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  • Proud grandparents brag about granddaughter

    George Rebane

    Well, it’s time to toot Elizabeth’s horn. Jo Ann and I attended the science and math graduation ceremony here at the Tucson campus of the University of Arizona to watch our granddaughter Elizabeth graduate with dual degrees in Neuro & Cognitive Science and Molecular & Cellular Biology (easy for me to say).  She was joined by her parents along with brother Lucas and sister Catherine, both still in school.  The kids are pictured below.

    Elizabeth_2015UofA

    Elizabeth finished her studies in three and a half years while working as a research assistant in her professors’ laboratories. The next step is to immediately enter grad school for an appropriate PhD.  Applications have gone out and now the waiting begins.  Tonight the celebration will continue with a very large meal that has virtually zero chance of being heart healthy.  Another milestone in our family.

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  • Sandbox – 15dec15

    [We now hear the latest from the steroidally augmented politically correct. At Brooklyn’s PS#169 the teachers have banned even the use of the terms ‘Christmas’, ‘Santa Claus’, ‘Thanksgiving’, and several others in school affairs as hearkening back to a time of error and religion.  Adding to their decades long progress in neutralizing the American intellect, our educators are opening a second front to extinguish our culture and cultural values.  How long until the Left establishes newspeak.gov, an online service for those who demand their daily prophylaxis against being insensitive, racist, homophobic, religionistic, discriminative, …, and foster proper gradations of inclusivity, balance, gender neutrality, global perspective, ecological sensitivity, celebration of transgenderism, … on our road to becoming the new Socialist Person (I almost said ‘Man’)?.  gjr]

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  • Local Left Situationally Unaware (updated 14dec15)

    George Rebane

    The local Left joins the national Left in their happy dance about the ‘Climate Change agreement’ reached in Paris this week.  What they don’t seem to appreciate is that it will have about as much impact on earth’s climate, no matter how widely it is accepted or rejected, as does the Iran deal have on that country’s development of nuclear weapons.  It is all a desperate search for some optics to bolster the community organizer’s legacy and support heir apparent Hillary’s campaign.

    The humorous part of their awareness spills over to more immediate concerns about economics and development of the local economy.  For openers our devout Democrats are overjoyed that California is on the upswing in job creation and corporate formation.  The feds (Census Bureau) recently tried quietly to pour some calming water on these breathless reports, pointing out that one fifth of California’s population lives in poverty, the state has the highest poverty rate in the nation, and the largest fraction receiving welfare of one kind or another.  And our unemployment rate (5.7%) remains doggedly above the national average no matter how the numbers are tortured.

    But the real knee slapper is that the local Left has finally discovered STEM and the benefits that jobs in that sector bestow upon those who can do numbers among other things.  I was pointed to one loud local luminary who now advertises a ‘how to’ posting on lifting the local economy – he advises we become a major STEM employer.  Now sumbich, why didn’t the rest of us think about that ten years ago?!  The knarly part is that their ‘how to’ isn’t a ‘how to’ at all – liberals have no clues in this department – but only a ‘what if we only could’ dissertation.  One worthy even uses Boulder,CO as a template for Nevada County, apparently ignorant of the extensive workshop put on by our ERC last January that also featured Boulder in its unsuccessful attempt at a ‘how to’ for us.  It turned out then and does still today that Boulder and Nevada County have almost nothing in common save some H. Sapiens inhabitants.

    Many of us in Nevada County have known for years (at least a generation?) that STEM is the third and now wobbly leg of our local economy, the other two being tourism and the retirees.  (I don’t want to include government because it brings to mind shuttered socialist towns like Lakeview, OR.)  But the promotion of STEM employment here is a longstanding effort that is made difficult by our politically correct econut faction and the obstacles they place and maintain in the path of any development.  That kind of opposition is endemic across the state, but it really impacts low population rural counties, especially those off the beaten path and not in the armpit of a coastal urban area.

    Among other things, I would like to see the establishment of a technical high school in the county that would form a tight bond with our local Sierra College campus and also expand its STEM curriculum.  The NC Technical High School would focus on preparing kids for degree and certification based STEM careers.  Such a high school would most likely require a merit based entrance exam such as the existing SESF sponsored TechTestJr taken annually by county eighth graders.  No feel good politically correct or artsy-fartsy curriculum paths would be offered, there are already enough of those in our county.  NCTHS would draw in the elite kids who can, and as such would also be an attractant for the kind of parents who see value in putting their offspring into educational programs that lead to rewarding wealth generating careers.  Who knows what would follow such a successful initiative?

