Rebane's Ruminations

Stupidity, against which there is no defense

Fools all who seem it, and half of those who do not.  Gracian #201

George Rebane

Executed anti-Nazi cleric and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer correctly maintained that “stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil.”  In America, we overwhelmingly confirm this daily.  Now I admit, sometimes it’s hard to accept this as the better of the two alternatives, but for the most part one can embrace Bonhoeffer’s observation because there are way more stupid people in the country than evil ones.  This has also been a Rebane Doctrine tenet for many years.  (more here)

Democrat politicians and lamestream ‘journalists’ demonstrate this with their audacious and ongoing stream of lies – e.g. the $4T+ BBB cost “will not raise the national debt by one penny.” - they constantly use to convince their cognitively impaired constituents who make up almost half of the country’s voters – without an adequate knowledge base and critical thinking skills, they’ll believe literally anything their favorite information sources spout.

Bonhoeffer went on to say –

Against stupidity we have no defense.  Neither protests nor force can touch it.  Reasoning is of no use.  Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simple be disbelieved – indeed, the fool can count by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions.  So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied.  In fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggressive.  For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one.  Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reason, for it is senseless and dangerous.

This why so many of today’s conservative and libertarian writers, along with moi, see no common ground across which a trail may be blazed to the unification of our polarized population.  The only solution being a negotiated Great Divide or barricades in the streets.

BLM laments Rittenhouse verdict

George Rebane

Those whose politics have no acceptable future, divert attention only to their version of the past.

National Propaganda Radio this morning featured interviews with BLM leaders who claimed that the Rittenhouse verdict now justified the wanton killing of black protesters by illegally armed and militant white supremacists.  This outrageously false message was repeated by the usual lamestream suspects in a litany of videos shown on FN’s Media Buzz broadcast.  All of it follows an historical year of the mainstream media and leftwing politicians gratuitously libeling Kyle Rittenhouse with allegations that have shown to be pure fabrications by a rogue press continuing their narrative to support critical race theory.

Upon examination, the main complaint of BLM is the fear that the thugs they field under the rubric of ‘peaceful protesters’ will now no longer feel secure when they riot and assault property owners and others they deem to be their class enemies.  The lament is that Rittenhouse has set a precedent that it is now legal for “militant white supremacists” to carry guns on the street and defend themselves when attacked.  A gang of rioters can no longer feel safe and protected by supportive progressive politicians, and the legions of the side-lined and lame law enforcement cadres.  What’s a peaceful protester to do when presented with such a potentially dire scenario?

Led by outlets like NPR, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, …, the public has been told a mountain of lies for over a year about what happened in Kenosha on 25 August 2020.  Humorous personal vignettes now abound about astonished, some outraged, Americans who just now are finding out that race was not an issue in the shootings since only white men were involved, and that it was legal (if not wise) for Rittenhouse to carry a visible long-gun during a riot, and that there was no illegal crossing of state lines with a weapon, and that he had more right to be in town than the imported thugs burning and destroying everything they could lay their hands on.  You pay a high price in ignorance when you limit your news sources to the politically woke and stridently divisive lamestream.

For the rest of us it would be a boon if more law-abiding citizens with concealed carries to protect their cities were on streets empty of police when Antifa and BLM plan their next riots.  No rioters should feel secure when they pick an innocent victim and decide to assault him with the intent of doing great bodily harm or worse.  Nevertheless, that guarantee of safety for the criminal is the demand of every Democrat, most certainly those of national repute.

Postscript – To properly characterize the nature of the Left who now assemble on the streets, and prepare for future protests cum riots, we have last Friday’s Chicago, Portland, and Brooklyn demonstrations led by worthies such as ‘The Reverend’ Jesse Jackson.  At these demonstrations people chanted, “every city, every town, burn your precinct to the ground”, and “the only solution is a communist revolution.” (more here)

Herding CRT's Ideological Cats

[This commentary appeared as an Other Voices column here in the 27nov21 edition of The Union.]

‘It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that ain’t so.’  Will Rogers and others.

George Rebane

Herding ideological cats is a job Union editor Alan Riquelmy is tasked with as the chair of the newspaper’s Editorial Board.  On the whole he does a commendable job in composing the EB’s weekly debate into a cohesive Our View column that appears in its Saturday edition.  Today’s topic (here) is a particularly hairy one – Critical Race Theory as taught in our K-12 schools.

The recent public forum on CRT was held at the high school board meeting with most attending being CRT’s ideological devotees, while denying that it is taught to Nevada County kids.  Their opposition was a group calling itself Protecting American Ideals whose members presented evidence that indeed the tenets of CRT are taught in our schools, and that such teachings are destructive to the kids’ learning and practicing American ideals.  As Riquelmy points out, neither side was there “to listen to the presentation”, but instead to “participate in the pageant” of people with made-up minds.  Moreover, our editor reveals that even the EB “couldn’t reach consensus on an issue this contentious”.

As Riquelmy sought to pour oil on the column’s troubled waters, he ran into a couple of items with which I have a nit or two.  First, our editor is of the common understanding that there exists only one history.  Serious students of history are the first to point out that there are countless histories, each of which aims to present a cohesive narrative of a period’s chronicled events.  The job of historians is to identify the causal basins and beams (sequences of ‘this caused that’, etc) of every notable milestone that they explicate.  And as we know, causality is both slippery and many-headed.  To every gathering of causal sequences, one can quickly come up with yet another one that tells a different plausible story of the times.

Another popular error embedded in our society can be laid at the feet of the late Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan – ‘you can have your own opinion, but you can’t have your own facts.’  Wrong!  It is easy to see in this age of the internet, 500 plus media channels, and facile international communications, that there are many disparate sets of ‘facts’ that attend and characterize any issue or notion.  It is only the voluble talking heads and media pundits who each purvey their own facts as the gospel upon which their narrative finds footing and reflects their biases.  We consumers of history and facts have more than an ample smorgasbord from which to choose what suits our fancy or yields to our grasp.

Finally, CRT does have a widely accepted definition composed of tenets considered to be true.  These are collected and displayed on various websites – e.g. britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory.  The tenets presented generally agree; they are not a mystery.  But here is the meat of the argument about CRT being taught in our schools – ‘Critical Race Theory’ does not have to appear in a school’s syllabus in order to have its tenets be taught to students.  The tenets of any body of thought can be marbled piecemeal into any of a number of different courses to communicate its desired ideological perspective – today there are even handbooks to show teachers how to inject CRT into all STEM(!) subjects.  And that is demonstrably what students tell their parents what is happening, and that is what the parents are up in arms about here in Nevada County and across the country.

Our editor admirably concludes, “Sure, we want our children to learn about history without the politics of the day tainting it. We don’t want our kids saddled with the sins of the past. We want a vibrant new generation to leave school armed with knowledge and critical thinking skills, questioning a country they love when needed and fighting for it when required.”

And then he adds the kicker, “But we also want people who think like us going to the polls.”  It was ever thus.

Scattershots – 18nov21 (updated 19nov21)

George Rebane

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.  Congress has become aware of UAPs reported subrosa for decades, and openly in recent years.  Sen Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is heading up the effort to create an ‘Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office’ to get to the bottom of all these UFO sightings and stories.  Her amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act is co-sponsored by Sens Rubio, Graham, Blunt, and Heinrich. (more here)  Given the Congress’s record of ‘getting to the bottom’ of anything, this new initiative will at least have the opportunity to provide us with some sensational entertainment in the coming months – and then again, maybe not.

Mentality of Congresscritters on Display.  Rep Paul Gosar (R-AZ) was censured by the House for posting a since-deleted video “where he appeared to be attacking Ms Ocasio-Cortez with a sword and was poised to attack Mr Biden.” (here)  While I’m again astounded by such an act, I am no longer surprised because for years (decades?) we have seen our congressional honorables do the dumbest things, always followed by our head-scratching ‘What in hell was s/he thinking?’  And here we go again; what kind of thought process (if any) preceded Gosar’s junior high act of posting such online graffiti?  More importantly, how does someone evincing such mental processes perform at the more usual tasks for which they were elected?

