Rebane's Ruminations

Hunker Down Diary – 26mar20 (updated 27mar20)

George Rebane

When there’s a problem, government is guilty until proven innocent.

Today is HD19 for the Rebanes.  We started hunkering down on 8 March 2020, and finally risked it all this morning by showing up at our local Safeway at 7am, the advertised ‘old folks shopping time’.  Apparently the younger people had not gotten the word, and the store was full with a lot of couples like Jo Ann and me pushing two carts.  Most of us wore gloves, a few had on masks, and all of us social distanced as much as possible.  But what we saw was dismal; something you’d experience in a socialist second or third world country – ‘miles’ of empty shelves of the stuff that everyone really wanted to buy.  Still, we all filled our baskets with what there was and substituted a lot of PlanB items.

What surprised me was that today the younger generation of managers have no knowledge, let alone experience, of the buying patterns during times of emergency and need.  With all signs of the coming hunker down time apparent more than a month ago, no one, starting with FEMA, advised the supply system to put the pedal to the metal on obvious staples and sanitary items.  There was no anticipative ‘push’ in the pipeline.  Everything appeared to have continued on with the JIT (just in time) scheme that works so well during happy days.  The makers and distributers are making do with the JIT schema in spite of the enormous consumer ‘pull’ of empty shelves.

Scattershots – 22feb20 (updated 25feb20)

George Rebane

Surprise! – school costs are projected to double their budgeted income.  Well, not really.  It’s only a surprise to our progressives who either skipped or failed Econ 101.  The 22feb20 Union cites a report by WestEd that projects the coming “silent recession” in our schools (here) This was known to most of us years ago (2008) when its first ignored signs became apparent.  The schools will “likely be running deficits soon because of factors like the rising rate of pensions, special education costs, and rising staff costs, along with the price of health care.”  With state socialism running wild and teachers’ unions sitting in the catbird seat, whoulda thought?  In Nevada County we are holding emergency meetings at the school district “in an attempt to get ahead of the possible (?!) problems.”  And guess what is the big unfunded gorilla in the room – can you spell ‘CalSTRS’?  As usual, no one is discussing cutting the schools’ ridiculous cost structure, but only how best to raise taxes to pay off the new bonds that must be floated to cover the deficits.

The mood of California’s disgruntled Democrats is correctly captured by our beloved liberal cartoonist Bob Crabb.  You see, they already control the state with an electorate of gimmes having voted in the Sacramento super-majorities, and a double dummy governor who’s competing with Bernie for the Time's cover picture of the ‘Socialist of the Year’.  But there’s a bit of northern California that still remains mostly Republican and conservative, and that must not be tolerated to complete a true-Blue, one-party state – any vestige of remaining representation of the knuckle draggers in Sacramento must be purged.  And Mr Crabb is up to promoting that in his cartoon which I filched from the pages of the 22feb20 Union.

The fair share between pay and profits, that is the consuming question for America’s socialists, who, of course, know the answer.  Jon Sindreu in the 22feb20 WSJ gives the issue a workmanlike airing (here).  There he points out that “there has been a lot of attention paid to how much of national income goes to profits instead of workers’ pay. Labor’s share of gross domestic product remained close to a postcrisis low in 2019 amid record corporate earnings, according to the latest U.S. data.”  And the stability between pay and profits during most of the 20th century started tilting toward profits, which predictably has gotten up the dander of our ‘workers, throw off your chains’ leftwing.  A deeper look reveals no untoward imbalance, save that since 1980 competition has forced industries to consolidate, and technology started replacing labor’s share of productivity contributions.  This, of course, has caused labor’s share of GDP to decrease since the remaining jobs are tending to a dumbbell shaped distribution of pay, with the big hump consisting of lower wage ‘commodity level’ jobs.  If we want to maintain and grow our QoL, then start thinking again of systemic unemployment, universal basic income, and perhaps even non-profit service corporations.

[23feb20 update]  One of the Democrat Big Lies is that Russia is backing Trump in 2020.  This not only a lie, but blatant idiocy for anyone to believe such tripe.  We have pointed out how Trump’s walk is what people should focus on, not his public talk about Russia which is firm yet relatively mild-mannered.  For those snuffies unfamiliar with public/private negotiations, this is what you do to maximize your position in deal making – talk softly while wielding a big stick.  As John Hinderaker explains in ‘You Don’t Need a Spy to Know Which Way the Russian Wind Blows’ - "Donald Trump is anathema to the rulers of Russia. Not only has he armed the Ukrainians, he has re-invigorated NATO by insisting that members take an interest in their own defense; stood up to and badly wounded Russia’s key ally, Iran; overseen an expansion and strengthening of American armed forces; and, most important, encouraged fracking and other development of U.S. oil and gas resources, which has kept down the global price of oil. … It is blindingly obvious that the Russians would prefer any Democrat to President Trump. All of the Democrats have promised to limit U.S. production of oil and gas, which no doubt sounds like pure insanity to Putin but is music to his ears. Equally important, they all vow to shrink America’s armed forces and never to use them under any foreseeable circumstances. And they all would pursue a soft line toward Iran." (more here and H/T to correspondent)

[24feb20 update]  There is a Sanders Silver Lining.  What many of us have been saying for years about the true social and governance objectives of the Democratic Party are now visible to all as the curtain has been pulled aside to reveal their true aims for a fundamentally transformed America.  It is clear that communism is the ultimate goal, and proto-communist policies, should Team Bernie et al prevail, are the first steps.  But first, our guns have got to go as the government’s guns come out to make us heel.

[25feb20 update]  Google full-page ad in the 25feb20 WSJ touting their cloud services has the banner – The Home Depot is solving for empowering doers to get more done.  Huh??!

