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  • Misguided Public Safety Power Shutoffs

    George Rebane

    [This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 28 October 2020.]

    Dear Gov Newsom – This is an open letter to you from an old and very disgruntled citizen who has spent the last 63 years of his life in this beautiful state.  During these decades I went to school, earned my living, raised my family here, and watched the steady decline of a once golden state.  And I can attest that it truly was the Golden State because I was there.

    Today, after decades of a virtual political monopoly in Sacramento, our state has landed on the bottom of the barrel with several other equally discredited states.  We purposely raised our taxes to the highest levels, became the leader in regulatory burdens heaped on our businesses and homeowners, and are now the hands down mecca of the nation’s welfare recipients – one out of three live here.  We lead the nation in the number of homeless, and invite their filthy tent favelas that now stretch from the coastal cities to the Sierra foothills.  Our food and fuel prices have sky rocketed to the highest in the nation.  Our roads, bridges, and other infrastructures are in third-world disrepair, public employee pensions are unfunded to the tune of unpayable billions, and businesses and middle-class taxpayers are departing in droves to greener pastures.

    Add to this California’s highest electricity costs and disastrous power outages that now resemble the availability of electricity in second and third world countries, and you almost have the complete picture of where we are today and the direction we’re headed tomorrow.  (more here) And that, because the state’s legislative and regulatory pipeline is chuck full of a lot more of what already pains us.  But governor, this is just a short summary of California’s deficits and decline, about which long and detailed books have been written.  On top of all this, the state’s political leaders and bureaucrats have created a problem that’s even more up close and personal, one that affects all Californians, especially those of us who live in the rural counties.

    (more…)

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  • Scattershots – 25oct20 (updated 28oct20)

    George Rebane

    Exciting times, youngest granddaughter Fi just gave birth to Maybelle at Sierra Memorial to our fifth great-grandchild.  Daddy Shawn was there to catch it on the first bounce or sooner.  They’re not allowing visitors during these trying times, so our family's welcoming committee will have to form when the new mama and baby get discharged.  Oh well.

    Dodgers v Rays at 2-2.  From the record, the chances that the winner of the 2-2 game goes on to win the series is 65% or about two out of three.  I dug up this stat to see how close it matched the chances for two equally capable teams each having a 50-50 chance of winning a subsequent game.  Going into the 3-2 game, the ‘3’ team has a 75% chance of taking the series, and the ‘2’ team’s chance is 25%.  So the record book’s 65% stat of actual 3-2 winners is a mite low, but still commanding.  Were we to do a little bit of probability math and compute what the actual probability of the series champ winning the subsequent games that yield the recorded 65% stat, we would get 41%, or about two out of five, as the probability of winning each subsequent game.  This says that during the history of baseball, winners of the 2-2 games, those who went on to win the series 65% of the time, were actually the poorer of the two teams who just managed to make it to the 2-2 game score in the series.  That explains that if they were better to at least be 50-50 equal with the other team, they would have won the series 3 out of 4 times instead of 2 out 3 times.  Throw a brainbone around that.

    [26oct20 update]  The DJA is down 2.50% (707 points) as I write; supposedly on fears that there will be no stimulus bill, Nancy won’t allow it, and the "uptick" of C19 cases.  A week before the election, and things are looking dim for President Trump and the Republicans.  It reminds me again of the difference between our polarized politics.  One side has a tougher row to hoe since it bases its message on building and growing the fortunes of Americans.  And that’s hard, especially when the other side does all it can to diminish, dampen, and destroy the opportunities for all, save their elites – especially their black constituents whom they have had in the bag since the Great Society days.  It’s much harder to build than to tear down.  With all this news the Democrats are dancing in the streets. 

    The WH correctly maintains that we will “defeat” C19, but we “cannot control it”.  Unfortunately, to most people this will seem like a conundrum – how can we defeat something we can’t control?  Of course, the Dems and their lamestream media will make the most out of this statement, claiming it’s proof of Trump’s failed C19 response policy.  Those more used to critical thought realize that we have managed to defeat (with vaccines and therapeutics) many diseases in the sense that we can go on with our lives in a normal manner without the ability to control when and where any such disease will again turn up.  The list of such defeated but uncontrolled bugs and viruses is long.  This statement from the WH is meant to promote getting back to normal sooner than later, but that’s not how it will be spun to the all-believing hoi polloi.  Sad, but it is what it is.

