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*Opinions expressed here may or may not reflect the views of the Fernley Republican Women. Blog posts should not be considered an endorsement from the FRW.

Biden’s First-day Executive Order Embraces Sexism

1/26/2021

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​When Sandra Bucha entered high school in 1968, she wanted to be a competitive swimmer.  But there were no girls’ teams in her state.
In 1972, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she and her father filed a federal lawsuit against the Illinois High School Association on behalf of girls who wanted to compete in school sports.  They lost, in part because the judge noted that males have physical advantages over females, and thus schools had valid reasons for separate athletic competitions.
That same year, Congress passed Title IX, a law prohibiting sex discrimination by schools receiving federal money, which is almost all of them.  Now colleges and schools that field athletic teams have significant numbers of girls/women’s teams and athletes.
Although I wish female athletics had been achieved without federal legislation and well before 1972, I’ve always thought providing equal opportunity is a great thing for everybody.  And I’ve been proud of America for it.
Alanna Smith, a sophomore at Danbury High School in Connecticut, is a natural athlete.  She’s the daughter of Lee Smith, a Hall of Fame major league pitcher, and her mom was a high-school long-distance runner.  One uncle played professional baseball, another professional football, her grandfather was a high-school basketball and football standout, and her twin brother is a three-sport athlete.
“Sports is a huge part of who I am,” she says.  “Training to compete and be my physical and mental best at the starting block is who I am, too.  Running with my mom when I was younger taught me how to prepare, train and focus.”
She won state 100-meter championships in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.  She’s proud to have set records and achieved personal goals.  But as a high-school freshman, she had to compete against two males who identify as female in the state meet.
“No matter how many hours I trained – or how hard I worked on endurance, speed and strength – I had no chance to beat the physical strength of a biological male who previously ran in the men’s division.”
“I felt defeated before stepping onto the track. … It’s not that second or third place isn’t good enough for me if I’ve done my best; it’s just not fair.”
The two boys have been running girls off the track since 2017, setting 17 individual state meet records with times girls have little hope of ever breaking.  Their sheer size and strength has resulted in more than 85 missed opportunities for Connecticut girls even to qualify for the next level of competition, even though neither transgender competitor was a top sprinter as a boy.
“It’s simply not fair for anyone born as a boy to compete against girls,” says Alanna.  “That unfairness doesn’t go away because of what someone believes about their gender identity.”
So, Alanna and two other female Connecticut high-school athletes filed a federal lawsuit with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom to keep boys out of girls’ competitions.  Bucha, now a lawyer, and 300 other current and former female athletes are pursuing similar action at the college level.
To illustrate the unfairness, the Connecticut suit notes the fastest female sprinter in the world, America’s great Allyson Felix, has more gold medals than Usain Bolt.  However, Felix’s lifetime best in the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds.  And about 300 American high-school boys beat that time each year.
Says Bucha about the effect of allowing biological boys in girls’ competitions: “It isn’t merely the trophies and scholarships and opportunities at stake.  It isn’t even all the benefits sports have so long provided to young women – in self-esteem and health and camaraderie with friends.  It isn’t merely that girls who participate in sports tend to earn better grades, that so many Fortune 500 executives were athletes, or that sports force teen girls out of their own heads where they might stew to their own detriment.  It’s the profound injustice of it.”
On his first day in office, Joe Biden signed an executive order purporting to require that schools receiving federal funding must allow boys self-identifying as girls onto girls’ sports teams – reversing a Donald Trump policy.  Elections have consequences.
And the ACLU supports Biden’s awful policy.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com. 
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net
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About the Climate Change Crisis, Emergency or Whatever

