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  • Sandbox – 12dec16

    [Hah!  Here's fresh sand before anyone started bitching about it; perhaps a first.  So it looks like the progressive outlets are all agreed that the sky is falling since Trump got elected.  They are also sure that the Russians and Chinese are coming and the American republic (for which they have had little use) is also lost.  Pretty soon we may have the Daily Kos, MSNBC, CNN, … digging up plans for home bomb shelters from the 1950s and getting their union schools to start teaching 'Duck and Cover' again.  gjr]

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  • Election 2016 Fallout

    [Mr Norm Sauer is a retired attorney, member of The Union Editorial Board, and a regular columnist for the newspaper.  He submitted the following article to RR and The Union which also published it today (here).  In this piece Mr Sauer reflects on the election's aftermath and its portents; it is posted as received.  gjr]

    Norm Sauer

    “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (Declaration of Independence, 1776)

    On November 8, 2016, Americans withdrew their consent to being governed by the elite globalists.  The presidential election was America’s Brexit.

    Aside from the coastal states, the Democrats and Hillary were crushed.  Michael Barone reported in the Washington Examiner, 11/9/16, “The heartland—roughly the area from the Appalachian ridges to the Rocky Mountains, with about two-thirds of the national vote—went 52–44 percent for Trump.”

    Voters turned over the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and about two-thirds of the nation’s governorships and half the state legislatures to Republicans.

    Nationalism: The American people this election cycle were clearly nationalistic. They felt a bond with their country, believing citizens should love their country and that government is duty-bound to protect its own people. 

    Voters rejected the belief that comfortable, sexually satisfied consumerism, wedded to gauzy notions of universal brotherhood was all people wanted, thus undermining the drive by the governing elite to integrate world markets, merge populations across borders, and dissolve the sovereignty of our nation.

    Trump’s offer of the nation-state and ideas of greatness were more than what liberalism was offering.  Voters stopped worrying what was good for other countries and decided it was time to worry about what was good for America.

    President-elect Trump: Trump has shown he is one of the greatest intuitive political geniuses in history. 

    As a wealthy businessman with no political experience, he prevailed over more than a dozen experienced politicians and won the presidential nomination of a major party.  He then ran an unconventional campaign and managed to become the president-elect of the most powerful nation on earth.  His was an astonishing accomplishment.

    In winning, Trump beat back a hostile press, smears by his opponents, outrage by foreign leaders, vast campaign spending by Wall Street and the wealthy one-percent, as well as vows by actors and rock stars to leave the country if he was elected president.

    Working to create or keep jobs, he has already kept from moving to Mexico Ford’s SUV facility in Louisville, Kentucky and over a thousand jobs with Carrier in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Seemingly tireless, he is out front and does not ‘lead from behind.’

    Media bias:  Main-stream media was the establishment committed to making Americans believe their elite lies.  They laughed at Trump, told us he could never win the nomination, nor did he have a chance to win the presidential election.

    On November 8, Trump and American voters rejected media’s fabricated world.  Having lost the people’s respect, journalists must learn they need humility, objectivity, impartiality, and elimination of group-think.

    The Clintons: After all her years of preparation, the millions of dollars raised, the numerous endorsements, and the multiple consultants it wasn’t enough to put Hillary in the White House.  “All the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men could not pull Hillary Clinton over the line.” (National Review, p. 14, 12/5/16) 

    Her criminal violation(s) of national security, pay to play through the Clinton Foundation, chronic lying, exposure by WikiLeaks, and lack of message to voters worried about jobs and health care, doomed her.  

    Trump’s win means the end of the Clintons’ era of corrupt power-brokering.

    Obama’s legacy: President Obama was a savvy, charismatic, superb rhetorician who tapped into our white-guilt as a black man and knew how to use his charms to win the White House twice. 

    Once in office he slapped down Republican congressional leaders and the American public with an “I won” philosophy and then relentlessly marched forward with innumerable executive actions on a strictly party-line bent to deconstruct America.

    But, Obama could not transfer his personal popularity to other Democrats or Hillary.  Consequently, Hillary’s electoral loss was also the loss of Obama’s legacy.

    Trump’s win foretells the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank, two of Obama’s biggest legislative accomplishments.  Also, Obama’s executive orders on Immigration, environmental rules, and HHS mandates and more, can be reversed with the stroke of President Trump’s pen. The same goes for the Paris Accords on climate and the Iran deal where Senate approval was never sought.

    America:  As a result of Obama’s far left globally-focused governance, the American working people screamed “enough.”  The election of Trump as president is a self-correction of our country back to the center-right, to a state of normalcy, and to our country’s exceptional character under which power lies with the people, not the elites.

