Rebane's Ruminations

‘Luxury Floating Real Estate’

George Rebane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much more to be said about all this.

India Cracks COVID Code (updated 30jan21)

George Rebane

For many weeks now we’ve been hearing a lot about the astounding C19 stats coming out of India.  Their rate of confirmed C19 cases is shown in the figure below as compiled by Johns Hopkins University.  And how have they achieved such astounding results?

The answer lies in the country’s taking a radically different tack for both C19 prevention and therapeutics that emphasizes the use of off-shelf anti-viral and anti-parasitic drugs which have been dunned by our healthcare industry, both private and governmental.  The more complete story is told in ‘India Develops Effective COVID Treatment for Under $3 Per Person While America Remains in Vaccine Frenzy’.  (H/T to reader) The bottom line is that India’s government distributes anti-C19 packets – labelled Ziverdo – based on Ivermectin and Hydrochloroquine (early on touted by President Trump) that cost about $2.65 each.  I have posted on both Ivermectin and HCQ which have yet to receive AMA or FDA approval while big pharma’s expensive vaccines have enjoyed an historical fast track into people’s arms.

Ziverdo kits are available from multiple sources (here) for those wishing to lay in an extra layer of protection against C19.  Ziverdo is reported effective both as a prophylactic and a therapeutic as demonstrated by the available hospitalization and mortality stats.

One reason why the lamestream does not publicize this news is that early on President Trump was in favor of existing bio-chemical medicines to fight C19, an approach that did not comport with the Left’s making the pandemic as bad as possible during the 2020 election year.  Why outlets like FN have not picked up on this is a puzzle to me.  Yet one more item to add to the evidence for the ongoing global fraud. (more here)  Perhaps readers have better insights.

[30jan21 update]  Apparently Congress and the federal government has been fully apprised of India’s major response to C19 with it dispensing of millions of Ziverdo kits to be used as both a prophylactic and a therapeutic.  In our media we have heard nothing of this; how come?  Here is a report of recent testimony to the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, and here another study recommending use of Ivermectin.  Everyone’s lips seemed to be securely sealed.  (H/T to reader)

For more information on the Ziverdo kits and their recommended usage, here is the website of one of its purveyors.

‘2034’

George Rebane

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

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

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

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

Scattershots – 18dec20 (updated 22dec20)

George Rebane

The recall of Gov Gavin Newsom is making good progress, and petition signatures may be collected until 10 March 2021.  Here is the link to get your signature on a petition to recall this hubristic progressive idiot before he does more damage to our state.

Cato’s annual Human Freedom Index just published; it rates each country’s freedom along twelve dimensions.  The top ten countries in order of rank were - New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Estonia, and Germany and Sweden (tied in 9th place).  The United States and United Kingdom tied in 17^th place.  And it appears that, given the Democrats’ headlong progressive plunge toward socialism, our freedoms will be more limited as Team Biden builds back leviathan and its stifling laws, regulations, and taxes. (more here)

[19dec20 update] California finally has a draconian plan to chase away the rich, and then keep stalking them.  Now going through the state Assembly is “a proposed wealth tax (that) would apply for a decade to anyone who spends 60 days in the state in a single year.” (more here)  I have prophesized this future for us for some years now.  The state has been so badly mismanaged by collectivist Democrats for decades that it now needs to go after the already-taxed assets of its residents, starting with the wealthy, and then as always, working the damage down to the middle classes.  “Assembly Bill 2088 proposes calculating the wealth tax based on current world-wide net worth each Dec. 31. For part-year and temporary residents, the tax would be proportionate based on their number of days in California. The annual tax would be on current net worth and therefore would include wealth earned, inherited or obtained through gifts or estates long before and long after leaving the state.”  The ongoing exodus of our producers will now sky rocket, to be replaced by the new battalions of Biden's border bandidos.  These are topics worthy of discussing with our progressive readers who will not touch them with a ten-footer.

Expanding on the theme that Democrats are butt stupid and evil, we should note some stats over the last couple of years as reported by the WSJ –

• 660 companies have left California,
• 765 companies’ facilities have been moved out of California,
• Over 200,000 Californians have emigrated to Texas, more to other destinations,
• Welfare recipients and illegals continue to arrive in droves to keep the population stable.

And all because we have a political monopoly of double dummies who have no idea how humans behave (‘Tax rates don’t affect economic behavior’) and how to manage a productive economy.  All they know is that to stay in political power they need ever more ignorant voters buttressed by illegal aliens on the way to citizenship and the ballot box (not necessarily in that order), and tax the bejeezus out of those who have money and can still earn.

[22dec20 update]  Corporatists are racing to implement racist policies, and pledging big bucks to assure the new woke administration and their lamestream mouthpieces that they indeed are virtuous to a tee.  But it’s hard to tell where all those millions and billions will be spent to the advertised goal of "racial equity" in lending to and locating in black communities.  And no one is sure that the promised amounts aren’t just coming back to other businesses not owned by blacks.  But the puffing and parading under banners of social justice in the media is worth twice price paid to PR outfits to promote the newly progressivist participants.  BTW, haven't we tried all this at least a couple of times before? (more here)

Scattershots – 3dec20 (updated 8dec20)

George Rebane

SCOTUS finally ruled against Gov Cuomo on the religious freedom case.  The 26nov20 NYT reported, “The Supreme Court late Wednesday night barred restrictions on religious services in New York that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had imposed to combat the coronavirus. … The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal members in dissent. The order was the first in which the court’s newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, played a decisive role.” (more here)  Justice Barrett was the crucial vote for the 5-4 majority, with Chief Justice Roberts (the court’s new ‘swing vote’) going limp again and voting with the liberals.  Justice Gorsuch wrote the excellent majority ruling (here) wherein he states, “It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques,”

‘This is why Yuja Wang is Wonder Woman’.  Ms Wang is unquestionably one of the greatest piano virtuosi to come along in many a year.  Take a listen to a five minute sampling of what this woman can do with a piano – truly a celebration and vindication of western culture and how it has contributed to the shaping of global cultures.

‘Big Companies Urge Biden, Congress to Address Climate Change’ - Amazon, Citigroup, Ford and others support a U.S. return to the Paris accords from which Trump withdrew.  Well, whouda thought?  (more here)  With the advent of the Biden administration we are going to see a return of corporatism on steroids.  Cash rich corporatists have always been lobbyists and supporters for all kinds of new regulations and fees that can be levied on their respective industries and business sectors.  We recall that a corporatist is a big corporation that can no longer effectively compete in free markets without some kind of government support.  Increasing costs for their smaller competitors and raising the barriers to entry for newcomers is always best achieved by established corporatists who can pay off legislators and regulators to do their assigned duties – all for the benefit of the consumer, of course.  These are the naïfs who ultimately will get it in the shorts, and pay for the whole thing.  (In case we have some new readers here, please recall that corporations pay no taxes or fees; they just pass those costs on to their customers.  But that’s a whole ‘nother story.) 

[4dec20 update]  Cutting the unemployment bonus again proved that the Left doesn’t do economics.  Writing unemployed low-wage workers checks with an added $600 bonus was supposed give the economy a boost and lower unemployment according to progressive economists like the socialist sage Paul Krugman.  Wrong again.  Workers got paid more for not working and the economy didn’t go anywhere.  When President Trump had to compromise eliminating the bonus to just lowering it to $300, then, lo and behold, unemployment plummeted and the economic growth set decades-long records.  As the song says, ‘When will they ever learn?’

Marc Andreessen, web browser pioneer and venture capitalist, years ago claimed that ‘software will eat the world’ (here).  AI has now achieved the ability to automatically generate code for some very structured applications, and soon will become smart enough to write programs from only verbal instructions, thereby promising to make legions of programmers redundant.  Some interpret this coming state of affairs with the claim that “Software Ate the World, and Soon It Will Write Itself”, going on to conclude that “developers are in short supply, but their products may acquire the capacity to replace them.”  Well no, that’s not quite true.  Most non-techies still believe that ‘line programmers’ create the wondrous systems that dazzle and deliver us.  But learning to code in a programming language, and learning to conceive and design a system to do what has never been done are two different skill sets – the first any smart high schooler can accomplish, the second takes a bit more education in one of any number of specific fields.  Bottom line, software is no more ‘eating the world’ than did movable type in days of yore – you still had to have something more to become an acknowledged wordsmith than what was needed to learn how to smith the words into print.  In the same way today, it will take more from fewer to come up with novel things the software must do, than the larger number who can learn how to make the software do it.  It’s the latter who should soon tremble.

Ever hear of ‘emotional support animals’?  Well, they’re a couple of steps beyond ‘service dogs’ in what they apparently provide to their owners.  And there’s more to be said about the portents of such critters, the humans they emotionally support, and the crumbling culture that now puts up with such nonsense.  This morning we awoke to news of a passenger bringing his peacock into the passenger compartment of an airliner.  Now those of you who know peacocks can readily conceive of the pandemonium that such an aggressive animal with non-existent toilet discipline will create attempting to come down the aisle and be confined to the middle seat.  Today’s laws do not allow anyone to question the legitimate and beneficial purpose that such arbitrarily selected support animals satisfy for those emotionally short-changed.  On that flight the pilot was astute enough not to take off with a cabin catastrophe in the making, but we were not told how the gathered authorities adjudicated the affair.  From my semanticist’s perch, it is clear that our language has not evolved at a sufficient pace to provide adequate adjectives to describe the depths of insanity that today’s progressive ideology is inflicting on our society.