[19nov21 update]  The House passed the $4.6T ‘Build Back Better’ travesty of historical government enlargement and population control, and sent it to the Senate where, if God is kind, it will die an agonizing death.  The legislation is based on the largest bamboozle that the federal government has ever pulled on our ill-informed citizenry.  The 19nov21 WSJ does an excellent job (here) spelling out the atrocities included in what the Democrats are seeking to foist on the nation.  There is not a single item in this pack of lies – including ‘fully paid for’, decrease deficits, and the CBO’s ‘scoring’ - that will not hurt our economy, national security, and people’s growing dependency on wealth transfers.  Its evil objective is to create more compliant takers and limit/control prospects for the nation’s makers. (more here and here)

‘Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges.’  For at least half the country this is heartening news that our justice system is not uniformly broken.  For the other half, fomented by the lamestream media that volubly prejudged the teenager guilty, this is bad news since it breaks the narrative that self-defense with a gun should be banned across the country, and most certainly in any public forum. (more here and here)

‘I robot’ welcomes ‘I quit’

George Rebane

RR reader and longtime friend sent me a current piece on the theme of machines replacing humans in the workplace (here).  The article focuses on the current labor crunch reported under the ‘I quit’ spate of news articles.  Hard to tell how many jobs are actually going unfilled, but the number is somewhere north of 6M.  Workers are not applying for a couple of reasons – they don’t have the skillsets required and they’re already getting enough government payouts to support their lifestyles.

As you might guess, those greedy capitalists with open job slots are not just sitting on their thumbs.  They are doing everything possible to reduce the cost of expensive, undependable, recalcitrant, and quirky labor and substitute machines wherever possible.  The more workers, on or off the job, resist, the faster the development and acquisition of replacement robots.

But I and most observers of this process believe that the road to robotics will not be traveled quietly with just the judicious substitution of universal basic income (UBI).  One of the core attributes of Man is his irrepressible demand to be relevant in his environment, no matter the size of his UBI check.  This will give rise to a spate of modern age luddite riots demanding that robots be excluded from a catalog of jobs to be reserved for humans.  These uprisings will be promoted and championed by leftwing politicians within a whole new category of vote-buying policies.

RR is a repository of many commentaries that deal with this most human problem of pre-Singularity systemic unemployment.  A sampling of these from just the last ten years are available here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Scattershots – 10nov21

George Rebane

A lot has been happening in the Rebane clan lately.  This has kept me from posting at my usual rate.  Not only that, but every time I look at the news, I get into a dour mood and get to feeling hopeless again.  One of my current books underway is VDH’s The Dying Citizen (2021) in which he gives an historical overview of citizenry over the ages that shines a light on how our current middle classes have adopted the mantle of serfdom without the slightest inkling of it.  Not only that, but a national dialogue about our society’s state and direction is proscribed today by the Left’s minions in public education, academe, and the media.  The writings of right-leaning pundits like Fred Siegel, Robert Nisbet, Joel Kotkin, and Charles Murray are off limits, and citing their studies, no matter how well documented, is now forbidden in polite leftwing company (as I also recently discovered here).

In the past when I have found myself in such doldrums, the surefire road back has always involved ‘pushing squigglies’ on some new idea or invention.  So I dived into some financial engineering stuff on trading probabilistics of the kind pioneered by Didier Sornette – Why Stock Markets Crash (2003) – and John Casti.  (If you want to see a super-exponential, look at the recent behavior of the Dow, SP500, and Nasdaq.)  Hopefully, this work will lead into some proprietary IP.  But rummaging around with some ideas I discovered a new and handy use of the ‘WoRM formula’ beloved of artillerymen everywhere. (more here and here) It makes possible the extraction of distances and object sizes from photographs, and also allows graphic artists to correctly represent desired distances and sizes in the works they create.  I’ll write up the method so that interested readers can download a pdf of it.

Macdonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinsky stated something pretty obvious to the country’s remaining thinkers about parents having failed their children who were killed in gang warfare and police shootings.  Telling the wrong truth and calling attention to parents of the wrong race can get a well-paid executive fired.  So Kempczinsky did what anybody who puts purse before principle would do, he groveled.  My takeaway is that the poor bastard had not made his ‘go-to-hell’ stash yet, and really needed the job.  (more here and here)

COP26, the ongoing climate conference in Glasgow, has been the kabuki dance that I and most other sober observers predicted.  With leaders of major polluters absent, the rest are left to talk about utter crap like “multi-stakeholder decarbonization initiatives.”  Only people like Team Biden and its halo of flacks pretend to take any of this seriously.  Even Saint Greta of Thunberg dunned the affair as nothing but a “two-week long celebration of business as usual.”

Ruminations – 2nov21 (updated 6nov21)

George Rebane

The puzzle continues.  About three years ago our cities were empty of indigents’ tents lining the streets and freeway underpasses.  What happened?  Where did all these people and their encampments come from?  If the numbers haven’t increased, then where did all of them live?  And if they have increased, what government policies or private sector factors increased their numbers so that now they dominate the downtowns of major cities across the land.  The only common denominator is the that those urban cesspools are and have been under Democrat administrations.

The Big Question still stands about Bumblebrain's accomplishments.  Can anyone name JUST ONE thing that he's done right since he took office?  That now seems to be a question on more minds as we watch the Virginia governor election returns.

[3nov21 update] Liberal Minds on Display #1 – Unless ‘Critical Race Theory’ is explicitly listed in a school’s curriculum, liberals and their lamestream will deny that any such subject matter is taught in that school.  The same goes for so many other hidden and denied leftwing initiatives and activities, such as ‘socialism’, the existence of which is denied in governance unless every facet of its definition is implemented.  They know that the surest (only?) route to successfully introducing their ideology is through subterfuge.

Liberal Minds on Display #2 – What really makes my heart heavy and continues my eternal lament for our beloved country is that our land is full of Double Dummy Districts populated by voters so desperately ignorant that they keep voting for the same Democrat Tammany Hall look-alikes who continue to screw, blue, and tattoo them.  And they don’t have a clue.

Socialist legislation on parade.  The Dems have to hold the ‘reconciliation bill’ hostage to the concurrent passage with the bi-partisan infrastructure bill because they, as all good socialists, know that voting separately on their outrageously priced ‘human infrastructure’ bamboozle would give it a snow ball’s chance in hell of passing.  Their only hope is that their constituencies continue  intellectually dense as ever, so that no one knows what is the real reason for the hold-up.  And can you believe that in light of that, Team Pelosi and Bumblebrain are comfortable to continue the lie that it is the Republicans who hold up passage of the bill to repair our highways, bridges, internet, etc?

[6nov21 update]  A big hit to Virginia voters, and their kindred spirits across the land voting on rolling back everything from CRT, to vaccine mandates, to defunding police departments.  This is but a glimmer of hope on the sanity of the nation’s electorate pulling back from the progressive/communist policies cliff – nevertheless, all such glimmers enjoy a heartfelt welcome.  When the dust settles, we must remember that such one election does not necessarily assure a nation’s future.

Wealth Tax – dodging a bullet

George Rebane

One of the very dumbest things progressive Democrats have recently proposed is a wealth tax on appreciated but unrealized assets.  Everywhere it has been tried by the Left, it has not worked; it has instead reduced government revenues and distorted economies – e.g. Sweden, Germany, and France were posterchildren of such fiscal idiocies. (more here) Today our Democrats, always looking for something to screw up our economy, have attempted to import yet another bad idea as a ‘pay-for’ for their latest lavish vote buying plans.  Hopefully, this tax has been excised from the current version of this double dummy ‘human infrastructure’ bill.

