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  • Panorama of Progressive Potholes (updated 5may17)

    George Rebane

    We’re on a little RV trip to the NorCal coast with friends.  This gives us a chance to sample the extent of care that California’s infrastructure has enjoyed under decades of leftwing leadership in Sacramento.  Our roads are an absolute mess, the posterchild of which is the Pacific Coast Highway or State Highway 1.  This is the state’s premier icon roadway that has been a tourist draw for decades, providing endless picture postcard views of the rugged coast punctuated by scenic beaches.  The highway now is approaching ‘tank trail’ status familiar to combat arms veterans from their training days at army and marine bases with impact areas.  When you decide take Hwy 1 today, make sure your tires and shocks are in good condition.

    Sacramento’s most recent bamboozle response to this was SB1, the gas tax and registration fee increases signed by Gov Moonbeam, now as mindless as his progressive pals in the state’s legislature.  Past increases in such taxes and fees have landed overwhelmingly in the general fund where they are used primarily to pay for underperforming state agencies and hold back the realization that the gap between payments to government retirees and the ability to continue these, as reflected in the plans’ unfunded liabilities, is rampantly growing.

    Nevertheless, the state’s solidly liberal majority is ignorant of and blind to the fiscal fiasco in which California is now helplessly thrashing.  The people who do headcounts tell us that the exodus of productive middle-class Californians is also on the upswing from the dull roar which we have experienced since it was clear that the state’s recovery stats were mostly cynical propaganda.  The proximal cause is Agenda21 driven housing costs which have vaulted out of reach the ability of workers to own homes.  And there is no sign that the draconian anti-development regulations will ever be rolled back to let the market determine what kind of houses will be built where.  Stack and Pack in unaffordable urban areas remains the only game in the state.

    In the meantime, the functional idiots in Sacramento are again talking about making fossil fuel use illegal for energy generation and transportation.  After all, when it comes to diving for the bottom, California must maintain its hard-earned leadership position.  The profusion of ‘potholes’ populate more than the state’s highways and byways.

    [5may17 update]  Enough Californians are not convinced about SB1 really going to fund infrastructure repairs that they are supporting an initiative filed by assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Orange County) to repeal the latest bamboozle.  The Left, along with its usual suspects, continues to tell people that this time the money will actually go toward road repairs etc.  The initiative will require a supportive petition signed by at least 365,880 voters; but the bad part is that we will not get to vote on it until November 2018.  Do your part and send in $5 to support the petition drive.  (more here and here)

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  • Delegitimizing Trump

    [This commentary was submitted by Norm Sauer who is on the editorial board of The Union and often contributes his views to these pages.  The same piece appeared in the 26apr17 edition of the newspaper's op-ed section.  It appears below as received.  gjr]

    Norm Sauer

    In my column last month (http://www.theunion.com/opinion/norm-sauer-the-progressive-swamp-of-washington-d-c/), I predicted the surveillance of Trump and his team by the  Obama administration may be a story bigger than Watergate.

    To date an enormous amount of media attention and investigations about direct Russian collusion with Trump have found no evidence.  However, little attention has been given to improper unmasking of surveillance and leaking, and yet this has far more credibility based on contradictory statements by Susan Rice, the reported data on unmasking, and Obama’s expansion of access to intercepts. 

    On March 22, House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced that he had learned that members of President Donald Trump’s transition team had been under surveillance by the Obama administration, that individual names had been “unmasked” by the intelligence community, and that those names had been leaked to the media.  Nunes said that while there was no direct “wiretap” by President Barack Obama of Trump Tower, there was indeed surveillance — perhaps collected incidentally — of people close to Trump, possibly including Trump himself. 

    (more…)

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  • TT2017 Survivors’ Breakfast

    George Rebane

    This morning we held the annual Survivors’ Breakfast for TechTest2017 at our usual venue, Tofanelli’s in Grass Valley.  The event was scheduled earlier than usual (0730) due to some school needs; after all this is a school day and we wanted to hold the lollygagging to a minimum.  This was the eleventh breakfast that feted the test takers who numbered 20 this year with 14 of those able to attend along with divers parents, sponsors, friends, and SESF directors.