[5dec20 update]  Check out the report on the anti-viral Ivermectin in 'Mismanaging Covid-19 ...'.

[6dec20 update]  Andrew Cuomo – talk about scumbag politicians lying to the public.  This political hack is one of the few in the nation to whom hundreds of Covid deaths can be directly attributed – recall his tragically misguided care facility diktat.  Now he tells the country that Trump’s Operation Warp Speed had nothing to do with the early development, testing, and approval of C19 vaccines; the big pharmas would have developed it anyway since they’re only interested in profits.  He believes his audience to be appropriately ignorant of what Warp Speed did to pave the path and lower the financial risk to the pharmas for them to put a very expensive full court press on their vaccine developments.  We know from decades of data how long it would have taken doing the same ol’ same ol’.  But that don’t make no never mind to another Democrat Big Liar telling people another Big Lie.

"Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out", David Horowitz here aligning with Rebane Doctrine.

[8dec20 update]  Cringing capitalists and the great Cocoa Collusions.  The cocoa growers of Ghana and Ivory Coast (61% of world supply) decided to collude and raise the price of cocoa by almost 20%, claiming to alleviate worker poverty.  Naturally candy producers like Hershey and Mars don’t want to pay more for their prime ingredient, so they are working together trying to find ways to pay less for cocoa (what a concept!).  In this crazy world of progressive pandemics, virtue signaling has become a de rigueur for both corporatists and cringing capitalists.  Both Hershey and Mars are denying that they are trying to circumvent the ‘virtuous’ price increase, when instead they should counter with the free and open markets’ correct argument.  They should tell the cocoa growers that producers also have an obligation to keep prices low for their customers whose financial welfare is no less important than that of the cocoa workers.  Virtue signaling has become a particularly contagious and corrosive form of cringing for capitalists in the face of socialism’s global advance.  (more here)

A new approach to ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’  In the 8dec20 Union, Mr Rob Cairns attempts to heal our divide by suggesting that, instead of attacking, we sit down with our opposites to have a “real conversation” with “them”.  The conversation would launch with questions like ‘What’s important to you?’, ‘What are your concerns?’, ‘What are your fears?’, ‘What are your hopes?’, ‘What are your priorities?’.  A laudable approach indeed, but one having little chance of success when considered in light of the now drastically different belief systems that today propel our polarization.  RR has spent years revealing and dissecting our contending beliefs, and the record is here for all to see.  When a leftist finally deigns to reveal his belief(s) and/or solutions to social problems, to rightists they range from the odious to patently unworkable.  What such questions serve to divert from is an exploration of the meta-world views (i.e. ontologies) of the two discussants.  Without understanding each other’s basic views of how ‘their world’ functions, the rest of the conversation quickly becomes moot since the participants cannot help but talk past each other.  And the real problem, encountered in the attempt to explore ontologies, is that perhaps only a small share of people are capable of such productive pursuits.  Alas.

Today's joke from Rush Limbaugh illustrates the above ontological differences.  A capitalist sitting at a bar is sandwiched between Bernie Sanders and AOC while watching the news.  They see a tense video of a man ready to jump from a tall building.  The capitalist says, 'I have $10 that says he jumps.'  Begrudgingly Sanders and AOC take him up on the bet.  The man jumps to his death, and the capitalist collects his winnings.  Then a moment later he says, 'I can't take your money, because I saw this report earlier on the news.'  AOC responds with, 'That's OK, so did we, but we didn't think he'd do it again.'

‘Crimes Against Humanity’ (updated 11oct20)

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”, Richard Feynman

George Rebane

Almost everything you’ve heard about Covid-19 (here also C19) from politicians, the media, and publicized scientists and clinicians is wrong.  Here at RR, early on I started looking at the pandemic with a gimlet eye.  I did this as a science professional and a longtime student of how politics and scientification have been illicitly cohabiting for decades, to the point that today it’s difficult to tell which is the john and which is whore.  The C19 pandemic has brought it all together, and now invites serious review of the disease, its hysterical public response policies, and the real prophylaxis and collateral damage that has resulted from the variously implemented policies.

For the better part of this year we have been subjected to pronouncements delivered from on high about C19's sacrosanct ‘science’, and the irrevocable wisdom of ‘following the science’.  All this as if science was a singular, unitary, and all-illuminating oracle speaking to us from Olympus in a clear and unambiguous voice.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and over the months more and more serious and credible people are beginning to find their voice and speak out against such specious beliefs.  For openers, I suggest that readers begin with ‘What the pandemic has taught us about science’ by Matt Ridley, MP in the House of Lords, that appears in the 9oct20 WSJ.

The levels of clinical, scientific, and political fraud launched at global populations is of historical proportions.  It may be argued that never before have so many billions of humans been so thoroughly bamboozled by their political leaders, abetted by a willing media citing grant-sucking scientists, go-along healthcare professionals, and profit-motivated pharma.  This has reached levels which have invited a German-based investigative committee headed by Dr Reiner Fuellmich to launch a multi-national class action suit, making the case that such cynically enforced policies have caused enough death and destruction worldwide to amount to a ‘crime against humanity’, a charge last litigated in Nuremberg in 1946. (H/T to reader)

Fuellmich gives an extensive presentation of cited data and information about the advent of C19, its history, and reactions to this corona virus.  In it he presents data and information (prepared for the lawsuit) about the characteristics and progress of the disease that I venture few of us know.  The video of the presentation takes a better part of an hour, but the educational takeaway is well worth it for those concerned about our governments’ reactions, and the continuing diktats of its truly insane response policies.

One of the strong points Fuellmich brings out is the testing scam based on the widely used PCR-based diagnostic test that produces essentially worthless results as it is applied here and abroad.  For a broader look at how our FDA views the C19 tests and testing landscape, you can visit their website here.

Finally, of the hundreds of clinicians, scientists, and public health professionals who have looked askance at the governments’ dealings with the C19 pandemic, three internationally prominent scientists in the field gathered last weekend in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to draft a declaration and give interviews (here) on the planet’s misguided responses to the virus.  Drs Martin Kuldorff, Sumetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya, professors respectively at Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford Universities, came together to put their appeal to sanity out in the public with their ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ which I reproduce in its entirety below.

On Covid-19 The Economist blows it again

George Rebane

When the latest issue of the “world’s oldest newspaper” (aka the left-leaning The Economist) arrived this week with its cover story ‘Why governments get it wrong’, and promised to reveal how government can get it right, I got all excited.  Finally, someone is willing to step forward and tell us what the proper response should have been to the Covid pandemic.  All of us in the US have heard about eight months of Democrats telling everyone who would listen that President Trump has done it all wrong and thereby cost the nation tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.  Moreover, candidate Biden has had the correct response tucked under his armpit the whole time, and now is the time to get Bumblebrain into office so that under his (her?) leadership we can finally be rid of this dreaded disease.

Of course, it’s already turned out that Biden’s Monday quarterbacking has nothing in it that Trump doesn’t already have in play, and he didn’t even think of putting vaccine development into an historically novel overdrive with Project Warp Speed.  But all that makes no never mind to the legions of loyal leftwing lackeys (you know, all those people with college degrees) – perhaps the country’s most unaccomplished presidential candidate is still their man with all the answers, just as soon as they swear in the Harris/Biden administration.  The bottom line of all this campaign hyperventilating is that it delivered no specifics as to what Trump should have done when, a response policy that would have saved all those thousands of lives, and not put the economy into lockdown life support.

Enter the 26sep20 issue of The Economist. With its lead piece claiming that governments have been playing whackamole when the correct response strategy lay at hand.  And then you continue to read their rhetoric which turns out to be nothing but a rehash of the year’s global Covid history of various responses, in all of which governments are “failing” to practice “the basics of public health”.  And what exactly are these failures?  Well nothing that is not already being done in various forms by all governments guided by their own situations and executing their available best practices.  Ignoring this, the newspaper’s editorial worthies blithely go on to advise that “governments must identify the trade-offs that make most economic and social sense.”  Specifically they laud British Columbia “that set principles and invite individuals, schools and workplaces to devise their own plans of realizing them, will be able to sustain the effort in the months ahead.”  Whaaat?!! Does that critique and advice sound like going in circles?  

What also brought a smile to my lips was the quiet insertion of “The increase in Europe’s diagnosed cases reflects reality, but the global effect is an artefact of extra testing, which picks up cases that would have been missed.”  Do you recall what the Democrats and their lamestream media did when President Trump pointed out that increased testing contributed to the jump in Covid cases?  This eminently reasonable conclusion was shouted down, and Trump was accused of practicing medicine without a license, of claiming that testing caused Covid and its cure was to minimize testing.  In short, the president was made out to be an imbecile by all leftwingers (including those who read RR), when anyone with a 3-digit IQ could understand the effect on Covid case count from the widespread testing of more people.  Did anyone hear of a retraction by our Democrat brethren and cistern?  Or perhaps we missed their red-faced admission that they were the actual imbeciles?

