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George Rebane
They have owed us about $5.5 million from the beginning of the year. What game are they playing now, wasn’t everything supposed to “pivot” to jobs creation about two months ago? Are they waiting for the arrival of the new Democratic import from Florida who will run against Congressman Tom McClintock? Will they release the funds if we also throw in a big welcome party for Stupak from Michigan? That guy will be looking for a new congressional district in the fall.
George Rebane
- Has political speech threatened violence?
- Consequential voting in democracies
- The Gospel of Peer Review
- Penn & Teller’s survey of environmentalists
All Americans get concerned when political speech threatens violence. The current charges that the right stepped over the line with threatening phone calls, tossing bricks through windows, snipping gas lines, calling a black legislator “nigger”, and who knows what else are very disturbing and should be followed up by more than just journalistic curiosity. And I understand that the matter has been referred to the FBI. In the meantime is there yet any hard evidence of who and of what political coloration did what? Nevertheless, the media – that now includes the blogosphere – is full of mounting charges from the left. One thing is clear though, performing such acts does nothing except to hurt the conservatives’ case against Obamacare. I presume that the FBI still knows how to spell MOM – means, opportunity, motivation.
[26mar10 update] Our progressive friends have become very agitated by the reported crowd reactions and other alleged responses to Democrat members of Congress in response to passing Obamacare. The left has a long history of political violence in America, and this opportunity to even the perception in the public mind is not to be missed. But before we put these reports paid, we should look at some more recent evidence or the lack thereof. I have made a pdf of some materials available here that were compiled and sent by an RR reader. Please have a read. Download NwordEvidence
Sometimes it is clear that democracies vote in ways that are not in their best interest. Bryan Caplan has explained this in an essay that summarizes research into what determines the outcome of free elections. About two years ago I reported on his just published book, The Myth of the Rational Voter – Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, in a post titled ‘How Elections Really Work’. Readers have shown a renewed interest in the consequence of elections, especially now that Obamacare has passed. Caplan’s work is a recommended review for discussing this issue.
‘Climategate Was an Academic Disaster Waiting to Happen’ writes Dr Peter Berkowitz of Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He covers thoroughly the weaknesses in the peer review process much revered by the layman not familiar with what really goes on when academics evaluate each others’ work. The main point developed in this article is that
The notion of objective truth has been abandoned and the peer review process gives ample opportunity to reward friends and punish enemies.
Few outside the practitioners of science and leading edge technology know that about 90% of peer reviewed and published papers contain seminal errors as other workers in the field replicate the experiments and/or reanalyze the data. This is part of the normal course of expanding human knowledge, which is always a ‘work in process’. Driving a stake in the ground through any given paper or set of papers, and surrounding them with a non-debatable religion, has always been and continues to be dangerous. This is especially true when these form the basis for far-reaching and/or draconian public policies. More outsiders should become familiar with what goes on in such closed societies.
Finally, a little serious humor on the psychology of all these touchy-feely folks who will march in a moment to defend the earth and the environment. A correspondent from soCal sent me the heads up on this video, and mused that it might say more about human nature than only environmentalists. Nevertheless, it is that ilk that brought us Alar, the tragedy of Three-Mile-Island, the Delta Smelt, and is now busily working on the joys of California's AB32. Please enjoy Penn & Teller telling it like it is.
George Rebane
Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) presents at the same time the best and worst views of a professional politician. This man has pandered his voters for years on the notion that he was like most of them, against the federal funding of abortion. Suddenly nationalized healthcare hung in the balance. Then, recognizing the man for what he is, Obama invited Stupak to the White House and took him to the wood shed behind the Rose Garden. There he explained the matter of Obamacare and Stupak’s chances of spending the rest of the year in the House broom closet working off of a card table by candle light. Obama made clear what kind of support the party would give him for his re-election in November, and then reminded him that he probably wasn’t qualified for a job as checkout clerk at the local Home Depot.
It didn’t take all that much for a very chastened Stupak to emerge from that little ‘conference’, find the nearest array of microphones, and sing the party line like a canary. And the seven or eleven or … moral midgets who had been following him around, all dutifully also fell in line. The rest is history, including today’s signing of the executive joke for which the congressman sold his soul.
In the end, Obama was merciful in delivering the coup de grace. He conceded to Stupak’s request that the signing be done behind closed doors with no press or photographers present. The last thing Stupak wanted was the picture of him standing behind a grinning Obama, putting the presidential signature on a toilet paper roll.
Actually, Obama had a little self-interest in not publicizing spineless politicians in the Oval Office. He will undoubtedly have to use this ruse again, and the memory of Stupak the Stupid plastered across front pages, blogs, and TV screens nationwide may stiffen opposition by future swallowers of this bitter pill.
