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  • George Rebane

    Eliz&Lucas110529 

    Grandkids Lucas and Elizabeth, of our Northern Tribe in Washington, went to Spokane this weekend for the state’s high school track championships.  They attend Bear Creek School in Woodinville, and their track team qualified for the championships in several events.  Both kids and the team did well as you can tell from their expressions.  Lucas also plays basketball for the school, and Elizabeth is on the school’s volleyball team.  Their little sister Catherine, another basketball player (actually none of the Rebane sprouts are little) is off playing in the AAU league on a team for which she was recruited.  Mom (daughter Sini) is a trained sports photographer, and took the pictures.  Just thought you all would want to know 😉

  • George Rebane

    Today we remember and honor the military service men and women who died for us, and those who have yet to come home.  We sent them into harm’s way to keep harm away from us and our loved ones.  They went willingly again and again to do the work of war with the belief, and sometimes only hope, that their country was behind them.

     MemorialDay2011

    Since the days of muzzle loading rifles and the Constitution class of frigates, one way Americans heading for battle knew their country supported them fully was in the quality and supply of weapons and stores they were provided.  In the main, these were always the best that was available for warcraft.  And with innovative entrepreneurs free to invent, make, and sell, America soon set the standard for getting there firstest with the bestest and mostest – once our politicians had things sorted out.

    (more…)

  • George Rebane

    About two years ago in these pages I introduced the notion of California rapidly becoming federalized (here) because it was successfully pursuing many concurrent avenues to failure.  A federalized state must first be a failed state, and that we have become as William Russell Mead explains in a tightly written piece on his American Interest blog.  The following is the introduction to Mead’s essay.

    The controversial US Supreme Court decision that could ultimately force California to release tens of thousands of prison inmates is more than a shockingly broad exercise of judicial power.  It is also an official declaration by the highest constitutional authority in the land that California meets the strict test of state failure: it can no longer enforce the law within its frontiers.

    Let there be no mistake: when you produce so many criminals that you can’t afford to lock them up, you are a failed state.  Virtually every important civil institution in society has to fail to get you to this point.  Your homes and houses of worship are failing to build law abiding citizens, much less responsible and informed voters.  Your schools aren’t educating enough of your kids to make an honest living.  Your taxes and policies are so bad that you are driving thousands of businesses away.  Your management systems must be fouled and confused to the max for you to create something so dysfunctional, so wildly beyond your means, that the Supreme Court of the United States (wisely or foolishly is another question) starts to micromanage your jails.

    California used to be the glory of this country, the dream by the sea, the magic state.  Now it produces so many criminals it can’t pay to keep them locked up.

    Please read the entire essay ‘SCOTUS Makes It Official: California A Failed State’.  H/T to regular RR reader for alerting us to this.

  • George Rebane

    These pages see a lot of debate between commenters of widely varying ideological stripe.  One of the problems often encountered by the reader of comment threads, embedded in a posted article's comment stream, is that one debater suddenly posts a comment that somehow does not follow what went on before – it seems to have taken a turn and headed off to left field.  If the other commenter or debater attempts follow or point out the sudden detour, then the debate essentially disintegrates with no clear understanding by readers of where at least one (usually the dear departing) contenders stands on the original proposition.

    I am posting this little piece as one that I and others can refer (and link) to in the future when it is desired to highlight the basis for a discussion thread’s going awry.  And I will provide for this by defining the notions of semantic orthogonality and the independence of likelihoods (or probabilities) of propositions being true/correct.

    (more…)

  • George Rebane

    [This is the transcript of my regular bi-weekly KVMR-FM commentary broadcast earlier this (27may11) evening.]

    Going into its second year now is a ballooning lawsuit that names Nevada County, its Clerk-Recorder Mr Greg Diaz, and Aptitude Solutions, a Florida software company as defendants.  The suit is brought by AtPac, the county’s longtime records processing and storage software vendor, which was replaced by the Florida company selling similar software and services.

    Things with the switchover to Aptitude started going wrong from the start as I reported to you last month, and as has been covered extensively in The Union and some local blogs, mine included.  The former vendor AtPac has charged that Mr Greg Diaz and the county wrongfully gave the new vendor access to AtPac’s proprietary intellectual property.  Diaz and the county apparently did this in order to facilitate the changeover of county data so that it could be handled by the Florida vendor’s software.