And finally, The Economist admits that, among all the governments’ errors, in America it was the CDC, “once the world’s most respected public-health body”, that was “plagued by errors (and) poor leadership”.  As a responsible leader, President Trump correctly pointed this out to Americans as the CDC continued to miss its projections, and waffled this way and that on its recommendations.  But in the view of the revered, almost two-century-old newspaper, it all was President Trump’s fault for “denigrating” the agency.

So the conclusion I draw from such reportage is that TDS has also become a global political pandemic, little remains of what once was known as journalism, and that in the 21^st century the public may have little or no chance of finding reliable information about anything that issues from the current cacophony of broadcast and online news outlets.

Ruminations – 20sep20 (updated 24sep20)

George Rebane

‘Why the Abraham Accords Happened’ is another reason so many Americans focus on President Trump’s walk and not his talk, and another reason they (I included) will vote for his second term.  I cannot believe the incompetence, let alone the socialist cynicism, that will descend on the White House and country if the Harris/Biden administration is installed.

[21sep20 update]  Here are some (non-exhaustive) bullet points that summarize why I favor the re-election of President Trump –

1. Experienced and accomplished businessman who understands the role and function of the private sector v the government in a nation’s economy.
2. Demonstrated accomplishments in revamping America’s foreign policy in international relations and trade.
3. Demonstrated accomplishments in growing America’s economy, managing the C19 pandemic, and has plans for more of the same.
4. Understands the role of a strong military in maintaining America’s hegemony.
5. Understands the role of secure borders in maintaining America’s sovereignty.
6. First president in generations to help blacks start shedding their plantation mentality.
7. Understands the correct way to maintain energy independence and integrate green energy into our economy.
8. Speaks his mind directly to the public without embellishments, but with some unfortunate braggadocio which detracts from his more substantive message and methods.
9. Understands and opposes the evils of collectivist governance and the history of collectivist governments.
10. Is a demonstrated constitutionalist, understands and opposes the Left’s efforts to fundamentally transform America into a socialist cum communist state.

Here are some (non-exhaustive) bullet points that summarize why I oppose the election of former VP Biden –

1. A dismally unaccomplished political hack with almost half-century of undistinguished service in Congress – no one has served longer and done less.
2. A record of uniformly wrong calls on foreign policy issues and decisions.
3. Understands nothing demonstrable about the operation of a nation’s economy – an economic imbecile as witnessed by his endorsement of the 2020 Democratic platform.
4. Opposes the maintenance of a strong military in favor of expanding vote-buying social programs.
5. Opposes the maintenance of secure borders and does not understand their function in preserving a nation’s culture, cohesion, and sovereignty.
6. Long history of supporting programs which destroyed black families and shrank their middle class. Intends to maintain and amplify our minorities’ sense of victimhood and dependence on transfer payments – a naturally divisive politician.
7. Has no discernible understanding of science or how it communicates and advances, which includes his support of devastating programs to prematurely mandate the nation’s abandoning fossil fuels and conversion to renewable energy sources.
8. Has a long history of two-faced speech and lying to comply with the political winds du jour from the Left. Is now sufficiently senile (possible dementia?) and in poor health as to make a farce of executing the office of the president – clearly would not complete first term if elected.
9. Strongly supports collectivism in all its forms as confirmed by his embrace of the 2020 Democrat platform (especially the provisions of the Green New Deal).  Strongly supports widening the voting franchise to include incarcerated criminals, non-citizens, and malleably ignorant teenagers.
10. Is a demonstrated constitutional revisionist who believes the Constitution is a ‘living document’ that is badly outdated and in need of major overhaul. Wholeheartedly supports the nation’s fundamental transformation into a socialist state.

[22sep20 update]  Recently read a piece by a retired teacher who lamented the absence of critical thought by our young because of the paucity of their knowledge base, which he charmingly relabeled as “stuff”.  He recounted that as a student he went to school to learn stuff, because in those days teachers taught stuff that was useful and needed for when you grew up.  And when he was a teacher, he taught his students all kinds of stuff that they would need.  But today in our schools teachers no longer know much stuff, and, for mainly political reasons, they most certainly teach very little useful stuff to our kids.  (I like ‘stuff’, and will be using it a lot when talking about knowledge bases and repositiories.)

UV light as a disinfectant.  Given the debate about how Covid spreads through exhaled aerosols, I keep wondering why stores, restaurants, and other closed volume venues don’t install UV lights to reduce the concentration of all kinds of nano- and micro-level critters that can do us harm.

An example of radical leftwing propaganda can always be found on the proto-communist truthout.com.  ‘Trump Fuels March Towards Fascism With “Anarchist Jurisdictions” Edict’ is an example of the typical fare its readers consume on a daily basis.  It’s always worth a read now and then to update yourself on their ideological temperature.  Our leftwing commenters’ contributions read as if they all regularly digest such a ration of rage.

‘The Military's Secret to Fighting COVID-19’  Here’s something to frost your external plumbing.  Check out the stats from the military on how their C19 response policy is working  out.  Out of 1.3M active duty personnel, they have had about 38,500 cases, and (seatbelts please) only ONE death.  You have to digest this with the fact that “the vast majority of those men and women serving in our armed forces are between the ages of 17 and 40”, while, of course, the vast majority of C19 deaths have occurred in the comorbid elderly.  Now what does this little piece, so well covered up by our lamestream, tell us about continuing our current patchwork of restrictive civilian response policies?  (H/T to reader)

[24sep20 update] Florida passes anti-riot and anti-mob law.  Gov Desantis gives an excellent summary of the law in this video.  H/T to the 22sep20 Sandbox commenter who posted this link and asked why no Dem governor is promoting such legislation to bring safe communities back to their state.

Neo-Marxist BLM has blanketed the nation with more lies about the Breonna Taylor’s death at the hands of the Louisville police who did NOT execute a ‘no-knock warrant’, loudly announced their presence, and opened fire after Breonna’s drug-suspect boyfriend shot one of the police.  Sadly, the grand jury returned an indictment against one of the officers for nothing more than poor marksmanship during a tense and chaotic exchange of fire.  Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron explained the facts of the encounter to the nation (here), but that made no never mind to the lied to and organized BLM mobs rioting in various cities across our land – evil afoot.

The Blessings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

George Rebane

Three-quarters of a century ago today, the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (6aug45), followed three days later by another one on Nagasaki (9aug45).  At that time WW2 had raged for six years having killed almost 85 million people.  The planned invasion of Japan’s home islands in November 1945 would have extended the war for another two years with the Japanese – who, including women and children, were exhorted to fight to the death – to suffer another 5-10 million dead, and another 1.7-4 million allied casualties including 400,000-800,000 American dead.  Instead, the two atom bombings took somewhere between 130,000 and 225,000 Japanese killed, and ended the war less than a week later.  Nuclear physicist and former Los Alamos National Laboratory exec John Hopkins gives a more detailed accounting here.

Not enough credit has been given to President Truman for authorizing the bombings.  Truman had just learned of the Manhattan Project in June 1945, a couple of months after FDR’s death in April.  Given the bevy of pro/con arguments he had to consider in the midst of war and early days as President (after being kept in the dark and on the sidelines since being sworn in as VP), his decision to drop the bombs was heroic, for no one knew how the country and history would respond to such a justified slaughter of civilians.

Americans and the people of the world have been of two minds about the morality and ethics of that particular act that launched the Atomic Age.  The ‘America as an evil imperialist country’ contingent has argued from the start that dropping the bombs was a terminally immoral act and confirmed that the United States at its core is an evil nation.  This narrative has been delivered by the Left, here and abroad, in various forms and amplified into curricula taught to young Americans for over three generations.  The anti-American argument always starts with and remains focused on the human toll from the viewpoint of the victims (example here).  Once that emotional hook is set in the uneducated and lightly read, the expansion of the apologetic into the international socio-political landscape follows naturally, and another tranche of young leftwingers go into the world with an almost indelible rejection of anything that derives from what may be gathered under the ideology of the Right.

Those of us who have experienced war first hand, and subsequently expanded our horizons of critical thought are able to see the enormously greater good that Hiroshima and Nagasaki delivered to humankind.  Not only did these holocausts result in the immediate saving of millions of lives, but the unbelievable power of the bombs and resulting devastation in one act have stopped global conflicts between major powers that would have claimed more untold millions of lives.  And in that process we came to call the Cold War, one of the world’s two threatening communist tyrannies quietly collapsed, as the world continued to enjoy the peace of the bomb’s ‘mutually assured destruction’.

I harbor no expectation that any of these humanitarian accountings will change liberal minds, and let them see these highly localized tragedies of long ago as the greater blessing they have been to the world’s billions.  The resulting global Pax Americana, interrupted by the inevitable ‘brushfire wars’, may also, and perhaps more accurately, be called the Pax Atomica.  And if we do a rigorous examination of the underlying morality of such a global mercy killing, I believe that most of us will find these war-ending events of long ago to have satisfied the most rigorous demands that define ethical behavior.  The dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not die in vain.