    I predict that the Left would oppose this approach because promoting such highly discriminating education does not guarantee a reliable klatch of liberal voters upon matriculation.

    [14dec12 update] The post conference drumbeat about green jobs from Obama and Kerry is getting louder again.  These socialists, as the many failed before them, continue to believe that imposing government mandated markets to supply unwanted products to enable citizens and businesses to comply to unneeded regulations counts as creating new jobs.

    Any fool (well, not quite) knows that with a gun you can force people to do what they would not do if not forced. Were I a tyrant I could mandate that life-sized paper mache statues of me would be placed at every city street corner.  Since inclement weather is rough on such artifacts, new ones would have to be emplaced every time it rains.  The businesses and towns would be required to buy them, and the manufactories would be subsidized to keep supplying them.  The requirement for implementing such an enterprise would create thousands of jobs in the land, but to what productive end?

    This is effect is doubly true when forcing private individuals and commercial enterprises to dance to the tidal wave of new green laws and regulations that are supposed prevent a global warming catastrophe. Our know-nothing elites even argue that these mandates will also induce economic growth.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Were these diktats shown to actually create wealth, no government guns would be required.  That they don’t and cannot explains why force must be used to guarantee the required response from the rest of us.

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  • The Tilt of The Union

    George Rebane

    Some time ago I reported (here) on the results of an audit on the ideological tilt of The Union performed by the Nevada County Republican Women Federated. This was in response to our local Left claiming that our newspaper had become ‘The Tea Party Gazette’.  As usual, these know-nothings missed the boat.  The audit considered in detail the paper’s op-ed content over several months after which the NCRWF met with publisher Mr Jim Hemig to present the results.  He was surprised to find that numerically the paper had published considerably more Left than Right leaning pieces, since he stated the paper considered itself politically neutral.

    Nevertheless, the meeting and presented data did make an impact, and Mr Hemig reports on that in today’s (11dec15) Union – ‘The editorial page challenge?’. Therein he announces a reader participation audit scheduled for January 2016.  The NCRWF audit is ongoing, and I’ll report updated results as they become available.  RR’s position repeated is that as a private enterprise The Union can choose its own political tilt, and grouse as we may from our own perches there is no need to demand that the newspaper succumb to someone's standard of ‘balance’ as constantly called for by our locally loud progressives.  

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  • Ruminations – 8dec15 (updated 9dec15)

    George Rebane

    AG Loretta Lynch said yesterday that there was not enough evidence to connect San Berdoo’s terrorists with any specific religion.  For that I called her a double dummy.  Upon reflection, that overly generous attribution was in error, and I withdraw it.  English currently does not have an appropriate term that accurately describes her level of ignorance and/or cynicism.  Therefore I must await an expanded lexicon.

    Many of us notice that the Left immediately starts hyperventilating about gun control in the aftermath of the latest Muslim massacre.  This serves two purposes – 1) pursuit of an ever more compliant America to prepare the country for global governance, and 2) the Left’s mindset allows no viable opposition to the spread of radical Islam and its global caliphate.  William McGurn (‘The Liberal Theology of Gun Control’) also argues this point.  Our electorate's ignorance of this organic deficit constitutes a clear and present danger to America remaining a sovereign nation-state.  (Isn’t it interesting that both the Left and Islam seek to rule all of humanity under a single world order?)

    One person, two-thirds vote.  This is the important case that SCOTUS is now chewing on as it reconsiders the population bases for the states’ drawing of district lines.  If all mirror foggers are counted, then districts with heavy illegal alien and other non-voting populations will increase the clout of those in the district who can vote.  This is a violation of the 14th Amendment, and I hope SCOTUS hearing Evenwell v Abbott has sufficient external plumbing to recognize such violation.  (more here)

    Trump’s proposed Muslim ingress ban has gotten every other politician’s undies in a bunch.  The Donald says we should stop all Muslims entering the US until our government comes up with a viable policy (any policy?) that recognizes and deals with sources of radicalized Islamic terror.  Given the role of taqiya (about which no one wants to talk), the reticence of our moderate Muslims to expose their own radicals, and the lengthening record of massacres by Muslims, Trump has voiced that which many (most?) Americans support given this administration’s abrogating its responsibility to secure the country.  In response to such outlandish pronouncements, Trump’s poll numbers have finally surged well north of the 25% region where he seems to have been stuck for a long time.