From the immortal Robert Burns “O, wad some Power the giftie gie us/ To see oursels as others see us! …"  - Since George W. Bush I have been writing about the fundamentalist hijacked Republican Party. It is 2020 and the GOP Jihad continues on with the new moniker of the Trump Party. … Leaderless and adrift, the far-right hoards of white Republican religious purists are still trying to purge the country of decency, morality and moderation instilling their brand of anti-abortion and anti-immigration and science denial. … I understand the necessity of an opposition, but the Republicans are completely AWOL, in that regard. The Republican Party is becoming a group of fringe right-wingers lacking the moderation of centrists. Get ready for the Trump-Republican 2020 campaign of lies as they play to the wealthy, religious and conservatives. What a god-awful mess. May they self-destruct.  Ron Lowe, Nevada City (from Letters in the 25feb20 Union)

And in the same vein from Thomas Elias’ ‘California carrying the national economy’ , we learn that instead of all the growing problems the state has been having under decades of Democrat rule with workers and companies leaving, highest taxes/fees/regulations, welfare capital of the nation, illegals and gimmes arriving, and crap-infested cities full of indigent homeless and addicts living in the streets, and … .  All of that is wrong, and California is really “the envy of the nation” as we were told the other day by Governor Goofy Gavin.  Since the state has a couple or three counties that are home to major corporations raking gazillions of revenues from manufactories and server centers all over the world, all is well – better than well, it’s just peachy.  When county GDPs are tallied like that, then it’s easy to see how places like India and China can also have several small concentrations of outfits that produce enormous wealth which doesn’t accrue to the surrounding countryside where people are in dire straits.  Don’t know whether the arch leftwing columnist Elias is a bit teched, but he’s sure betting that his readers are.

We do have our own facts (updated 7feb20)

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." A. Lincoln

George Rebane

[This is the addended and updated transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 5 February 2020.]

The nationally prominent public figure and liberal Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave us the well-known shibboleth that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."  Moynihan was a man of many talents, serving as adviser to several presidents of both parties, Harvard college professor, ambassador to India and the UN, and as a four-term senator from New York.  He died in 2003, a bit too early to witness the rejection and even falsification of what at first reading seems like an eminently reasonable and widely applicable statement.

Today in 2020 we have long acknowledged and adopted the existence of at least two sets of facts, held by each side of a deeply polarized country.  That we do not agree on the facts which support our stands on public policies is the prime reason why we can no longer emulate that great Texas politician and 36th US president Lyndon Johnson, when he would put his big arm around an uncompromising opponent’s shoulder and utter the biblical invitation from Isaiah to “Come now, let us reason together.”  But the prerequisite for reasoning together is to have some common ground that usually begins by accepting some common collection of critical facts.

Scattershots – 9jan20

George Rebane

Progressives’ public displays of caring social involvement will abruptly end when they finally destroy the economy that enables such displays.

Joining the chorus of all Democrats, Sen Tim Kaine is a POS and a lying scumbag every time he opens his mouth.  Last night on FN he lied about there being members of Congress who favor a “war with Iran”.  He continued spewing his crap by claiming that we actually are at war with Iran, thereby violating the 1973 War Powers Act (which was only a joint resolution of Congress).  We are NOT at war with Iran, but only responding militarily in the type of push-back operations that George Kennan first outlined in his 1946 ‘Long Telegram’ from Moscow, and which we have been doing for over 70 years.  (Granted, we had two non-declared wars in Korea and Vietnam in the interlude under Democrat presidents.)  And the POS finished his interview by lying that Bolton needs to testify to the Senate since he has appealed “please subpoena me”.  In truth, far from Kaine’s mouth, Bolton has only said that he was willing to testify were the Senate to subpoena him.

The progressive pinheads of Middletown, Ohio have established expanded facilities for its homeless and publicized that they welcome all comers.  Well, all comers from all over the state are now being shipped to Middletown.  And wouldn’t you know it, the Middletown mamas and papas are shocked at the response – I mean, talk about room temp IQs.  3 of 4 homeless in town now are from out of town, and Police Chief Rodney Muterspaw (his real name, I swear) says, “We have a huge problem with other cities (they know who they are), dumping homeless people here because they don't want them in their city.”  Now folks hereabouts know that Nevada City and even Grass Valley are real concerned about becoming more caring and welcoming to the homeless, both indigenous and immigrants.  RR recommends that our Nevada County worthies put in a call to Chief Muterspaw, and go over their plans to handle the homeless from the I-80 corridor.

[Later] Authoritarian progressivism is America’s metastasizing cancer that is quietly eating away here and there at the social fabric that binds our people and has made our country the shining beacon for all humanity.  Like cancer, authoritarian progressivism does its focused work quietly and mostly out of sight until irreparable damage is done, only then does it step out and don the mantle of the government gun.  Its ongoing war on philanthropy is an area where our Democrat leftists intend to wipe out one of the most effective instruments of civil society, but one that visibly and successfully competes with the notion that the government collective should be the source of all civil good.  The Big Lie that private philanthropy is an “elite charade” is now promoted by lamestream outlets like WaPo, NYT, and NPR – the full court press is on.  More specifically, as editor of Philanthropy magazine Karl Zinsmeister points out (here), “Today’s critics of private giving are most misleading in their suggestion that it is primarily a game played by “the billionaire boys’ club.” That’s not even close to accurate. The lion’s share of America’s vast philanthropy comes from ordinary citizens, 100 million of whom make charitable gifts annually, with the average household donating around $3,000. In addition, 77 million citizens volunteer time and labor. This broad generosity powers some 1.5 million independent nonprofits across the country, operating in every imaginable part of the economy, pursuing a panoply of approaches to national improvement.”  (Much more to be said about this war, but I do want to point out that this is another of RR’s series highlighting leftwing's Big Lies - abiding and impactive lies that really do matter.)