As a student of economics, over the years it has become clear to me that one of the paramount qualifications for becoming a leftwing economist is that you have to be totally ignorant of human nature, especially of their economic behavior.  We won’t even attempt to plumb the depths of intellectual depravity in the Democrats’ assertion that their multi-trillion dollar spending initiatives will be absolutely free – “It will cost zero.”  The real tragedy for the country is that half of Americans accepted this Big Lie, and that the Republicans gave their usual lame response to repudiate it.

My own noodling on the wealth tax involved a niggling thought that the proposed wealth tax rates were not real, that they in effect had to be higher.  So I pushed a few squigglies, and sure enough, the real wealth tax rate is considerably higher than the rates publicized by the Democrats.  It’s a bit amazing that no Republican or even the conservative financial experts have picked up on this additional attribute of the stupid tax.  So here’s the drill as to how this tax will work on, say, an appreciated security you own.

Your nominal wealth tax amount is the wealth tax rate applied to the appreciated amount (since last wealth tax paid).  However, the rub comes when you consider where to get the money to pay the wealth tax.  The correct answer is that investments pay their own taxes, whether capital gains, added assessments, or the wealth tax.  So now you must sell a fraction of your shares, pay the applicable capital gains tax on their appreciation, and then use the remainder to pay your wealth tax.  In short, it’s the value of the fraction of shares you must sell that is your real and effective wealth tax rate.  A little algebra using the appropriate tax and appreciation rates will let us derive that formula and do the calculations.  I share the results of this analysis with you in the spreadsheet figure below (click on it to enlarge).

In the figure the blue numbers are input to create a wealth tax scenario at the indicated values, with the nominal wealth tax rate of 1%.  From the calculations shown in the figure the actual wealth tax rate comes to 1.67%, two thirds higher than the government advertised rate.  And paying this wealth tax annually reduces the investment’s annual appreciation rate from its nominal 7% to 5.33%.  When we examine what the actual wealth tax is over a range of wealth tax rates (from 1% to 3%) and capital gains rates (from 25% to 50%), then we see in the table the increased actual rates that go from 1.33% (a third higher) to 6% (doubled!).  These are plotted in the graph.

It gets worse.  As shown in the upper right of the figure, we have a $1,000 investment currently appreciating at a nominal 7% rate for ten years, then liquidating it with a payment of 40% cap gains rate.  The net spendable amount then comes to $1,580 which yields a total ten-year return of 58.03%.  When we have the same amount with ten years of ‘1%’ wealth tax payments, we wind up with $1,381 or an appreciation of only 38.08% that amounts to a penalty of over 34% on what investors currently enjoy when paying capital gains taxes only on realized gains.  And we haven’t heard any of this from our rightwing media mavens.

The Glasgow Climate Change Kabuki

George Rebane

President Biden heads to Glasgow with an empty quiver this weekend in a futile effort to demonstrate that his administration is still hanging on to some vestiges of global leadership here and there.  Most nations have either written off the United States as a worthy ally, or most certainly as a hegemon to be respected.  And Bumblebrain accomplished all that by himself.

Climate change is no longer on the list of important concerns for Americans, and even less so for people of other lands.  However, our leftwing lamestream media keeps up the drumbeat of global warming hysterics with lies ranging from the sublime to the ludicrous.  A major one that hits close to home is the progress of destructive wildfires, the frequency and size of which are supposed to be growing without bound due to manmade preventable global warming.  In Biden’s new spending framework there is $500B or so allocated for various green bamboozles designed to fool the foolish and enrich Democrats’ favorites.

But as Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus, reiterates what these pages have reported for years – the acreage of America’s annual wildfires continues to decline, and has been declining since record keeping was initiated in 1900 (see nearby graphic).  This fact has been quietly reported by the World Wildlife Fund, and vigorously ignored by our lying politicians, environmental activists, and media.

In ‘Climate Activists Blow Smoke on Wildfire Fears’ (28oct21 WSJ) Lomborg cites data and again points out how the hysterical scenarios on climate change consistently fail to incorporate the most salient and significant factor that mitigates and ameliorates the predicted catastrophes – human adaptation.  In such loudly trumpeted forecasts, humans do nothing and quietly accept whatever nature has in store for them.  Over the millennia this never has been the case, and most certainly won’t be in a technologically and resource rich future that we can and are building for ourselves.

What our average citizen has trouble parsing is the difference between the frequencies and size of wildfires, and the property damage done by wildfires.  In a 2016 study Nature reported, “Contrary to common perception, human exposure to wildfires increases in the future mainly owing to projected population growth in areas with frequent wildfires, rather than by a general increase in burned area.”

Lomborg concludes – “Helping future wildfire victims has little to do with strict and expensive climate policies, and everything to do with simpler, cheaper measures like better forest management and building codes. There’s no good reason to terrify children with stories of apocalyptic firestorms.”  All of this will be ignored during the Glasgow kabuki.

Oath Keepers – a closer look

George Rebane

National Propaganda Radio did a hit piece on Oath Keepers yesterday morning, labeling them as a “radical right, anti-government paramilitary organization”.  The highly biased progressive slant presented was in line with today’s lamestream narrative trying to make the case that the 6jan21 Capitol riot(?) was organized by the OK in their attempt to overthrow our federal government.  I am not an OK member, and have only heard the standard reports on the organization and its doings.  Of course, all of these reports have been more than shaded by the outlet/individual who has done the reporting.  Wanting to find out more of what they actually believe, I went to their website to read about their organization, adopted charter/mission, and bylaws.

Nothing I have read or heard from voices I consider reasonable has come close to painting these former members of the military and first responders as belonging to a radical right, anti-government paramilitary organization.  Save for the current efforts by our own rabid Left to nail OK as the organizers and leaders of the 6jan21 affair, there has been no evidence presented that these people have done anything of which they are currently accused by the Democrats and their lamestream.  However, the congressional investigation continues, and every possible filament, no matter how gossamer or tenuous, is made out as a portent of much more damning evidence to come.

From their website and the public record, we learn that –

1. OK are non-partisan, hewing to neither political party;
2. Their guiding principle is to maintain the oath we all swore upon entering the military or becoming first responders – to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
3. Instead of anti-government, OK is a dedicated pro-government organization; (As opposed to the existentially anti-constitutional Democratic Party and Biden administration.)
4. There is nothing paramilitary about the OK, save that their members have acquired military and civil first responder skills, which they continue to preserve and share with other members and associate members.
5. Under a constitutional government their activism as an organization is constrained to lawful demonstrations against what they perceive as unconstitutional actions and intents by our federal and various state governments and their agencies.

As such, the OK is very much against the kind of neo-Marxist “fundamental transformation” of America into a socialist state as promised and demonstrated by the country’s leftwing factions led by the radical progressives of the Democratic Party.  OK members, like many more of us, believe that if the leftwing autocrats continue making ‘progress’, then there will come a time when our Left will commission the state police and security apparatus, and/or the military (given its current woke reorganization) to finally disarm the American citizenry and complete their planned road to our servility.  They know that the OK and other similar organizations would then seek to mobilize and organize the public against such an unconstitutional and rogue government.  After all, such a response is our heritage, and the most fundamental American tenet is to preserve our liberties.

The proof of this pudding is that a liberty maintaining government of, by, and for the people is not afraid of citizens who retain the means to overthrow and reconstitute its government gone rogue.  A constitutional government would welcome the existence of supportive grassroots organizations such as the Oath Keepers and other assemblies of veterans and patriotic groups.  Since the Left historically has never trusted the people under their control, their ultimate success depends on the concurrent subversion of government institutions while they disarm the populace and discredit organizations assembled to defend America and its Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Evidence to the contrary welcomed.