    [Update]  Power went out on Cement Hill this afternoon and is not expected back until late this evening, unless PG&E postpones it again.  During these times I am reminded that PG&E and all other utilities don’t really work for the consumers of their product.  They are monopolies that work for their state public utilities commissions.  The PUCs are faceless bureaucrats with totally different agendas to fulfill – it is they who regulate and set the rate cards for the utilities.  When a neighborhood like ours loses power (today for a reason that clearly was not an ‘act of God’), they will take their own sweet time to get it repaired so as minimize some cost function that does not involve my inconvenience.  And the progressives want the government to control ever more of the production and distribution of our goods and services.

    [9dec15 update]  A commenter under "… A Cancer on our Nation" contributed this little piece of American law that seems to render moot remarks offered by Sen Cruz on Muslim entrants, and remove considerable sting from Mr Trump's blanket dictum.  Wonder why no one has brought this up in the national debate.

    8 U.S. Code § 1182 – Inadmissible aliens
    ….
    (f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President
    Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

    Posted by drivebyposter, 9dec15 634am

    And a reader and correspondent sends the report ('America's Muslims object to Obama's push for more self-surveillance') by Reuters.  The responses coming in (as in this example) from the country's mosques are not very hopeful, instead they do support the polling results (reported here) of the attitudes of America's Muslims toward jihad, shariah law, the caliphate, and support of ISIS.  RR's proposition that there are a lot fewer 'moderate Muslims'  among us than claimed by the Left and the lamestream stands.

    Meanwhile another correspondent sends a report by the Associated Press on the impacts of climate change –

    The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulate, at Bergen, Norway.

    Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.

    Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.

    Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

    Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

    Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic,

    while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

    Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.

    This report was published in the 2nov1922 issue of The Washington Post 93 years ago.

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  • Sandbox – 8dec15

    [Last night Fox News reported the results of the latest polls on Obama's performance in the areas of foreign policy, national security, domestic policy.  The results in all three areas are that about two out of three Americans believe the president is screwing up in these areas.  But his 'come what may' supporters don't see any of these gross failures.  But there were some defections from the lamestream over Obama's tone deaf speech to the nation Sunday night.  And his new attorney general is coming across as a real double dummy when yesterday she declared that it's premature to judge and connect any specific religion to the San Berdoo attack since every religion has its radical elements.  You can't make this stuff up; these are the idiots our liberal neighbors voted for and sent to Washington – twice!  gjr]

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  • “… A Cancer on Our Nation”

    George Rebane

    So writes conservative commentator Erick Erickson (here) in a piece in which he dissects Obama’s 6dec15 lecture from the Oval Office (more here)  We watched it with friends last night, hoping against hope from our President for an epiphany of situational awareness and national leadership – nothing.

    Obama2015

    As he droned on, his words (here) ranged the gamut from stultifying to outrageous.  Unbelievable!

     

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  • State of NorCal promoter?

    George Rebane

    Former county supervisor and current CEO of the Sierra Fund, Ms Izzy Martin, will most certainly become a significant factor promoting the formation of the new state of North California (see also State of Jefferson).  The community organizer and environmental activist is an archetype leftwinger who is doing everything possible to grow Leviathan and achieve the objectives of Agenda21 (q.v.).  One of her latest forays is to pass SB637 which would essentially eliminate small dredge miners on California’s rivers (for a start).  The bill calls for such miners to obtain a $900 dredging permit for each site on which they set up their equipment and mine for a while before moving to another site.  (more here and here)

    The new law would do nothing to preserve the environment, but merely uses ‘green arguments’ for light thinkers to create the aura of doing something for the public good when, in fact, there is no such achievement present or even possible in the legislation.  All it will do is remove another layer of freedoms.  Then again, that is their real objective.

    RLCrabb151205

    But the significant impact of such progressive proscriptions is that they highlight the need to separate out the less densely part of northern California into a new state whose population understands and can promote its local interests.  Ms Martin emphasized that need by the way she got SB637 launched.  She couldn’t find any northern legislator to sponsor such a bill, so she simply went south to the LA area and found a Santa Monica based state senator, who has no interest in norCal save assuring that the south gets our water, to sponsor the bill which the Sierra Fund wordsmithed.  The near-term result of all this is appropriately communicated by our own RL Crabb in the above cartoon filched from the pages of the 5dec15 Union.