A Progressive’s ‘Common Ground’

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."  Daniel Patrick Moynihan

George Rebane

Sierra Business Council CEO Steven Frisch took to task my criticism of Terry McAteer’s Union column (here) in which he glossed over the real problems that California has under Democrat leadership.  Along with McAteer, Frisch also appears to be blind to California socialists’ homegrown catastrophes, and counsels those who would point them out to “stop acting like a bunch of babies and work together."

Ruminations – 8nov19 (updated 13nov19)

George Rebane

Progressives moving to suburbs and small towns after they have soiled their coastal urban areas.  Almost half of San Francisco residents now want to leave the shithole city.  These people – overwhelmingly ignorant and anti-capitalist - are like locusts and will also devastate their new homes wherever they land.  The process will not take place overnight, but it will be inexorable, especially if their states continue to adopt the disastrous policies of California.  Nevada County turning ‘blue’ is a poster child for this migration of socialists blind to socialism.   (more here, here, and here)

James Dean lives again through the magic of CGI (computer generated imagery) in an upcoming movie. (here)  In my field we foresaw the resurrection of dead, iconic movie stars almost 40 years ago when then nascent CGI technologies made their way into smaller companies that started servicing the movie and TV industries. (My own company and Hughes Aircraft were the first two west coast companies to establish the then advanced computer graphics labs for defense work.)  The current owners of these movie stars’ estates will have a chance to cash in again.  The impact of such a CGI resurrection on opportunities for today’s myriads of living actors is TBD.

University of California prepares to abandon academic meritocracy.  The Left’s constant push to compromise America’s future is making additional inroads in a field they pretty much have dominated and devastated our educational systems with their ‘social justice’ organizations now threatening to sue UC if it continues to use standardized testing (think SAT and ACT) as a basis for admittance.  As always, these anti-American warriors use the bogus argument that meritocracy discriminates against minorities.  Has anyone taken a walk on a UC campus lately?  Does anyone think that developing any realworld system - inventing an algorithm, writing a program, or building a bridge - will benefit from fewer or incompetent STEM graduates?

‘California’s Disastrous State Illustrates Limits of Progressivism’ writes Victor Davis Hanson in his lates review of how our state has been turned into a third-world wannabe in the hands of the resurrected Socialist Party of America who still use their old name of Democrats.  Unfortunately, the limits of progressivism will be achieved when California becomes a social wasteland toward which it is now accelerating.  And the local idiots still think it's only some obscure foothill codgers who hallucinate about the state's long downfall.

[10nov19 update]  My skepticism about the reality of preventable man-made global warming is nicely summarized in this article written by climate scientist Dr Jay Lehr.  It incorporates most of the factors that I have addressed over the years about the global warming issues as part of Rebane Doctrine.  (H/T to reader)

[13nov19 update]  Apropos to the above update, another Democrat has outed a previously hushed truth about the public positions and policies of progressives.  Sen Mazie Hirono (D-HI) publicly admonished Americans “to fundamentally change the way they think about climate change” – more specifically, she urged that people “believe in climate change as though it’s a religion, it’s not a science.” (more here)  This, of course, has been a major Rebane Doctrine tenet about preventable manmade global warming in these pages for years.

Outrageous Outages (updated 10oct19)

George Rebane

Our power here in western Nevada County went out at 315am.  We set our phone alarms and got up at 630am, and started the generator.  Turning on our local KNCO, we were advised to remain calm, safe, and that everything in the region was canceled for the day.  A PG&E lady came on to read some prepared pap and informed us that power “may be restored” starting tomorrow noon.  Another local politico advised us all to “be patient”.

I have been continuously checking the winds, both current and predicted, and found that there was no wind, measured and predicted, in the Sierra for the next 48 hours that exceeded 10mph.  Whatever ‘high winds’ (20-25mph) there were to be, were on the central valley floor.  In fact, the entire northwest of the US is unusually calm, save for that small Sacramento Valley floor pocket of light winds.  Here in the Nevada City region it is DEAD CALM as is seldom seen – not even a leaf moving.  You can do your own checking here.

For all intents and “public safety” purposes, there is no evidence that power needs to be shut off in these foothills.  The outage, predicted and delivered, appears purely for punitive political purposes that is endorsed by a progressive leftwing government whose longstanding MO has been to get Californians to accept more and more abusive government control over their lives without so much as a murmur.  In a state where a free and independent people dwell, government and their monopoly utilities would at this time have turned power back on while broadcasting apologies for having turned it off for no reasonable purpose.

But long ago that ceased to be California, where we have been taught to hunker down and accept everything from the most onerous and useless/stifling environmental regulations, highest gas and fuel prices in the Union, sky high taxes, piles of human shit and needles covering our city streets and sidewalks, crumbling roads and bridges, welfare/homeless/illegal alien capital of the country, broken public education system, corrupt (and unfunded) public employee pension system, historical exodus of companies and middle-class wage earners, …, and more of the same on the way.

We now have an under-educated ‘woke’ electorate who are fed a daily diet of pap from our lamestream outlets, putting the blame for their dire straits on the state’s successful businesses and the well-to-do who can still afford to live here.  These are guilty of taking from the poor and giving to the rich, and according to all Democrat politicians (especially those in Sacramento and running for president) they must be squeezed much much more in order to redistribute their ill-gotten assets and achieve social justice in a fundamentally transformed America.

And now we are being conditioned to patiently accept the power distribution schedules of third-world countries as the latest new norm for our once golden state.

[10oct19 update]  California’s historic Great Blackout continues.  The people are finally getting sufficiently pissed since no one has seen any dangerous winds in NorCal that might affect public safety.  The PG&E officials are keeping a stiff upper lip and passing the bullshit. (more here)  Here in the Sierra foothills there has been no wind all night, and looking out my window at our forest, there is not a single leaf moving – dead air.  Our politically punitive punishment continues (The Federalist agrees).  Which brings us to the whole deal about the National Weather Service and NOAA.

Nevada County – economic disaster area

George Rebane

The more that wealth gets redistributed, the less wealth there is to redistribute.