    Executive Director Russ Steele started off the hearty breakfast with some opening remarks, which were expanded upon by board member and former 7-Hills math teacher Robert Sharpe and yours truly.  Everyone had a chance to tell the gathering about their college plans and career hopes.  It was truly inspiring to hear about the futures to which these accomplished students were bound.  It’s good for the soul to be uplifted by such young people after being bombarded by America’s, and especially California’s, stats on STEM educational performance.

    I am fortunate to have been able to work with many of these students during the preparatory TT seminars over the last years since juniors and some qualified lower-class students may take the test for practice before going for the money in their senior year.  TT is a four-hour, college level, merit scholarship examination – only your resulting test score counts in ranking the winners.  (All past TT solution sets are available on sesfoundation.org.)  The test is administered and graded by the Nevada Joint Union High School District – Ms Barbara Ross, academic committee chair – and draws scholars from all the county’s high schools as recommended by their science/math teachers.  SESF writes the test and, with participating sponsors, underwrites the scholarship awards.

    TT2017collage2RR

    Besides the coveted Survivors’ t-shirt, the top three scoring seniors receive scholarships of $6K, $4K, and $2K.  Additionally, $300 honoraria are awarded to the next several highest test scores.  Pictured in the above collage we have this year’s Survivor attendees and the three top money winners – l2r Harrison Constantino, Keegan Zetterberg, Jack Devlin – whose scores were within three points of each other.  (Thanks to Ellen Steele for the photos.)  The ranking of the top three will be announced during the county’s annual awards ceremony later this spring at which time all TT awardees will receive their checks.

    The third picture with the four students (and the old guy in the back) includes Ryan Brott, this year a junior, who turned in TT2017’s very impressive top score.   Ryan is an academic all-star, respected and acknowledged by his peers, who excels in several different fields, and who definitely needs a dedicated post to do justice to all his accomplishments.

    And now we start preparing for TT2018.

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  • Scattershots – 25apr17 (updated)

    George Rebane

    College grads of 2017.  The good news is that enough workers have retired, been laid off, or just left the work force that is this “another healthy year for college hiring” report in the 25apr17 WSJ.  The bad news is that “this year’s job-seeking seniors are ill-prepared for the job hunt and many coveted positions”.  The chart below tells the story.  It’s clear that employers overwhelmingly want people who have some skills that can translate into delivering marketable products/services.  And it’s also clear that too few students want to major in fields that are needed in the wealth creating enterprises when schools denigrate capitalistic pursuits and hold out government and feel-good NGOs as the professional destinations of choice for correctly thinking people.  Note also that the percent of seniors in that pretty broad spectrum of creditable major fields totals only 58.3%.  The question that begs an answer is, ‘What in hell did it say on the degrees of the other 41.7% of graduating seniors?’

    WSJ170425

    Revolving doors of rural counties in California.  One of our prominent local liberals wrote a lament in the 25apr17 Union describing the dreadful job situation in Nevada County.  Not that there are no jobs to be had, but that there are no jobs to be had for people with deficient skill sets (see above scattershot).  These folks are drawn here by our progressive community in the scenic forest covered foothills where from a distance it appears that the livin’ is easy.  In her column she seems to think that all that is required for jobs to spring up in a community is the expressed need for such jobs by new arrivals.  There is no hint of understanding in her piece that employers, first and foremost, are in the business of satisfying their customers’ needs, and that labor is a cost to be minimized.  Add to that our notorious reputation as a business friendly county, and the revolving door for such newcomers explains itself.  The blind are those who invite their like-minded friends to come up here with little understanding of the economic straits we have been attempting to navigate as young families move away and the county’s population decreases.  And the future doesn’t look that much better with rumors that our lamenting and lamentable lady seeks to run for office so that she and hers can complete the job of importing the wisdom of our Statehouse to the Rood Center.

