It is the ultimate fantasy that we can live our lives, or at any rate live them in peace and contentment with each other, without ever having to share a common reality. – James Bowman
George Rebane
An example of fake news. Apple News is a very comprehensive news website for Mac, iPad, and iPhone users, one that allows you to customize with your interests, and then augments the format with your viewing history – in short, it snoops in your user sessions. Recently it included a piece from the National Geographic reporting on the military marine mammal programs of Russia and US (here). I was a bit astounded that almost everything they reported on the US program was either false or grossly misleading. Full disclosure – I and my company spent years supporting the US Navy’s marine mammal (and other animal) R&D programs as their analytical support team doing the heavy lifting in the math, data analysis, and systems design work.
The 6may19 Union’s op-ed has two pieces from our favorite leftwing columnists, Dr Milan Vodicka (search RR) and, of course, Mr George Boardman. Dr Vodicka delivered one of his trademark muddled sermons on the joys of socialism (not posted yet). There he attempted to augment Bertand Russell’s three factors motivating human behavior with a fractured taxonomy that makes absolutely no sense to the careful reader, and then went on to celebrate the free nationalized healthcare systems found in EU countries. In the latter, he drinks the kool-aid by the gallon, and evinces no understanding of the realities that obtain. Mr Boardman presents a good critique of the Republican California Senate candidates Assemblymen Dahle and Kiley, and then blows a tire describing the Democrat Audrey Denny attempting unseat Congressman LaMalfa (here). Without so much as a smidgen of qualification or sourcing, he tells the reader that the Green New Deal is “a sweeping national plan to zero-out emissions and provide clean energy and infrastructure jobs to millions.” Apparently, our columnist continues to have trouble distinguishing between objectives and plans, and reports the GND as actually being a plan. Regardless, objectives or plans, It has a snowball’s chance in hell of accomplishing anything touted.
[7may19 update] Spying v. Surveillance. I don’t know why this is so difficult for the media talking heads to resolve (those on FN, not the lamestream whose agenda is known). A nation’s law enforcement agency does surveillance (on an individual, group, organization) when the target of such intelligence gathering involves a domestic issue/parties that does NOT involve the presumed culpability of a foreign government. That same agency conducts a spying operation when it seeks to gather intelligence on a matter that does involve a foreign government. To infiltrate a domestic gang, you send in an 'undercover agent'; to surveil or infiltrate foreign government operations, you employ/send in 'spies'. That is the way we have successfully defined spying v. surveillance for generations. Since Obama’s FBI et al were convinced from the gitgo that Team Trump was in cahoots with Russia, their surreptitious intelligence gathering efforts were clearly spying.
[8may19 update] Upcoming tariffs increase on Chinese goods this Friday (10may19) is supposed to be in retaliation for the Chinese reneging on parts of the two countries’ established trade agreements and/or the progress made in the current negotiations. And there’s a big debate on whether President Trump is doing the right thing with this retaliation. The debate would be moot if the administration just published the details of China’s renege. I don’t know why the big secret in not putting it out for all to see and judge for themselves as to the relative magnitudes of the offense vs the response. Everyone involved in such negotiations around the world already knows what has gone down; the only ones ignorant who will be affected by it all are the people of China and America. I can understand the communists keeping their people in the dark (it’s their nature), but I can’t see why our government also keeps us in the dark.
AG Barr will be held in contempt of a Democrat House, and that is again denigrating the intelligence of their own constituents – why? Simply because they can. They know that in the aggregate, Democrat voters have little or no idea how our government works or what the laws are, and they overwhelmingly consume media outlets that cynically keep them in the dark. The rest of us know that AG Barr is under no legal imperative to release any of the Mueller report to anyone, or to even reveal its main contents/conclusions – why? Because the special prosecutor came up with nothing with which to prosecute anyone. (He diddled away the people’s money on a self-serving sideshow nailing individuals on process crimes, people who had nothing to do with his commissioned charter, and then wrote the best anti-Trump political blueprint that he could.) Now scumbag Nadler is going to up it a notch and hold Barr in contempt for not releasing information that is against the law for him to release – please reread this. And none of it has anything to do with Congress’ oversight function for legislative purposes. Moreover, the whole thing is a total bag of bullcrap that Democrats are dealing out to their know-nothings as part and parcel of the Big Lie – i.e. anything it will take to defeat Trump in 2020.
[9may19 update] Well boys and girls, your humble host has now visited a genuine, legal pot shop. A good friend (known to you all) with whom I often take lunch, took me on a tour of the Elevation 2477 cannabis dispensary in Nevada City. The experience was quite remarkable. We entered into an immaculate reception area at the end of which sat a uniformed security officer behind (bulletproof?) glass. The room contained a nice couch and an abstract painting presumably abstracting some visions customers may enjoy after imbibing of the establishment’s offerings. We were invited to the window to place our driver’s licenses against the glass to be scanned, and I being a newbie, was instructed to fill in a store “membership application”, studying the store’s rules, and then putting my John Hancock declaring that I understood everything. My friend was already a member, so my joining up allowed us both to be ushered into the inner sanctum housing the stash.
The store itself was immaculately laid out with neat glass-cased counters displaying all the desiderata in various forms and at various concentrations of THC and CBD. For the cognoscenti, this was no doubt a very inviting display as evinced by the palaver carried on between other customers and clerks, all of whom were very knowledgeable of both their products and the applicable legalese. After getting some answers to my questions, my friend made a very modest purchase of probably their most benign SKU, and we made our way to the exit. Then I noticed that the store’s walls each had a magnificent abstract painting cum mural on it, replicating their foyer and no doubt reinforcing visually the promises made by the cleverly named substances and concoctions. As we left the premises, it occurred to me that I am now marked for life.
rebanesruminations.com 
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