Scattershots – 22jul20

George Rebane

Our indigenous North American natives (aka Indians) may not have politically clean hands after all.  Now that it’s OK to go back in history to any desired time in order to dredge up the iniquities of our forefathers (and mothers), we have discovered that the most recent arrivals before the white man probably were not very nice to the people who were here before them.  “For most of the 20th Century, archaeologists were convinced that big-game hunters known as the Clovis people, identified by the fluted flint spear points they made, were the first Americans, arriving about 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. More recent finds from Oregon to Chile, though, showed that other groups had arrived 16,000 years ago or more.”  So is it not now time to start tearing down the history of our redskins, so we can proceed to a clean sweep of all the bad that preceded this fundamentally transformed age of purity in thought and deed? (more here and here)

More later.

The communists try again … (updated 17jul20)

George Rebane

From The Patriarch, David Nasaw’s mega-biography of the life and times of Joseph P. Kennedy, we read –

The Depression, as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., noted in the first volume of his The Age of Roosevelt, offered “radicalism its long awaited chance.”  The unemployed, underemployed, dispossessed, and hungry were not sitting idly by waiting for prosperity to return.  Many were too numbed, too crushed, to protest, but a small and vocal minority were not.  The Socialist and Communist parties more than doubled their tiny memberships and exploded in visibility.  Communist Party organizers were actively operating in city neighborhoods from Harlem to Detroit, in the coal fields of Pennsylvania an Kentucky, and the River Rouge plant in Dearborn, among tenants and sharecroppers in the South and migrant workers in California, and outside and inside closed and closing mills and factories in the Northeast.  Their argument was simple: capitalism had failed and needed to be replaced.

In the 1930s FDR’s big government nostrums kept the country in a depression so deep and enduring that it took the greatest war in history to bring us out of it (aided through Truman’s fortuitous rejection of the post-war return to FDR’s alphabet soup agencies) and reject communism.  What is it going to take this time in today's Democrat-promoted recession as their socialists/communists again marshal their forces in the streets and in the ballot boxes?

[17jul20 update]

Scattershots – 15jul20 (updated 19jul20)

George Rebane

Putin’s favorite party is the Democrats by far.  As they lavish their baseless stream of Big Lies on America’s electorate about Trump’s Russia collusion, for which there is absolutely no evidence after years of investigations cum witchunts, the truth again is the Alinsky opposite.  Since they can’t do it through legislation, the Left continues to stifle the production, transport, and distribution of America’s fossil energy through legacy regulations and litigation.  This has made America’s sale of natural gas to Europe uncompetitive with what Putin can deliver through its expanded Baltic pipelines to countries like Germany et al.  (more here)  There is no doubt that Putin, Xi, and the Iranian ragheads (e.g. recipients of pallets of cash) favor our demonic Dems over any Republican.  Besides crippling our country’s lead as the world’s energy producer, our progressives continue to do everything they can to weaken our ability to project power as the world’s white hat hegemon.  And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet until they really rule the roost in Washington.  Our Left has given new meaning to colluding with despots.

[16jul20 update] In ‘The Politics of Hydroxychloroquine’ Allysia Finley presents an update of results from the clinical applications and testing of HCQ.  The bottom line of it is that HCQ has very large domain of beneficial use in fighting the corona virus where it saves lives and greatly reduces the morbidity of the disease.  Finley correctly argues that the physician, taking this information into account, should determine its use on a per-patient basis.  However, almost all of these results are still suppressed in the lamestream media (we recall that the socialists’ utility for fighting the pandemic is to maximize mortality while suppressing economic recovery).  Not only that, but much of the politically motivated anti-HCQ reporting continues to be fraudulent – ‘fake news’ is too mild of an appellation for murderous journalism.  HCQ is overwhelmingly safe when applied according to its standard of care, and has been for decades.  Banning it has been part and parcel of the TDS toolkit for defeating Trump in November.  Since the end has always justified the means – being a socialist means never having to say you’re sorry.

A rational liberal answers.  I asked a longtime friend, who has been drifting leftward over the years and purposely limits his intake to overwhelmingly lamestream outlets, to comment on the video of Rep Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-MN) with the question “How do you interpret her remarks and her goals for America?”  His answer sheds a lot of light on how far we have drifted apart, and by no means is he alone in the ranks of the thinking Left who view themselves as mid-roaders. 

I’m not overwhelmed by carefully extracted snippets from the most radical edge of the Democratic Party. She and her opinions couldn’t get elected in 90% of the other Democratically held districts, so I don’t consider her a spokesperson for the Party. Additionally, she didn’t propose a Government-controlled, centrally planned economy, the abolition of private property, pro-Communism, or any of the other things that are attributed to the radical left by conservatives. I believe that the present system is not cost-effective from an income distribution perspective. I think the economy would be stronger and more robust if more of the income were in the hands of the lower 50%. They have to spend all their money, so it goes directly into the consumer portion of the economy. Most of that is spent on food and shelter and would directly help the Agriculture industry overcome the shortfalls that have resulted from the Tariff War with China. The challenge, of course, is the choice of mechanism for broader income distribution. The problem is the conservatives either don’t see income disparity as a national problem or are convinced that the cure would be worse than the disease. I don’t believe wanting to fix it makes one a Communist.

[17jul20 update]  Opening schools this fall.  I have no idea why our politicos are making this into a cause celebre.  Every day confirms that there is no ‘settled science’ on the C19 virus or its prophylactics and prescriptions.  Rebane Doctrine gives kudos to President Trump for using his bully pulpit to push for school attendance for a number of good reasons.  Local school districts have the final word, and should do their best to max the hours kids will spend in classrooms.  But all the controversy would come to an end if we adopt the public policy that honors the wishes of the parents (what a concept!).  Let the parents be the final arbiters on whether and how their children will attend school.  Problem solved.  (Also fight those evil politicians who want to take school choice away from parents, and support those who work to expand school choice across our land.)

The liberals really do fear Trump the dictator.  I want to share another bagatelle from correspondence with my longtime buddy who claims to be a mid-roader (and member of No Labels) and writes – “It is my humble opinion that President Trump with his need for total control, his egomania that everything revolves around him, his penchant for punishing any foe or less-than-loyal friend has established the most invasive Central Government the US has seen in a long time. He has threatened to defund schools if they don't open fully in the Fall, attacked (both verbally and legally) States and Cities that offend him, sent members of Federal Law Enforcement Teams into cities (DC and Portland) without uniform markings in plain vehicles to seize citizens without a shred of due process.”

 

Letters from the Revolution – 23jun20

George Rebane

It is only the reality of force that makes peaceful diplomacy possible.

As our buildings burn, more black lives end that don’t make no nevermind, as China continues to build its muscle to rule its ‘near abroad’, Germany bitches about America not doing more to defend its carefully cloistered butt, and Democrats are busy readying Bumblebrain for prime time, the nation’s cops continue to compete with our politicians for the Cringe Cup while BLM and Antifa thugs rule our city centers.

The revolution has long left behind its George Floyd Memorial Starting Gate.  From the ongoing body counts and mounting casualties in our cities, you have to be a real idiot to keep believing that all this destruction still has anything to do with regaining civil rights denied.  No siree, all eyes are now on a much bigger prize, one that has been waiting in the wings ever since the Wall came down in 1989 - now we are fully advancing onto the ramparts of socialism.  Just ask Bernie, AOC, Warren, Harris, …, ask any of them.  Ask even the members of Team Nancy who are doing their best to hang on to the tiger they know they are riding.

It is all coming about so quickly, just as we have warned readers for years.  And I don’t claim rocket science for that prognostication, only a little more than a casual reading of history and watching what has been going on since WW2.

To date no one is even attempting to talk them down or demonstrate that our traditional culture has the wherewithal to resist the mobs who demand more today than they did yesterday.  The tagline to this missive is something totally beyond the ken of peaceful progressives who passively consume every bit from the wisdom of the demanding signs.  They have no clue of what they condone.  I’d like to conclude that the conservatives do know what lies at the end of the road now traveled, but they (we) have somehow misplaced their (our) gumption.  I have no idea for what the rest of us are waiting – that somehow it will all quiet down and everyone will again play nice.  Well, they haven’t for years, so Rodney King’s ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ has never worked (least of all in his life).

It doesn’t matter whether we attempt negotiations with America’s anti-American thugs, or the Chinese, when your opponent realizes that your BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) is capitulation, then diplomacy fails.  It was ever thus.  The only thing that makes sense attempting to talk down a crisis is that your opponent knows you have a BATNA with balls.  And even that doesn’t guarantee a peaceful stand-down.  For you negotiators out there, that requires a ZOPA (zone of possible agreement) that has something to offer.  (ZOPA is the set of all deals that are at least as good for each party in a negotiation as their respective BATNAs.)

Rig for ram.

