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  • A Little Brainbone Exercise

    George Rebane

    Here are a couple of problems that our high school students taking the annual merit scholarship TechTest may encounter.  The solutions require no higher math, actually only a little bit of lower math, and can be puzzled out on the back of an envelope.  You, however, may use a full sheet of paper.

    Problem 1: What are all the feasible clock times at which the minute and hour hands lie concurrently (on top of each other) on a standard clock face?  Calculate your answers to the nearest second.

    Problem 2: What are all the feasible clock times at which the counter-clockwise angle from the minute hand to the hour hand makes a right angle (90 degrees) on a standard clock face?  Calculate your answers to the nearest second.

    Hint:  It’s possible (advisable?) to puzzle out the approach to both problems in your head before making a single mark on paper.  But in any event, always draw a picture.

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  • Thanksgiving 2023

    George Rebane

    Thanksgiving

    In spite of it all dear readers and RR regulars, we still have so much to be thankful for.  The year for us and many of our friends was an annus horriblis.  But we are still here and Jo Ann and I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving, and may you be blessed to share it with those you love.

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  • Scattershots – 19nov23

    George Rebane

    Trump’s intent to deport illegals here less than two years is considered by the looney tunes lamestream as being “extreme”, and further evidence that he intends to destroy our democracy.  So the questions again are 1) is it illegal/unconstitutional to deport aliens who have entered the country illegally?, and 2) what length of residency by the illegals qualifying for deportation then is not extreme?  It’s idiotic to put this threshold at zero, since then the invitation goes out to the world that just getting your wet butt across the river and hiding out for a bit is all that is necessary for permanent residency, qualifying for all the benefits, and more.  This is exactly what today’s illegal aliens making their way to the border are betting on.

    If you use the same or similar words as Hitler used to describe his enemies, then you are automatically a fascist, Nazi, … .  This is the twisted reasoning that Trump’s opponents are telling their under-educated constituents who are innocent of history and the uses of language.  Now I’m not a proponent of Trump’s own record of shooting off at the lip.  But to tell the double dummies out there that such usages are proof of Trump’s sinister political ideology and governance when elected does not serve the county well.  But it is one more bit of evidence that benefitting the country has never been the intention of the woke progressives and other collectivist fellow travelers.

    Most journalists like to be the recipients of leaks – well almost.  When pressed in public, these reporters immediately do a little back-tracking by telling us that they are not in favor of leaks that are illegal, immoral, or unethical.  The question this raises for me again is ‘what is our right to privacy?’  While the Constitution contains no express right to privacy, legal scholars do cite “the most obvious protection of privacy in the Bill of Rights is the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals in their persons, homes, papers, and effects from "unreasonable searches and seizures" by the government.”  The restriction ‘by the government’ should give us pause, because it doesn’t say anything about your neighbor prying into your affairs and broadcasting his findings.  Other students of the law cite the Basic or Common Law of Privacy – “The right of privacy is: the right of a person to be free from unwarranted publicity, the unwarranted appropriation or exploitation of one's personality, the publicizing of one's private affairs with which the public has no legitimate concern.”  So who does the warranting and assessing legitimate concerns?  To me it sounds like the issue of privacy is another plank in the full-employment platform for the country’s lawyers.

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  • ‘Judaism and the Left’

    George Rebane

    Regular RR readers may recall the many posts in which I have questioned why so many people of the Jewish tradition continue to embrace all the various forms of collectivism – e.g. liberalism, socialism, communism.  This especially when all their acknowledged superior traits in the arts, sciences, and material wealth have been achieved in free market capitalist environments.  It is an enduring puzzle.

    This week in the 16nov23 issue of The Union, columnist Terry McLaughlin provides an excellent overview – ‘Judaism and the Left’ – of this now centuries old phenomenon.  In it she also quotes several Jewish intellectuals who observe that “liberals have never done anything for the Jews.”  And this goes doubly for their uncritical adulation of anti-semitic American blacks such as the constituents of political leaders such as Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan.