    Both the county and Mr Diaz continue to deny doing anything improper as the case drags through its discovery phase and preparation for trial sometime later this year.  The problems apparently started when the county refused to hire its old vendor to convert county data from its proprietary format into one that could be used by the new vendor.  That job would have cost the county a “maximum contract amount of $15,000”.

    (more…)

  • George Rebane

    Here's an example of the asymmetry in the violent rhetoric and revolutionary fervor between the left and the right.  This video makes clear the palpable violence and hatred of the right.  Take a look at these rabid rightwingers; and check out the music that sets the mood.  Is this their best shot?

    And then check out a good representation of what has become identified as the rightwing credo.  How does the self-declared midddle differentiate itself from these tenets?

    Last night we saw the screening of 'A More Perfect Union', a compelling depiction of America's Constitutional Convention that produced the document which made us an enduring democratic republic.  The film was presented at the NC Board of Realtors' Easterly Hall by those radical NC Tea Party Patriots.  When the film ended it was hard to find a dry eye in the SRO hall.  Gotta watch 'em like a hawk.

  • George Rebane

    Tofanelli’s in Grass Valley was again the venue for the annual TechTest Survivors’ Breakfast.  2011 is the fifth anniversary of TechTest (‘Where the Elite Compete’), the merit scholarship examination taken by a teacher-nominated group of select Nevada County high school seniors headed for careers in science and technology.  TT is written and sponsored by the Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation, and is administered by a committee of Nevada County high school teachers chaired by Mr John McDaniel.

    TT2011winners  

    This year’s breakfast was well attended by ‘survivors’ (pictured here), parents, local educators, SESF board members, and contributors to the TT2011 merit scholarship fund.  Scholarships are awarded strictly on the basis of test scores (more here).

    This year’s survivors are heading for universities and colleges ranging from Ivy League and West Point to California’s institutions of higher education.  The breakfast allows everyone to share their plans and kibitz on their test experience – TT2011 was judged to be “a little easier” than previous editions, even though the top score was still about 60.  As author of the tests, I am making special note of that.  (Readers are invited to judge for themselves; past tests and solutions are available here.)

    Also highlighted at the feed was SESF’s TechMentor program that supplies tutors and mentors to Nevada County schools.  These volunteers act as a teachers’ resource to work with students who have special remedial or advanced studies needs.  I wrote about this program in a recent Union column that provides more information if you are interested in helping our young people.

    The plans for TT2012 include increasing the scholarship fund by inviting local businesses, especially the high tech companies, to contribute and get more involved with young people heading for technical careers.  If you wish to participate in TechTest or TechMentor, please email me at nctechmentor@gmail.com .

  • George Rebane

    RLCrabb110524 

    The cartoon by friend and RR reader RL ‘Balanced Bob’ Crabb appears in today’s (24may11) Union.  Balanced Bob is a self-proclaimed down-the-middle observer of our partisan puffings and pitfalls.  Here he administers a well-worn leftwing swipe at the tea party movement by taking it to task for being too focused as an organization.  The tea party attracts its members through the narrow door of small government, fiscal responsibility, constitutionality, and free markets.

    The tea party members (and I am one) take these as a limited yet powerful set of goals for governance that many people can agree on.  We don’t cover the waterfront as a political party might by also espousing social goals, a foreign policy, and so on.  This doesn’t mean that tea party members don’t each have their own beliefs and ideas about all those things; it’s just that these are not germane to their membership in our particular organization.  Sorta like the National Organization for Women not taking a stand on free markets (maybe they do?).

    But a standard tack of the left, when at a disadvantage on the main point of an argument, is to immediately defocus it in either the topical and/or the historical dimension.  To their mind this is a perfectly valid method of discourse, especially political discourse.  For example, if a proposition is made that ‘high school education would be improved by putting only qualified teachers into classrooms’, then a teachers’ union progressive would deflect the argument by accusing his counterpart of not caring for the quality of grade school education by omitting that from his proposition.  Or even more egregiously, applying the historical gambit, ‘Yeah?  Well where were you guys when we tried to do that ten years ago?’  Examples of this abound in the comment streams of these pages.