Scattershots – 3jun20 (updated 4jun20)

George Rebane

Worldwide lockdowns were triggered by panicky politicians who listened to the ‘eminent epidemiologist’ Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London.  He came out with a slew of mortality predictions almost every country of note by monkeying with his models.  Trouble is that none of them came anywhere near true, but politicians were reluctant to let go of the new dimensions of power they had appropriated.  So most of the world shut down economies and also caused untold more deaths and morbidity (as many of us then predicted).  Now Ferguson, with stiff upper lip firmly in place, admits to having observed these “interesting” realworld results, perhaps starting with the admission, “Without instituting full lockdown, Sweden is essentially getting the same effect.”  (whouda thought?  H/T to reader and more here)  And here is a confirming update on the C19 stats from Sweden (H/T to reader).  Consider this report in the context of my 16may20 commentary that also appears in today’s 3jun20 Union (here).

My ‘Unsettling ‘Settled Science’’ was published in today’s (3jun20) Union.  As expected, it drew a lot of ire from our local leftwingers.  Almost all of it was hard to connect with the points I made in the commentary.  Some even rejected my propositions on the basis of their similarity of what they may have heard from Limbaugh, or that it “was written by a staunch trump supporter”.  But a comment from George Boardman, one of our liberal thought leaders and intellects, piqued my interest.  He asked why Jo Ann and I “have been sheltering in place for 70 plus days”, since my “oft-expressed skepticism of the conventional scientific wisdom”.   To start with, Mr Boardman apparently is not a very careful (or comprehending?) reader of RR.  From the body count alone, no one should doubt that the elderly are in the most vulnerable group.  So there was no point in our going out just to solicit the infection - after all I am a Bayesian.  But the main reason is that all of our outside activities were canceled and many brought online, not by us, but by the government – in short, there was no place for us to go, save to run the usual store errands which we did.  However, undeterred we continued seeing our family and Nevada County friends on a regular basis – e.g. we had an ‘essential’ dinner party at our house last night – during this months-long interval of insane and conflicting dicta issuing from various government offices (see the latest from Neil Ferguson above).  Boardman, flying hot, true, and normal with his fellow progressive pundits, evinces no capability of nuancing anything he sees.  I have found people like that to operate in what we control engineers call ‘bang-bang mode’, their needle gets pegged at either end with no readings from the middle.  But perhaps I too am missing something here.  I’d like to lunch with George Boardman and have each of us really get the cut of the other’s jib.

This is what we see on the streets, and what the Democrats and the lamestream refuse to denounce.

[update]  Yellow journalism on Bret Baier’s FN program.  For the program’s panel tonight, Baier had assembled Ari Fleischer (Bush2 press secretary), Mara Liaisson (NPR political correspondent), and Mo Elleithee (Georgetown Institute of Politics) – a laudible 2-to-1 in favor of leftists.  Subject: Trump’s threat to use military against rioters if states can’t control them.  In his comments Elleithee said, “(Trump) authorizes militarized law enforcement to use excessive force against peaceful protesters.”  We all expect that kind of crap out of leftwing ideologues like Elleithee and Liasson, but since Trump said no such thing (it was just one more in the Left's daily avalanche of uncounted lies), the ‘fair, balanced, and unafraid’ Baier’s next question should have been, ‘Mo, what evidence do you have that the President said any such thing?  Please share it with us.’  Instead the network’s flagship anchor again showed his lily liver, and let the whole statement slide as if it were a commonly known truth.  Back in older days FN journalists would not have allowed that kind of crap to just float out there unchallenged.  Today their lead correspondent has taken the knee on truth, and has yet to update his closing line to ‘Feebly balanced and scared shitless.’  FN is rapidly becoming a CNN-in-training outlet.

[4jun20 update]  Apropos to ‘settled science’ (here) and making decisions on the basis of ‘science not politics’, we now read the WHO has flipped on their hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) admonitions cum screed. The widely cited study ‘disproving’ the effectiveness of HCQ turns out to have been badly flawed, as attested to by 120+ scientists who examined the record. (more here)  So now they’re going back to square one and resuming the trial that they prematurely aborted.  And, of course, we’re all familiar with the field day the Democrats and their lamestream lackies had when during the early days of the pandemic President Trump suggested that HCQ might be something we should also examine.  Don’t expect any of those sumbiches to show any remorse at their TDS-powered hipshot remonstrations.

Common Core curriculum fans rejoice.  One of your aims was for the new educational initiative to “narrow the performance gap” between the high-end students and those at/near the bottom.  According to both the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) the gap is being closed, not by boosting the academic performance of the low achievers, but by dumbing down the high achievers.  We have reported on this many times, and now Union columnist Terry McLaughlin writes in the 3jun20 edition of the newspaper, “After decades of slow and steady improvement, reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have seen historic declines in the six years since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards”. (more here)  Bill Gates’ sponsorship of Common Core did immeasurable damage and played right into the progressives’ agenda to dumb down succeeding generations of American voters.  As a humorous footnote, RR’s spam folder correctly trapped a well-known leftwing local who sought to comment on ‘Returning to Race-based College Admissions’ by declaring his ignorance of the legislature's initiative to repeal Prop209 that prohibits race-based state contracting, hiring, and admissions.

Ruminations – 29may20 (updated 3jun20)

George Rebane

How soon they forget - “The accusation that Trump got rid of a pandemic office is among the left’s politicized attacks on the White House since the coronavirus outbreak began. The administration assembled a coronavirus task force run by Vice President Mike Pence to address security and medical issues.”  This was echoed in chorus by all of our local leftwing lackies who took their cue from the lamestream.  (H/T to reader and more here)

Fauci the Fickle – 3jun20 edition.  “Fauci changes tune, now says second COVID-19 wave may never happen — and mask-wearing is symbolic.”  (more here and here) How’s that tune go? ‘First you say you do, and then you don’t, …’  Never mind Dr Fauci, Dr Rebane says that unless we miraculously get everyone vaccinated in time, the second wave is inevitable with the high likelihood that it will be a small fraction of the first wave.

Bejing pissing on the Hong Kong parade. (here)  Now there’s a puzzle, or maybe not.  HK is the acknowledged “cash cow” for the mainland, handling much of the foreign investments into the Chinese economy, and Chinese IPOs placed on foreign exchanges.  Screwing with the contracted freedoms of this principality will cripple the cow or even kill it.  Is the CCP now so brittle that it is scared of HK’s freedom virus spreading to the mainland when that possibility is added to the lack of progress Beijing has made with reintegrating Taiwan?  From my perch, the answer is Yes.

[update] “Donald Trump knows nothing about the strength of Minneapolis,” said the liberal Mayor Jacob Frey in an early news conference this morning.  Don’t know what all we need to know about the city after watching understandably justified peaceful protests turn into mobs looting and burning.  Am reminded of a Rodney King joke that quoted tongue-in-cheek a white resident of Simi Valley (home of one officer on trial who was involved in the King beating), ‘If they find those police officers guilty, you bet we’re gonna burn down our town!’

Speaking of President Trump and Minneapolis – I think he stuck his foot in it again.  Have no idea which of his constituencies he was trying to impress with the tweets that were definitely untimely and off-the-mark.  Don’t get me wrong, naming the looting and burning thugs in Minneapolis as “thugs” was not wrong, but it was a sophomoric political error compounded by his threat to send in Minnesota’s National Guard, which under our system of federalism, the state’s governor already has done.  All this grandstanding does is give the TDS crowd more fuel to ignite nationwide fires.

All published pandemic data and information is now both wrong and the remainder highly suspect.  Here and across the world we continue to receive a torrent of reports about the virus’s death counts, case numbers, recoveries, etc, a couple of days later which turn out to be the stuff that you shovel out of a stall, all disguised as the sober and considered prescriptions and proscriptions from our elected ‘honorables’ and degreed ‘experts’ citing science and medicine.  And since most of it comes to us through the media filter of double-dummy and/or agenda-driven reporters (aka ‘journalists’), we have very little idea of what’s really happening, and how we should respond.  Your governments in peace and war.  [more update]  Just received this little tidbit from a reader to underline the above.  It now appears that all the bad juju about HCQ that was recently blasted out by the TDS crowd was a bit premature.  No less than the NYT had to publish a 'Hold on there' report citing unsettled science.

[31may20 update]  Here’s one for the ‘Say whaaat??!’ department.  James ‘Forked Tongue’ Clapper has just been appointed to the Executive Board of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) at the University of Pennsylvania.  This announcement bounced off my eyeballs as I opened the most recent copy of Aviation Week & Space Technology.  Don’t ask how they came to pick up that major faux pas on the part of CERL (see for yourself here).

Documentary on the origin of the CCP virus

George Rebane

A reader sent me an interesting piece in the Epoch Times, an independent non-partisan news outfit rapidly gaining a reputation for their no-nonsense reporting.  They have put some effort into assembling a detailed documentary video on the origin of C19, aka CCP virus, aka Covid-19, aka (longer and more detailed labels).  The information presented in this documentary (here) is definitely explosive if some other name news outfit or organization confirms their findings.  I was impressed that respected syndicated columnist and China expert Gordon Chang lends his name to this documentary.  Those who on a reasonable basis reject the evidence presented in this somewhat exhaustive journalistic enterprise, then have a lot of counter evidence to present.  American Thinker picks up on this story here.