    A new study proclaims that “2.5 Million Person-Years of Life Have Been Lost Due to COVID-19 in the United States”.  We read (here) that Harvard Medical School geneticist Stephen Elledge, says he did the analysis to correct "the false impression that the impact on society of these deaths is minimal" because they are concentrated among the elderly.  Actually, Dr Elledge misses the point completely with his mathematical manipulation of C19 mortality statistics.  His study does not consider who actually suffers the loss of so many million life-years lost.  By any known metric our society (and world) is not lacking for the billions of life-years lost through whatever causes.  However, one can instead make the case that our society and world (i.e. the aggregate cohort of survivors) do suffer today from too many life-years lived. (more here)

    [27oct20 update] Rebane Doctrine re status of country correctly summarized in ‘The American Experiment is on Life Support’ by Andrew Michta, dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.  And then there’s our eternally confused progressive Union columnist Darrell Berkheimer, in whose ‘Why does ‘socialism is bad’ myth continue?’ he demonstrates again that he understands neither socialism, capitalism, America’s governance, nor human nature.  The ways he achieves this state of ignorance are too many to count.

    Thanksgiving 2020 is cancelled for all intents and purposes.  Gov Newsom has done it again.  In our progressives' search for ever more ignorant, harmful, and useless public policies, this 9oct20 ‘Guidance for Private Gatherings’ from the California Health and Human Services Agency takes the cake.  But not to worry.  Give it a couple of days, and an even more stupid one will soon be coming down from the heights of Mt Sacramento.  (H/T to reader)

    Thousand plus looters rampage through Philadelphia stores “for hours” as a smattering of assembled police stand by and do nothing (more here).  Jim Kenney, Philadelphia’s Democratic mayor, saw fit to order no enhanced police presence as leftwing rioters ransacked store after store.  The message to fellow Democrat mayors is clear – no need to enforce the law and take a political hit from the Left, since the Democratic leadership and the lamestream media will do its job of calling the whole thing a ‘peaceful protest’ and sweep the rest under its self-censoring teppich.

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  • Journalism’s unstoppable ‘Leftward Ho!’

    George Rebane

    [Apologies for the late posting of this commentary.  My writing workflow always has several pieces in concurrent development, and sometimes one of them with time-dependent content gets overlooked for too long, but one that I still want to have archived as part of RR’s record.]

    California’s passing of a racial diversity law that prescribes the composition of boards of corporations headquartered in the state.  This new legislation, now signed into law, is one the most blatant racist mandates by government that the morals-bleating Left have imposed on residents.  (more here)  This law joins the gender-biased legislation that requires female representation on boards and takes another step away from merit-based make-ups of publicly traded corporate boards.

    There is no question that such laws continue to hobble the engines of wealth creation in California, but wealth creation has never been the objective of socialist governments.  The state has assumed the mantle of leadership in the Union for destructive collectivist initiatives designed to fundamentally transform America from a capitalist economy and society to one of comprehensive government planning and control.

    Along this road to autocracy, we encounter questions raised for years on RR.  Now others are beginning understand the societal benefits of more culturally coherent societies, as we witness the daily destruction of every aspect of America’s traditions, cultural values, and institutions (more here).  Our Fourth Estate has long abandoned their traditional role in bringing reliable and timely news to their audiences.  They all are invested in one or the other side of a terminally polarized citizenry, and there is less and less of the ‘other side’ remaining in the cadre of media outlets.  No conservative broadcast outlets remain.  There is only Fox News which used to be a solidly “fair and balanced” outlet that also gave conservative voices a podium.  That stance is now fading as FN succumbs to the fear of being left behind in the virtue signaling competition, as it includes ever more liberal talking heads and left-tainted news copy.  When Rupert made his liberal son Lachlan CEO of Fox Corporation that owns FN, he started revamping both the Fox News and Fox Business cable outlets.

    (more…)

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  • Sandbox -25oct20

    [That our news media have no desire to follow-up the Hunter Biden email revelations of Biden family corruption is a bigger untold story than anything else so far connected with this sordid affair.  And that includes the (non)response of the FBI and the 50 former intelligence officials' successful attempt to disseminate fake news about the provenance of the emails on Hunter's laptop (here).  As far as our lamestream media are concerned, the US is now officially a banana republic in how its citizens are fed 'information' that they are to believe.  And no one, not the Republicans nor Fox News, is making much beyond clucking their tongues at what appears to be a super-scandal stillborn.  gjr]

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  • A Purposely Politicized “Pseudo-pandemic”

    ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’  Thomas Jefferson

    George Rebane

    Today reporting on the corona or Covid-19 virus (C19) resembles a chaotic cacophony.  I wanted to pull together some salient factors that help me sort things out in this blizzard of mostly junk journalism, agenda driven by election year politics.  So, with apologies where needed, I offer the following potpourri.