This morning’s (27aug19) lead article in The Union by reporter Cory Fisher (here) informs the reader an awful lot about our community that most of us did not know.  It turns out our county is an economic disaster area with more working people than ever going hungry and having problems making ends meet.

According to local reports, “1 out of 7 Nevada County residents” (14.3%) were “food insecure” (term of art for hungry?).  Across all US counties 13.3% were food insecure, only 11% were in such dire straits in LA County, the country’s individual rate is somewhere around 12.5% (1 of 8), and all this in a land where over one in three of us are mysteriously fat. (more here)

Then we learn that the hunger rate in our county is not only high but screaming upward.  At the Food Bank the increase has been from 800 in May, 1,000 in July, and 1,200 in August – in other words our calorie calamity is reported to be growing at about 150% annually.  We are told this is causing our non-profit food distributors financial hardship for two reasons – increase in the county’s hungry population and a reduction in charitable contributions because of Trump’s new tax law.

Somehow the truth about the tax law and its restrictions on charitable giving is completely opposite.  The standard deduction has more than doubled to $24K for joint filers and it does not limit giving at all.  All it has done is caused more people to take the standard deduction instead of itemizing deductions such as their former charitable gifts.  This little feature has induced many people to then just skip the giving, not because they have less money, but because there is no need to give to get the tax benefit. (more here) But that’s not what the article impugns.  Somebody forgot to include that character still counts, even under the new tax law.

And the overall problem of falling income making it hard for our county’s residents to make ends meet – it then appears that our workers did not share in the country’s benefit from the tax cuts that increased lower and middle class household incomes by an average of $2,000.  (More here) When you factor in the doubled tax credits for kids, the average family has even more dollars to spend.  And here is a summary of the real impact of the Trump tax cut.

So, while the rest of the country is enjoying historically low unemployment, rising wages, and paying lower taxes, in Nevada County our poverty rate is estimated to have started increasing again after Trump was elected.  He even caused a bump in climate change that started more wild fires, which then raised county residents’ insurance rates that forced some of them to move.  The takeaway is clear, it’s only California’s enlightened public policies in housing, homelessness, education, fighting capitalists’ greed and global warming that have somehow kept body and soul together.

In the real world "Americans in the bottom 20 percent of income-earners buy more consumer goods and services than the national averages for people living in most of the wealthiest nations of the world, including those in Europe." (more here)  How can this be?  Well, for all of you who have consumed the media-delivered poverty rate for Americans, Cato’s ‘Reassessing the Facts about Inequality, Poverty, and Redistribution’ may shed some new light on reality.  All said and done, the piece did make me wonder why Nevada County is under the reported curse.

An Illustration of Liberal Ethics, Morals, Logic, …

George Rebane

The 22aug19 Union has a prominent column by Ms Susan Rogers, a very liberal member of the newspaper’s editorial board.  There in ‘Plenty of shame to go around’ she equates the thuggish behavior of county Democrats at Representative LaMalfa’s recent town hall, with the congressman’s socio-political ideology as expressed through his legislative work.  There is no doubt that the much-reported misbehavior of our local liberals seeking to disrupt a public meeting was something in which no American should take pride.  However, to diminish the louts at the meeting by impugning that LaMalfa shared an equal if not greater blame for the encounter is a down-home illustration of how far beyond the tipping point has progressed our national polarization.

In her column, Ms Rogers lists a litany of the congressman’s legislative actions and policy positions each of which she peremptorily labels as “shameful”.  We are not here confusing ‘shameful’ with, say, ‘erroneous’ or ‘misguided’ or even ‘ignorant’.  The woman illustrates how the liberals’ worldview puts people with whom they disagree onto a morally lower level of human beings – people who purposely behave in a manner that is shameful in our society.  And the basis on which makes such a comparison of bad public behavior at an event with a politician's longstanding ideology defies logic.

In our culture, shame is lavished on people who have purposely done something dishonorable, improper, illegal, etc.  The so accused is then supposed to respond to such a judgment by exhibiting some form of contrition in the attempt to make amends.  Attacking a politician on moral grounds for expressing his beliefs through his work, beliefs of which voters who put him in office were aware, is beyond the pale of political discourse, save the kind that is meant to further divide us.  And it does confirm our divisions since she means to put the rest of us who support congressman LaMalfa into an equivalent condition of shame.  I, for one, reject both her accusations and her hubris in ascending to heights from which she dispenses such lofty, unexamined, and perfunctory judgments.

Scattershots – 12aug19 (updated 14aug19)

George Rebane

A long march to protest over-regulation in California is planned to start on 13 August in Vinton (the northern terminus of Hwy 49) and wend its way through 300 miles of rural mountain and hill country roads to end in Oakhurst on 25 August.  It will be done in daily segments which takes it through Nevada City/Grass Valley on 16 August.  People are asked to join it and/or encourage the marchers as it passes through their communities.  This grass roots civic action is the latest expression of desperation with encroaching governments at all levels that daily increase their constraints and constrictions of movement and use of public lands a la A21.  It’s to be seen how such efforts will be received and persist in a state that no longer reflects our inherited culture and values from a fast-fading America.  More here.

President Bill Clinton’s 1995 SOTU speech to Congress on his “illegal alien” policy.  Since Clinton spoke, the situation has gotten orders of magnitude worse with today’s unlawful ‘undocumented immigrant’ policies and programs promoted by our anti-American Left.  Take a look at this 90 second video, it is one that Republicans should play continuously until November 2020, if they had the balls.  Sadly, that will never happen.

[13aug19 update]  ‘Never Again’ Means Nothing If Holocaust Analogies Are Always Off Limits. This WaPo op-ed is one of the most ignorant pieces of writing I have read in a coon’s age.  Author Danya Ruttenberg attempts to excuse AOC’s comparison of our deporting illegal aliens to Hitler sending Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.  Such comparisons are especially damaging and divisive to the mildly educated minds that populate our land and now embrace socialism, they don’t have the historical background to parse the ridiculous analogies Ruttenberg presents in her column.  You have to read it yourself to understand the new directions of the Left’s propaganda machine.  Is this another one of their Big Lies?