    [update]  “Border security” is the new term of art bandied about to step back from Trump’s promise to build a “wall” across our southern border.  As mentioned here before, only naïfs and the cynical interpret that as being an ocean-to-gulf 30ft high wall.  The real term of art should be ‘border porosity’ as the parameter of national sovereignty that we desire to control and set limits on – the correct answer for an acceptable porosity is a maximum of 15,000 illegals per year coming into the country from all sides and sources.  Nobody knows what a bullshit term like ‘border security’ means, but define it as ‘porosity’ and give it an upper limit, then we can have a debate about what it should be and how much it should cost.  When we parametize porosity, we can bring in the cadres of barrier technology experts and people knowledgeable about how legal entrants become illegals to shed light on the problem, so that we don’t wind up with another 11,000,000 in-country illegals seeking a free lunch and/or to bring in the rest of their families.  You have to understand, these illegals are either stupid or cynical when they get here, oppose controlled entry, and then scream bloody murder in the public forum, accusing the rest of us of being “anti-immigrant” in a land that has always welcomed the legal immigrants who have done more than their share of making America great.  We will not solve the illegal alien problem until we acknowledge that immigration is a two-party contract (in the same way we will not solve our butt-stupid ‘war against terror’ until we acknowledge that we are instead in a global civilizational conflict against the Islam that seeks to dominate the world.)

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  • Lemmings march for science? (updated 22apr17)

    George Rebane

    We are told that tomorrow 22 April 2017 is again Earth Day, and are advised to celebrate with all manner of activities and observances designed for people of all ages – just google ‘earth day’ and prepare to be overwhelmed.  One of the more visible activities promoted by the Left is the ‘March for Science’ held in Washington DC and presumably other locales.  The purported purpose of the march is for people to “join the effort to defend the vital public service role science plays in our communities and our world.”  Here the progressives’ propagandized presumption is that such a ‘defense’ is needed because the Right, now on Trumpist steroids (trumpoids?), is hell bent on removing, or at least ignoring, science in coming up with new public policies.  And what better way to deliver the message to POTUS, COTUS, and now SCOTUS than with massive mobs in synchrony shouting slogans on the National Mall.

    SocraticGatheringDespite proclaiming that “science isn’t Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative”, the consensus science promoted by the event sponsors is definitely of the hue that was endorsed by everyone from Ptolemy to the Popes, and for centuries kept people in fear of falling off the edge of the earth. (more here)

    (more…)

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  • How Deictic is Your Ontology?

    George Rebane

    While our Left, especially of the academic bent, assiduously works to stunt the English language – e.g. reduce/mangle the information carrying capacity of words – our technologists have been very busy expanding the language and introducing new words into English and other tongues.  This battle is both important and its outcome is not yet determined, although for most people the Left’s determination to limit speech and thought along Orwellian newspeak lines seems to be taking hold with their constituents recently from union schools now being tutored by even more radical mentors in our institutions of higher learning.

    In the last century we discovered a strong determinant that limits thought is a person’s language(s).  An individual has a hard time thinking thoughts (e.g. formulating concepts and storing them) that his language does not support.  More formally, the structure and breadth of a speaker’s language determines his perception and categorization of experience. This phenomenon is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which we have reviewed here before.

    While words like ‘discriminate’, ‘immigrant’, ‘hero’, ‘prejudice’, ‘stereotype’, ‘racist’, ‘climate change’, ‘misogynist’, … have been mangled beyond meaning, other words like ‘meme’, ‘network’, ‘hashtag’, ‘feedback’, ‘in-the-loop’, ‘online’, ‘email’, ‘variance’, ‘steady state’, ‘causation’, ‘transient’, ‘algorithm’, … have worked their way into everyday usage as our individual ontologies have expanded to keep pace with the times.  (Ontology? Please stand by.)

    (more…)

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  • California’s Cacophony of Calamities (updated 20apr17)

    George Rebane

    [This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 19 April 2017.]

    California is, and has been for decades where it matters, a one-party state – the state’s legislature has been dominated by the Democratic Party since 1959.  The Democrats have called the tune and run things pretty much as they see fit.  In this once rich state, whatever is not working fiscally or socially, they now own lock, stock, and barrel.  And with the supermajorities they have in both houses of the legislature, it is clear that the majority of Californians either approve of the state’s downward spiral, or they simply don’t know what’s going on.  All of our wounds are self-inflicted. (more here)

    California’s cacophony of calamities grows year after year even as our state now finds itself on or near the bottom of the nation’s barrel as more rankings are compiled.  We lead the country in everything from under-performing public schools, to the various categories of the poor and destitute, to sky high taxes, and the worst business climate.  California companies continue to head for greener pastures taking jobs and tax revenues with them.  New companies and plants are started elsewhere, even right next door in Nevada, as long as they don’t have to put up with what this advanced laboratory in socialism has to offer.