The Great Divide – America’s Cultural Split

George Rebane

Victor Davis Hanson continues the ongoing study of how America is coming apart.  In ‘Is America Repeating the Cultural Split Between Rome and the Byzantine Empire?’ VDH lays out the parallels and answers the question in the affirmative.

When the Roman Empire split into its western part centered on Rome, and its eastern part centered on Constantinople, the two halves took distinctly different approaches to governing their territories, with catastrophic results for Rome.  Rome’s hedonistic practices and passive acceptance of a “polyglot and often fractious” tribal cultures and religions (including versions of Christianity) soon focused people on the regional me and mine that came to vie with the you and yours.  By 600AD the disintegration that started around 450AD was complete.

This was not the case in the east – “the glue that held the East together against centuries of foreign enemies was the revered idea of an ancient and uncompromising Hellenism—the preservation of a common, holistic Greek language, religion, culture, and history.”  The Byzantine Empire, as it then became known, held together for a thousand years after Rome, finally becoming so over-bureaucratized and corrupt that it was overrun by the Ottoman Turks in 1453AD, and Constantinople became today’s Istanbul.

Today we see the definite analogue of such a split in our red/blue America.  Now “millions of Americans yearly self-select, disengage from their political opposites, and make moves based on diverging ideology, culture, politics, religiosity or lack of it, and differing views of the American past.”  Our conservatives are migrating to the interior, leaving both coastal areas to liberals.

This is producing two distinct Americas.  “While red states welcome change, they believe America never had to be perfect to be good. It will always survive, but only if it sticks to its 234-year-old Constitution, stays united by the English language, and assimilates newcomers into an enduring and exceptional American culture.”  The more conservative traditionalists prefer states “where there is usually smaller government, fewer taxes, more religiosity, and unapologetic traditionalists.”  

America’s Left prefers the blue state “bicoastal salad bowl” as their “model for immigration” where “newcomers can retain and reboot their former cultural identities”, and where “religion is less orthodox; atheism and agnosticism are almost the norm. And most of the recent social movements of American feminism, transgenderism, and critical race theory grew out of coastal urbanity and academia.”  Tribalism par excellence.

VDH concludes with – “Our Byzantine interior and Roman coasts are quite differently interpreting their shared American heritage as they increasingly plot radically divergent courses to survive in scary times.  But as in the past, it is far more likely that one state model will prove unsustainable and collapse than it is that either region would ever start a civil war.”  From his mouth to God’s ear.

So here again is the bottom line.  Today a lot of lip service is paid to ‘finding common ground’ and ‘coming together’ and ‘there’s more that unites us than divides us’, etc.  But for any of these attempts at dialogue to bear fruit, we must first and foremost recognize the gorilla in the room – the “radically divergent courses” that have been plotted and embraced by the tens of millions of polarized Americans which give rise to the Great Divide.  If these radically divergent courses are not resolved first, the rest will only continue the rehash of hot air.

Scattershots – 21oct21

George Rebane

DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) has now penetrated the deepest recesses of STEM academia and corporatist organizations of all hues.  As theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss reports in the 21oct21 WSJ, applicants for teaching positions at major universities and corporatist management positions must now submit an essay on DEI with their applications.  And they will be evaluated first and foremost on the contents of what should read like a heartfelt testament for the verity of critical race theory and its anti-racist therapeutics.  Added to that, the applicant must include how he will incorporate the practice of the DEI monomania into his conduct of the sought position.  As an example, an addition to the usual list of qualifications, the applicant must also supply “a statement of diversity, equity and inclusion describing the applicant’s efforts and aspirations to promote equity, inclusion and diversity through teaching, research and service.” Today these organizations have huge DEI departments staffed with zealous STASIs who not only evaluate applications, but also monitor the practice of DEI by the institution’s staff.  It is now common for applications to be rejected for insufficient DEI even before the applicant’s other qualifications are even considered. (more here)  Verily, we have entered America’s age of perdition.

The coordinated calamity of climate change is heralded by all the western media in preparation of next month’s Glasgow conference that will not be attended by the leaders of China, Russia, and India.  In America the lamestream is reeling of stories of impending catastrophes of famine, flood, and fire.  Bjorn Lomborg analyses these for us (here), and points out how the described “catastrophic scenarios presuppose people will do nothing to adjust to differences in the weather.”  No matter what one thinks about the notion of preventable manmade global warming, doing such passive extrapolations decades into the future is nothing short of politicized scaremongering.  It is carried out regularly by the usual leftwing outlets such as CNN, USA Today, and WaPo.  Lomborg’s message to the sheeple is that yes, the climate changes, but so can we.

Biden’s taxes avoid the top 0.1%.  Why?  Because that cohort knows how to play the legal exemptions game – always has, always will.  The taxes are really designed to start with the remaining top 9.9% and then quickly ripple down to the tens of millions of middle-class earners (aka makers).  And it makes perfect sense, since the lying sacks of shit (aka Biden, Pelosi, Psaki, …), claiming that the trillions to be spent are “free”, know where to get all this free money.  This is clear from what little we know of the Democrats’ proposed $5T+ spending spree. (more here)

The Onslaught of the Politically Dormant

"The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living." Anonymous

George Rebane

We have been told many times that democracy works only so long as the takers can’t use the government gun to derive their livelihood from the makers.  Staged governance in a democratic republic was conceived to prevent (delay?) that from happening.  But leftwing autocrats have also known that for over a century, and have always attempted to convince the masses of the non-existent benefits of a pure democracy applied wholesale across the land – it is the fastest way to secure enduring political control by unprincipled authoritarians.

Today we witness what appears to be the beginning of the end with a ‘fundamental transformation’ of our republic.  The Deep State of autocratic elites and their central planners has become firmly ensconced in our government through 50 years of elections by an increasingly under-educated and politically dormant electorate.  California’s failure to recall Newsom is undoubtedly the nation’s posterchild of such misguided elections when we look at the condition of the state and his horrible ongoing policies.  Consider (here) that in just one region –

• SF retailers (e.g. Walgreens) closing stores because their city lets thieves clear shelves of goods and openly haul them away;
• People are moving away in numbers that leads to an enrollment drop in SF schools;
• Polls show that more than half of Bay Area residents plan to leave permanently.

Given Newsom’s overwhelming repulse of the recall, it is clear that the added level of pain to cause a sea change in people’s attitudes is yet to be determined.  And that again brings to question the ability of voters to understand the source and sustenance of their pain.

‘Tax the Rich’ – a momentous Democrat lie

“… until you run out of other people’s money.”  M. Thatcher

George Rebane

The momentous lies retold daily by the Democratic Party are now getting too numerous to count.  Among the most impactive on Americans is their assertion that the $5T+ cost of their new government growth and spending programs “will be zero”.  How’s that?  Well, they’ll just tax the crap out of “the rich” and corporations.  ‘You, Mr/Ms Main Street Snuffie won’t have to pay a penny; what’s not to like?’

For our informed and educated neighbors such claims are truly head-spinning as is made clear again by economists Phil Gramm (also former senator) and Mike Solon in the 15oct21 WSJ (here).  There we are reminded again that “the wealthy already bear far more of the burden in the US than they do in other developed countries.”  The chart below compares the ‘fair shares’ paid by the top 10% earners in the US, France Germany, and Sweden.  Note the enormous imbalance in what our socialists are demanding to what we already are paying to keep the vote buying programs funded.  The tax burden in other developed nations (including the vaunted Sweden) is more equally shared by incorporation of a nominally 15-20% VAT on all purchases.  So it turns out, as Gramm and Solon show, that the US already has the most progressive tax system in the world, thereby giving lie to the claims that somehow the ‘rich’ are getting away with murder at the expense of the remaining 90% of Americans.

Their public copy aside, what the Democrats’ new tax proposals do is continue to favor the top 1% who lower their tax rates by charitable giving and investing in tax-favored securities and sectors promoted by our government.  These provisions actually favor the very rich – i.e. the top 1% of earners, not the 10% - and none of such bennies will be affected by the new ‘tax the rich’ rates designed to hit the less wealthy down the income ladder.  No lamestream outlet is allowed to tell us this.