    The best that I can figure is that such racially oriented anti-semitism is a cheap price to pay for a reliable block of bought-and-paid-for votes.

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  • Sandbox – 18nov23

    [Never lose your head, a matter of great practical wisdom, never to let it get away from you: it marks the great man, and of noble heart, for all greatness is hard to throw off balance.  The passions are the humors of the spirit, and their every excess makes sick the mind, it endangers the reputation.  Wherefore have such mastery over self, and be so strong, that nothing, either in the greatest fortune or the greatest adversity, can upset you, remaining superior even to the admiration of this feat.  Gracian #52]

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  • Flâneur

    George Rebane

    FlaneurYears back in a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (see also ‘The Antifragile Taleb’) he described himself as having achieved the status of a flâneur.  His circuitous description of such a person was immediately inviting to me.  I am a long-time fan (student?) of Taleb, and admire his depth of knowledge about many things, even though personally he comes across as somewhat acerbic and stand-offish.  Anyway, I did more research on flâneurs and ordered a new set of business cards on which I describe myself as a ‘Flâneur-in-training’.

    Since most people don’t know what is a flâneur, I made a little wallet card that I hand to those interested.  On it is my definition that expands a bit on its 1854 introduction as “an idle man about town”, and captures the more desirable traits with which Taleb and the modern definition have adorned it.

    Flâneur – An accomplished gentleman of independent means, no longer having to scramble for a living, who is a keen observer of the human condition and has wide ranging interest in issues of currency and intellectual moment that include culture, politics, the arts, sciences, international affairs, etc.  He is often seen reading the news at a sidewalk café, perhaps sharing the passing scene with a like-minded friend.  Afternoons may find him invited to some exclusive salon, and evenings at a concert or lecture.  A flâneur is by nature a Bayesian, ascribing certainty or impossibility to no tenet in his credo of beliefs – the possibility of countering evidence is always allowed, nay, sought.  Flâneurs are basically elitists in that they discriminate, and are neither inclusive nor equitable in their choice of companions – they do not suffer fools – life is too short.

    I have found my niche.

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  • Scattershots – 11nov23

    George Rebane

    ‘Biden Keeps the Billions Flowing to Iran’ details Joe Biden’s ongoing treachery to undermine America and its allies.  I am completely flummoxed as to why that treasonous asshole in the White House is not arrested immediately with House impeachment proceedings pending.  He is openly and actively aiding and abetting a sworn enemy of the US who daily attacks our military installations in the middle east and makes war on our allies.  And we have enabled the mullahs to amass over $35B of supposedly sanctioned petro-dollars to fund their ongoing efforts to become the new hegemon of the region.

    And SecHS Alejandro Mayorkas is still out of jail.  The sumbich has been bald-faced lying about our southern border being “secure” for years now, and the lamestream swallows and rebroadcasts that swill.  We see evidence of that right here on RR where our leftwing readers don’t have a clue of what has been happening with the illegal wetback influx of millions.  All they can focus on is allegations of Trump having claimed 2020 election irregularities and overpricing his real estate holdings to willing buyers, both of which he is perfectly free to do in this land of the free and home of the brave.  Meanwhile the most corrupt administration in the country’s history continues unhindered to dismantle the American Republic and implement its socialist agenda.  For the leftwing electorate it is the epitome of ignorance if there ever was one.

