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Category: Our World

  • Trump and the Ugly Fat Kid

    George Rebane There’s more to be said about President Trump’s anticipated meeting with NK’s Ugly Fat Kid (aka Kim Jong Un), the murderous dictator who today runs the world’s largest forced labor camp in the world.  That Trump got the UFK off the dime and issue an invitation is laudable in itself, and has really…

  • Healthcare Apples, Oranges, and Fruitcakes

    George Rebane The perennial healthcare debate didn’t get any more clear with the latest release of US life expectancy data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the British Medical Journal.  Our life expectancy is 1.5 years lower than the average in OECD countries, and it decreased by another 0.1 year to 78.6…

  • On Immigration and ‘S#!thole Countries’ (updated 13jan18)

    George Rebane No matter what he actually said in that White House meeting on immigration policy, President Trump has again focused a policy discussion on a crux of the matter instead of continuing the same ol’ same ol’ circling of the barn.  I don’t want to debate whether he actually said “shithole country” as the…

  • America’s Checkpoints

    George Rebane [This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 3 January 2018.] Before we get into the more serious part of the commentary, I want to wish all KVMR listeners a healthy and prosperous 2018.  We all know it will be another extraordinary year no matter what your political outlook…

  • Journalism’s Mea Culpa?

    George Rebane Was interested to see the nearby full-page ad in the 3jan18 WSJ.  Given that ignorance, indifference, ideology, illiteracy, … are all qualities that often decorate and distinguish their ‘factual, fair, and balanced’ work products, RR has long viewed the journalism profession with a gimlet eye (here).  But now things have apparently gotten so…

  • Scattershots – 21dec17 (updated 23dec17)

    George Rebane Shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere) – winter solstice, a time for all kinds of alternative belief systems to hold ceremonies honoring their deities, ancestors, dark spirits, …, and, of course, Gaia.  Here in Nevada County (lat 39.13 degrees) the sun will climb to only 27.37 degrees above the southern…

  • ‘Communism’s Bloody Century’ (Addended)

    George Rebane The titled essay (here) by Princeton historian Dr Stephen Kotkin provides an important critical review of the system of governance under which many still live and many more actively promote.  Under autocratic governments socialism’s logical terminus has been communism, as the attempt to fix socialism’s indigenous failures is always through ratcheting up the…

  • The Singularity is Nearer

    George Rebane Have you noticed over the years when we have met in these pages to talk about the Singularity, that today finally everyone is talking about it in one fashion or another.  It’s as if suddenly everyone who reads is being introduced to the newest developments in AI and the possible futures it portends…

  • ‘Is Classical Liberalism Conservative?’

    George Rebane The so-titled recent essay (here) by Yoram Hazony, president of the Jerusalem-based Herzl Institute, poses this question and sheds considerable light on the answer.  To prematurely cut to the chase, Hazony argues that modern conservatives and classical liberals have recently drifted apart in many significant ways.  In the sequel I attempt to summarize…

  • Scattershots – 14oct17 (updated 16oct17)

    George Rebane President Trump will stop subsidizing insurance companies – i.e. stop the Treasury from making ‘cost sharing reductions’ (CSRs) that allow the health insurers to reduce premium and deductible costs required to slow down the capsizing of the ACA (aka Obamacare).  The CSRs were instituted by Obama’s executive order in 2011 as one of…

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