1/19/2021

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​A key thing about measurements and forecasts of rapid human-caused (“anthropogenic”) climate change is that a sustained temperature change in any system is a result of a sustained imbalance in the energy flowing into and out of the system.
If the energy inflows to and outflows from earth’s climate are equal, the average temperature around the globe is roughly constant from one year to the next.  If inflows exceed outflows, there’s warming.  If outflows are greater than inflows, there’s cooling.
Energy flows into earth’s climate system from the sun’s radiation at a rate estimated at 340 watts per square meter per year at the top of the atmosphere.  However, only 240 watts reaches the earth’s surface.  The rest is reflected back into space.  Energy flows out of the earth’s climate system mainly by way of infrared (heat) radiation escaping into space, also estimated at 240 watts.
The vast majority of our climate energy inflows, estimated at 99.97 percent, come from the sun.  The greatest rates of insolation (the amount of solar radiation per square meter per time period) occur near the equator, while the least take place near the poles.  The rates vary in the intermediate areas, depending on how perpendicular to the sun’s rays the ground is (which varies over the earth’s surface because earth is roughly spherical).
Total insolation of the planet cannot be directly measured.  Instead, it must be estimated from many measurements, including the total heat the sun is generating, the heat capacities of parts of the earth and atmospheres, etc.  So, the 240 watts inflow figure is merely an estimate subject to measurement error.  The actual figure could be 235, 245 or some intermediate value.
Similarly, the energy outflow cannot be directly measured.  It must be estimated from the reflective effects of cloud cover, atmosphere, land and water surfaces, etc.  And the actual annual average outflow per square meter of earth’s surface may range between 235 and 245 watts.
Because the in- and out-flow measurements are subject to error, so is the difference between them.  Hence, it’s very difficult to know whether we’re experiencing warming or cooling as a planet.  As a surrogate for direct measurement, we can use the deep ocean temperature and related data to determine whether the earth’s overall temperature is rising or falling.
The idea is that deep ocean temperatures measure the overall ocean heat content much closer than surface measures do.  To measure deep ocean temperatures, salinity, currents, and bio-optical properties, a system of 4000 drifting “Argo floats” have been deployed around the world since the early 2000s.  Their readings are transmitted to research facilities via satellite.
Using these data and many others, the average annual energy in/out flows for the earth are estimated by scientists at about one watt, another figure that is just an estimate subject to error, reflecting the uncertainty in data used to estimate it.
The bottom line, according to Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, is: our oceans have warmed very slowly the last two decades, by an average rate of 0.04 degrees centigrade per decade.
The one-watt net inflows estimate is much less than the 235- to 245-watt insolation flows.  Hence, the energy imbalance causing recent slight warming is much less than the uncertainty in our knowledge of natural energy flows.
“As a result,” he states, “climate change could be mostly ‘natural’, and we would not know it.”
Because, he points out: “Climate models must be adjusted to not produce any ‘natural’ climate change, which the modelers simply believe does not exist.  Despite their belief, there is abundant evidence of past natural climate change events, the causes of which are largely unknown.”
Spencer concludes, and I agree: “These facts show that the hypothesis that humans have caused most, or all recent warming involves a large measure of faith. … This is the basis of their faith: That only humans can cause climate change.”
But the climate warmed and cooled naturally in the past: for example, the Medieval Warm Period (about 1000 years ago) and the Roman Warm Period (about 2000 years ago) were as warm as today, without anthropomorphic causes.
I’ll discuss related points in future columns.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com .
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net
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RIP, Sheldon Adelson; Prayers for Dr. Miriam Adelson

1/12/2021

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​A truly Distinguished Nevadan, great American and all-around Mensch, Sheldon Adelson, died Tuesday.  This self-made fabulously wealthy entrepreneur, businessman, philanthropist, and political and communications force of nature was also a great human being who will be hugely missed.
In this hour, we send condolences and prayers to his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, and family and friends.
Many people know some aspects of his remarkable life, but only some.  Born into a one-room Boston tenement in 1933 to a Lithuanian-Ukrainian cab driver and knitting-shop owner daughter of a Welsh coal miner, Sheldon became the third-richest person in America in 2007.  Following some ups and downs, he left a fortune of $33.5-billion, plus a vast legacy of gifts to many good causes.
At 12, he began his career by borrowing $200 from his uncle to buy a license to sell newspapers on street corners.  He went on to create nearly 50 other businesses in his life.  He attended college but dropped out and attended trade school, hoping unsuccessfully to become a court reporter, before joining the army.  By his thirties, via entrepreneurial ventures, he had twice built and lost million-dollar fortunes.  Later, he lost $25-billion and recovered that.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he also adopted and cared for the three children of his first wife.
He didn’t invent trade shows, but he and partners bought the fledgling COMDEX computer industry shows in the late 1970s.  Sheldon’s vision and creativity built it into one of the largest trade shows in the world in the next two decades – and remade the resort and casino industry into its modern form.
Previously, the casino business overwhelmingly concentrated on the gaming floor, with cheap accommodations and food.  Besides pioneering trade shows to diversify the business and upgrade the eats and accommodations to world-class levels, he also recognized the tourist business could be much more than merely gaming.
Honeymooning in Venice in 1991 with his second wife Miriam, he envisioned the mega-resort hotel and casino.  He added exotic shopping, entertainment and recreation to lavish rooms and food to set off the Las Vegas explosion that made him and many others very wealthy.  The first such property, the magnificent Venetian, opened in 1999.
Soon, he realized the model of bringing tens of millions of visitors annually to Las Vegas was insufficient, and he led the industry to the People’s Republic of China, opening the 1,000,000 square-foot Sands Macao in 2004.  It multiplied his fortune by a factor of fourteen, and he built many more from there.  Today, Macau’s industry dwarfs Las Vegas’s.
In 2010, he opened the $5.5-billion Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, the sixth-most expensive building in the world.  It has the greatest amenities of any such building and was featured extensively in the 2018 mega-film Crazy Rich Asians.
But here’s what’s important about all this.  In 2008, the Nevada Policy Research Institute gave him its Chairman’s Award for efforts to advance free market principles in Nevada.  Before 1996, he was a Democrat, but since then has been a free markets and Republican stalwart.
In 2010, as a Regent, I nominated him and Miriam for the Distinguished Nevadan award from our system of higher education.  Why?
In bestowing the award, I emphasized that the money he had made in business and investment only reflected the even bigger value he bestowed upon customers, his 100,000-plus employees and legions of investors, as well as Las Vegas and Nevada.  When people talk abut giving back, they miss the fact that fearless entrepreneurs like Sheldon become wealthy by the great value they deliver to others via their creativity, investment, vision and guts.
In 2014, he was named to CNBC’s list of 200 people who transformed business in the previous 25 years: “top leaders, icons and rebels, a definitive list of people who have had the greatest influence, sparked the biggest changes and caused the most disruption in business.”
There’s so much more to tell.  He has been a major force in philanthropy, newspaper publishing, diplomacy and politics in America, Israel and the world.
But his humanity showed perhaps brightest when the Coronavirus pandemic hit.  He’s kept the ten-of-thousands of Southern Nevadans he employs on payroll and covered by health insurance.
Ron Knecht, MS. JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com .
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net
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Response to Jim Schnieder’s Way to Welcome 2021