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  • Stack & Pack Air Travel

    George Rebane

    This morning’s WSJ report (here) on how airlines are making economy class air travel even less inviting jogged some memories of a new concept that I’ve discussed with my technology development buddies over the years.  Maybe now that the uncomfortable version of stack/pack seating has become de rigueur, it’s time to again consider a better way for the modern day.  But first some background.

    AirTravel

    When I was doing black studies work for the DoD in the 1970s as the Vietnam War was winding down, an Army research arm published some preliminary results in one of its R&D newsletters about a technique, first described more than ten years earlier (here), for anesthetizing the wounded in battlefield hospitals.  The method involved applying a low amperage, low frequency current through electrodes placed on the patient’s temples.  The report stated the obvious benefits of such a simple and presumably controllable ‘anesthetic’ that would quickly render the individual unconscious and keep him that way until the current was turned off.  

    I got all excited about ancillary uses for such a technology both in military and civilian environments.  Without going into details here, it involved using the technology as a ‘time machine’ that would allow an individual to be perceptively, restfully, and safely ‘transported’ into the future.  I shared these ideas with my research colleagues, and we came up with a bunch of applications and product concepts.  And then the research program just up and disappeared from the follow-on literature.  In those days I had a company to run and no time to dig up what happened to this intriguing technology.  Over the years the topic has occasionally come up only at dinner parties preceded by some related item.

    And then I saw the airline passenger packing article which immediately qued up (yes, yes, it should be spelled ‘queued’) the above story.  So here’s a concept outline for a new class of airline travel which I will name ‘Cocoon Class’ or CC.  Airplanes will be designed to have part of their passenger space configured to hold densely stacked cocoons each containing a passenger.  The passengers will be ‘anesthetized’ either chemically or electrically or both.  The anesthesia need not be the deep kind that patients undergoing serious surgery endure, but a milder form which, say, people having undergone colonoscopies or dental procedures understand.  Under such ministrations you feel that you are still awake but time seems to have passed very fast until you are fully awake again.

    The passengers in CC class would be prepared in the boarding lounge by lying down in their open cocoons where one or more appropriate monitoring leads would be attached, after which they would be administered the anesthetic of a dosage sufficient for the duration of their trip.  Once under they would be wheeled aboard the aircraft and stowed.  The process would be reversed at their destination where they are fully awake as they exit their cocoons to go retrieve their luggage in the usual manner.

    In flight the CC passengers would be monitored automatically with a medical technician available as a member of the cabin crew should the need arise to deepen the anesthesia or provide other needed attention for the passenger.  Rough calculations show that such a CC configuration would permit increasing the passenger count from 60% to 100%, potentially doubling the passenger capacities of today’s aircraft.

    Admittedly this description has been nothing beyond a concept outline with many feasibility and design details to be worked out.  But given the direction of today’s air travel into what easily may soon violate the Geneva convention against cruel and unusual punishment, I submit that this concept is worthy of more serious investigation.  Should this idea work, I most certainly would opt for traveling in CC class to arrive at my destination rapidly and rested, ready for the next activity on my schedule.

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  • The National Pipeline Lie (updated 10dec16)

    George Rebane

    PearlHarbor7dec41As we observe the 75th anniversary of ‘The day that will live in infamy’, it is good to reflect on what brought about that day, and several such days since then.  Traditionally isolationists in the early 20th century years, we were told that WW1 was the war to end all wars.  Most people knew that to have been a big lie, but it became a national one during the depression as the government tried one failed intervention after another that saw unemployment remain at revolution thresholds as Europe and Asia were again in flames.  Under FDR our military was reduced to below third world levels which was duly noted by Herr Hitler and Tojo-sama.

    When we finally did start building up our forces, the government continued to tell us that we were safe, especially from any sneak attack.  Tragically underlining this national security message was the secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, who on 4 December 1941 assured the country that “The Navy is not going to be caught napping.”  The rest is history.

    The chronicle of national lies is unending and, if anything, has picked up in this age of instant and pervasive communications through now countless social media channels that daily pump out everything from government propaganda to purposely injected ‘fake news’, all to an audience that is somewhere between under- and uneducated.  A currently prominent national lie envelops and sustains the hullabaloo around the Dakota access pipeline.  In North Dakota local tribes have been joined by leftwing activists from all quarters and of all hues to protest the completion of the pipeline.  The standoff, abetted by the lamestream and President Obama, has grown massive and now teeters on the edge of violence.

    DakotaPipeline

    Most people still believe that the standoff is about tribal rights, water, and the environment, instead of the reality that the White House continues to ignore the rule of law.  Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-ND) is a voice of sanity who attempts to set the record straight in his 7dec16 ‘What the Dakota Access Pipeline is Really About’.  In it he counters the “preaching about the pipeline from the press, environmental activists, musicians and politicians in other states” who “more often than not … are informed by little more than a Facebook post”, and lays out the easily verifiable “ground truth” in four succinct points –

    • This isn’t about tribal rights or protecting cultural resources; …
    • Two federal courts have rejected claims that the tribe wasn’t consulted; …
    • Other tribes and parties did participate in the process; …
    • This isn’t about water protection; …

    The question then becomes, what is the standoff all about.  I leave the obvious and not so obvious answers for our readers to explain and expand.  No doubt we will also encounter the two-worlds paradigm in treating this issue.

