Rebane's Ruminations

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January 2026
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  • California Stupid Perseveres (updated 10jan24)

    George Rebane

    As a part of its latest bevy of idiotic laws and regs, Sacramento continues its perennial attempt to remove the Second Amendment from the Constitution for those of us living in California.  It has passed a new restrictive law (currently appealed) that prevents the state’s CCW holders from carrying their concealed guns in 29 new public areas.  The explanation given to our sheeple is that the new law will save human lives, when in reality it will do anything but that.

    The law is nothing less than the latest incremental ratchet to constructively remove firearms from the hands of law-abiding citizens.  However, it does communicate to the mentally deranged killers and terrorists that now here are more areas in the public forum which for them are free-fire zones where they can wantonly murder and create mayhem with no fear of being opposed by a legal gun.

    The state’s claim that CCW holders are perpetrators of mass shootings is utterly without merit or evidence.  What the FBI data have consistently shown is that CCW holders are the safest and most responsible gun toters in the nation.  A recent study reveals that sworn law enforcement  officers, already a responsible and trustworthy cohort, are still six times more likely to murder someone than a gun-carrying citizen holding a CCW permit. (more here and here)

    But being able to peddle that kind of pabulum to Californians confirms again that as an electorate we suffer from a widespread, massive, and chronic intellectual deficit (aka are butt stupid), which explains why decade after decade we vote for corrupt politicians of the anti-American evil party to make our laws and administer our beautiful state.

    [10jan24 update] 'California Stupid Perseveres and Amplifies' – Now the troop of Democrat Socialists in Sacramento are again pushing through a tax on assets.  This is supposed to make the 0.5% Californians who already ante up 40% of state revenues to now start paying their "fair share". (more here)

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  • Ruminations – 5jan24 (updated 9jan24)

    George Rebane

    ‘DEI’ is now the new politically correct attribute that replaces ‘Section 8’ that we have been using for decades.  Referring to that part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for those reeeinving meritless assignments, promotions, and rewards served us well and irked to no end the liberal sponsors of such fractured public policies.  Now we can use the more acceptable ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ modifiers as in ‘The former Harvard president and plagiarist Claudine Gay got her job as a DEI candidate.’

    The recent massacre of Iranians by ISIS demonstrates again that the ragheads love killing each other with perhaps even more gusto than they like to murder Jews.  I think the body counts bear out this conclusion.

    The reason there are ‘food deserts’ in US cities was again demonstrated in Compton, CA.  There a mad max gang pillaged Ruben’s Bakery & Mexican Food when “a mob of more than 100 rushed into the store, stealing groceries, lottery tickets, and even meat scales, and causing further damage.”  Who today wants to invest their life savings in a retail business located in a Democrat controlled town where a “local small business that braves a rough neighborhood is rewarded with looting and destruction."

    [8jan24 update] 'The Real Story of January 6th' is a 1.5 hour online movie produced by Epoch Times.  It's a bit scary to watch as it shows what our government now does to people whom they consider to be their political enemies.  And more scary to see how obvious self-declared anti-American rioters can loot, rob, burn, and riot in our cities with absolutely no recourse from the established authorities.

    [9jan24 update]  Readers familiar with my advocacy of all things Bayesian, especially in the area of decision-making and evolutionary progress, will enjoy reading this piece – ‘Bayesian Inference: A Unified Framework for Perception, Reasoning, and Decision-making’ – in the online magazine Medium.  It provides some additional insights into how we (and other critters) are all basically Bayesian, whether we know it or not.

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  • The Sins of Trump

    George Rebane

    2024 will be a tumultuous year that will tax all of our ‘goodwill toward men’.  The world is full of wars, incipient wars, and hot spots.  In America we and much of the rest of the world will be focused on our November national election.  And embedded in the run-up to that election will be the indictments and trials of former President Trump and the impeachment and scandals of the Biden administration.  RR commenters of all stripes have circled the ‘sins of Trump’ barn innumerable times over the last couple of years.  Here, for the record, I want to enter my own take on Trump’s sins.

    (more…)

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  • Christmas – 2023

    Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.  Matthew 1:23</i>

    George Rebane

    Nativity

    The Rebanes are more grateful than usual to be here at the end of this eventful year.  We are celebrating the birth of Christ with our local family of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, one of whom joined us in January.  And here Jo Ann and I wish all of our readers an equally joyous Christmas (or holidays of choice), and a healthy and prosperous new year.