Hunker Down Diary – 11apr20 (updated 12apr20)

George Rebane

Today is HD35 for the Rebanes.  And all things considered on our ridge top overlooking Deer Creek Canyon and the Central Valley, we are doing well.  We’ve gone out twice now for groceries and haven’t even come close to hitting our ‘large scale emergency’ stash.  We continue to meet online with our respective organizations, and there has been plenty of time for books and projects.  Most of you have caught a whiff of my squiggly pushing projects, specifically in epidemic spread modeling and testing.  Playing different scenarios through these models has been both revealing and educational (I’ll share some of these in the by and by.)  

I am a dyed-in-the-wool numbers guy and confirm daily that people who don’t know the numbers on any given issue, don’t know what they’re talking about.  And knowing the numbers is just the start on the road to understanding anything in the public arena – then you run into things like different utilities to support decisions, and various collections of knowledge shared by decision makers.  What is most frustrating to me is how little our government bureaucrats know what is going on, and what it takes to gather such knowledge.

The medical industry has never impressed me, quite the opposite.  They are primarily good-hearted technicians and journeymen operating in the dark, trying to follow dated rules and regulations while suffering through the usual human frustrations and weaknesses.  As covered elsewhere, their mistakes cause around 200,000 deaths annually.  The only hope to make that industry more beneficial to society is to allow its practitioners to have more freedom to devise and apply better methods for healing, and allow entrepreneurs easier access to bring the fruits of their labors to bear on the sick and suffering.  Instead, we appear to be going exactly in the opposite direction both by bumbling and on misguided purpose – half of us want to supersize regulatory control and apply central one-size-for-all planning.

Epidyne – At first blush

George Rebane

As promised, I finally finished the V1.0 version of Epidyne during this enforced C19 self-quarantine, or hunkering down period as it is better known.  The stay at home has allowed a lot of things to get accomplished on everyone’s ‘do list’.  At our house we have not had a boring moment – so many interesting projects, and now some uninterrupted time to do them.  For me, developing a working epidemic spread model has been a lot of fun and also very consuming.  I hope the interested readers will also be stimulated by and gain a better understanding of the terrible C19 pandemic now sweeping the world wreaking havoc on lives and livelihoods.

Motivation.  In light of the daily reported dilemmas of widely divergent epidemic spread models that are being consulted by our national C19 response planners, and also the background reports of their various vintages and provenances that make them all more or less difficult to use, let alone upgrade or even maintain, I decided to develop my own version so that I could play out various recorded data and policy alternatives, and inform RR readers of results I considered insightful, informative, or at least interesting.

Objective.  My objective was to develop a model that was sufficiently complex to simulate and predict realworld experiences and outcomes, but no more than that.  The model had to have an adequately rich input space (think of them as control knobs) that could be set to represent both policy alternatives (such as time/size dependent quarantines, and regional populations), and also incorporate field measured data (such as infection rates dependent on virulence and vectors, contagion durations, and onset time lags).  Most certainly the model had to be able to handle the critical infection rate dynamics driven by the process known as ‘herd immunity’.

RR readers got an early peek at Epidyne, my home-brew epidemiological spread model, in the last ‘Hunker Down Diary’ post (here).  Since then I’ve finished testing it and fixed the inevitable collection of bugs.  In this post I will do a first cut intro to describe the model and demonstrate its workings through a few scenarios.  Epidyne has been programmed in both an Excel™ spreadsheet and the system development language Matlab™.  A portion of the spreadsheet model is shown below.

Epidyne models the time history of the sizes and change rates (time derivatives) of four inter-related population cohorts that comprise a regional population into which an infectious disease is introduced that has the potential of becoming an epidemic.  These cohorts are comprised of pU - those uninfected yet vulnerable; pI - those currently infected; pR - those who have recovered and are no longer infectious; and pD - the deceased.  pU may also be mediated by timed quarantines which can reduce the size of pU or increase it when the quarantines end or are (partially) ignored before the epidemic runs its course.

As shown above, the population flows from vulnerable uninfected cohort to the infected cohort, which then feeds the non-decreasing recovered and the deceased cohorts.  The asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infected continue to reduce the uninfected population at a variable ‘reproduction’ rate rI (cf. herd immunity).  The course of the disease in an infected individual is completed within nI weeks after which the individual has either recovered or died.  The mortality rate of the infected is given by rD.

The above is from the technical note that describes Epidyne and illustrates its use.  It may be downloaded here.  Download TN2004-1_Epidyne

Scattershots – 20mar20 (22mar20)

George Rebane

'Most of us will get the Wuhan virus, a small fraction of us will die.  But we will continue business and commerce as usual with all the prudence we can each muster, because the death and destitution a depression will bring will be much worse for all of us.'  A hoped for statement from President Trump.

The lamestream is very quiet about the Covid19 goings on in Europe.  They are focusing all their reporting on Italy which really screwed the pooch on its handling of the virus, and is now the media’s unavoidable posterchild for all the comparisons with the US.  Even there they like to dun our feds (i.e. Trump) on stats like hospital beds per person, and testing (of uncertain effectiveness and reliability).  However, their unconnected dots involve national preparedness and the response effectiveness of nationalized healthcare – those don’t look so good, so nothing is said about that.  Moreover, similar problems are encountered in the rest of the EU countries starting with France, Germany, Spain, …, about which there seems to be a total blackout.  And for good reason.  Keeping Americans up to date on doings all over the continent would really put a big dent in our socialists’ long- and carefully-concocted narrative about the shortcomings of America under Team Trump.  More comprehensive reporting would reveal that President Trump has really done all the right things with what he inherited, and the Europeans are now playing catch-up, starting with the “racist” sealing of their borders.   But according to the Dems and their media lackeys, we are to pay no attention to what’s going on behind that curtain. (Here is a website that a young man up in Washington (more here) set up to fill in this shortfall of information.)

Trump and his team look and say like they’re trying to make this a ‘V-shaped’ recession.  (See also ‘Your money or …’)  If they succeed, they will come out smelling like a rose in November.  The other side of our political spectrum, the socialists, will be doing everything they can to make the recession be shaped like a ‘lazy L’, steep down and slow up (you know, like we had with Obama).  That will make the case for blaming the whole thing on the Trump administration so much easier.  They care not for lost jobs or businesses, the more misery the better.  Why?  It helps support their anti-capitalist narrative, and gives them a basis for policies to enlarge government, shrink the private sector, and gain firmer control of the lives and fortunes of those pesky liberty-loving Americans.  There will definitely be a mounting tension between the central planners and the free market capitalists as this pandemic matures.

[21mar20 update]  Urban lightweight versions of the heavier Bradley Fighting Vehicles on Manhattan streets (here).  These are actually armored personnel carriers, the modern version of the classic Mk113 APC that yours truly spent some uncomfortable hours in.  The government is making a very strong statement that it will not tolerate armed civil unrest during this crisis.  This show of force had only one message as these armored and armed urban fighting vehicles were moved to pre-arranged ready areas that are being set up in local sports stadiums and school football fields.  The inquisitive readers wants to know why this is not covered on the mainstream media, why only Twitter feeds.  Thoughts?

The thin veil of civilization starting to rip.  This Twitter video of looting at Walmart (here) is probably a harbinger of things to come.  No one will starve to death quietly when there’s food to be had in locations unguarded or easily overcome – write that down somewhere if it’s news to you.  Advent of desperate times, therefore, even if you’re ready unlimber your shootin’ arn, it’s better to get on with Alernative #2 sooner than later (here).

[22mar20 update] Sen Richard Burr (R-NC) should resign and be prosecuted for his 13feb20 cashing out of stocks, in violation of the Congressional Stock Act, after a closed-door (not confidential) meeting of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, the results and reports of which immediately appeared on Twitter – i.e. the information received was public and not privileged, hence no violation of the Stock Act as also interpreted by other senators who sold stock.  Nevertheless, that is the position taken on Sen Burr by the media and many congressional colleagues.  Before running with the herd, I’d like to note from what we’ve been told that 1) no presented testimony foretold stock markets’ behavior, 2) the attendees and the online public had to connect the dots by themselves, 3) there is no law or ethical imperative requiring a legislator to broadcast his personal assessments (especially dire ones that can panic the public) or private transactions from the broadly available information he receives during the course of his congressional duties.  Burr is not a financial expert, but no doubt talked with his financial adviser about the spreading coronavirus.  Given the detailed timeline of who knew/said what and when, Burr’s post-committee statements echoed that of the administration which, in the throes of impeachment proceedings, ballyhooed published data on the economy.  So again, what is the case against Sen Burr?

'We will fight, the virus' is a timely, well-performed, and entertaining remake of the classic 'Sound of Silence' by Simon and Garfunkel.  Enjoy.