In the meantime we are having a problem finding enough workers to support robust economic growth.  “Since the War on Poverty started in 1965, the labor-force participation rate of bottom-quintile earners, who now receive more than 90% of their $50,000 average income from government transfer payments, has fallen from almost 70% to 36%. With the Build Back Better Act proposing to explode unearned benefits and shower them on middle-income Americans, how long will it take for the current U.S. labor-force participation rate of 61.6% to fall to 55%, as it is in France, or 50%, as it is in Italy? Who then will pull the wagon and pay the taxes to fund the American welfare state?”  This is what we mean when we talk of the takers and makers.  And who do the takers vote for, and which party wants to maximize the people (citizens and illegals) who draw ever more of their succor from the government?

(And these worthies have no idea what’s in store for them regarding their contribution to labor, once the nation, any nation, falls under the tender mercies of a single party state.  History read is a great teacher; not so much history ignored.)

We are reminded again by Gramm and Solon that “corporations don’t ultimately pay taxes” – their customers and their risk-exposed owners pay the whole kit and kaboodle.  “If there is anything economists agree on—and there isn’t much—it’s that all taxes imposed on corporations fall in part on the consumers of their products and in part on their stockholders and workers. Workers pay between 50% and 70% of the corporate tax that isn’t passed on to consumers in higher prices. The record growth in real wages after the 2017 corporate tax cuts, especially among low-income, minority and disadvantaged workers, bears this out.  So when corporate tax rates are raised, it’s workers and their pensions, retirement accounts and insurance investments, which own 72% of America’s stockholder equity, who pay most of those taxes.”

Again, the indominable man-in-the-street who votes Democrat has no clue of this, or at best considers it to be another rightwing piece of fake news put out by rich capitalists and big corporations.  However, when you run the numbers, you see that “not surprisingly, with much of the 2017 tax cuts made up of corporate rate reductions, child tax credits and a doubling of the standard deduction, the Trump tax cuts made the tax code more, not less, progressive.”  When was the last time you heard that on any of the lamestream outlets?

We can put a ribbon around all this by citing the most recent big three feel-good economic accomplishments out of Bumblebrain’s teleprompter – 1) he has created 5M+ new jobs, 2) unemployment dropped below 5%, and 3) wages have gone up.  Well, not exactly.  Employment gain has been anemic due to government handouts, industry is stifled for lack of workers.  Unemployment dropped only because more people dropped out of the workforce -  i.e. they quit looking for jobs.  And the buying power of wages has declined due to not keeping pace with the big jump in inflation.  Americans’ real wages have declined for the first time since the big Obama dip in 2013.  And all of this is due to self-inflicted harm brought to you by Team Biden and his ballyhooed Build Back Better policies which have a snowball’s chance in hell of kicking in.  But to Bumblebrain, all this is "progress".

Climate Change Policies – Costly and Ineffective

George Rebane

Bjorn Lomborg (q.v.) enlightens us again about the realities of the much-ballyhooed policies to fight what is sold as preventable manmade global warming. (here)  The bottom line is that the agreed on policies of the recent Paris accords, and those to be adopted next month in Glasgow, are both enormously expensive and will not make a hill of beans difference in the future anticipated as calculated by the UN and reported in Nature.  We should also note that no one is even on track to meeting their Paris commitments signed under Obama.

If the whole country went carbon-neutral tomorrow, the standard United Nations climate model shows the difference by the end of the century would be a barely noticeable reduction in temperature of 0.3 degree Fahrenheit. This is because the U.S. will make up an ever-smaller share of emissions as the populations of China, India and Africa grow and get richer.

America’s goal, according to the Biden administration, is a 95% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, which will come in at a cost of 11.9% of GDP annually.  The Left claims that polls show Americans are all for reducing carbon emissions, and even willing to pay up to $200 annually to achieve that.  But the actual cost per person breaks down to $11,300 per person per year.  That means that the annual bill to an average American household of 2.53 people is over $28,500, and no one is willing to pay even close to that by almost an order of magnitude.

Polls are mostly worthless pieces of legerdemain because their questionnaires are ideologically wordsmithed, represent dynamic attitudes, and their results are misunderstood by their innumerate audiences.  Few would answer ‘No’ to ‘Do you favor policies to reduce future crop scorching temperatures and rising sea levels?’ or ‘Should CO2 levels be reduced to what we had in 2005 to stop global warming?’  With one-sided questions like these, no one knows either the effect or the cost of achieving the stated goals.  And yet the policy promoters in government and the media state with grave authority that ‘85% of Americans favor policies to significantly reduce future carbon levels’.  This then is supposed to be the public’s support for draconian increases in our taxes, economy stifling regulations, and added restrictions on our freedoms.  Sleazebag politics at its finest – “A nation ignorant and free …”.

Alinsky Abridged (Edited)

George Rebane

Saul Alinsky is one of the Left’s modern intellectuals and still a guiding light who died back in 1972 after having written Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals.  He was admired in print by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  One of the ‘practical’ guideposts he bequeathed his disciples, now grown into the millions, has been coagulated into a set of eight rules for restructuring the country into a compliant socialist state.  The Democratic Party has embraced these in their entirety and are working hard today to bring the country to heel before this decade is out.  It is visible everywhere that they are making progress that even exceeds their expectations.  Here are Alinsky’s rules that we see assiduously implemented today in America by socialists of all hues, no matter where we look.

1)  Healthcare - Control healthcare and you control the people.

2)  Poverty - Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3)  Debt - Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.

4)  Gun Control - Remove the ability of the people to defend themselves from their Government. Thus less (or no) resistance to a police state.

5)  Welfare  - Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).

6)  Education  - Take control of what people read and take control of what children learn in school.

7)  Religion  - Remove the belief in God from the government and schools.

8)  Class Warfare  - Divide the people into “wealthy” and “poor,” causing discontent:   It will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Scattershots – 11oct21 (updated 12oct21)

George Rebane

The disaster at our southern border is described and discussed by former US Customs and Border Protection commissioner Mark Morgan in the August 2021 Imprimis (here).  Morgan served under Presidents Obama and Trump.  In chapter and verse he puts lie to the unbelievable claims that “our borders are secure” delivered daily by Bumblebrain and one of his incompetent henchmen SecDHS Alejandro Mayorkas, and dutifully echoed by the lamestream until recently.  Then even they could not peddle the national tragedy that Team Biden has created and maintains.  Their objective, as always, is to transform America into a compliant second-rate autocracy ready to accept global governance.

[12oct21 update] ‘Why Are So Many People Still Dying from COVID?’ asks a physician on American Thinker.  More people are dying of the virus this year than at the same time last year, and most in America are now vaccinated.  So what gives?  The short answer is that no one really knows.  With all the hanky-panky with the stats aside, it is clear “regardless of which factors are causing the uptick in COVID deaths, something clearly is not working, whether masks, distancing, vaccines, or other measures. Instead of doubling down on what appears not to be working, where is the thoughtful questioning and analysis by the medical establishment, public health agencies, and the media?”  And here’s the punchline – “Just look at therapeutics. Japan and India introduced ivermectin as an early outpatient treatment option and their COVID cases promptly plummeted. Members of Congress and their staffs have reportedly been taking hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for COVID while trashing the drugs publicly as dangerous or horse paste.”  (H/T to reader)

Who in hell pays for their porta-potties, tents, blankets, food, medicines, encampments, transportation (bus and boat rides)??  There is a well-funded pipeline of these wannabe illegal aliens cued up from Chile through central America and then Mexico.  Some agencies and individuals with a deep hatred of America are making this colossal conduit of economic refugees possible and coordinating with the Biden administration to keep the southern border open while everyone through the lamestream is feeding bullshit to American citizens dumb enough to swallow it hook, line, and sinker.  Watching the news is becoming a nauseating experience.

