George Rebane
Today’s Union has an excellent editorial – ‘Our View: This community is all our backyard’ – in which it takes to task those of us who tend to oppose anything that will bring needed change to our county. The editorial goes through a number of recent and current development initiatives that have again run into strong headwinds from the usual contingents. Even though our electeds make a significant contribution to the sand in our gears, but “we can’t lay all the problems we face at the doorstep of our elected leaders. Our community could use a sea change about what shape it should take and what direction it should go.” And in these pages we have been promoting such a sea change for years as our population stagnates, families move elsewhere, and potential new businesses give us a pass once they get a good whiff of the county’s new political face. I give a big ‘Amen’ to that sea change, and a H/T to Bob Crabb for his contribution (filched from the 24mar18 Union) to the dialogue.
This weekend the nation’s progressively propelled pubertistas are marching in opposition to what they know not, but easily accept as ‘gun violence’. In a recent post we covered the launch of this nascent lamestream-lauded movement under ‘Progressives Pander Pubertistas’. What should continue to interest all of us is how the country’s adults view these marches comprised of ignorant and emotional young people, enthralled in the first flood of hormones evolved to mediate the journey from childhood to an adult. Easily assembled and directed, all of them sport brains that clinical science tells us are yet years from being fully formed for taking reliably rational decisions. To see who seeks to benefit from franchising these anxious and anxiety ridden works-in-progress, just take a look at the politicians, organizations, and media that promote them. Long ago our Founders built on the then already known progress of human development, and made it law of the land that no one could be elected into a federal policy making office before the age of twenty-five. And we also know how past childrens’ crusades have ended.
[25mar18 update] Meteorologists, you gotta love ‘em. The recent couple of weeks here in Northern California have again amply demonstrated their prowess at forecasting what they are paid to forecast – the weather. These guys make economists and stock pickers look good, and I have no idea how they steel themselves before accepting another paycheck for their work. As one who has some acquaintance with estimation theory, the work of the meteorologists is below sophomoric; most certainly, none of their computer models work. It is clear that any claim of having improved their sophistry over the years is not due to their increased understanding of the processes that drive the weather. Their performance, such as it is, can all be laid to having a better view (data and imagery from orbit and reporting surface stations) of what is ‘upstream’ of their prediction area. Then they look at past records of what such observations have actually delivered, and go from there. But even then they screw up, apparently never having heard of the good Rev Bayes as their ‘100% chance of rain’ pronouncements confirm.
[28mar18 update] WSJ’s leftwing columnist William Galston may have had an epiphany which, in all fairness, I must recognize. In the paper’s 28mar18 edition he writes a piece on ‘The Case for Responsible Nationalism’, and surprises us with –
National governments are not required to value the citizens of other countries as highly as their own. A degree of self-preference is morally justified and politically essential. Leaders in advanced countries are not obligated to practice global utilitarianism or lift up the global poor at the expense of their working and middle classes. … There will probably never be a real world government. There are no “global citizens.” People belong to sovereign states with different languages, cultures and institutions. Free societies are composed of citizens who agree to share a common fate and to work out their destiny through accountable politics. They undertake special responsibilities toward their fellow citizens, and the policies of free governments must take these reciprocal commitments into account.
rebanesruminations.com 
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