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  • Sandbox – 22dec23

    [This reissues a call for anyone to point out only ONE THING that Biden has done to benefit America and/or Americans.  Everything that Team Biden touches has turned into shit.  As a sample of the latest Bidenomics offal, consider his new forest plan that will restrict logging on tens of millions of acres of national forests to fight climate change.  Implementing this plan will increase CO2 emissions, eliminate thousands of jobs, increase the number of catastrophic wildfires, and increase the cost of all wood products from houses to kitchen implements (more here).  That guy and the evil idiots who manage him are an ongoing disaster for the country. gjr]

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  • Sandbox – 12dec23

    [It pays to contemplate more often than not of how absolutely ignorant cum stupid the majority of the American electorate has become in not understanding one whit about the objectives of collectivist politicians for whom they religiously vote.  They are totally and consummately convinced by the lamestream media of a world that does not exist and of causes that have effects opposite from those reported.  As our Founders predicted, the republic is doomed.  gjr]

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  • Ruminations – 8dec23 (updated 18dec23)

    George Rebane

    Idiots on parade. ‘Court allows New York to ban guns in sensitive places’ (here)  None of these idiots understand that 1) mass shooters don’t care a crock about such prohibitions, 2) such prohibitions have never reduced the frequency of mass shootings, and 3) mass shooters take comfort in knowing where law abiding citizens must go unarmed.  Shouldn’t there be an IQ test or something similar for judges to pass before being allowed to sit on the bench?

    New cohorts of ragheads are waiting in the wings for word from Iran to replace Hamas if Israel is ever successful in wiping out those low-life thugs.  We have to remember that it’s the entire Palestinian population that teaches its children to kill Jews and install terrorist organizations for their governance.  So what’s Plan B?

    [10dec23 update]  The use of ‘some’.  Out of a cohort of a hundred people, a colleague reports that “some of them were wearing green sweaters.”  What does that communicate to you in terms of the range of the number of people wearing green sweaters – i.e. what is your max and min range for ‘some’?  After you determine your range, take a look at this link to see how the use of 'some' compares to your own sense of its meaning.

    [17dec23 update]  A post-Singularity landscape is offered in this video that is sufficiently detailed to evoke interesting discussion.  The link was sent to me by a friend and RR reader who sometimes comments on these pages.  He asked for my thoughts, which I offered, and now I ask those interested for their assessment of the prognostications offered in the video (here).

    [18dec23 update]  Donors From The Richest Zip Codes In America Are Throwing Their Support Behind Biden.  More proof that having money doesn’t make you smart, and that corporatism is now an indelible part of the state – companies that pay-to-play could not survive without the backing of the government gun to suppress their competition.

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  • Ignorance Meets Evil

    George Rebane

    Here is an example of gross ignorance that begets the evil in our land.  This letter to the editor by a rabid leftwinger in the 6dec23 Union illustrates the historical gulf that separates us into two nations with irreconcilable ideologies.  The correspondent does not make a single assertion that speaks truth – where/when did Trump do anything that he claims?  And he is joined by tens of millions of like- and no-minded Americans.

    &&&&&&

    Let’s refresh our memories on what Trump said last week in a speech:  “We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country—that lie and steal and cheat on elections. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

    We will never vote for Trump because he and his MAGA extremists want to dump American democracy, dump “We-the-People” pluralism, and replace it with white Christian nationalism implemented by their authoritarian cult leader. It's dangerous and un-American.

    Trump’s disastrous presidency can be summarized with these 9 acts:

    • passing huge wealthy and corporate tax cuts (pushing us 8 trillion $ further in debt),
    • separating children from their parents at the border,
    • basically ignoring covid,
    • appointing unqualified ideologues to the Supreme Court and lower benches,
    • damaging our global alliances, especially with NATO,
    • promoting hatred against minorities, especially Blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, LGTBQ,
    • attacking democracy through gerrymandering and suppressing votes,
    • attacking women’s reproductive freedoms, and
    • promoting an insurrection on January 6.

    Will our election be safe from the GOP’s cheating and intimidation? Will Trump’s 91 felony counts assure us his dictatorial ambitions will not come to light?

    Voters' memories will need to be refreshed.