Jen Psaki explains away all the Biden f#ck-ups as nothing but part and parcel of the administration “incentivizing fundamental change to the American economy.”  Has anyone told them that they’ve already achieved such fundamental change by turning our economy from increasing workforce participation, keeping inflation in check, destroying energy independence, flooding the country with unvetted illegals, and attempting to pass a socially destructive spending program that will cripple the economy for the next generation of Americans (at least)??

WHO: Economic Development Trumps Climate Change

George Rebane

In his regular WSJ column on climate change issues, Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus and Stanford's Hoover Institution shines a light on the little reported aspects of the World Health Organization’s analysis of factors affecting the health of the world’s poor in the coming decades. (here) The bottom line, hidden by the Left and its lamestream media, is that more lives will be saved (by millions) through continuing the current course of global economic development, than will be saved by adopting the stringent climate change policies as prescribed by the Paris climate agreement and at next month’s Glasgow Climate Conference.  All such policies are based on utility functions which overwhelmingly favor policies that are ‘deemed’ to reduce global warming over other factors, primarily the effects of economic development on the QoL and health of the world’s poor.

The lives saved annually in 2050 by implementing existing and anticipated global warming accords is projected at 85,000.  However, over a spread of economic growth scenarios impacted by policies seeking to reduce preventable manmade global warming, the annual deaths range from 300,000 to 2,000,000 from malnutrition among the world’s poor.  If saving lives, especially among the poor, ever becomes important in these politicized and dubiously scientific considerations, then sanity advises avoiding draconian approaches such as contemplated in the Green New Deal and the additional socialist diktats on our lives and livelihoods planned by the Biden administration and amplified by established radicals such as are ensconced in Sacramento and Albany.  Per today’s dominant media and government narratives, these conclusions remain invisible to the general public.

Ruminations – 6oct21 (updated 9oct21)

George Rebane

The autocratic state advances. ‘Government secretly orders Google to track anyone searching certain names, addresses, and phone numbers’.  The Deep State on the march under a very supportive administration.

‘Domestic Terrorists’ is the DoJ’s new designation for parents and citizens attending local school board meetings to protest teaching Critical Race Theory, gender-bending, and revisionist history to young students.  The FBI, acting more like the STASI every day, will be investigating and arresting Americans who still believe that the state does not own their children.

‘The Woke Left’s Primitive Economics’ are described by Paul Rubin in the 6oct21 WSJ.  When examined, it becomes clear that liberal thought in its acute embodiment ‘wokeness’ requires the adherent to first become butt stupid in most things about how the realworld works.  These pages have chronicled this phenomenon for over a decade.

[updates] Ivermectin manufacturer Merck dunned that drug for C19 therapeutics and is now promoting a new therapeutic that it is pre-marketing and will soon introduce (more here).  By its own admission it will be about half as effective as IVM (which costs about $3 a course).  But you can bet the farm that the new pill will be many times more profitable.  (H/T to reader)

Braindead journalists on Fox News and Republican politicians in Congress have yet to ask germane questions of the Democrat elites who are siccing the FBI on American parents on the pretense that they are ‘domestic terrorists’, parents who openly and legitimately protest the local schools’ curricula during public school board meetings.  The critical unasked question is ‘Show ONE example of evidence of “intimidation”, “public threat”, “violent action”, “threat of violent action” toward elected school boards on which you base your case for federal law enforcement intervention against the publicly protesting parents whose children are being subjected to unmitigated socialist propaganda during class periods in which they should be learning the basic skills ultimately required of an educated and informed electorate?’  The Dems’ attempt to answer that question should expose them as the pariahs that they are.

[7oct21 update]  Women in clodhoppers and combat boots.  In these days of topsy-turvy sexes and genders, women’s fashions have adopted a distinctly counter-culture currency.  And nowhere more violently than in their new footwear rage – gone are Melania’s elegant pumps, and in are shoes and boots with multi-inch platforms and styles with trench warfare uppers and soles with treads more commonly found on military Humvees.  My great-aunt Tante Alvi, a recognized fashion expert during the pre-war era in Europe, enunciated the de rigueur of women’s footwear – ‘Ladies do not appear in public sans heels’ (with the usual exceptions of course).  My sainted mother and my beloved sweetie-pie were/are strict adherents.  And fortunately, especially for us men, that dictum held until the current societal disintegration began.

Terry McLaughlin's column on the Hyde Amendment in the 7oct21 Union (here) will be an eye-opener for most readers concerned about the federal funding of abortions.  Attempting to end run its inclusion this year is yet another about-faces which the Dems are doing as they reconfigure their party in its Great Leap Leftward as called for by their growing socialist faction.  McLaughlin's succinct and clear description of the goings on is worth a read.

[9oct21 update]  The leftwing Quinnipiac Poll respected by all leftwingers came out with a typical report of Bumblebrain’s numbers diving for the mud.

• Overall opinion of administration: Approve 38%, Disapprove 53%
• On ‘Immigration’: Approve 25%, Disapprove 67%
• On Foreign Policy: Approve 34%, Disapprove 58%
• On Economy: Approve 39%, Disapprove 55%
• Overall assessment on running the country: Incompetent 55%

Note that our drive-by liberal poll commenters remain totally silent on the nationally recognized and reported disaster of the Biden administration.  I don’t follow polls per se, but I’m told these numbers are historic.

A Leftwing Journalist Admonishes

George Rebane

Darrell Berkheimer is one of our more thoughtful, though still terminally misguided, local columnists whose current crusade to “curb misinformation” and “halt the spreading of lies” is at its apex with The Union publishing his 24sep21 and 2oct21 back-to-back columns.  His main thrust is to find a solution to the government allowing “mass media to continue the spread of misinformation, lies, untruths and false conspiracy theories that create dangerous divisiveness and threaten individual citizens.”  To his favor, he does want such state enforced prohibitions while still protecting freedom of speech.

In his 24sep21 piece he attacks conservative media and quickly demonstrates that he knows not of which he speaks, especially when it come to C19 therapeutics.  But his naivete reaches new heights with his assertion that there is a government-discernible and “distinct difference between opinion and factual truth.”  Hence, we need to implore “our lawmakers (who) are long overdue to draft such limiting and protective legislation.”  And to help this process along, we grassroots citizens can “ask our attorney friends to recommend some suggestions and proposals”, which we may then communicate to our representatives.

The entire cast of his two columns reeks of the righteousness of the Left, and leaves no doubt that it is the conservative media that must be reined in.  He, of course, stands aside and above such crass practices of ‘fake news’ and yellow journalism.  Before one examines his recent record, it’s instructive to read – ‘Hunter Biden’s Emails Were Suppressed for a Reason’ - a well-summarized and pithy letter from Mr Dan Pisenti of Mill Valley, CA in the 2oct21 WSJ.

“Vindication Over Hunter’s Emails” (Review & Outlook, Sept. 25) rightly criticizes the press and prominent former officials for labeling Hunter Biden’s emails as Russian disinformation. But the victim—President Trump—is again disregarded. The Hunter story was neutralized to prevent Mr. Trump from winning re-election. Fair reporting of the graft and low behavior on full display in Hunter’s laptop could have kept Mr. Trump in office.

The media speaks often of “the Big Lie” about the election result, but Mr. Trump faced a buffet of lies spanning his entire presidency. Dirty tricks kept him embroiled in a Russian hoax for two years and left the stink on him even when Robert Mueller could provide no evidence. Congress tied Mr. Trump up in impeachment trials. The press manufactured phony scandals about him and his family. And then key states relaxed controls on ballots. Acknowledging the onslaught that Mr. Trump faced could help the press understand why he might question an election result.

