectivist conclaves of New England – Boston town to be specific.  Here they are welcoming large Russian LNG carriers in their harbors discharging the natural gas required to heat their homes for the remainder of their globally cold winter.  They are financing Putin’s adventures rather that approve the pipeline that would have brought in Canadian and American gas to satisfy the needs of all of New England.  They see no conflict in what passes for their rationale as the region’s liberals join with the usual activist suspects – Greenpeace, Sierra Club, … - to oppose safe, sane, and sustainable native solutions.  (more here)

[update]  Rebane Doctrine dictum – Relinquish to higher government ONLY things that you or the more local government can’t handle – a hierarchical solution for benevolent governance.  (Am reading Taleb’s latest – Skin in the Game (2018) – on which I’ll report later.  I have found Taleb’s ethics and political philosophy to fly in fairly tight formation with my own credo and socio-political doctrine.)

[14mar18 update]  In ‘Why Cities Boom While Towns Struggle’ liberal columnist William Galston cites The New Geography of Jobs (2012) by Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti, who argues that achieving creativity in the workplace still requires face-to-face efforts by people drawn from a critical mass of proximal workers – telecommuting just won’t do.  There’s a lot more to be said about that which also bears on the decades-long, mostly misguided, but still persistent efforts by our own community to attract jobs and workers.  Moretti’s findings support the A21 stack-and-pack objectives of depleting rural populations in favor of dense, highly-regulated city living.  For another view of how and why cities (among other complex systems) evolve and renew themselves, I recommend the important and highly-readable Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies (2017) by theoretical physicist Geoffrey West.

Our New Cannabis Ordinance – A Civil Approach

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 14 February 2018.]

Yesterday afternoon Jo Ann and I were in the packed supervisors’ chamber at the Rood Center.  The supes were there to discuss the new county cannabis ordinance and give guidance to the county staff about what they wanted to see in the finished product.  The entire affair was presided over by Supervisor Scofield who is the current board chair.  The meeting began with a presentation by Community Development Agency head Sean Powers in which he outlined a bit of history, the state’s current and evolving cannabis regulations, and what our own Community Advisory Group had recommended.

The gathering opened in a very orderly, businesslike, yet congenial manner.  Supervisor Scofield then allowed about 30 minutes of additional public input, even though this was not a public hearing.  Then the supes started their first real discussion among themselves about the ordinance.  The Brown Act prevents elected officials from discussing and deciding public affairs in private.  So the exchange that followed was interesting to witness as each supervisor asked questions of the staff and began expressing their own druthers about the complex details that the ordinance must contain and also make clear to our newly legalized cannabis industry and concerned citizens alike.

The dimensions of the ordinance quickly revealed themselves to be byzantine as each layer of important factors was examined and peeled back.  The main points of contention were the nuisance of cannabis stench in residential neighborhoods vs the desire to allow legal, regulated, and taxed cannabis grows.  If the ordinance were to come out too draconian, then the growers and producers would return to their illegal ways, and we would be back where we started.

Also important to note is that all these deliberations are taking place within the current political environment in which 18 California counties are also writing their ordinances, while the rest are preparing to do so, and in which everyone is attempting to resolve the same conundrums.  The factors that need to be sorted out involve existing zoning laws, parcel sizes, numbers of permitted indoor vs outdoor plants, setbacks from property lines in the attempt to staunch the stench, and on and on.  Our cannabis proponents want Nevada County to lead the way with our ordinance, a tactic that is not without its own chuckholes.

It soon became clear which supervisors were more concerned about abating the nuisance issues, and who leaned more toward the cannabis growers.  Actually, only Supervisor Heidi Hall, representing District #1 that contains Nevada City, found herself alone advocating for more plants grown outside on smaller parcels with smaller setbacks from the neighbors.  Supervisors Miller, Anderson, Scofield and Weston all leaned toward smaller grows of only medicinal marijuana on larger parcels zoned for agriculture and having larger setbacks.  Nevertheless, all of them also understood that the growers needed some reasonable slack so that their commercial interests would also be served.

The overall discussion was most civil, with a lot of understanding of each others’ concerns that at times was even leavened with humor.  My only criticism about the process was with Sean Powers’ preparation – he didn’t make enough slides that were needed to give everyone, including us in the audience, the definitions, charts, and data that would have made things go more smoothly with fewer repeated questions and misunderstandings that had to be cleared up. More specific details about the Supervisors’ guidance and next steps in the drafting process, that would include additional public input, can be found in the online (here) and print editions of today’s Union newspaper.

We came away from the meeting in good spirits, having witnessed how local government can work in a reasoned and reasonable manner to consider difficult issues with divers advocates, and proceed visibly with an even-handed approach to making public policy.  In recent years I have become pessimistic about the outcome of our Founders’ legacy that left us the Great Experiment, which is based on the question, ‘Can common man govern himself?’  Witnessing our Board of Supervisors at work gave us new hope that maybe, just maybe, we could actually do that in today’s hyper-polarized America.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.