[14aug19 update]  That Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a good looking yet abysmally ignorant shill for the DNC’s radical left wing is known to all who pay attention.  She was elected by the fewest of voters from her district, and receives campaign contributions from fewer still – 10 in the first half of 2019.  Her re-election campaign is funded by unknown sources outside her district, and she is handled by equally mysterious agents who consider her and her ‘Squad’ as extremely useful idiots used to manage the internal dynamics of the Democratic Party in fashioning its image as the election season heats up.  (More here)

Ruminations – 3aug19

George Rebane

Our favorite double-dummy communist, Umair Haque writing in Medium, continues his dive into the abyss of ideological idiocy with his latest essay attempting to explain ‘fascism’ to American readers.  In a piece titled ‘America Is Collapsing Into Fascism Because Americans Still Don’t Understand Fascism’ he does a great job of confusing the matter even further on his journey into regions of history and semantics in which he is a complete naif.  It’s worth a read though, if only to understand how our lightly-read are swayed.

George Will’s The Conservative Sensibility is the latest book to go on my reading list.  The sometimes conservative commentator has enjoyed a long career purveying his right of center ideology in the media (a regular on NBC, MSNBC, WaPo, and the National Review).  Will is both an anti-Trumper and an anti-Republican who shares my belief that our country’s march to collectivism has passed the tipping point, and that conservatism is in a terminal decline – the “Right’s losing battle against progressivism.”  (more here)

For a little light-hearted, local comical relief, I direct your attention to Terry Lamphier’s ‘Grass Valley’s burning desire for growth’.  There I challenge you to discover Mr Lamphier’s point of the article, save his eternal opposition to the county’s growth.  The man continues his established tradition of writing articles both long-winded and opaque.

Pricey Parking Problem Postponed

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 24 July 2019.  An edited version of it (here) was published in 22jul19 edition of The Union.]

You’ve heard Nevada City recently announce that it intends to expand metered parking in its downtown area and make it considerably more expensive.  The town’s left-lurching governance has been comedy central for as long as people can remember – it is always short of money and has very little idea about what makes an economically vibrant community.  Its city council mamas and papas see every financial shortfall as a problem solved with more fees and taxes.  As all of our pro-socialist neighbors, the town’s leadership doesn’t seem to understand that people’s economic activities are affected by the taxing of those activities.  Neither do they understand that you get less of what you tax more.

Scattershots – 24jun19 (updated 27jun19)

George Rebane

The Left wants nothing measured the public reporting of which it cannot control, or that goes against their established narrative.

Our intrepid progressive pundit and Union columnist George Boardman is all exercised in his ‘Double dipping at the public trough, in the spotlight, and just the facts’ published in the newspaper’s 24jun19 edition.  There he leaps off the rails to rail those double dipping Dahles, while totally missing the definition of double dipping as it pertains to government payees.  Megan Dahle plans to run for her husband Brian Dahle’s recently vacated California Assembly seat since winning his seat in the state’s Senate.  If Mrs Dahle wins, she will become the elected representative from her district, doing the work of an assemblyman, and on her own merits and efforts earning that position’s pay.  That having a second member of the family also performing an independent job in government is in no way double dipping, save it serve a distinctly progressive political narrative.  Apparently Mr Boardman misses that significant nuance that spouses of elected politicians are also individuals with a duplicate set of rights to independently seek employment and recompense as they see fit.  Ah, the bespoke blinders of the Left.  (On the same op-ed page see also Manny Montes’ commentary that helps explain Mr Boardman’s values.)

In the 24jun19 update to my ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ commentary, I posited the following observation about cultures.

Peace and prosperity were generally maintained as long as such a governed society’s culture was allowed to evolve without obvious interdictions by government.  It is easy to see why this approach to organizing societies worked as long as the dominant culture was sufficiently cohesive.  A little reflection reveals that culture is able to inculcate and control the most complex sets of human behaviors, and allow their natural expressions in new environments/situations without having to write down a single law or regulation.  Behaviors (acceptable and unacceptable) are learned in the family and in the village square, and ‘enforced’ by the culture’s collective – i.e. everyone.

In searching for exceptions to the above, the Talmud of the Jewish diaspora occurred to me.  The Talmud is an extensive collection (or collections if you consider separately its Babylonian and Jerusalem parts) of Jewish civil and ceremonial law along with its ethnic legends.  It comprises quite a collection of volumes that painstakingly detail a comprehensive body of behaviors and processes permitted and proscribed to practicing Jews everywhere.  And ‘everywhere’ here is the key idea.  After the Romans destroyed their Jerusalem temple in 70AD, the Jews were driven from their traditional homelands, and found themselves spread all over Europe and northern Africa.

While always seeking to stick together wherever they found themselves, they were necessarily separated and for centuries mostly out of touch with other Jewish communities.  So how to retain, practice, and promulgate the culture that defined them and their very Jewishness when so dispersed?  The answer was through the formalization of their culture in written form, which, as I have often argued, requires many volumes to record, study, and teach.  The Talmud is thus the exception that highlights and supports my dissertations on the function and efficiency of cultures in prescribing normative behaviors within coherent populations.

[25jun19 update]  The lamestream outlets are exorcising President Trump for his new sanctions against individuals in the Iranian leadership.  Specifically, vindictive opprobrium is dished out at Trump’s sanctioning Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister and leading negotiator who has been our main point of contact in the sub-rosa diplomatic efforts between the two countries.  Their common wisdom is that now we have lost someone with whom we have been able to communicate.  What these pinheads and pundits miss is that the president has to include Zarif in the sanctions if he is to remain as our point of future contact.  Omitting Zarif’s obviously needed inclusion would have made him suspect among the raghead mullahs, and cost him his job or worse.