    To illustrate how disconnected we have become as a nation, we now see examples of how our putatively smartest people are flummoxed as they anticipate communicating with the new Trump administration.  Noteworthy is Google which has put out the help-wanted for “someone who can communicate with those strange humanlike life-forms: conservatives.”  Their posted job offering is for a manager of “Conservative Outreach and Public Policy Partnerships”, someone who “will act as Google’s liaison to conservative, libertarian, and free market groups” as a “part organizer, part advocate, and part policy wonk.”

    The bottom line here is that Google and many other Silicon Valley top management teams have become politically so insular that not only don’t they know what other than progressive public policy alternatives exist, they don’t even know how talk to the people who promote smaller government, fewer regulations, reduction of corporatism, competitive markets, and expanded liberties.  See what happens when you get your degrees from universities with socialist humanities departments. (more here)

    [10dec16 update]  Ramirez reminds us of Obama’s latest version of his old, and now preserved, national lie.

    ObamaLies161210

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  • “The times call for standing up.”

    George Rebane

    The recent election did nothing to unite us as Americans.  Half of us are still shocked that the election didn’t turn out as ‘everyone’ was told it would.  And as the shock wears off, the losing side is not about to take President-elect Trump and the victorious Republicans lying down.  At all levels the politically active Left is sounding the call for resistance and revolt – examples abound.  At yesterday’s legislative swearing in ceremonies in Sacramento, the Democratic leadership destroyed any semblance of amity by immediately attacking the nascent Trump administration, denigrating its formation, and promising to “erect a firewall” against anticipated assaults from Washington on California’s “progressive agenda”.

    In the country’s liberal-dominated universities invitations are already being cancelled for scheduled speakers for their sin of being invited by President-elect Trump for a talk, or having already participated (gasp!) in such contaminating conversations.  Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s desire to expose non-existing rightwing election fraud is now well reported across the country.  (However, don’t even think about checking the citizenship of registered voters.)  So what the local lackeys are doing here and elsewhere is responding to the national call to assault and once more attempt to silence the voices they consider disagreeable and dangerous to their community’s progress toward a collectivist future.

    In our neck of the woods former Union editor Jeff Pelline has been an assiduous worker in the socialist vineyards.  The indelible blot that continues to arouse him is that his journalistic career ended with his being ignominiously dismissed as the editor of The Union, our small town community newspaper.  His ensuing feud with that publication knows no bounds and has now bloated to include its subsequent editors, publishers, insufficiently leftist columnists, and its cartoonist (whose insight below on Pelline’s techniques was offered almost a decade ago).

    RLCrabb_rePelline2

    (more…)

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  • Sandbox – 6dec16

    [Let the rumpus continue!  gjr]

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  • Scattershots – 5dec16

    George Rebane

    Kudos to Mr George Boardman, Union columnist, for his excellent article in this morning’s paper on the pipeline brouhaha at Standing Rock.  He takes to task numerous groups of people assembling there with various agendas trying to make hay on the concerns of the Dakota and Lakota Indian tribes.  The factors are complex that surround the issue of the new pipeline crossing the Missouri River in the vicinity of other pipelines etc already in place there for years.

    Mr Boardman concludes his piece with – “The American Indians who have a stake in the outcome of these protests have enough problems without having to deal with clueless, Johnny-come-lately “supporters.” This experience just reinforces a lesson they should have learned 500 years ago: Bad things can happen it you have an ill-defined immigration policy and don’t protect your borders.”

    I invite Mr Boardman to dig into his research and summarize the salient factors that comprise this issue from the pro and con sides of building this pipeline in the disputed region.  RR would be pleased to post such a byline for our readers’ edification and discussion.

    Pastor Sandra Chipchase wrote a disconcerting letter in today’s Union taking Hilary Hodge, one of the paper’s columnists, to task for her 22nov16 column that, according to the lady of the cloth, “is the kind that incites riots, rebellion, etc.”  A perusal of Ms Hodge’s article reveals nothing of the kind – in it she simply joins the many Hillary fans who continue stunned at Trump’s victory and laments that people who voted for him are not experiencing “buyer’s remorse”. 