But for the rest of us snuffies out here in Voterland, this should serve as a good reminder of the so-called principled people we send to Washington and the states’ capitals. Almost all of them are stupid or spineless, or both. Most illuminating.
George Rebane
‘Propaganda in the mornin’, propaganda in the evenin’, propaganda all the live-long day.’ It’s been a full time job, going on two years now, to put lipstick on this pig. And it’s not over yet as the President prepares to depart on a cross country campaign to sell Obamacare. This is the new law for the peehpul, their representatives had to be bribed to pass it, and now they need to be told how much they like it. Kool-Aid now has a new flavor. I predict these mid-term elections will be the most watched and eventful in the country’s history.
Reading NCWatch, I learned that Former Union Editor Jeff Pelline’s blog will join the new Sacramento Connect network of blogs started by the Sacramento Bee. Jeff has been assiduously reporting and interpreting foothill news for months. And his Sierra Foothills Report blog will now receive traffic from the Sac Bee website. I agree that the format of Sacramento Connect is a good one for newspapers, and a great match for like-minded satellite blogs.
This new relationship should lay aside any continuing claims that Mr Pelline offers centerline and balanced reportage. The Sac Bee is an established MSM liberal voice of California. It has been one of the media stalwarts supporting the Democratic California legislature over the years as that body passed law after law to impede, halt, and destroy the state’s economy. That job is pretty well done, and California will now choose to become either a federalized or dysfunctional state. Federalized if it intends to maintain its skeletized services while surrendering control and its fisc to the Beltway. And dysfunctional if it continues to reduce services and raise taxes as it chases balanced budgets with its shrinking revenue base. (The Arnold has now become the nation’s epitome of the girly-man governor.)
George Rebane
Nevada City’s efforts to attract Google’s attention for field testing its new broadband program is making news in the big city. The New York Times described our community hullabaloo held Saturday a week ago. Russ has more about that on NC Media Watch.
In a side discussion with an old friend and internet academic, Dr Larry Press, he suggested that perhaps we should include the ability to implement haptic applications from the remoteness of Nevada County. That would be novel and perhaps also attract a different genre of businesses to our community. Haptics is the techie word for (remote) touch capability. In other words, someone sitting in Grass Valley could be doing surgery on a patient in Redwood City or Bucharest. Technically it’s all possible if we have sufficient bandwidth.
Years ago the haptic applications I worked on involved simple force-feedback to handheld manipulators that worked with equipment located on the seabed five miles down. Imagine today’s technology that is able to transmit the coarseness of a surface to your fingertip in a special glove over a broadband link.
Anyway, Chip Carman and John Paul who head up our 95959google proposal have set up a new website, www.95959google.com, please visit it to keep updated on what’s happening on this community project.
George Rebane
Yesterday’s nationquake still trembles, and now we await the aftershocks that will follow in the coming months. They will come as surprises to many but not all of us. Only one much-touted promise of Obamacare will actually come true – redistributive subsidies. But you will NOT see the promised
• Lower insurance premiums, they will go up;
• Reduction in budget deficits, they will sky rocket;
• Reduction in overall healthcare spending, it will continue going up;
• A more competitive US economy, anemic growth will be institutionalized;
• No reductions in Medicare benefits, they will be reduced;
• Ability to keep your healthcare plan, you will be jailed if you resist complying with government directives that mandate your new healthcare regime.
And above all, your individual freedoms will now take a noticeable hit as the newly hired 17,000 to 20,000 federal bureaucrats begin their work sniffing up your backside. Who will be most disappointed? most likely those with personal stories of medical hardships, perhaps due to going crosswise with an insurance company. These folks will now expect a bright sunrise followed by a new day that will see their neighbors joyfully pitching in to pay their medical bills.
Perhaps the most pernicious lie that the progressives have foisted on the unthinking is that ‘healthcare is a right’. Never mind that the entire concept of rights has been mangled beyond repair by our public schools and the leftwing media, the operational definition of rights and privileges was recognized by our Founders who found very few of them “inalienable”. And even the inalienable ones they had to group with those that the government unevenly upheld and could also remove. Before Obamacare, we had the right to include healthcare among our purchases, now that right will be replaced by government specified and rationed levels of care.
My own lament on the larger ramifications of nationalized healthcare is recorded in ‘The First of a Grand Trifecta?’, and follows in a consistent stream the future I have seen for some years now.