“Testing, testing, testing” – Really? (updated 23mar20)

George Rebane

Those words from Speaker Pelosi summarized her three most important aspects of the pandemic legislation now going through Congress.  But once more I believe that the lady misses the point here.  Testing will do demonstrably little to stop or even slow down the inevitable and incipient explosion of Covid19 infections in the land.  The emphasis of governments at all levels now should be to facilitate manufacture and distribution of life’s necessaries and healthcare equipment/supplies to treat the daily growing cohort of the infected requiring medical treatment.

A couple of useful definitions for discussing the pandemic – ‘asymptomatic’ means “showing no evidence of disease”, and ‘pre-symptomatic’ means having been infected but not yet showing symptoms.

The pandemic will stop only after 1) all have been infected (meaning it never stopped), or 2) it dies out since no more infections and the lucky infected have survived and are no longer infectious.  The best and fastest way to achieve the latter without inevitably overstressing our healthcare system is to self-quarantine and STAY AT HOME.  The head fed expert on infectious diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci, reinforced this prescription again today when he advised everyone to maximize the time they can “stay at home” (here).

A lot of bullcrap about how the virus is transmitted still pollutes the media channels.  Dr Michael Osterholm, director of University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, gives some extremely important and cogent advice about Covid19 transmission (here) the main takeaways from which are –

1. The virus survives for several days on surfaces, depending on the material and its environment.
2. The virus is readily transmitted via the aerosols (exhalations, sneezes, coughs, …) from infected people. And the scariest part is that in the air the virus can survive for a matter of hours.
3. Pre-symptomatic people can infect others. Just because you are asymptomatic does not guarantee that you are not pre-symptomatic.
4. Available masks do little to nothing to stop your breathing the viral aerosol.
5. No anti-Covid19 vaccine will be available in time to stop the coming national spike in infections.
6. The only way to stop the spread is maximum social distancing, i.e. self-quarantine yourself, stay at home.
7. Our medical infrastructure is woefully inadequate to cope with what is coming; the spike in infections will overwhelm it. We will wind up triaging like the Italians and others are doing now.

So getting back to testing, and how that affects each of us.  I’ve prepared a little flowchart that most people (most certainly the astute RR readers) can understand.  It shows clearly how your being tested for the virus is essentially immaterial as to what you should really do in any event.

In the meantime, our Democrats and lamestream media along with international news outlets like the leftwing Economist, continue to lambast President Trump.  They blame everything from starting the pandemic, through not having the country’s healthcare system prepared and waiting (no nation has achieved this even now), to securing America’s borders as evidence of his “mismanaging” this national emergency.  In the mean time all the EU countries are sealing their own borders and many have already shut down all walk-in businesses and imposed national quarantines.  Any idiot should know that one obvious way the infections will continue to increase is through infectious people uncontrollably crossing borders.  But apparently not.

And finally, I want to make the point that this pandemic may turn into a large-scale emergency for all of us (recall that’s an emergency when 911 calls are not answered).  But however it ends, we will have a national dialogue that will result in new policies calling for major changes in our preparedness for such future catastrophes which will surely pay us another visit.  A discussion of what these may be, I will reserve for a future commentary and comment stream.

[16mar20 update]  It’s worth continuing to pay attention to the Dems’ Big Lie programs.  Most noteworthy now is the continuing lie that we would have done a better job fighting the coronavirus had we already implemented a nationalized healthcare system like Bernie’s ‘Medicare for All’.  If anyone cares to look at how the countries with nationalized healthcare are doing in this pandemic, they would quickly be disabused of any such thing.

The other part of last night’s comedy debate was Bumblebrain’s ongoing claims that somehow he was in the crucial heart of policy making and implementation in the Obama administration.  Listening to him talk, ol’ Bumble was right in the middle of all that was happening.  If anyone cares to check the record, they quickly discover that the man was one watering short of a potted plant during the entire eight years.  VP Biden was trotted out to stand behind Obama during photo ops, dignitary dinners, and other ceremonial occasions, mostly to allay rumors of his early demise.  Oh yes, he was allowed to attend certain meetings as long as he kept his mouth shut.  So you know Bernie has to bite his tongue when, like last night, Bumblebrain claimed to be the “steady hand” that quashed the ebola epidemic and kept it from our shores.

Now, as with Trump’s bravado, I would not count as ‘lies’ these outlandish claims of accomplishment.  But it would be refreshing to hear a progressive see such a common thread that knits together all politicians.

And also, do you note that like socialists, they don’t want to call attention to China’s autocratic mismanagement of when the Wuhan virus epidemic started?  No mention is made of its genesis in China or Wuhan because such attributions would be “racist”.  The lamestream, of course, fell into line immediately.  For them and theirs, President Trump is a much more believable cause of all that’s bad about the Covid19 pandemic.

[17mar20 update]  Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital sent out a notice to their foundation members (of which Jo Ann and I are) regarding their new drive-through testing program.  They also direct you to the county's coronavirus information website is here.

 Drive-through Covid-19 testing now at SNMH

Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital will begin drive-through Covid-19 testing from 3:00-6:00 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday (3/17 & 3/18).

If you are symptomatic and meet criteria for testing, Nevada County residents should call their primary care doctor. If the doctor agrees that an individual needs to be tested, the doctor can fax an order to the hospital.

Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital will call the patient to set up an appointment drive-through time. Please do not attempt to go to the testing drive-through without a previously set-up appointment. 

[18mar20 update]  New epidemic model revealed.  It turns out that the epidemic spread model that’s currently most trusted and used by policy makers in various countries is from the epidemic modeling group at Imperial College. (here, here, and here)  Note the (lack of) emphasis put on testing as a policy tool to affect infection and mortality rates.

Common malaria drug prevents and fights Covid19.  That is claimed in a report announced on Anthony Watts website (here) that was authored in league with Stanford University School of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, among others, and published in several respected journals.  This, of course, would be the best news yet to salve the pandemic until a vaccine arrives.  In the meantime, Dr Rebane advises that you reconsider a gin and tonic as your afternoon preventative; after all, it is made with tonic water.  (H/T to reader)  The summary of the report follows –

Recent guidelines from South Korea and China report that chloroquine is an effective antiviral therapeutic treatment against Coronavirus Disease 2019.  Use of chloroquine (tablets) is showing favorable outcomes in humans infected with Coronavirus including faster time to recovery and shorter hospital stay.  US CDC research shows that chloroquine also has strong potential as a prophylactic (preventative) measure against coronavirus in the lab, while we wait for a vaccine to be developed.  Chloroquine is an inexpensive, globally available drug that has been in widespread human use since 1945 against malaria, autoimmune and various other conditions. 

[23mar20 update]  The reliability of Covid19 tests now reported should give most of us pause.  We are told that existing tests catch about 60% of people infected with the virus, and they test positive from 3% to 50% of those who are not infected.  So what’s the utility of giving a test to an asymptomatic walk-in American?  Well, the good Rev Bayes can help us out (more here).

[Trigger warning: some mild-mannered math ahead.]

The Long Road Back - Loss/Recovery

George Rebane

Given all the problems caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic, we now contemplate your investment portfolio in light of the markets' plunge over the last two weeks - in short, we'll now expand our horizons from the morbid to the macabre.

Bernie’s Big Lie – Socialist Sweden

George Rebane

Sen Bernie Sanders’ lies are too many to count, but one that he keeps repeating successfully to the nation’s light thinkers involves the myth of Scandinavian socialism.  This is the kind of socialism that Bernie wants to incorporate in the United States, and he continues to use Sweden as the posterchild of how socialism can be made to work successfully.  Either he is butt stupid or evil as he spreads the lies about Swedish socialism.  Let’s be kind and put Bernie with the butt stupid crowd, that includes the Dem candidates clown car and Team AOC, as they were characterized by Will Rogers’ “It ain’t what you know that worries me, it’s what you know that ain’t so.’

Sweden was a model and wealthy capitalist democracy before 1960, having gone through two world wars as a neutral selling their wares to the highest bidders.  Along with the other Nordics, Sweden then tried socialism to redistribute its remarkable wealth and earn votes for its leftwing politicians, and that failed miserably over the next two decades.  As a result, each pulled back toward marked capitalism after enjoying the tender mercies of socialism.  Sweden led the way after having doubled public spending from 31% to 60% in the 1960-80 interval.  And then the real problems started piling on which ended with unemployment surging and budget deficits of 11% of GDP in the late 80s (that’s like almost $3T annually in the US).  The country literally went broke as the wealthy, the producers and entrepreneurs jumped ship.  The pullback to sanity started in 1991 and has been going on ever since.  And that has been the best kept secret of our progressives and their lamestream lackeys (witness its effect on our local liberal commenters).

Swedish historian and author, Johan Norberg (also senior fellow at the Cato Institute) lays out the history of this wise retrenchment to sanity in his ‘Sweden’s Lessons for America’.  Norberg reports that -

Sooner or later, American socialists always return to Sweden and other Nordic countries. There’s a good reason for that. For some reason, the countries that socialists originally tout always end up with bread lines and labor camps. But there’s always Sweden: decent, well‐​functioning, nonthreatening, and with impeccable democratic credentials. … There is just one problem: Sweden is not socialist. … If Sanders and Ocasio‐​Cortez really want to turn America into Sweden, what would that look like? For the United States, it would mean, for example, more free trade and a more deregulated product market, no Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the abolition of occupational licensing and minimum wage laws. The United States would also have to abolish taxes on property, gifts, and inheritance. And even after the recent tax cut, America would still have to slightly reduce its corporate tax. Americans would need to reform Social Security from defined benefits to defined contributions and introduce private accounts. They would also need to adopt a comprehensive school voucher system where private schools get the same per‐​pupil funding as public ones.

