Rebane's Ruminations

About

November 2026
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  

ARCHIVES

OUR LINKS

YubaNet
White House Blog
Watts Up With That?
The Union
Sierra Thread
RL “Bob” Crabb
Barry Pruett Blog

  • No Hope or Change from Sacramento

    George Rebane

    CalTex “death spiral” is how a learned correspondent characterized the latest Democrat rejections of starting a two-tiered Calpers program for government employees (as reported in the SacBee here).  The second tier was supposed to offer a bit more reasonable package to new state employees – not a chance with this crowd.  Their argument is that such a policy would discriminate against the recently hired if their retirement benefits were lower than that of those already on the payroll.  Well, no s%&t Red Ryder!  How else are you going to start reducing an expense that has bankrupted the state and that taxpayers can no longer afford?  This reasoning, however, is too lofty for our left-wing legislature and their state workers’ unions. 

    The public employees pension fiasco is a developing story that will shake the state to its foundations.  Regular RR readers will have already fastened their seatbelts, hidden their wallets, or rented a U-Haul. 

    As an aside, we read today that Calpers is suing the three credit rating agencies for leading it down the primrose path on Structured Investment Vehicles.  This comes from the world’s biggest retirement funds manager with over $170,000,000,000 in assets.  These poor babies are now crying foul (more here)  With that much money and their considerable management fees, you’d think that they would have someone on board who could rate these screwy stealth securities in-house.  Or if they couldn’t do that, alarms would go off and they wouldn’t invest in them.  Stupid is forever.

    Meanwhile, we’re not too bright ourselves staying in a state that has a net loss of about 100,000 productive people a year.  Also, the Public Policy Institute of California reports that the net out migration is over 1.5 households for every household moving in.  The only thing that keeps California’s population growing is the birth rate of its minorities.  (And the influx of illegals that the Democrats now want to include in our 2010 census.)  The latest Economist has a lead piece about our death spiral.  Word definitely has gotten out.

    And let’s see, what’s more important for me to do today than scream (respectfully, of course) at my state government?

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    4 comments on No Hope or Change from Sacramento

  • California 1849 – 2009

    [The following anonymous contribution, a la the Michael Jackson hoopla, was forwarded by a colleague and east coast correspondent.  Word has gotten out.  gjr]

    Fans Flock to Mourn California, 1849-2009

    CARIP LOS ANGELES – Millions of fans from around the globe gathered along Sunset Boulevard to pay final respects to California today, as a slow moving funeral procession transported the eccentric superstar state’s remains to its final resting place in a Winchell’s Donuts dumpster in Van Nuys.  The self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop Culture’ died last week at 160, in what coroners ruled an accidental case of financial autoerotic asphyxiation.  The death sent shock waves across the world and sparked an outpouring of grief by rabid fans.

    “I don’t care what the tabloids and the Wall Street Journal say,” said a weeping Illinois. “I still love you, Cali!”

    The 640-mile long funeral parade route was lined with flowers, candles, teddy bears, and IOUs from millions of mourners and debtors who made the somber journey to watch the passing of the state that had once ruled the box office and industrial charts.  Among them were current chart-toppers who cited California as a key influence.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    1 comment on California 1849 – 2009

  • ‘Is it Time for the Turing Test to Retire?’

    George Rebane

    AlanTuring Definitely not.  This question is asked by Dr. Aladdin Ayesh in a brief but serious article with the above title.  I presume Dr. Ayesh is a computer scientist, but he seems to be confused about how Alan Turing proposed his test for machine intelligence or, if you wish, AI almost sixty years ago.

    Ayesh states that – Back in 1950, Turing proposed that a machine can demonstrate and be proven to possess true intelligence through a simple test of conversation, in which a human user converses blindly with two entities: a machine and another human. If that user could not tell the difference between the two entities, the machine is considered to be ‘intelligent’.

    Turing did not offer his test as any definitive method to ‘prove’ that a machine is intelligent.  In fact, Turing did not even want to answer the seminal question, ‘What is intelligence?’  Instead, in his characteristic and deep fashion, Turing offered an operational answer to a difficult but related question that was posed to him – ‘Can a machine be intelligent?’ – by addressing the question ‘Can machines think?’

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    4 comments on ‘Is it Time for the Turing Test to Retire?’

  • Nevada County ARRA Still on Ice

    George Rebane

    Well, the ARRA – aka SP787 – stimulus is performing sorta like history predicts (cf. FDR’s alphabet soup programs during the 1930s) – late, expensive, and ineffective.  Now, after launching TARP(SP700) and SP787, they’re starting to talk about “stimulus two”.  What again was that definition of insanity?