[26jun19 update] "Remarkably, a recent study cited in The Atlantic (gasp!) found that “the most politically intolerant Americans” tend be white, highly educated urban progressives. ... Long ago, religious zealots embraced feudal ideals, but increasingly it’s the ultra-secular progressives who reprise the role of Medieval Inquisitors."  Whoulda thought?  (H/T to reader)

[27jun19 update] Photo journalism at its worst as far as providing information to impact public policy - that is conveyed by the photo of the drowned father and his toddler daughter floating face down at the water’s edge (here).  This emotional picture drives all reason and logic from viewers’ uncritical minds; whatever narrative you want to connect with that image will now be taken as God’s truth about illegal border crossings, immigration, President Trump’s border security policies, … .  No one will consider factors such as the abnormally low death rate that is connected with illegal border crossings per se – illegal aliens die before getting to the border, and a few die after successfully entering the US, but given the circumstances, the death rate is mercifully low.  How do we know?  Had there been any previous border crossing deaths, crack photo journalists would have had such pictures posted and published in every imaginable outlet all over the globe.  Fortunately, that is not the case.  I do note that the father did a very foolish and deadly thing by stuffing his daughter into his t-shirt, thus guaranteeing the toddler’s death should he not be able to stay afloat with that ungainly load in the roiling waters.  In any event, now we are guaranteed another spate of public policies based on emotion and the absence of reason.

Democrats continue to dramatically disrespect and discount the intellect of their base and those voters they desire to attract.  A particularly specious attractant their presidential candidates are using is their promise to forgive student debt.  They are betting that their supporters will be like the now-infamous video clip of an Obama voter who believed that all the promised goodies she received would be paid for out “the President’s stash”.  OPM continues to be the salve Democrat elites will use to fix everything that ails us if you just give them your vote.  Michael Solon in the 27jun19 WSJ adds to the obvious when he writes - Debt forgiveness punishes those who did the right thing, made sacrifices, and acted wisely and frugally, as well as those who simply didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. Isn’t this the sort of private gain at public expense that people on the left claim to abhor? … Such forgiveness would also eliminate a quality-control device that drives students to ensure their investment can be monetized to cover their costs. A student who borrows must make sure his future earnings will be enough to pay off the loans. If that incentive disappears, with free debt or free college, the graduate and the nation would suffer economically.  (Also see my ‘Student Loan Scam Solution’)

‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ (updated 24jun19)

George Rebane

Yes, that is the advertised name of the event in public libraries, including our own, during which a man, who dresses and wears make-up to look like a woman, will gather children ages 3-8 around him and read them stories.  Our 21jun19 Union reports (here) on the program and the community’s reaction.  Therein we hear Supervisor Heidi Hall extoll of overwhelming public support for the program, and assert that “naturally open and curious” children in that age bracket will be “better off” when they “see that the world is a big place with a lot of variety.”  And some supporters even feel that such a ‘flaunting display of sexuality’ will be of special benefit to young boys who “could use a little bit of help in growing up and not being jerks.”

Here I want to record my reaction to this most visible evidence of the recent years’ rapid transformation of what was our culture.  It has been a long-enduring intention and objective of our country’s progressives to convince Americans that what we formerly considered as aberrant should now be seen as just another aspect of an accepted and embraced ‘normal’ in our society.  In this case, we should not look askance, let alone discourage, a young boy traipsing around in his mother’s dress and heels.  And even more so when he wishes to expose this different mode of expression on days he goes to school wanting to feel like a girl.

Rich Ulery – CA escapee writes

[Rich Ulery was a longtime resident of Nevada County.  As a professional realtor Rich found time to give generously to the community through various leadership positions he held in civic organizations.  He also served as the chairman of the NC Republican Central Committee.  Rich and his bride are among the great exodus from California, having pulled up stakes and moving to Arizona last year.  I post Rich’s email as received by permission.  gjr]

Hi George,

I read that Nevada County supervisors just approved the 2019-20 budget of $258 million. While I understand the difficulty of comparing two different county budgets in two different states, I do find it interesting that Pima County, Arizona is wrestling with the approval of its $1.4 billion budget. Pima County has slightly more than 10 times the population of Nevada County, meaning that it costs Nevada County taxpayers almost 2X what it costs Pima County taxpayers to operate the county government. 

Certainly, the impact of Federal and State mandates and differing demographics will pollute this comparison. There are also cost of living considerations, although I will assure you that Nevada County COL is not double Pima County -- not even close. I will also assure you that Pima County has negligible unfunded pension liabilities. I suspect Nevada County is still hovering close to $200 million.

I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from this, but I found it at least intriguing.

Rich Ulery

 

Is Nevada County’s Broadband Leadership AWOL?

Russ Steele

How embarrassing to have a nationally known industry observers conclude that political leadership in your community is an allusive mirage when it comes to building out critical broadband infrastructure.  And, then publishing the details in a well-received book. 

First, these leaders do not seem to grasp the economics of having robust broadband (BB). They do not consider high-speed Internet as one of the essential infrastructure utilities such as water, power, sewer, and transportation. Broadband has gone from nice to have to must-have status. Local leaders still think broadband is nice to have-not critical economic infrastructure. 

Yes, Nevada County’s Supervisors and City Council Members supported Spiral at the CPUC meetings, but only after a significant bit of cajoling by local BB entrepreneur John Paul and some encouragement from SEDCorp's Brent Smith.  As reported here previously, Susan Crawford, an independent observer, did not find much evidence of strong community leadership:

"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."

Nevada County, the Black Hole of Broadband (updated 9jun19)

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 29 May 2019.  A slightly edited version of this piece was published in The Union's 1jun19 print edition and also online here.]