Through his own condemnations and silences, Mr Berkheimer was one of our local co-conspirators during the ongoing epoch of journalistic lows.  Today he continues to wear his TDS mantle to comfort him as he looks down from the chilly and revealing heights of Mt Olympus.

In his latest offering Berkheimer concludes “The importance of repressing misinformation cannot be overstated — because it is tearing apart the fabric of our American society. It’s at the root of our mounting divisiveness. It is our biggest crisis.”  In consuming such heartfelt proposals to expand the reach of government to evermore precisely and consummately control our speech and thought, it is important to always note from which side such ‘solutions’ originate, and who then accuse their opposites of fomenting tyrannical government.

‘Most wildfires started by people’

George Rebane

In a recent exchange with Union publisher Don Rogers I lamented that since most wildfires are started by people, there was not enough coverage or interest in the attribution of such great disasters in our state.  Wildfires were implicitly treated in the press as if they were some kind of natural phenomena, acts of God if you will.  Don agreed, and we began to see more stories in our newspaper covering details of how our regional wildfires were started by suspected arsonists or identified careless (stupid?) humans ranging from campers to homeless indigents in the woods.

As part of this exchange I wrote a letter to The Union which was finally published today (1oct21) with an interesting editorial insert at its conclusion in the print edition – the online version is here.  My letter reads –

The genesis of our wildfires. Here’s a topic everyone is afraid of discussing. Almost all of our wildfires are man-made — they are started by indigents, crazies, and people with a political agenda. The fires started by accidents and natural causes are well-known, few and far in between. However, our politicians, liberal activists, and media of all hues treat Western wildfires as if they were “acts of God,” and therefore their genesis need not be questioned, let alone examined, any further.

Given the number of annual wildfires, notice how rare is there any subsequent mention of arson investigations or what these may have discovered. It seems that the “vulnerable underprivileged” have a natural right to start fires and then be left alone.

And it is not a stretch to imagine the damage anti-American terrorists can do in a free country by simply setting wildfires with easily fabricated, time-delayed pyrotechnic devices. But from what the public sees, our authorities neither suspect nor pursue such errant behavior — the fires just magically flare up and cause totally acceptable devastation.

… and followed by this editorial coda.

Editor’s note: Studies of wildfire causes show a range of 85% to 95% are a result of human activity, with 20% to 25% of those deliberately set.

I may be accused of some hyperbole to make the point of how easy it is for bad people to set devastating fires in our wildlands that destroy, kill, and deplete scarce resources.  But to me the editor’s note is a bit too dismissive, if not inaccurate, of not only the history of fire starters but also the portent of purposely caused destruction meant to impact both the mode and quality of life in the less populated regions of our country.  My main thesis is that wildfire arson is still both under-reported and therefore under-acknowledged by the public and even law enforcement.

Here are two documents that speak to this assertion.  The first is a study – Wildland Arson: A Research Assessment - by the US Forest Service that concludes – “Wildland arson makes up the majority of fire starts in some parts of the United States and is the second leading cause of fires on Eastern United States Federal forests. … Beginning with initial studies by Donoghue and Main (1985) through studies by the authors reported here, it seems clear that law enforcement deployment and other efforts to apprehend and incarcerate arsonists work to reduce wildland arson in the long run in high-arson locations in the United States.”

Another report from FEMA’s US Fire Administration (here) recounts various aspects of arson wildfires including arsonists’ motives and the significant but relatively few court cases that result from the apprehension of suspected arsonists.

Your Covid Factsheet (updated 24sep21)

George Rebane

The Swiss Policy Institute is a sober outfit that has helped compile a list of established facts about C19 and its pandemic (here).  Most of what you’ve read and heard about the disease is mired in politicized BS.  You have read a lot of the good stuff on RR posted by our readers and me.  But The Guardian has also published a compelling “crib sheet” of referenced facts and graphics which summarize what is known about Covid-SARS-2 (here)  Definitely worth a read so that you can be immunized against what comes out the lamestream and various government agencies and state houses.  (H/T to reader)

[24sep21 update]  NIH Publishes Study - Ivermectin works.  NIH has published on its website (here) an article in the July-August issue of the American Journal of Therapeutics that concluded that “large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin.”

And the American Journal of Therapeutics concludes (here) –

Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.

"Given the evidence of efficacy, safety, low cost, and current death rates, ivermectin is likely to have an impact on health and economic outcomes of the pandemic across many countries. Ivermectin is not a new and experimental drug with an unknown safety profile. It is a WHO “Essential Medicine” already used in several different indications, in colossal cumulative volumes. Corticosteroids have become an accepted standard of care in COVID-19, based on a single RCT of dexamethasone.1 If a single RCT is sufficient for the adoption of dexamethasone, then a fortiori the evidence of 2 dozen RCTs supports the adoption of ivermectin.

Ivermectin is likely to be an equitable, acceptable, and feasible global intervention against COVID-19. Health professionals should strongly consider its use, in both treatment and prophylaxis."

You heard it here first and often, and that through all the bullshit that the evil Democrats and their lamestream media tried to cover up with the resulting loss of hundreds of thousands of lives for which no one is responsible nor accountable – your government at work in peace and war.

[and more]  Led by Bumblebrain and the CDC, the government is still convincing those who don’t know any better that science speaks with a single voice, and that they are “following the science.”  The 24sep21 WSJ reports “Behind Booster Authorization Were Disagreements on Evidence, Broad Access" … The extra Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses are rolling out to certain fully vaccinated adults, after disputes inside the U.S. government and with its scientific adviser.”

Scattershots – 20sep21 (updated 23sep21)

The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be – starting with the lawyers and enactors. Lao-Tzu (as embellished by Rebane)

George Rebane

The wisdom of Lao-Tzu was brought to my attention again by a friend and reader.  Jeff Thomas, a true conservetarian, wrote ‘The First Libertarian?’, an important little essay on governance – its ills and desiderata.  In it he distilled some more useful aphorism from the great sage.

Those in power are meddlesome.

The greater the restrictions and prohibitions, the more people are impoverished.

The more advanced the weapons of the state, the darker the nation … thus the virtuous attend to contracts, while those without virtue collect taxes.

Act before things exist, manage them before there’s disorder

Trickle down taxes is a specialty of the Democratic Party which it sells gift-wrapped in a couple of its perennial Big Lies – raising taxes does not impact economic behavior (the Laffer curve doesn’t work), and corporate taxes lower the tax burden on the working class.  They correctly assess their constituents as being too ignorant to questions such lies, but they know both of them to be false.  For example, Kennedy lowered taxes in xx to stimulate the economy.  And corporations pay no taxes but pass that cost on to their customers in the form of higher prices, which quietly impacts most the poorest in the land.  And a tax not even the Democrats want to talk about is inflation – always government induced (more here and here).  The worker bees’ bigger paychecks don’t give them any more buying power, but do promote them into higher tax brackets (plus higher sales taxes) which surreptitiously increase their overall tax rates.  But our leftwing elites have no worries about pushback from their Democrat voters, people who are totally oblivious to such economic factors, and continue to believe that their political leaders are making corporations and the rich pay their ‘fair share’.

[21sep21 update]  Sorry ass Biden.  I have been aware of presidential doings since ol' Harry was in office, and want to enter into the RR record that I have never seen such a terminally sorry ass elected President of the United States of America as Bumblebrain Biden.  This idiot has done everything wrong that he could possibly do, as he continues to work on bringing about even bigger disasters for the country.  The list of his failures gets rehashed regularly in these pages, and I’m sure that at some future date I’ll compile another list of them myself.  Right now the bigger problem for our republic is that a huge share of our voting age citizens have shown themselves to be simply too dumb to maintain the blessed land we inherited.  Ben Franklin’s admonition – “… a republic, if you can keep it” – has come true as ever more of our freedoms are stripped away daily.  Nay, not stripped, we have now been reduced to compliant serfs who willingly give away our freedoms – no stripping required.  And many of us even sing hosannas to the munificent wisdom of our socialist overlords so long as the checks keep arriving.  They are buying our freedoms with our own money, and welcoming in millions more aliens, cum tomorrow's Democrats, who will guarantee our descent to tyranny.