    NCARRA090710

    Meanwhile here in the woods we’re standing around the mailbox, with our ready shovels at port arms, waiting for some more of that ‘approved’ $4.17 million to arrive.  Hard to tell what’s really happening, except that the government bureaucracy for distributing and monitoring the stimulus funds is growing, so I guess the stimulus is working somewhere.  (All this experience will also be used as a blueprint for setting up and operating Cap n’ Tax and Obamacare.  We live and learn.)

    And as reported yesterday (here), it seems that we might increase the county’s take if someone called Geithner and company.  The message should be that we’re doing our damndest to turn into compliant collectivists as witnessed by last November’s election results.  All we need to become a solid blue county is a little more stimulus than the $60K they have sent us.  Our votes can be bought just as reliably as those in Detroit.

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    No comments on Nevada County ARRA Still on Ice

  • Early ARRA Results

    George Rebane

    CashPayoff

    USA Today reports ‘Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in ’08’, specifically –

    Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year’s presidential election. (emphasis mine)

    The counter argument to all this is that this distribution result was either a coincidence or just normal redistribution of wealth through the usual channels.

    That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration’s massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.

    Either way, to me it looks bad.  There either is a payoff for this president’s election, which is due process given the history of these things, or else it’s just recognition that these constituencies have been on the permanent government teat for a very long time, mostly to no avail.  In any case, and with the Peter/Paul Principle in full force, the correct name of the law truly is the American Redistribution and Re-election Act of 2009.  People who will be made to pay the bill should deport accordingly.

    Posted at

    in

    No comments on Early ARRA Results

  • ‘Culture and Creativity at the Edge of Nature’

    Gil Mathew

    There were those who scoffed at that tag line, ‘Culture and Creativity at the Edge of Nature’, when it was first crafted at the ERC, and some with good reason.  However at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference in Las Vages last month, it was a phrase that rang true.  In the Broadcast industry, Nevada County i.e. Grass Valley is a world leader. As you stroll the aisles or sit among some of the 75,000 or so attendees at NAB everyone knows about Grass Valley, and almost all of them say the same thing.  “Of course, we know Grass Valley.  What a cool place that is and it’s pretty too”  Then when you probe deeper, you find that they not only know of the video companies that call this home, but also know the vibrant and creative talent that is collected here, and many that I spoke with wished they could live and work here.

    GVNAB

    It’s this culture of creativity that also allows new products to be brought to market.  Witness the award winning products that were announced during the April show. Telestream, the Telestream Pipeline was acclaimed by the Broadcast Engineering Magazine as an NAB Pick Hit of the show along with Grass Valley’s Kayenne switcher and the K2Dyno and Summit.   AJA Video’ Ki Pro.  Over 15% of the 34 “Pick Hits” by Broadcast Engineering Magazine came from Nevada County and when you consider we are up against, Sony, Panasonic, Adobe, etc. that’s an accomplishment.

    A big winner at NAB was AJA Video and their Ki Pro.  Ki Pro was awarded the Broadcast Engineering Pick Hit Award, the DV Black Diamond Award, the TV Technology Star Award, and the Videography Magazine Vidy Award. Products awarded are selected by a panel of industry experts, engineers and journalists based on the most innovative new technologies introduced at the annual NAB conference.

    Grass Valley unveiled their new look, dropping the Thomson name.  The booth was spectacular and it was the first thing you saw as you entered the South Hall.
     
    Nevada County can be very proud of the contribution made by these and the other business that call this edge of nature, home.

    [Gil Mathew is CEO of the Nevada County Economic Resource Council, and a Nevada County entrepreneur.  This piece first appeared in the Nevada County Business News.]

    Posted at

    in

    3 comments on ‘Culture and Creativity at the Edge of Nature’

  • Glenn Beck’s Uncommon Sense

    George Rebane

    Glenn Beck’s Common Sense – The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government has been #1 on NYT’s best seller list for several weeks.  In it he outlines the excesses of a rampantly growing government and exhorts his readers to apply common sense so that they can clearly see that things in our Republic are going to hell in a handcart.  The case he makes is plain enough and regular RR readers will not discover much new in Beck’s litany of government abuses and history of muddle-headed programs.

    BecksBook I read the book last night – it is a short book of only 167 pages that also includes Thomas Paine’s original 1776 classic Common Sense.  Beck goes through a very detailed litany of how things have gone and are going wrong.  He sprinkles blame on both parties, but the reader quickly senses that most of it will stick to those of the liberal persuasion who are referred to by their preferred label of ‘progressives’.  It is a good read and I recommend it to everyone, especially to those who see themselves firmly in the Republican or Democrat camps.  Buy it, read it, and pass it on.