1/5/2021

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Jim Schnieder of Sparks writes occasional opinion columns in the Reno Gazette Journal.  I called him to discuss his recent opus, which offered three ways for Nevada to welcome 2021.  After a pleasant, constructive conversation, here’s my rebuttal.
Schnieder’s first recommendation is that we, “[f]ormulate and apply the least harmful taxes.”  My interest in this subject began in 1989 when I took the public finance and taxation courses in Stanford’s economics department while in graduate school.  For over 30 years, I’ve kept up with empirical academic literature on this subject, used it in my public service and written about it.
His concern is that state and local governments need money – more money now due to the Corona virus and related lockdowns – for education, law enforcement, public health agencies and municipal transportation.  He adds, “There needs to be a mindset that when needed, equitably apportioned taxes are good.”
His proposal raises two separate points.  First, are new taxes needed and appropriate now?  Second, if they were, what are the least harmful taxes?
There’s no doubt the virus and especially the lockdowns have increased public spending needs relative to what they were a year ago.  However, there are offsetting factors, and my conclusion is now is exactly the time not to increase taxes.
Schnieder is candid that he has not weighed the damage the virus and lockdowns have caused to Nevada families and businesses, plus the further damage tax increases would add, against the good new public revenues could do.  The damage so far has been by far the worst hit to our families and businesses since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Following the Great Recession of 2008-09, even Brian Sandoval running for governor in 2010 agreed the hit they suffered then made the case against new taxes at that time.  Things are much worse now, and even if one thought our overall tax levels are not high enough – a view with which I greatly disagree – now would not be the time.
Here’s the key point.  As discussed at length in the four Controller’s Annual Reports I authored for 2015-18, “The size, scope and reach of American government – including spending, taxing borrowing, statutory mandates, regulation, monetary and credit-allocation policy, and other intervention – long ago exceeded levels that promote the public interest in maximum economic growth and fairness.”
I added, “These excesses at federal, state and local levels have increasingly slowed growth and diminished fairness and will continue to do so unless they are reined in.”
In assessing the optimal level of public spending, I relied not only on my long familiarity with the subject but also a confirming review of the literature by some scholars at the University of Nevada, Reno.  The optimal total tax burden on our economy is 17 percent to 26 percent, but the actual level has now passed 40 percent and continues to rise.
Instead of increasing taxes and borrowing for more public spending, we should be realizing economies in total spending like those regularly achieved by the private sector, and thereby bringing down public spending and borrowing relative to our economy.
In the 21st Century, Nevada’s real state spending on health and human services has skyrocketed (aided greatly by federal grants) and that for K-12 has also risen hugely.  All other state spending and the real per-person incomes of families and businesses have fallen significantly.
Also, the crushing burden of lockdowns has fallen heaviest on low-income folks.  Which brings up his concern for the least fortunate among us, where he advocates progressive taxes as a solution.
First, his view seems to overlook that government has long made huge income transfers to the poor, in addition to subsidizing their health care, schooling, diets, etc.  And it has already greatly increased these benefits in response to the virus and lockdowns.  People still cry out in need, but the fact is America has always responded generously and even more so in 2020.
Real fairness consists in lowering the overall tax and other public sector burdens to let productive folks keep the fruits of their labor, investment, creativity and productivity – and thereby grow the economy for the benefit of all.
Government growth exacerbates the problem; it’s not the solution.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com. 
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net
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