[22sep21 update]  Bumblebrain’s poll numbers are tanking and Republicans are happy dancing in the streets about next year’s election.  That election is more than several political eternities in the future, and the not-too-bright electorate has a short memory.  By next Fall things could easily be turned 180, especially if the Dems can pass more social legislation to increase the number and size of checks to the takers, while crowing that their massive tax increases will make the ‘rich’ makers and corporations pay their “fair share”.  (Over 60% of US households pay no capital gains or federal income taxes.)  Their constituents are dim enough to lap up all that kool-aid, especially if Republicans don’t have the balls to call it like it is – loudly and often - singing castrato doesn't cut it.

[23sep21 update]  Biden denounces and repudiates capitalism and the US economic system.  Bumblebrain made it clear in his speech last Thursday that, contrary to his professions of being a capitalist and not a socialist, he is indeed most strongly a socialist and not a capitalist.  As Daniel Henninger underlines in the 23sep21 WSJ, “At no point in that speech did he acknowledge the private sector contributed anything positive to the life of Americans.”  His work on $3.5T Democrat debacle, that is supposed to be the hallmark of his administration, has been assessed by the US Chamber of Commerce as being an “existential risk” to the US economy.  Astute readers know that the USCC is far from being a rightwing propaganda organ.  If Bumblebrain knows anything, it is that he has only a short time to put some mark, any mark, on his reputation and legacy.  And so far everything he touched has turned to s#!t, so with what’s left of his cognitive abilities, he now thinks that locking America onto the path of irretrievable socialism is the only thing he can pull off with the Democratic Party that has already declared itself ‘all in’ for that fundamental transformation.

The Canadian COVID Conspiracy: Dr David E Martin (updated 19sep21)

George Rebane

A longtime reader and friend sent me this mind-bending video on Bitchute of an interview with David Martin (here) who lays out the multi-decadal conspiracy of developing the human infectable/transmissible corona virus and the worldwide pandemic to create a market for its ‘vaccine’, which is really not a vaccine in any medical sense of the word.  I found the 54-minute video riveting as Martin unfolds and exposes the business, marketing, investment, collusion factors that come together as a description of the most massive and well-executed conspiracy to fleece the world with the enthusiastic cooperation of governments and the media.  The financial and political gifts to the co-operating players appear to be unending.

As to the verity of what Martin reports I cannot attest, since at this writing I’m not very familiar with other corroborating sources of this information.  I do invite readers to share such sources should they discover them.  In any event, for those interested in the ongoing COVID saga, the video is definitely worth watching with a glass of your favorite adult beverage, and possibly a pen and paper.  (and here is more)

For more research on David Martin and what he reports, search ‘David E Martin credibility’ on Bing to get some links that cover the pro/con sides of the matter – Google search gives a definitely one-sided collection of hits on that query.

[19sep21 update]  Here is a noteworthy development on C19 vaccines – ‘FDA Allows Whistleblower Testimony that COVID-19 Vaccines Are Killing and Harming People!’  This report has some astounding stats on the aftereffects of certain 'vaccines' that studies are now revealing.  We now know that what people are being inoculated with are not real vaccines in the medical sense, but designed, special-purpose bio-molecules ("medical devices") that are supposed to prompt your immune system to then manufacture the antibodies (provided by normal vaccines) to resist C19.  (H/T to reader)

 

Ruminations – 14sep21 (update 18sep21)

George Rebane

Government bureaucrats allocate capital better than private investors – fundamental tenet of the Left

Newsom's recall is opposed by another progressive dimwit in the 14sep21 Union (here) arguing that all of CA’s problems were there before he was elected.  The ‘gentleman’ does not understand that the recall is about his making all of the problems worse, and then adding on new ones.  And he also quotes a fictitious $70B “surplus”, having no idea that any such monies are long spoken for with the state’s over $1T in unfunded liabilities.

Europe’s electricity prices are going through the roof (here).  Why?  Well, the goddam wind is not blowing very much these days, and their having shut down their nuclear and fossil fuel plants without much consideration that the so-called sustainable sun/wind/water energy sources are sometime things, now they find their mammaries twixt the rollers.  Brings to mind the old Estonian saying about not crapping in the old well before the new one’s dug.  Here in CA, we haven’t learned a thing about that problem.

NIH investigates removal Covid genetic data per Chinese researcher request (here).  The agency removed C19 gene sequence data obtained from Wuhan patients in January/February 2020.  This data would be an important input to determining the source and type (manmade vs nature) of the virus.  The  portents of its compliant and rapid deletion from our database opens up more serious questions about the NIH/Wuhan lab relationship.  Chalk up another one for China.  Dr Fauci call your office.

[15sep21 update]  Newsom’s recall rejected by a landslide.  CA voters once again demonstrate that they know not how to select their political leaders as the state continues its downward plunge along every imaginable way – illegal alien and welfare recipient surge, rampaging homelessness, dilapidated infrastructure, exodus of productive workers, businesses, and retirees, overall population loss, increasing already high taxes, regulatory tsunami, continued growth of eco-fanatics, historic water mismanagement, historic power generation/distribution mismanagement, continued mismanagement of forests, fiscal corruption and incompetency, continued growth of record unfunded liabilities, … .  And perpetuating a never-ending, one party monopoly that only serves the takers and punishes the makers.

Gen Mark Milley’s phone calls to China promising to warn them of any pending US military action against them was one of several acts of treason our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pulled off during the Trump administration.  He is part of the devastation in our flag officer ranks that Obama left behind in his politicization of the military.  Bob Woodward and Robert Costa outline this travesty in their Peril (2021).

SecState Blinken, who is particularly unsuited for his job, now claims to bring the Taliban to heel with his toothless diplomacy.  Echoing Stalin’s famous ‘How many divisions does the Pope have?’, after our precipitous and shameful retreat, the Taliban now ask, ‘How many divisions does Blinken have?’  Biden and Blinken have given new meaning to our shooting diplomatic blanks – Blinken Blanks?

C19 response mismanagement last year is laid bare in Uncontrolled Spread (2021) by former FDA commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb.  The good doctor documents the numerous and impactive screw-ups perpetrated by the CDC, FDA, and NIH which cry out for deep and penetrating investigations to better prepare us for the next pandemic.  Gottlieb highlights Warp Speed as the only government initiative undertaken correctly and against massive political opposition.

Facebook confirmed a sleazebag outfit, as demonstrated again by its corrupt censorship policy which selectively favors the high and mighty.

C19 ‘cases’ and hospitalization stats are grossly misleading and meant to support more government command and control mandates.  Both cases and hospitalizations have been overwhelmingly (positively tested) asymptomatic and mild when admitted.  Continuing to serve as the DNC trumpet, the lamestream has, of course, omitted mentioning any of this.

[17sep21 update] California voters got what they deserve, 'good and hard' (a la HL Mencken). Syndicated columnist Michael Barone lays out the particulars for us here.  And more and more of today’s college graduates reflect the socialist crap they were taught in universities by voting Democratic.

Democrats’ planned price controls on drugs will kill America’s innovative pharma industry and will be dangerous to your health. (more here and here)  The party of evil is hard at work taking the country down as fast as it can to a uniform level of misery (aka equity) that has been presaged by so many other nations adopting elitist autocratic regimes that have successfully sold central planning and control to their terminally benighted citizens.

[18sep21 update]  My essay 'America the Unnatural', originally posted here on 27 June 2021, finally appeared in today's print and online editions of The Union.  Unfortunately the print version was edited enough to change/omit several critical points in the submitted version.  However, they did kindly post the full submitted version in their online edition (here), for which I am grateful.