    I like Glenn Beck and his ministry, but my criticism of Beck’s book is not how it describes our problems, but the solution that he almost doesn’t recommend.  On top of that, he inconsistently sees the American people as compliant and unconcerned about the direction their political leaders want to take them, and a paragraph later as made up of a very aware and long suffering cohort, spread across the land, that is merely waiting for someone to form them up and lead them back to a non-partisan promised land.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    1 comment on Glenn Beck’s Uncommon Sense

  • … and then, where’s Hillary?? (updated)

    George Rebane

    Things are getting curiouser and curiouser.  Today everyone is hyper-ventilating on the portents of Sarah Palin’s resignation, President Obama making nice with the Russians, the Dems are on the air talking down the abject failure of stimulation, Iran is confirming it’s a totalitarian state, Madman Kim Jong Il is cutting back North Korea’s economy and rattling its bent saber, and the Chinese are starting to kill the Moslem Uyghurs in wholesale.  And that’s just a start.

    Many think that Palin will somehow co-opt the Tea Party movement into a new political party that she will head for her 2012 presidential bid.  That will require a lot of ducks to line up just about perfectly.  Right now this little burp in her political career serves to fill column inches, blogs (like this), and minutes of air time.  As I said on NC MediaWatch ,  ‘She has some work to do before she can readily claim all Tea Party supporters as members of a new political party. The TP is now the standard bearer for a strong sentiment about governance that is drawing a lot of conservative support. But a sentiment – especially a sentiment with no focused leadership – is not by itself a political party. Let’s first see how she sets her sails, and then what wind will fill them.’

    ObamaMedvedev

    Obama’s trip to Russia seems to have no clear purpose that serves US interests.  Putin is on track to re-exert USSR-style influence in Russia’s “near abroad”, and is showing Obama its respect by holding the largest war games since the Cold War right next to Georgia (where it still has troops from its recent invasion) while Obama is drinking tea with Medvedev.  They’re supposed to be talking about a new SALT treaty, as if that will make a difference?? A hell of a way to push the vaunted ‘Reset Button’ that Hillary earlier delivered to Moscow as an apology for the Bush years.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , ,
    2 comments on … and then, where’s Hillary?? (updated)

  • Flyover Fourth (6jul2009 update)

    George Rebane

    This Fourth was a special treat for me.  After launching our celebrations last night at the outdoor Music in the Mountains July 4th concert with friends Ellen and Russ Steele, I was invited to fly second seat today in friend and neighbor Jim Booth’s bright yellow ‘MYT-6’.  We were scheduled to do to flyovers today – the first at Lake of the Pines and then over the Grass Valley parade route to start the festivities.

    T6formation01

    Jim picked me up at 9am sharp and in no time we were at the Nevada County airport (KGOO) opening up Jim’s huge hangar.  There sat the retired warbird, all shined up and ready for showtime.  I say retired because the AT-6 had its first life serving as an advanced trainer of WW2 fame, the job it was designed and built for.  The T-6s then passed into civilian hands as one of the most popular single engine airplanes ever and saw a second career in the air racing circuits around the country.  Jim is also an ex-air racer, and now serves to train T-6 pilots in air racing and formation flying.  In recent years he has served as the official starter for the T-6 races in Reno.

    T6formation02

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    1 comment on Flyover Fourth (6jul2009 update)

  • Obama’s Numbers and the Austrian School

    George Rebane

    UnemploymentJun09

    Team Obama must finally agree with Ludwig von Mises, famed economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics.  As reported here numerous times, von Mises advised in an economic recession like ours, that the government should “do nothing – sooner!”  Now with White House numbers standing embarrassed in the light of real world experience, I wonder if the Sierra Bravos will hold off a bit on their rush to inject big government into every corner of our lives on the pretext of “stimulus”.  Take a look at the new national unemployment numbers as plotted against what the know-nothings projected with the passage of ARRA (aka American Redistribution and Re-election Act).  The nation is following the lead of bankrupt California (here). I doubt that very many in this innumerate land of ours will pay much attention as they continue genuflecting toward Washington.

    (H/T to Russ Steele for this update.)

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    1 comment on Obama’s Numbers and the Austrian School

RR FUNDAMENTALS

About the Bastiat Triangle

Glossary & Semantics

A Conservetarian Credo

Commenting Rules

RECENT POSTS

RECENT COMMENTS

CATEGORIES

4 comments on No Hope or Change from Sacramento