    Robert Gould, Nevada City 

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  • Scattershots – 1dec23

    George Rebane

    In the Desantos/Newsom debate last night the California governor demonstrated to all what kind of a sleazebag politicians he and his ilk are.  Newsom did not give a straight answer to a single question asked of him – all of his responses were prevarications or more bald-faced lies.  Moderator Hannity illustrated many of his questions with data from various government agencies that compared and contrasted Florida and California.  The only good things California has left to recommend it appears to be the scenery and weather.  All of its public policies, overwhelmingly put in place by Democrats, have done nothing but promote an exodus of workers and companies, having left behind a list of what best may be described as shithole cities in the once Golden State.

    Expatriate Californians are not welcome in red states.  This has become clear in news stories and reports from our friends who have sought greener pastures elsewhere.  Arriving Californians find themselves shunned by the longtime residents of their destination states.  The fear that the rest of the socially non-polluted country has is that our emigrants bring with them the dreaded ideologies for which California is now notorious.  Unfortunately, quite often such fears are misplaced because many (most?) Californians in their new homes arrive there to enjoy and preserve the values, mores, and social policies they find.  Shunning newcomers without first vetting them also allows insular leftwing cliques of immigrants to form and begin politically polluting their new nests.  A better policy would be to at least attempt assimilation of the newcomers.  I have yet to find a leftwinger contemplating a move who understands what has put our state into its dire straits.  And those concentrations already ensconced in red states are notorious for aggressively working to degrade the social fabric of their new homes.

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  • An Octogenarian Reflects

    George Rebane

    I received the following reflection from a friend who received it from another friend.  Apparently, this piece has been going around a bit.  I share a slightly edited version of it because it reflects the view of so many of us still alive after having already lost most of our longtime friends and now going through a sequence of health crises, one of which will inevitably nail us.  But oh, what a time we have had and what we have witnessed over these very special decades in the course of human events.

    @@@@@@

    We grew up in the 40s-50s-60s.

    We studied in the 50s-60s-70s.

    We dated in the 50s-60s-70s.

    We got married and discovered the world in the 60s-70s-80s.

    We ventured into the 70s-80s.

    We stabilized in the 90s.

    We got wiser in the 2000s.

    And went firmly through the 2010s.

    Turns out we've lived through NINE different decades..

    TWO different centuries…

    TWO different millennia…

    We have gone from the telephone with an operator for long-distance calls to video calls to anywhere in the world, we have gone from slides to YouTube, from vinyl records to online music, from handwritten letters to email and WhatsApp..

    From live matches on the radio, to black and white TV, and then to HDTV…

    We went to Blockbuster and now we watch Netflix…We got to know the first computers, punch cards, diskettes and now we have gigabytes and megabytes in hand on our cell phones or iPads…

    We wore shorts throughout our childhood and then long pants, oxfords, Bermuda shorts, etc.  We dodged infantile paralysis, meningitis, H1N1 flu and now COVID-19..

    We rode skates, tricycles, invented cars, bicycles, mopeds, gasoline or diesel cars and now we ride hybrids or 100% electric…

    We have seen the dawn of a new age when our machines are becoming smarter than us in all our endeavors.

    Yes, we've been through a lot but what a great life we've had!  They could describe us as "exennials" people who were born in that world of the fifties, who had an analog childhood and now a digital adulthood.

    We're kind of Ya-seen-it-all.

    Our generation has literally lived through and witnessed more than any other in every dimension of life.  It is our generation that has literally adapted to "CHANGE".

    A big round of applause to all the members of a very special generation, which is UNIQUE.  Here's a precious and very true message:

    TIME DOES NOT STOP!  Life is a task that we do ourselves every day. When you look, it’s already six in the afternoon; when you look, it's already Friday; when one looks, the month is over; when one looks… the year is over; when one looks… 50, 60, 70 and 80 years have passed!

    When you look… we no longer know where our friends are.  When you look… we lost the love of our life and now, it's too late to go back.

    Do not stop doing something you like due to lack of time.  Do not stop having someone by your side, because your children will soon not be yours, and you will have to do something with that remaining time, where the only thing that we are going to miss will be the space that can only be enjoyed with the usual friends.  This time, unfortunately, never returns.  That day is today!

    WE ARE NO LONGER AT AN AGE TO POSTPONE ANYTHING

    Always together, Always united, Always brothers/sisters, Always friends.  The happiest people don't have everything, they just make the best of everything!!

    Hopefully, you have time to read and then share this message… or else leave it for *Later* and you will see that you will never share it!  Pass it on to your best friends. Don't leave it for later.

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26 comments on California Stupid Perseveres (updated 10jan24)