    Things have gotten so frustrating that there are now active groups on both the Left and Right seeking to restructure the state.  People on the right correctly feel that Sacramento has ignored them for decades, and today many of them want to split the state into North and South California.  People on the left feel that California’s progress toward socialism is hindered so much by Washington that they want to secede from the Union.  The only really happy campers in the once Golden State live in the coastal clusters of millionaires and billionaires.

    (more…)

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  • The Still Muddled Middle (updated)

    George Rebane

    Recently consideration of America’s political landscape has resurfaced in these pages, motivated by Nevada County’s self-declared middle roader RL Bob Crabb who published a powerful condemnation of both the Left and Right upon which I expanded in ‘Oh, were it only that simple’.  From that Bob took umbrage at me, RR, and our commenters, and then we were off to the polemical races on his blog and here.

    Readers know that I am no fan of the middle roader (MR) approach to our country’s politics, especially when the L/R schism has become a broad chasm over the last decades.  My beliefs about MR ideology have been covered in past posts, summarized most recently in ‘The Muddled Middle’(2012)  and ‘The Muddled Middle – a revealing look’(2015).  But that was then, and this is now when the chasm has widened considerably, and shows no sign of slowing down, let alone beginning to close.  Let me explain.

    (more…)

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  • He Is Risen!

    George Rebane

    HeIsRisen

    Hearing that strong assertion, the Christian answers joyfully, ‘He is risen indeed!’

    For us, Christmas is the promise, and Easter its fulfillment.  The summation of all Christianity is Christ’s covenant in the promised transcendence of Man, all concentrated into one simple declaration – ‘He is risen!’  Without this, our faith is a fraud; with it, Christianity promises Man to become an unending part of God’s love of all of Creation.

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  • Scattershots – 15apr17

    George Rebane

    California’s new gas tax is the latest fraud from Sacramento, and part and parcel of the state’s progressivist plunge.  News comes in daily of more companies departing California for greener pastures – Texas and Nevada next door remain favorite destinations.  The latest gas tax is rammed through by the perpetually insane Dem supermajority, all members of which know this is nothing but the latest fraud to use our dismal transportation infrastructure to suck more money out of our wallets for directed leftwing vote buying projects.  The deteriorating condition of our roads will remind all who pay attention as to why this state is becoming one big pothole.  It has gotten so egregious that even our Union’s usually leftwing editorial board wrote an op-ed protesting this latest flim-flam (here).

    While perusing the 15apr17 Union I came across the latest offering from their columnist Darrell Berkheimer who has cracked the code on ‘What will it take to get real political reform’.  Mr Berkheimer’s solution is the formation of a third party from the disgruntled and querulous crowds of Indivisibles, Centrists, Resist Movement, Modern Whigs, Green Libertarians, and Our Revolution.  These folks should join forces to become the third and prominent stave in the national political structure.  Now in the past we have taken Mr Berkheimer to task for some of his nostrums and poultices to restore communal justice, fair play, and perhaps even the public weal.  But for his most recent helpful contribution to fix our polity, RR can do nothing but wholeheartedly support his third party concept and wish this effort Godspeed.

    “Technology is indeed changing our economy, but in a way that’s leaving more and more people behind.”  So argue the academic dons at MIT when discussing how intelligent machines are changing the world.  They point out that past tech booms used to “lift all boats, but that’s not how it works anymore.”  (more here)  These pages alerted its leaders to this inevitability years ago while the dimwits were still busy preaching that another chapter of ‘creative destruction’ was upon us, and all buggywhip makers would again change jobs to become the moral equivalent of car builders and mechanics of yore.  Well no.  As we have spelled out in chapter and verse, what’s going on is destructive destruction aka the rampant growth of systemic unemployment.  The ugly heads of this societal hydra are now visible to enough politicians and bureaucrats that they have been forced to become creative in how they sauté the economic stats so as to delay alerting the nebbishes.  The truth still hidden is that in its wake freedom creates inequality (Yes Virginia, we are all unequal), and that the hidden hand of the central planners solves this problem by organizing leviathan to create a uniform (aka ‘fair and balanced’) level of misery.

    This morning I woke as usual and, still in bed, put my pad on my belly to catch up on what happened while we slept.  There I was greeted by ‘The Profound Connection Between Easter and Passover’, an essay by R.R. Reno, former professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University.  It is an uplifting read for Christians and Jews, especially on this Easter/Passover weekend.

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