One of the compliments that my leftwing readers often pay is to credit me with the introduction of ideas and opinions beyond my meager accomplishments. While I have introduced a number of views and perspectives, most of my contributions are personal commentaries through the lenses of systems science and a rich life that reflect the ideas of a mature and established ideological class. Often these pages have some claim on primacy due to the speed that a small blogger today is able to get his thoughts published. But overall, being called out as a lone rightwing wolf howling at the moon may simply reflect the constrained reading horizons of some, but by no means all, of my progressive readers.
In this light I want to bring to your attention the lament of a nationally syndicated and respected conservative columnist and academic, Victor Davis Hanson. Last night before turning out the lights, I ran into Hanson’s lengthy view of what the passage of Obamacare will mean to America. It is the most dire and detailed long-term prognosis from Hanson’s pen that I have read. Hanson and I often fly in a tight ideological formation, therefore I recommend his extended thoughts in ‘We’ve Crossed the Rubicon’ (aka, the tipping point).
George Rebane
The passage of Obamacare promises to be the first salvo of the socialist trifecta that takes the country well beyond the tipping point from the Republic the Founders left us. The left will celebrate this day as the beginning of the end of the evil United States that they have been battling against for most of the last century. The free market conservatives will drape a different kind of bunting around this day.
The second salvo will come in the form of ‘immigration reform’ which is a thinly veiled program for maintaining the current open borders while giving amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens already in the country. The obvious result is a very large welcome mat for millions more from Mexico alone – people desperate to escape the corruption and drug cartel wars. The ‘reform’, of course, will promote exactly the opposite than its lying sponsors in Washington claim. Mexico will have even less of a motive to become a functional country when a permanent, wide open relief valve for their growing population is installed. The first step of any real immigration reform starts with an effective closing of the border. Every other approach is futile and will hurry us to Reconquista.
The third salvo will be the cap n’ tax (Waxman-Markey) energy bill that in its implementation will deliver the coup de grace to America’s ability to generate wealth beyond the anemic pace of European countries, if that. When we recall that none of the EU countries maintain a credible military, we realize that America will either 1) no longer be able to maintain its ability to project power, or 2) control and tax our economy to Soviet levels in the attempt to prolong our ability to field the already straining 12 carrier task forces and 7 expeditionary groups that we now maintain. In either event, this global hegemony dynamic, coupled with the debt and unfunded liabilities disaster already baked in, will create a crisis of totally unprecedented proportions.
Such a national crisis, that may include a hot war between the US and China, will insure that the already trammeled citizenry demand the arrival of the notorious ‘man on a white horse’ to save the country. Such a man has always been available, and his first act will be to set aside the established order so that new ‘temporary emergency measures’ can be instituted. These measures will enable him to mobilize for and manage the crisis. Everyone will cheer. The cheering will fade when everyone realizes that there is nothing temporary about the emergency measures – they will be institutionalized.
So as we review today’s political theater, we see the Republicans vainly pointing out the fraudulent accounting of Obamacare. The Democrats respond by totally ignoring these realities and increase the volume on the anecdotal recounting of individuals in medical distress. This is a wildly successful tactic with under-educated and uninformed voters nationwide.
George Rebane
[I recorded this as my regular KVMR FM89.5 commentary for broadcast on 19 March 2010. President Obama appears to be ready to re-establish equal outcomes as the proxy for equal opportunity, a proxy which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2001.]
The equal opportunity debate is now at least forty-five years old. The problem has always been how you measure equal opportunity. The progressives came upon the solution years ago – it was simply equal outcome. If a population contained 20% Hispanics and 80% of some other class, then after going through an equal opportunity program, you’d better have the success rate be at least 20% Hispanics and 80% others for the results to have delivered equal opportunity.
Conservatives had big problems with this definition. They argued that you have to account for the predisposition of the racial and ethnic classes in order to explain any disparities in the results. They said that all we could and should do was to ensure that everyone had an equal chance going through the process. The outcomes would always be determined by many factors that take a lot of things into account, including what each participant brought to the starting line. Skewing the race to force the outcome to conform to class proportions would mess up the whole process and mess up society to boot.
But across the land, equal opportunity came to mean equal outcome. Nevertheless, the debate raged on in and out of court, and was finally brought to a conclusion in 2001. Then the Supreme Court ruled in Alexander v. Sandoval that the Civil Rights Act prohibits only disparate treatment and not disparate impact. In short, equal outcome lost and equal opportunity meant that you couldn’t rig the race in favor of one class or another. This ruling has held for about nine years.
This year in the public schools, Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is planning on going back to equal outcomes. In enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Secretary Duncan intends to correct ‘ten years of neglect’ – code for the Bush administration – by turning loose the department’s Office of Civil Rights to return us to the Clinton years when statistical disparity was equated with discrimination. We knew this as the quota system.