    The longer term impact, of course, is putting more wind into the sails of the NorCal movement (nee SoJ).  Present day California is an oversized ideologically dichotomized political unit that invites a minority socialist from a low density conservative region to carpet bag their agenda to a distant, high density liberal metropolis.  This type of end-running local interests is in my mind both underhanded and reprehensible.  With the overwhelming collectivist majority in Sacramento, such legislative maneuvers underscore that the majority conservatives of the north have no effective representation in their state’s legislature.  Let the NorCal movement take new encouragement from the backhanded promotions by people like Izzy Martin.

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  • Sandbox – 3dec15

    [Apologies for the delay of fresh sand.  I had to be reminded again :(  gjr]

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  • Taqiya on Steroids? (updated 4dec15)

    George Rebane

    The San Bernardino massacre investigation continues.  Given the evidence to date, the authorities still cannot decide whether it was just ‘workplace violence’ or the latest attack by Islamic terrorists.  What is reported by the news services – Associated Press, WSJ, … – is pretty compelling (more here).  We do know that –

    1. The two shooters were Muslims – Syed Farook, a native born American citizen, and Tashfeen Malik, the immigrant wife of Farook and the mother of their 6-month old child.
    2. Farook had travelled to Saudi Arabia last year from where he returned with Malik.
    3. Upon his return he grew a beard as do many newly devout Muslim men.
    4. He worked for San Berdoo county as a restaurant inspector, was a model citizen, and had no criminal record.
    5. Before their 2dec15 attack at a county facility where a holiday party was in progress, the couple had made extensive preparations for acts of terror at their home which included pipe bombs, IEDs, radio controlled vehicles besides obtaining the full combat gear which they wore during their killing spree.  Earlier that day they gave their baby into the care of relatives.
    6. Authorities on the scene stated that Farook and Malik were definitely executing a “planned mission”.  Given the preparations, there was no evidence of spontaneity in their attack.

    There will undoubtedly be more and the story is still developing.  But what I want to cover here is that again we have an atrocious act of terror carried out by formerly normal people who worked, were raising a family, blended in admirably, and gave no evidence of anything aberrant before they acted.  In hindsight, the only attribute that connected them to such previous attacks is that the couple were practicing Muslims.

    A Bayesian would take a look at the evidence and rationally conclude that yes, given the recent history of radical Islam and jihad, and the tenets of their faith, this couple would have a higher probability of being terrorists in waiting as they finally demonstrated to the world.  (For those who disagree, the Bayesian would be compelled to change his mind given evidence that religious belief was not a supportive/determinant factor.)

    From the worldview which apparently guided Farook and Malik and so many Muslims today, is that these terrorists were courageous, self-sacrificing soldiers acting for and with the blessings of Allah.  They were prepared to die and die they did in the service of their faith.  In that worldview they were not cowards or miscreants but model mujahedeen serving as exemplars to their fellow believers in the spread of Islam. 

    And to execute their plan they practiced taqiya to perfection.  Students of Islam and readers of these pages know that taqiyya or taqiya (q.v.) is the scripturally sanctioned practice of dissimulation and other forms of perfidy including the denial of one’s faith that is allowed Muslims if such practice may serve to promote the greater goals of Islam.  All such surprise attacks by Muslims living among us here and overseas are launched subsequent to successful preludes of taqiya.  Where in other belief systems such practice of ambush and shattering of the social contract would be considered abhorrent, in the world of radical Islam it is a much admired and condoned facet of selfless martyrdom.

    The real problem that taqiya presents to America and the west is in how should we deport ourselves with our Muslim neighbors.  To continue normal social life in our land we must presume that the large fraction of Muslims among us would never practice taqiya and lay in wait for an opportunity to kill us and ours (polls to the contrary notwithstanding).  Yet every time one of their co-religionists perpetrates such an abhorrent act, it gives all non-Muslims pause as they review their relations with their Muslim friends and neighbors.  And that exactly is the aim of the jihadists.  They want to disrupt our social order, and they want to cast suspicion on their brethren living with us so as to compel them to opt for ‘their own kind’ as they drive the wedge they have created ever deeper between Islam and the world of the Kafir (q.v.).

    I don’t see any ready solution to this growing schism between our civilizations save prompt, unfailing, strenuous, loud, and large scale demonstrations by moderate Muslims during which they denounce such acts of terror.  They cannot remain silent in the face of such killings, and they cannot shelter those of their own who preach violence against the west.  In sum, they cannot ask us to trust them more than they trust us, for that we have already done.  Contrary to the pabulum spewed by progressives, taqiya is an enduring problem which yields to no simple solution.

    (more…)

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