    So here we have Balanced Bob now tilting at the tea party from the left in order to keep his credentials in equilibrium.  But the part that I’m having trouble understanding is how are we being “deceptive” by constantly publishing our focused emphasis on the principles we espouse.  And just because they were never meant to be comprehensive does not mean that tea party members wear blinders and are ignorant about the other issues on which their candidates take a stance.

    I may not be among the most knowledgeable of tea party members – for which I apologize – but I do invite anyone sharing Bob’s view of the organization to button hole a member and talk to him/her about their knowledge of candidates and other issues.   It is the tea party kind of large scale awakening of the American electorate that keeps slogan-slinging politicos awake nights.

  • George Rebane

    The 2011 May Day celebrations in Los Angeles were not covered as thoroughly by the lamestream as one might wish.  Our progressive cadres continue to lay a thick smokescreen on the notion that today’s labor movement, led by public service unions, have again picked up the theme of a new communist revolution.  Moreover, they want you to know it and join them.  Please file this in your Great Divide folder.  (Click to enlarge image.)

    LA_MayDay2011 

  • “Democrats voted for Obama to prove they weren’t racist,….now they can vote for Cain to prove they’re not stupid.”  From an article announcing Cain’s candidacy.

    George Rebane

    – New Report on the status of American education and its public schools,
    – SleazeWatch Dept – Obamacare waivers line is getting even longer,
    – Remarkable position of Dems on debt and deficit,
    – No explanation on the glories of ‘card check’,
    – Still hear about Al Gore’s notorious SS Lock Box?

    ‘The Failure of American Schools’ by Joe Klein in the June issue of The Atlantic lays out the most recent grim picture on the performance and policies of unionized public schools in America (H/T to reader).  Recommended reading for both Democrats and Republicans – the former to celebrate how their voter pool is growing, and the latter to stay focused on efforts to return real education into the country’s classrooms.

    OcareWaiver In our SleazeWatch Department the spotlight returns to that legislative luminary, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who still holds the title of Ms Pass-then-Ponder in the House.  Yes, her main claim to fame is still Obamacare, but maybe not in the way she intended.  As the long line of businesses, institutions, and unions (more than half of applicants, who’d a thunk it?) at the Obamacare Waiver Window grows, someone noticed that almost 40 of the recent additions to this line of worthies seeking to opt out come from Pelosi’s district.  Not to worry though, those with petitions to take a pass on socialized healthcare need no longer embarrass their electeds in Congress with direct appeals.  They can use a front outfit by the name of Flex-Plan Services to do their dirty work with the government (wink-wink).  Love that name; wasn’t Obamacare supposed to do away with all that flexibility in the healthcare markets?  For a snootfull on these doings, just google ‘Obamacare waivers’.

    It seems that not many people understand the whys and wherefores of raising the nation’s debt ceiling.  One way you can tell is to look at the straight-faced position of the Democratic congressional caucus.   With not a blink of an eye, the Dems state that we’ll continue screwing the country by opposing meaningful spending cuts, unless you Republicans let us screw the country by helping us raise taxes and support meaningless spending cuts.  For a while there I thought that both sides had the best interests of the nation at heart.  To see why the Dems don’t have to worry how this stand will play with the voters, take another look at the status of education report above.

    Maybe I’m just waiting for the Easter Bunny and Tinkerbell, but I did expect someone like Trumka or Andy Stern to explain to the rest of us about forced unionization and workers’ rights.  To date none of the progressives have stepped up to explain how denying workers a secret ballot on admitting a union increases their rights.  One explanation is that the leftwing politicos are afraid the public schools haven’t yet graduated enough double dummies who will believe how that ‘card check’ liberal lobotomy will substitute for reason and logic.

    Finally, it seems that one funny farm factoid has finally been laid to rest in the debate about our country’s unfunded liabilities.  It seems that the ‘fully funded Social Security trust fund’ phools are getting the hook from their leftwing pulpits.  It must be about three months or so since I last heard one of those talk in a public forum.  Now it’s only a few local yokels here and there who still believe that Al Gore’s notorious SS Lock Box full of Treasuries will be good for anything except perhaps launching QE47.  Bernanke, call your office.

1 comment on Elizabeth & Lucas: Grandpa’s Bragging Rights