George Rebane

- If your day seems shorter and step lighter …
- Ackerman roasted for editorial
- Local blogger reaches for new highs
- Rio Tinto manages luddites in Australia

The Chilean earthquake affected all earthlings, but most just a mite.  A NASA scientist has calculated that the earthquake shifted enough mass in the earth’s mantle to tilt its axis and shorten our day by a 1.26 microseconds (here).  This is not enough so that you’d notice, but if you’re watching your weight, your bathroom scale will give you the good news – but it will be hard to see.  But all kidding aside, as a public service I have calculated that as of today Nevada County residents will weigh about 0.00000000146% (or 1.46 nano-percent) less than they did before the quake.  This little improvement will not require anyone to update their driver’s license, unless the government, as part of their new jobs program, wants to create even more jobs at the local DMVs.  But then again, any port in a storm.

Editor/publisher Jeff Ackerman wrote a good editorial in today’s Union (here) highlighting the parallels of California’s financial quandaries with that of Greece today.  As you may know, Greece is heading for the mud financially, and the rest of the euro-zone countries don’t know what to do.  Most of them are not in a position to do anything, but a few like Germany and France might be if they wanted.  Greece isn’t teetering on bankruptcy by accident, it did it to itself over the last couple of decades just like California.  The two have flown in pretty tight formation and are now in the same position of fiscal decrepitude.  The only difference is that California has the ability to petition the printing presses in Washington; well, that’s another story that I covered previously and you can check out more here from the WSJ.

All that aside, please take a look at the comments that Jeff’s article drew taking him to task in a most unkind manner.  It is the local view into the alternative universe that we all live next to cheek by jowl.

Speaking of the Union, its former editor has been on a long and persistent campaign to improve community voices by identifying and attempting to rehabilitate those that do not measure up.  I am a charter member of that benighted group.  Today I was informed by a correspondent that the former editor has dredged up and posted a picture of my wife and me taken a few months after we were married.  I believe our daughter posted it on one of our facebook pages.  We look rather homely – think American Gothic – and are wearing brand new matching jerkins (vests) which Jo Ann’s mom made for our Christmas presents.  The words concerning me that accompany the photo are the most civilized and hopeful that I have seen spill from his pen; and yet, and yet … I can’t seem to put my finger on it.

Rio Tinto, the big international mining company, is carefully skirting the union luddites in Australia as it operates its robotic core sampling drill rigs.  These rigs are totally automatic, operated from a control center in Perth, and traverse the countryside punching thousands of shallow holes into the west Australian outback.  The WSJ reports that –

Rio Tinto must walk a fine line with its unions in Australia. Too much use of automation, at the expense of jobs, is sure to raise the ire of the local unionized work force. The issue, though, hasn't yet become a sticking point because the iron ore mines in the Pilbara are running at 100% capacity and job creation isn't yet threatened.

This pre-Singularity phenomenon is being repeated across much of the developed world.  The Australian mining industry is participating in the global commodities boom and so work for humans is plentiful.  But the situation can change quickly when the economics change.  Labor terrorists, the proactive and original type of luddites, have struck in the past when machines have taken jobs from humans.  Retraining of competing workers is the main hope, but the question who pays for their retraining into what new job remains.  Many people today have been taught to believe that the employee becomes the ward of the employer, and that the employer should therefore be punished for displacing the workers.  The problems with this ‘solution’ are not understood by many people who vote.