    Pastor Chipchase was so assaulted by Hodge’s piece that she calls for “a limit on expression of columnists who write for our local newspaper. This was an extremely biased article. Do we want unity or do we want to incite hate? Because they both bear fruit.”  While I am no fan of Ms Hodge’s political ideology, I do believe her to be a person of fine character, a passionate champion of LGBTQ normalcy, and one deserving to be heard.  No one should be trying to silence her because of her sexual orientation apologetics or opinions about our nation’s political landscape.  Nevertheless, I note that as we become more divided, the calls for silencing those who believe differently continue to grow.    

    Closer to home, I am also a perennial target of such longstanding calls for censorship.  The local Left continues to accuse me of harboring politically incorrect, "extreme" and “hard rightwing” views which I “spew” out in these pages, my radio commentaries, and occasional Union columns.  In my case, not only should I be banished from expressing my views through such outlets, but I should not be allowed to participate in community activities in which our more sensitive progressives are also involved.

    What I have never been able to solicit from my detractors are the specific tenets of my ideology that deserve the “radical” and “hard rightwing” labels.  (They never provide their own tenets.)  Here their intellects seem to be capped with the argument that you are what we say you are because we say so.  My socio-political philosophy is an open book now ten years old, augmented by a structured credo that can be refuted by chapter and verse for any sins it may contain.  But all our local Lefties can do is continue calling me names and demand my withdrawal or resignation from any and all organizations in/through which my voice can be heard.  I take strength in that few socialists have ever been able to rise above that level of discourse.

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  • Sandbox – 3dec16

    [Mea culpa for the delay.  BTW, for some time now we see a lively debate going on within these pages between RR readers and Jeff Pelline who constantly posts gratuitous, childish, and just plain ignorant attacks on all who debate and converse here.  RR provides this venue as a default in lieu of the sclerotically clogged blog run by the FUE; he doesn't countenance politically incorrect or counter opinions on his turf and keeps it as a one-note trumpet playing for his chorus.  This is so because expanding beyond the flinging of ad hominems is beyond his repertoire, which would become very obvious were he to countenance competing ideas.  To be frank, I have no problem with anyone debating the sparse idea that now and then escapes from the FUE's blog, but I don't enjoy the clumsy dialogues forced into these comment streams wherein my readers quote him – thereby tainting these pages – before replying to him.  I wish such exchanges with Pelline could be carried out somewhere else, e.g. Mr Todd Juvenall's fine blog.  Nevertheless, the sandbox will remain the sandbox. gjr]

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  • Ruminations – 30nov16 (updated 2dec16)

    George Rebane

    RR celebrates Nancy Pelosi’s re-election by Dems to remain their big kahuna in Congress.  The reinstatement of their most ineffective leader in generations – after all she did give us the Pelosi Principle: ‘We have to pass it before we can read what’s in it.’ –  should add to the fair winds the Republicans will enjoy for the next two years.  Ramirez will attend an extra mass this week to thank the Lord.

    December arrived earlier than usual at Casa Rebane this year, or at least it seemed so.  Looking at the scheduled events on the calendar is already a contributor to hypertension in this household.  How about in yours?  But that is why God invented Christmas cheer, to sanctify the succor of solace and serenity from the various creations and concoctions of ethanol.  Better living through chemistry, indeed!

    [1dec16 update]  In their continuing efforts to denigrate President-elect Trump we now have the yellow lamestream chorus of AP, NYT, WaPo, CNN, … hyperventilating that he doesn’t have his nuclear response and refurbishment strategies planned and published for all to see.  These ‘journalists’ are a combination of butt stupid or cynical, betting that their consumers are equally afflicted.  No one mentions that Obama had no clue about those questions, has let our nuclear arsenal become decrepit during his watch, and still hasn’t told anyone what his nuclear response would be or whether he has even thought one out.

    The double dummy confirms his appellation.  Our designated reader emailed me that the ample one came unglued at the coining and use of the word “comitous” in my Other Voices column in The Union today (here).  My colleagues in technology and I have spent our lives expanding the language with useful additions to the King’s English which sooner or later are picked up by the appropriately astute lay public.  RR has documented this process for some years now which has become common in contemporary commentary and literary works.  In my article (an edited version of a recent RR post) I used ‘comitous’ as the obvious adjective to denote possessing the attribute and characteristic of comity.  Apparently this coinage was acceptable to the editors at The Union, but it totally escaped the local leftwinger who still claims to be educated, and no less as a journalist.  [Later]  Mr Barry Pruett points out in the comments below that ‘comitous’ has a well-aged provenance and gives appropriate references.  I labor in the shadow of my learned forebears.

    [2dec16 update]  Ramirez further clarifies the basis for our utter contempt for America’s progressives.

    Ramirez_161202

    … and it is the ever clueless progressives who celebrate yet another decrease in the unemployment rate without understanding the arithmetic behind more people dropping out of the job markets in November than the number of new jobs created.  (more here)

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  • Sandbox – 27nov16

    [Thank you for your patience in putting up with the 9-day-old sand.  gjr]

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