    We have analyzed the science and response policies invoked by the C19 outbreak twenty ways from Sunday, and the evidence continues to mount that this year the globe has been subjected to a “pseudo-pandemic” driven by politics and political/ideological agendas.  The science behind C19 is complex and has been mostly banished to be brought up when a political statement needs some additional support.  Then the science is almost always misrepresented or abbreviated beyond recognition (more below).  And there’s the real problem, the science is beyond the attention spans and comprehension of 99.99% of the people who just listen to the loudest and oft repeated voices.

    (more…)

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  • RR commenters are a blessing

    Live with those from whom you can learn; let friendly intercourse be a school for knowledge, and social contact a school for culture; to make teachers of your friends is to join the need of learning to the joy of converse.  Gracian #11

    George Rebane

    In blog years RR is now considered to be somewhere between long-of-tooth and ancient, along with its host in human years.  Rummaging around the very accessible archive of this online publishing effort, I always find it remarkable to rediscover the breadth of topics we have covered to various levels of depth.  And I’m not only talking about the almost 3,400 posted commentaries, but the extensive comment streams appended to most of the commentaries -  comment streams in which readers expand and amplify the topic, and provide other readers not only with their own insights, but also with informative links that substantiate their assertions.

    Many of the over 175,000 (to date) appended comments are themselves lengthy essays, sometimes longer than the topical post itself, that highlight the quality of thought by their authors.  And I mean to include in this cohort of thoughtful scribblers a few of our liberal commenters, those who have taken the time to deliver extended arguments for their positions that go beyond countering snarks and ad hominems.

    In its 14th year this blog continues to be a welcoming arena for ideas, opinions, and apologetics from all quarters.  To be sure, ours is an arena in which every contributor should be prepared for dharma battle (q.v.).  And no one should take umbrage that their ideas are assaulted, instead such umbrage should be reserved for ideas ignored.

    That said, I thank all RR readers and commenters for their precious hours that they have spent over the years in these pages.

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  • Scattershots – 20oct20 (updated 22oct20)

    George Rebane

    This afternoon the FBI and DoJ stated their concurrence with DNI Ratcliffe’s revelation (here) that the Hunter Biden laptop email scandal had nothing to do with or was any part of Russia’s disinformation campaign to undermine confidence in our November election.  The laptop emails are real.  Claiming otherwise over the last week has been a prime example of the Democrats’ Big Lie campaign, which here will be corroborated by our leftwing readers practicing their SNEP (Socialist Narrative Exclusion Principle) responses.

    [21oct20 update]  Continuing proof that most (not all) liberals are functional idiots.  To this day, these mental midgets do not understand that fascists are collectivists of the autocratic cum tyrannical variety, who work for a leviathan government that directly controls most of its industry, imposes stacks of regulations, is anti-religion, collects enormous taxes, suppresses individual liberties, and maintains a large internal police apparatus to enforce the whole thing.  This is exactly the opposite of the kind of governance that rightwing conservatives desire.  In today’s 21oct20 Union we have an example of one of these midgets, a Mr Robert Lobell, who labors mightily to present ‘building evidence’ that President Trump is a fascist (here), and instead presents evidence that he doesn’t have a clue about what is going on in Washington, among other places.  But he does describe precisely the major tenets of the now likely Harris/Biden disaster.

    The Hunter Biden email scandal is mounting with the FBI’s “nothing to add to Ratcliffe’s statement”, more email recipients confirming veracity of the collection, confirmation of the laptop’s chain of custody, Secret Service matching travel logs, documented ‘pay for play’ shares, … .  With all this coming out, Bumblebrain has now stated that there is “no basis” for the claim that his son profited from trading influence with foreign governments.  And to keep things as quiet as possible, the overwhelming share of America’s news industry, affectionately known as the lamestream media, does not even make a peep about what is clearly the greatest corruption high-level corruption scandal in modern US history.  SNEP on steroids.  (more  here, here, here, and here)

    They really don’t know squat.  We just got back from a political luncheon meeting where part of the conversation revolved around the dissemination of the Hunter Biden emails.  And a common experience of some of the assembled was that their liberal friends literally knew nothing of what’s going on with Hunter’s laptop and the emails on it.  One couple has a son who works on the staff of a Democrat state office holder.  They asked his thoughts on the matter, and he drew a complete blank.  We are now effectively subjected to a Deep State controlled news and entertainment media enterprise comprised of what can best be described as the vast Progeny of Pravda.  When political workers of one side are so insular in their knowledge of national happenings, then control of the electorate for all intents and purposes is complete.  The rest of us are really just pissing into the wind.

