George Rebane

Accuse them of your own sins.  That longstanding advice to our Left comes from both Lenin and Alinsky.  Today no one knows that the Democrats were the first election deniers, seeking to overturn the 2004 election in favor of John Kerry by not certifying Ohio’s electoral votes on the House floor on 6 January 2005.  Fortunately, the 31 Democrats’ votes were not enough to carry the day and Bush2 remained our president.  One of those election deniers was James Clyburn (D-SC) whose last-minute endorsement of Biden flipped his faltering campaign just before the election.  Imagine what would have happened had the corrupt FBI also not helped mangle the 2020 election by keeping Hunter’s laptop under the rug.  (more here)

Economists are becoming more dismal than ever.  (Don’t even call it ‘the dismal science’, there is nothing scientific about that field of pseudo-sorcery.  Be especially wary when an economist argues with equations.)  The latest example comes from the “leadership” of the American Economic Association that announced the mandates for attendees at their January 2023 New Orleans conference.  All must have been vaccinated with one additional booster shot, and wear a mask that at least as good as the N-95.  Nowhere else at the hotel venue, in the city, or overwhelmingly in most of the country, are people still subjected to such unscientific protocols.  It’s hard to think of another ‘discipline’ in which its demonstrated error-prone practitioners are still accepted and continue to be cited. (more here)

One of Jo Ann’s ‘Hits & Misses’ in today’s Union was censored.  She has been one of the longest-serving members of the paper’s editorial board, and under previous publishers has never had any of her submissions rejected, even the occasional ones critical of the publication.  She submitted the following Miss regarding the recent treatment of RL Crabb’s cartoons, which have recently been printed in hard-to-read, washed out, black and white while other cartoons continue in their full color formats – Miss to The Union which demoted favorite, local political cartoonist RL Crabb’s offerings to a faded black and white format.  That’s no way to treat such talent. Please bring back his witty, vibrant political cartoons in color.  The times they are a-changin’.

Addendum – Please allow me to expand the reasonable basis on which one may conclude that Bob Crabb’s work has been discriminated against.  In an email exchange The Union’s leadership claims that they have no control over which pages the printer decides to print in black & white, to them it is a random process.  Now allow for a moment that we consider the last two months or nine weeks during which The Union has published 45 op-ed cartoons.  Bob submits two per week, and the rest are selected from a potpourri of syndicated cartoonists.  That means that Bob submitted 18 cartoons, all of which appeared in faded black and white.  While I don’t recollect any b/w syndicated printings, but to be generous, assume that one in ten of the 27, or between two and three of the syndicated ones also appeared in black and white.

With this understanding in hand, we know that the probability was 0.1 that the first Crabb cartoon happened to be black and white.  The probability that his second one was similarly b/w is 0.1 x 0.1 = 0.01.  In the same manner, the third b/w cartoon appeared with probability 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1 = 0.001, or a chance of one in a thousand.  Continuing this calculation for all 18 of Bob’s cartoons yields the mind boggling miniscule probability of 10^(-18) = 0.000,000,000,000,000,001 or one billionth of a billionth that such a run of b/w cartoons would have occurred from the claimed random process – talk about highly improbable.  It is clear that any reasonable person with a smidgen of understanding of the above would reject the The Union’s characterization of the process along with the claim of no bias against RL Crabb’s work.

As a coda to the above argument, I want to remind readers that RR has always supported the rights of private sector enterprises to manage their own relationships and conduct their business affairs as they see fit – subject as always to a minimum set of regulations and laws that prevent parties from doing gratuitous harm to each other.  In this case The Union and RL Crabb are both private sector parties, and are free to negotiate any mutually acceptable working relationship, including one that contains discriminatory provisions.  At the same time others, including the customers and consumers of products and services provided by a business, are always free to criticize the business for any reason or no reason at all.  In sum, I oppose the kinds of discrimination against RL Crabb and Jo Ann Rebane described above, and I do it without impugning The Union’s right to so discriminate.  The discriminating reader(sic) will understand that an instance of discrimination and the right to discriminate are independent notions/issues.

[11sep22 update]  Seattle has cracked the homeless problem.  They plan to spend $66.5M to build a “homeless megaplex” that will house 500 homeless to be maintained by 400 staffers costing in excess of $22M/yr to keep open, and the indigents and crazies from killing themselves and each other. (more here)  Fantastic!  That comes to costing more than $50K/yr for getting one homeless off the streets.  So let’s apply the Seattle solution to the national problem consisting today of about 575,000 homeless.  That will cost the country’s taxpayers about $76B to kick off the program and over $25B/yr to keep the nation’s streets clean of derelicts, needles, and feces.  Not sure who all are going to pay for the Seattle project.  I suspect they’re going to pass the hat to the rest of America to solve their problem in the Puget Sound area.  And, of course, if this template is applied nationwide, then we all pay.  But think of the extra benefit from such a public ‘investment’; it will require the training and hiring of about 460,000 low skilled (pre-homeless?) workers to take care of the 575,000 homeless, an almost one-for-one ratio of government keeper per bum.  Bum?  That was a popular label in less enlightened years that described “a person who avoids work and sponges on others; loafer, idler, tramp, hobo, or derelict.”  Bring on the megaplexes, one in every neighborhood.

 [14sep22 update]  Nevada County’s sales tax will be increased by 0.5% if a majority of voters approve Measure V in November.  The anticipated $12M annual take will go into the county’s general fund to be spent as the supervisors determine.  However, the tax is being sold under the guise that “the money would go toward fire prevention and mitigation efforts.”  A local judge ruled that the voters would not be confused by this double labeling of the new tax.  According to the unfathomable legal logic used in our corrupt legal system, the judge stated that “… this court is satisfied that should Measure V be adopted, the public would have been adequately informed that it was adopting a general tax.” (more here)  Experience advises otherwise – all will focus on the wildfire aspect and few will discern that it is really a general tax increase which depends on the promise of politicians to be spent as advertised.  Would it be correctly represented to the voters as a specific use tax, then it would require a 2/3 super-majority approval to pass it.  IMHO the tax passage requirements should be reversed – 2/3 to approve a general fund tax, and simple majority to approve a specific purpose tax.  Better yet, 2/3 to approve all tax increases.  Thoughts?

National Conservatives are a relatively new branch of the GOP and have some nuanced yet important differences with those who view themselves more as ‘Reagan conservatives’.  I find some tenets of their ideology attractive, and easily accepted by the conservetarian in me.  Since we’ll be talking more about national conservatives and national conservatism, I recommend that interested readers get acquainted with this version of conservatism.  (more here)