Broadband connectivity to the internet is fundamental to the economic growth of every community in America.  And it is doubly critical for the economic development, if not survival, of small rural communities off the beaten path like Nevada County.  However, that truth has yet to be embraced by our local governments.  In fact, there are many of us who adamantly oppose the availability of broadband in these foothills for the simple reason that they are opposed to everything that promotes growth in our county, be it in housing, new or expanding businesses, or anything that invites more working families to locate here.

Scattershots – 6may19 (updated 9may19)

It is the ultimate fantasy that we can live our lives, or at any rate live them in peace and contentment with each other, without ever having to share a common reality. - James Bowman

George Rebane

An example of fake news.  Apple News is a very comprehensive news website for Mac, iPad, and iPhone users, one that allows you to customize with your interests, and then augments the format with your viewing history – in short, it snoops in your user sessions.  Recently it included a piece from the National Geographic reporting on the military marine mammal programs of Russia and US (here).  I was a bit astounded that almost everything they reported on the US program was either false or grossly misleading.  Full disclosure – I and my company spent years supporting the US Navy’s marine mammal (and other animal) R&D programs as their analytical support team doing the heavy lifting in the math, data analysis, and systems design work.

The 6may19 Union’s op-ed has two pieces from our favorite leftwing columnists, Dr Milan Vodicka (search RR) and, of course, Mr George Boardman.  Dr Vodicka delivered one of his trademark muddled sermons on the joys of socialism (not posted yet).  There he attempted to augment Bertand Russell’s three factors motivating human behavior with a fractured taxonomy that makes absolutely no sense to the careful reader, and then went on to celebrate the free nationalized healthcare systems found in EU countries.  In the latter, he drinks the kool-aid by the gallon, and evinces no understanding of the realities that obtain.  Mr Boardman presents a good critique of the Republican California Senate candidates Assemblymen Dahle and Kiley, and then blows a tire describing the Democrat Audrey Denny attempting unseat Congressman LaMalfa (here).  Without so much as a smidgen of qualification or sourcing, he tells the reader that the Green New Deal is “a sweeping national plan to zero-out emissions and provide clean energy and infrastructure jobs to millions.”  Apparently, our columnist continues to have trouble distinguishing between objectives and plans, and reports the GND as actually being a plan.  Regardless, objectives or plans, It has a snowball’s chance in hell of accomplishing anything touted.

[7may19 update]  Spying v. Surveillance.  I don’t know why this is so difficult for the media talking heads to resolve (those on FN, not the lamestream whose agenda is known).  A nation’s law enforcement agency does surveillance (on an individual, group, organization) when the target of such intelligence gathering involves a domestic issue/parties that does NOT involve the presumed culpability of a foreign government.  That same agency conducts a spying operation when it seeks to gather intelligence on a matter that does involve a foreign government.  To infiltrate a domestic gang, you send in an 'undercover agent'; to surveil or infiltrate foreign government operations, you employ/send in 'spies'. That is the way we have successfully defined spying v. surveillance for generations.  Since Obama’s FBI et al were convinced from the gitgo that Team Trump was in cahoots with Russia, their surreptitious intelligence gathering efforts were clearly spying.

[8may19 update]  Upcoming tariffs increase on Chinese goods this Friday (10may19) is supposed to be in retaliation for the Chinese reneging on parts of the two countries’ established trade agreements and/or the progress made in the current negotiations.  And there’s a big debate on whether President Trump is doing the right thing with this retaliation.  The debate would be moot if the administration just published the details of China’s renege.  I don’t know why the big secret in not putting it out for all to see and judge for themselves as to the relative magnitudes of the offense vs the response.  Everyone involved in such negotiations around the world already knows what has gone down; the only ones ignorant who will be affected by it all are the people of China and America.  I can understand the communists keeping their people in the dark (it’s their nature), but I can’t see why our government also keeps us in the dark.

AG Barr will be held in contempt of a Democrat House, and that is again denigrating the intelligence of their own constituents – why?  Simply because they can.  They know that in the aggregate, Democrat voters have little or no idea how our government works or what the laws are, and they overwhelmingly consume media outlets that cynically keep them in the dark.  The rest of us know that AG Barr is under no legal imperative to release any of the Mueller report to anyone, or to even reveal its main contents/conclusions – why?  Because the special prosecutor came up with nothing with which to prosecute anyone.  (He diddled away the people’s money on a self-serving sideshow nailing individuals on process crimes, people who had nothing to do with his commissioned charter, and then wrote the best anti-Trump political blueprint that he could.)  Now scumbag Nadler is going to up it a notch and hold Barr in contempt for not releasing information that is against the law for him to release - please reread this.  And none of it has anything to do with Congress’ oversight function for legislative purposes.  Moreover, the whole thing is a total bag of bullcrap that Democrats are dealing out to their know-nothings as part and parcel of the Big Lie – i.e. anything it will take to defeat Trump in 2020.

[9may19 update] Well boys and girls, your humble host has now visited a genuine, legal pot shop.  A good friend (known to you all) with whom I often take lunch, took me on a tour of the Elevation 2477 cannabis dispensary in Nevada City.  The experience was quite remarkable.  We entered into an immaculate reception area at the end of which sat a uniformed security officer behind (bulletproof?) glass.  The room contained a nice couch and an abstract painting presumably abstracting some visions customers may enjoy after imbibing of the establishment’s offerings.  We were invited to the window to place our driver’s licenses against the glass to be scanned, and I being a newbie, was instructed to fill in a store “membership application”, studying the store’s rules, and then putting my John Hancock declaring that I understood everything.  My friend was already a member, so my joining up allowed us both to be ushered into the inner sanctum housing the stash.

The store itself was immaculately laid out with neat glass-cased counters displaying all the desiderata in various forms and at various concentrations of THC and CBD.  For the cognoscenti, this was no doubt a very inviting display as evinced by the palaver carried on between other customers and clerks, all of whom were very knowledgeable of both their products and the applicable legalese.  After getting some answers to my questions, my friend made a very modest purchase of probably their most benign SKU, and we made our way to the exit.  Then I noticed that the store’s walls each had a magnificent abstract painting cum mural on it, replicating their foyer and no doubt reinforcing visually the promises made by the cleverly named substances and concoctions.  As we left the premises, it occurred to me that I am now marked for life.