    [22oct20 update] The real Russian colluders have turned out to be the Democrats; we’ve been aware of this for at least two years.  Hillary’s misdeeds are known and await indictment.  The newest pals of all things Russian and Chinese are members of the Biden cosa nostra, and it turns out there are plenty of them.  More evidence of how that group of grifters operated for years is now turning up daily.  Given the upcoming election, the stimulus bill negotiations, and other divers things to attend to, the Dems are having a hard time fitting in all the denials and accusations of a vast Republican “smear campaign”.  Typical of the daily fare now is this piece just out – ‘New Documents Shed Light On Hunter Biden’s Links To Russian Billionaire Oligarch’.  The difference between the Democrats’ “evidence” and evidence of the misdeeds of the Clinton Clan and the Biden Bunch is that the latter is specific and verifiable.  All that’s now required is the growth of some political balls to get it all in front of a grand jury.

     

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  • More registered than residents (updated 20oct20)

    George Rebane

    Here’s one hot off the press.  ‘New Data Analysis Finds 353 Counties With 1.8 Million More Registered Voters Than Residents’.  It appears that this is just the tip of the ‘voter irregularity’ iceberg.  There are 3,141 counties in the US, and these 1.8M 'ghost voters' are concentrated in just 353 or 11% of them.  Awake (not woke) readers recall that county, hence state, elections have been flipped and/or decided by just a few thousand voting this way or that way.

    The registration data came from the American Community Survey section of the US Census Bureau.  In LA County alone, there are more than 1.5M ‘inactive voters’ who have now received ballots which could literally be voted by anyone.  But, as I said, this is just the tip.  Last year it was found that 372 US counties had more registered voters than they had voting age residents.  Included in these, no doubt, we today have eight states – Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont – that have statewide registered voters that total to more than 100% of their states' voting age residents.

    Tom Fitton, president of the non-profit Judicial Watch, said, “This data highlights the recklessness of mailing blindly ballots and ballot applications to voter registration lists. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections.”  Of course, all this remains a SNEP (q.v.) issue to all Americans left of Chief Justice John Roberts.  Not to worry, what could go wrong?

    PS.  Oh yeah, 'Pennsylvania Rejects 372,000 Mail-in Ballot Applications, as Voters Err'.

    [20oct20 update] The non-partisan, non-profit Election Integrity Project has been monitoring California elections for some years now.  This year its work is really cut out for them and all volunteer poll watchers across the nation.  In California, as usual, we suffer the most from every progressive policy foisted on the state’s citizens (note, I didn’t say ‘residents’).  The EIP has discovered that California’s SecState has mailed out 440,000 ballots that, at best, are identified as “questionable” for a number of reasons (more here).  On the road to making this November’s election the nation’s first intentionally corrupt national vote, our SecState Alex Padilla has instituted new regulations to make this election the most opaque in the state’s history.  The EIP finding ‘With a One-Two Punch, CA Secretary of State Destroys Election Transparency’ details the ongoing corruption of this year’s universal mail-in ballots will be handled, and how observation of the handling procedures will be thwarted.  The evil party at work.

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  • Deep State Agencies/Bureaus/Administrations identified.

    George Rebane

    According to Rebane Doctrine, when an organized unit or authorized agent of any of the three branches of our federal government makes a legitimate request for information from a federal agency/bureau/administration, it should be promptly acknowledged and its commitment to fulfill stated.  If fulfillment is not forthcoming for some reason, then an appropriately placed agent in the branch that oversees said agency/bureau/administration should respond with a timely explanation of why the request cannot be honored.  When such an agency/bureau/administration simply stonewalls a legitimate requestor and no other timely response is forthcoming, then that is prima facie evidence of the existence of an unelected Deep State as a sovereign unconstitutional fourth branch of government, and declaration/identification of the requestee as a member of the Deep State.

    Within this understanding, such a Deep State does indeed exist within the U.S. federal government, with various federal agencies, bureaus, and administrations making their memberships known on a very regular basis.  In recent years this has been more than corroborated by the IRS and several intelligence/investigative units of our government.  Currently we witness the Deep State’s FBI refusing to answer questions from Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI), chair of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, regarding the veracity of details concerning Hunter Biden’s recently disclosed laptop.  FBI Director Wray is silent, and neither the WH nor the DoJ are responding (more here).

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  • Ruminations – 17oct20 (updated 19oct20)

    George Rebane

    The selective silence of socialists.  For some years now, many of us have been aware of a definite trend in these comment streams, especially in the debates between those of the Right and Left.  To again confirm this trend, I did a little research in RR’s archives.  We of the Right ALWAYS and substantively respond to and enthusiastically counter, as appropriate, the assertions of the Left (mainly because it’s easy to do, so we shouldn’t be too prideful).  However, those of the Left rarely counter the Right’s assertions, or even defend their own assertions with anything beyond a snark or gratuitous ad hominem.  It was ever thus, … and still is, and continues to warm the cockles of me heart.

