George Rebane

• Nevada City’s latest is buried quietly
• San Francisco’s tiger episode
• Hillary’s economic stimulation

Well, I guess that all is now well in Nevada City.  Years of malfeasance not collecting almost half a million dollars for rendered city services is now behind us.  When this all came to light, city clerk Cathy Wilcox-Barnes was fingered as the one responsible.  What a mistake!  After careful backroom deliberations and negotiations, the city has reached the happy conclusion that, in fact, no one is responsible.  Furthermore, as part of her departure package, the city’s insurance company will be dunned about a quarter million dollars to heal the damage from that outrageous allegation.  It turns out, in that kindergarten that serves double duty as city hall, there are no processes or procedures to be found that identify who really was in charge of such major city financial functions.  So now is the time to put it all behind us and go on with the other city business such as paying insurance premiums on vehicles the city no longer owns, and divers arcane duties of governance.  Kudos to our editor Jeff Pelline of The Union for his editorial today that memorializes this and the screed below; a further tip of the hat to local cartoonist Bob Crabb for giving us a graphical take-away of the same episode.  We may all rest easy because the whole affair is now safely under the rug.

In following the San Francisco zoo’s escaped tiger episode, I am again amazed at what new limits are possible in a country overfilled with lawyers on the prowl.  The three youths involved apparently were culpable in taunting the tiger to set a record in leaping man-made barriers.  This turned out to be one taunt too far for which one of the youths paid with his life.  Enter lawyers from stage left to argue that the zoo and city are the real culprits.  Given the growing record of such legal shenanigans, what levels of stupidity and malice must we now defend ourselves against?  In considering an answer to this, we must also factor in that we are liable to make whole the cretins hurting themselves as they assault civilization.

Finally, we consider the politics of economic stimulation cum vote buying – ‘vote for me ye members of the downtrodden classes and I will give you each $500’. Being true Keynesians, the left’s version of stimulating the economy is always to shove some quick cash into the shorts of their constituents.  Do we conclude from this that their supporters don’t have the ability to appreciate the long-term albeit delayed benefits created by tax reductions and tax credits?  Of course, a large fraction of the Democrats’ constituents don’t pay any income tax and would not be helped by tax credits, so Senator Clinton’s approach makes all the sense in the world.  Besides, it’s easy to pander their voters by attacking tax reductions – ‘Here they go again, the Republicans helping the wealthy and the corporations’ – conveniently forgetting that it’s the taxpayers that make possible the good senator’s generosity.