4 May 2019 - A Day of Auspicious Observances

George Rebane

Seventy years ago today, in the early hours of 4 May 1949, I stood on the rail of the troop carrier USS Harry Taylor (pictured) with my father, as the ship slid past the Statue of Liberty to dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  That evening on a chicken farm near Plainfield, Connecticut began our new life in America.  The description of that auspicious day I recall in ‘Sixty Years Ago Today – 4 May 1949’.

Earlier today Jo Ann and I attended a farewell party for our friends Stan and Elaine Meckler.  They are the latest Californians who see no reason to stay in this state of galloping socialism, rapacious taxes, and a badly fractured society with dysfunctional values and no identifiable culture.  After the 2008 election we worked with the senior and junior Mecklers and a few other Nevada County families to found the Tea Party.  In the following years, their son Mark Meckler became the recognized co-founder and prominent national voice of the Tea Party.  Jo Ann and I are sad to see another family of friends disappear over the horizon to greener pastures.

And finally, this afternoon we also said good-bye to a long-time friend and poker buddy Gil Gray who died about six weeks ago.  Gil’s wife Dee asked me to deliver the eulogy at his celebration of life held at the Gold Miners Inn in Grass Valley.  Gil was a kind good-hearted person, and always a gentleman.  Gil’s passing marks for many of us a tragic 12-months, during which we now have lost three from our band of Brothers of the Green Felt, who attend monthly psychostochastic seminars around the beloved octagon, a tradition now in its 25^th year.

Scatteshots – 8apr19 (updated 10apr19)

George Rebane

Union columnist and RR reader George Boardman writes ‘High school cutbacks another consequence of our stagnant economy’ in today’s paper.  There he gets kudos for echoing the commentaries and comments on Nevada County schools and economic development that have long populated these pages over the years.  My preference is that he should have stated his case more strongly – Nevada County’s leftward tack has now baked in its previous on/off promotion of the county’s development in literally all dimensions, save being a welcoming home for progressive causes, non-profits, and ‘San Francisco values’.  The county has been and continues to be enthusiastically anti-development; and it subscribes in spades to Einstein’s dictum of insanity.  Our political leaderships’ latest foray in this direction is opposing the development of housing for our successfully retireds – major cash importers to our community - who want to move from their acreage homes to appropriately high-end, higher density local options that offer more readily accessible conveniences.  It seems that Mr Boardman’s own list to port prevents such a frontal assault on his brethren.  Then again, perhaps next time.

‘The Cultural Revolution comes to North America’ writes Anastasia Lin in the 8apr19 WSJ.  The Left in both the US and Canada has now been launching ‘call-out mobs’ whose “aim (is) not to persuade or debate, but to humiliate the target and intimidate other.”  Their main weapon is to paint their opponents with the broad brush of ad hoc labels whose meanings they either do not know or take to mean whatever they want it to mean as convenient.  Popular terms du jour are ‘racist’ and ‘white supremacist’.  One of the established intellectual leaders of the local blue mob is Steven Frisch, who has frequented these pages for years, distributing his opprobrium in RR comment streams when he finds anything that is too persuasive of a counter to his progressive mores, values, or narrative in general.  I am his favorite target and recipient of his latest offering a few days ago.  I use it as a concrete example of the cultural revolution Ms Lin describes – as they say, you can’t make this stuff up.

I know you think we are in a new crusade and Islam is going to take over the world; that brown people are a scourge on our country; that anything that addresses environmental or climate benefit is a UN and IPCC conspiracy to control the world; that there is growing threat of communism in the US; that young people are stupid and lazy; that we should be able to have communities where people of like culture live together without having to bothered by outsiders; that you were once wrote a column for a newsletter that featured a cover of the Völkischer Beobachter on their front cover, and I could go on...

 

Scattershots – 18mar19 (updated 21mar19)

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.

[20mar19 update] Brainless Beto in the White House? Now there’s a jarring thought argued by David Marcus in The Federalist (here) “Beto O'Rourke looks a lot more like recent Democrats who won the White House than any other candidates. Don't underestimate him.”  And rubbing salt into such a wound, that lightweight promises to pick one of the Democrats’ female proto-communists as a running mate.  Can you imagine an O’Rourke/Warren or O’Rourke/Harris or … ticket?  Such a revoltin' possibility most certainly will cramp the cockles of me heart.

Reparations for blacks is on the Democrats’ marquee again.  All the usual collectivist congress critters are signing up for that proposal as a sure-fire way to insure the black vote in 2020.  Jason Riley asks “How can centuries-old oppression be to blame for problems that became sever only recently?” (here)  And no one dares mention the ‘reparations’ (e.g. Sec 8) that have been continually paid to blacks since the Great Society days, all to no avail as the Democrat mismanaged inner cities have become killing fields for drugs and crime, and home to millions of unmarried single moms trying to raise and educate their kids.  So we see once more how keeping them on the Democrats’ plantation works – they are always there, ready and willing, when their masters beckon with another manufactured social injustice.

[21mar19 update]  Democrats continue leftward march. The party is now starting to show some cracks as the more saner members try to put on the brakes.  In these parts the local lefties have been totally unaware of this massive ideological lurch which shifted into high gear under Obama.  These pages are replete with our leftwing commenters' arguments dunning the 'ignorance' of the conservative readers for not being aware that, according to their dim lights, the Dems have not moved, but it's been the Repubs who are drifting right.  This same knowledge base is amply reflected here in their other fractured assessments of the country's goings on.  Here' a hot flash for our lefties, the Repubs are also worried that their more mushy members are beginning to kowtow to the Dems' proto-communists. (more here)

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