Scattershots – 12feb20 (updated 14feb20)

George Rebane

New Dem candidates contest.  I’m considering starting a new contest after the 3mar20 Super-Tuesday to predict/pick the Democratic Party presidential nominee.  The line-up would consist of the 3mar20 surviving candidates and ‘Other’.  Each Friday the contestants, who can enter at any time until 10 July (the last Friday before the Dem convention scheduled for 13-16 July), divide up 100 quatloos among the line-up and post them as comments under the appropriate contest status posting.  I will then update and post a tally of the total bet by each contestant for each candidate, and a tally of the candidates’ totals to date.  The winner will be declared on 16 July 2020, and determined by a pari-mutuel algorithm wherein the correct picking contestants divide up the total quatloos bet on a pro-rata basis on how much each bet on the Democratic nominee for president.  The prescient contestant garnering the most quatloos wins.  In the interval we will see how the candidates and the contestants fare as the convention draws nigh. Thoughts?

National Conservatism held its second conference in Rome on 4 February 2020. (more here)  According to its leading lights, such as co-founder Christopher DeMuth, “National Conservatism is a movement of public figures, journalists, scholars, and students who understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation, to the principle of national independence, and to the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing.”  Its antagonists are “hegemonic progressives” who “seek to quarantine religious observance, traditional culture, bourgeois social norms and the family itself.” (more here)  This conference launched a fearsome counter essay, ‘This Is How Reaganism and Thatcherism End’ by Anne Applebaum in the arch-Left chronicle The Atlantic which sees national conservatism as a project for ideological troglodytes who do not understand the current of history.  Her accusations are against named people and institutions who are allegedly ready to do wrongs, but have yet to do so – they are simply judged as being pre-guilty and treated accordingly by “enlightenment rational liberals”, humanity’s desiderata.  To such progressives, national conservatism is “the creation of a new, kleptocratic authoritarian right that chips away at the institutions preserving democracy.”  Sounds like there’s enough here to give the movement a more thorough look.

Michael Bloomberg is an ideological chameleon and a moral cretin.  His latest sin is his confession of ‘racism’ in how he wrongly reduced NYC’s crime rate with his ‘Stop, Question, and Frisk’ program which saved thousands of black and Hispanic lives during the tenure of that policy practiced on the streets by police.  Why racist?  Well, because 95+% of the violent criminals were minorities, and were therefore the successful targets of SQF.  That, along with black lives matter, makes no never mind.  It’s the optics and politics that matter in proper progressive policies.  And such ‘racism’ to the light-thinkers, those who perennially return Democrats to urban administrations, is unacceptable enough to warrant going back to former levels of mayhem and murder.  Realizing his political priorities, Bloomberg promised never to do that again.  Another successful blow for social justice. (more here and here)

[13feb20 update]  Snowflakes melting in the workplace.  As expected, the sheltered generation is starting to buckle their knees in the realworld after having been lavishly sheltered through childhood and school, learning that they were the entitled class destined for a government guaranteed, happy and fulfilling life in a land where merit is optional, and possibly discriminatory.  ‘Mental Health Requests Strain Employers’ (13feb WSJ) reports that “managers and younger employees are struggling to adapt as a generation of people with higher rates of reported mental illness enter the workforce.  Many of these new workers are coming to offices from colleges and high schools where they received accommodations, such as extra time to take tests or complete assignments—in some cases from elementary school onward. They are confronting a world of work that operates under different legal standards and less-flexible pressures and deadlines.  Symptoms related to mental illnesses covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act—such as severe anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder—can be ambiguous, unpredictable, highly individualized and often invisible. That makes accommodating these disabilities one of the more difficult areas for employers, according to employment attorneys and disability experts.”  And then there’s technology-driven systemic unemployment.  Oi geweh!

Message to our CIC - Mr President, listen to your AG Barr and do us all a favor - your tweets are accomplishing what the Dems could never do on their own.  So please, shut the fuck up!!!

[14feb20 update]  The blindered grassroots of the Left continue to demonstrate that they know not where their party is leading them and our country.  The distance from Sanders, AOC, Warren, … to communism is a stone’s throw, as all of them openly embrace and tout socialism.  Today Democratic Party nabobs and its national leadership all acknowledge and fear the party’s one leftward lurch too far – some already call some of their clown car candidates communists.  However, if these foothills are representative, then our local looney lefties have no clue about all this, and continue to firmly believe that identifying the Dems’ alarming road to communism is only a “red herring” floated by “rabid Trumpists” as part of their “the sky is falling” alarums as “fake news”.  Ample confirmation of such ignorance is available from our comment streams - e.g. in the 14feb20 Sandbox.  Perhaps these locals should inform Team Nancy that all is well with the clown car, so that she and hers will stop polluting the public airwaves with their daily warnings of imminent collapse in November.  Still makes you wonder from where these people get their news.

GDP and Earth’s Temperature (updated 9feb20)

George Rebane

Most well-read people look at Gross Domestic Product as the gold standard of our economy’s performance.  And all know that GDP growth will cure almost all the ills we still see in the economy.  But when we take a deeper look at how the GDP statistic is concocted, we discover that it’s really a rat’s nest of formulas and calculations and selective capture of dubiously reliable data, that then pops out a number which, more often than not, must be rejiggered in a couple of months to give a new and improved version of itself.

On Western Civilization

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 22 January 2020.]

Across the globe western civilization is under an historic and relentless assault.  Today most countries – developed and developing – have adopted and practice many fortuitous aspects of western civilization with attributes and social norms developed in the west.  Nevertheless, the world’s leftwing institutions, in their work toward universal collectivization, see the stubborn survival of western culture, along with its mores and values, as the main impediment to achieving one-world governance of a homogenized global population.

Today the unifying objectives for this globalization effort are summarized in the United Nation’s Agenda 2030 (formerly known as Agenda 21).  This coherent effort is strongly denied, and identified as a fake news conspiracy by the progressive press.  You can make up your own mind on this by reading the UN’s globalization objectives, and comparing them to the public policies adopted and proposed by the Left’s political parties in the West.

When we examine the contributions of western civilization to humanity, we are overwhelmed by how the adoption of its tenets and practices dramatically increased standards of living, survival rates, and the quality of life across the globe.  It was western culture that was key to the ending of slavery worldwide, increasing literacy rates and access to education, emancipating women, and eradicating starvation along with many of our dreaded diseases. (more here)

Harvard historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Niall Ferguson, identifies key contributions of western civilization that include the notion of competition, the scientific revolution, property rights, modern science-based medicine, consumer societies, and the win-win rewards of the work ethic.  These are sometimes referred to as western civilization’s “killer apps”. (more here and here)

Ferguson points out that these apps “are all interrelated to developments that occurred concurrently in the West. Property rights and the work ethic of the West rise directly from Christianity. They stem from a respect for the person and their property, a rejection of corruption (theft via bribes to those in power), and respect for the laborer. Christianity isn't as pro-business as Judaism, but the Christian West thrived after it gained respect for business and allowed reasonable interest on debt. That led to consumer society, reinforced by the work ethic.

The scientific revolution wasn't possible before Christianity reformed to become less fundamentalist, though the belief that God was rational and study was morally acceptable, was only possible in the Christian world. In the Islamic world, to question Allah is to risk being murdered for blasphemy, (which explains) why science stalled in the Muslim world once the religion became a majority faith in any area. In Chinese society, the belief that everything is part of a complex, inseparable whole prevented development of math-based scientific laws. Only Christian society, that both permitted science beyond mere observation and belief you COULD develop such rules without risking your safety, explains why the West alone had a scientific revolution. And that led directly to modern medicine.”

The value and success of these so-called killer apps became apparent wherever their European and American practitioners showed how they worked.  As a result, over the last century they were quickly adopted by people of all cultures who understood them.  And as Ferguson points out, “The rapid rise of Singapore, Japan and South Korea after adopting these "killer apps" of prosperity show you don't have to be Christian or of a Christian derived culture to benefit from them.”  But today, Ferguson points out, Western predominance is waning since the world ‘downloaded’ and now uses these killer apps, “while the West has literally lost faith in itself.”

As a struggling Christian, I remain undeniably a child, student, and defender of Western Civilization.  Long time listeners to these commentaries know I am also a conservetarian, and view the world through the lenses of one who has survived both the catastrophic events of Stalin’s communism and Hitler’s Nazism. (more here) To me, these collectivist ideologies and their practice are not merely intellectual theories about how to organize society.  To millions of us they were existential, we experienced them in their unmediated raw form.  These experiences shaped me, and today in these commentaries, they shape my words in defense of the West.

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