    [update] Socialist Narratives Exclusion Principle (SNEP)  The above rumination on ‘selective silence’ has been repeated often over the years by commenters and me.  Selective silences continue to be a recurring response phenomenon by the leftists, both here on RR and elsewhere.  Socialists have always simply ignored inconvenient truths that don’t fit their ongoing narrative du jour on an issue/happening, and go on with the dialogue as if it was never introduced.  We have also described such silences as invoking their crickets.  So, in order to parsimoniously refer to such ad hominem/snark/silence response behaviors and/or to anticipate their application in response to a post, I will attempt to remember to simply tag it with a concluding SNEP, instead of rehashing a longer explanation.  You are free to do the same.

    Corporatist giant Twitter is making massive changes for the worse in what/how they permit, publish, and propagandize their users’ tweets.  Among other changes, Twitter will now “provide context” to the tweets.  These contextual wrappers will enlighten the great unwashed as to the real import and portent of the posted messages.  (more here and here, and H/T to readers)

    “Joe Biden reads from a giant teleprompter at another sparsely attended rally.”  (more here)  Nuff said.

    Here’s a wet dream in case of a Biden win.  He grows a pair of balls and follows neither Sanders nor AOC in their lurch to the left.  But instead fashions some mid-road policies to garner widespread support, finishes his full term, and then tosses Harris under the bus and endorses another Democrat who will keep America from succumbing to a fundamental transformation.

    Open letter to Dan Henninger, WSJ deputy op-ed editor.  Jo Ann and I are decades long WSJ subscribers and devoted readers of your columns and commentaries on the ‘Editorial Report’.  However, here’s the burr under our blanket.  Please, please, please include a contact email address in the op-ed’s tombstone, and have your columnists put their email addresses under their columns.  Laudably, you are the only one who has the courage to hear from your loyal readers. Also, get your news department to stop their butt stupid style policy of reversing the order of citing numerical changes.  The oldest one comes first, followed by the current/latest one, because that’s the way humans think.  Your editors having reversed that order is cognitively jarring; cut it out and demote/retrain the worthy who implemented that misguided policy.

    'The Biden Emails Prove Impeachment was a Sham'  Now who here had an inkling of that?

    Another batch of ‘y’all come’ mail-ins – ‘Pennsylvania rejects 372,000 mail-in ballot applications, leaving many voters confused’  What could possibly go wrong?  Think a liberal will touch this one with a ten-footer?

    Mt Everest swept under the rug – FN confirms Biden-China payoff.  The lamestream is doing an impressive job hiding the almost hourly developments in Biden/Biden scandal(s?) – we’ve actually lost count.

    [18oct20 update] FN confirms Biden/China payoffs.  The country's Left and its lamestream again claim it's all a Russian pre-election disinformation campaign to which the Right has fallen prey. (here)

    [19oct20 update]  The emails belong to Hunter Biden as several sources, including at least one other recipient of the emails, confirm to FN.  On FB’s Maria Bartiromo program (here), DNI John Ratcliffe denies that US intelligence has advised anyone in Congress (including champion liar Rep Schiff-for-Brains) that Hunter’s laptop is filled with Russian composed emails.  In fact, he states exactly the opposite – our intelligence services have determined that Russia had nothing to do with the contents of that laptop.

    Dumb idea du jour – the House Intelligence Committee has abandoned intelligence as it mulls ways to stop what they call an “infodemic”.  They’re really considering establishing a Ministry of Truth, and launched the effort with a hearing titled “Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories, and ‘Infodemics’: Stopping the Spread Online”.  No one says that there is not a lot of online bullshit, but to have the government become the arbiter of truth, verity, and scout’s honor when it can’t pass a day without passing out a passel of lies, rumors, and partisan propaganda – c’mon man! (more here)

    National Propaganda Radio in this morning’s news report stated that the United States now has “over 8 million people who have been infected with the corona virus”, and that the number of new infections is growing.  How are the light readers supposed to interpret the report of a growing population of infected millions running around the country.  Not one word of explanation that the overwhelming share of the 8M have already recovered, are not contagious, and contribute to our growing herd immunity – moreover, that today’s resurgence of active cases was expected (and that EU countries lead us in the resurgence which is occurring regardless of the variety of response policies the various countries practice; what does science say again?)  Nope, it’s simply all Trump’s fault – can anyone spell f-a-i-r  e-l-e-c-t-i-o-n?

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