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  • Sandbox – 6nov23

    ["Last week, the White House issued an executive order for command and control of artificial intelligence, strangely invoking the Defense Production Act. President Biden apparently got nervous after watching the latest “Mission: Impossible” movie. Really. Added to the order were a mishmash of unhelpful notions like “advancing equity” and collective bargaining." (more here)]

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  • ‘Why leftists align with Islam’ (addended 1nov23)

    [Hat tip to a longtime reader who emailed me the article below.  The piece by Brandon Smith was originally published in Bob Livingston Alerts.  I post it in its entirety as received (with emphases in the original) because the views and perspectives expressed fly in tight formation with Rebane Doctrine as posted here in RR over the last years.  The piece is also timely due to the pro-Palestinian demonstration scheduled today at 4pm in Nevada City.  gjr]

    Brandon Smith

    In my recent article on the suspicious nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict I noted that, just as with Ukraine, the establishment is seeking to lure Americans into supporting one side or the other despite the fact that neither side is really worth fighting for. It is a classic destabilization and globalization strategy reminiscent of WWI. Whenever Americans begin to rally around their own culture, their own security and seek to solve their own problems, suddenly another foreign conflict arises which for some reason requires us to intervene.

    For many readers, it might not seem like much, but after nearly a decade of woke infiltration and far-left efforts to deconstruct the U.S., there has been a backlash that is now threatening to suffocate the woke movement. BLM is on a steep decline, SJW-infested universities are suffering from dwindling enrollment and lack of legitimacy, woke Hollywood is burning and their profits are collapsing, the trans agenda is finally being obstructed and multiple states are blocking their efforts to target and groom children, and focus has been returning to the dangers of Democrat open-border policies with a majority of Americans now demanding something be done.

    (more…)

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  • The Reprobate Republicans (updated 27oct23)

    George Rebane

    [This article, sans update, was published here in the 25oct23 issue of The Union.]

    Recently I attended a luncheon sponsored by a local Republican club that featured as speaker one of the party’s eight candidates for US Senate.  She gave a barnburner talk outlining all the familiar iniquities of the Democrats both in Sacramento and Washington.  Specifically, she reprised the Democrats’ work in

    • Always raising taxes;
    • Issuing more stifling regulations;
    • Mismanaging the economy;
    • Indoctrinating Neo-Marxism in the media, education, and entertainment;
    • Watering down critical curricula in our schools – dumbing down students;
    • Rewarding criminals and punishing victims;
    • Promoting trans-gendering in schools, denying parental rights to raise their children;
    • Maintaining wide open borders for illegal alien entry;
    • Projecting foreign policy weakness, inviting bad actors to make war;
    • Etc, etc.

    The problem with her enthusiastic rhetoric was that her Republican audience knew all that stuff, and most could have given that speech themselves.  What was sorely missing, and has been missing for years at such gatherings, is recognition of the dire straits the party is in, and what would be required for its resurgence in California.

    Recounting the above list yet one more time is nothing but imitating a long-playing echo chamber which might be of interest to those conservatives who don’t pay attention to what is going on in the country and the world.  The problem is that most of those folks don’t show up at such luncheons and meetings.

    So, the Republican Party, irrelevant statewide and nationally chaotic, continues to ignore the fact that it can right none of the liberal and woke wrongs without first regaining its stature as a recognized can-do political force in the country.  Endlessly repeating and pointing out the passing signposts to socialism has done nothing to change the direction of the country, and doing the same thing over and over again only confirms the definition of ignorance.

    If Republicans are not putting their energies into planning and making progress on the party’s road to resurgence, then the rest of it will only be an ongoing stream of empty rhetoric growing weaker with the passing years.

    [27oct23 update]  An added thought.  Given how other states are adopting our public policy insanities, California’s cancer has been aggressively metastasizing across the land.  The reason is clear and hangs on ‘other people’s money’ that can best be understood in light of what Garrett Hardin (q.v.) taught us about the behavior of commons (more here and here).  California has been very successful in taxing ‘the rich’, regulating the bejeezus out of everyone, and getting the feds to pony up every time we get our tit in a wringer, that it seems like a good idea for the folks in Ohio and Nebraska to copy.  As our snowballing national debt attests, with everyone piling on, this commons awaits its inevitable fate.

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5 comments on A Little Brainbone Exercise