The Noble Pundit

This Is A Pretty Cool Site

Just as I was getting ready to shut the computer off for the night I went over and took a look at my referrer logs. In them I found a really cool new (for me at least) site: the World as a Blog.

It shows the location (for geolocated blogs) of the latest posts to weblogs.com. It's fascinating to just sit there and watch the little blips coming up from all over as new posts are made.

It looks like it could be quite the interesting timewaster. Go over and take a look!

Blogging Advice

The evil, subversive Commissar of the Politboro Diktat has developed a new Unified Theory of Blogging.

As usual, the commissar does an excellent job of summing things up by pointing out such points as you can drive traffic by using words such as Paris Hilton, rack, Janet Jackson, sex, or porn (images also work well for this last one).

If you're less inclined to take such drastic measures, he also has some good advice for the intellectual bloggers.

Well worth the time to go and read if you're interested, although I do have to take exception to "sex sells": I still have yet to get a single Google, Yahoo, or MSN Search hit for "Turkish lesbian," even though I mentioned the phrase couple of weeks ago. You would think that someone would have had some kind of weird fetish by now....

But do go over and take a look. The Commissar has do a great service for the blogging community.

The Sign Said "Dead End!"

Courtesy of Dean Esmay.

This is too funny to watch until you realize just how much force there was at impact and that the wall didn't break.

I can just hear the driver, "I know it said 'dead end' but trust me. I know a shortcut this way. We just speed along this road and...uh, oh. This is gonna hurt...."

"The White Man's Burden" - Our National Burden

Today, my father loaned me his copy of the complete poetic works of Rudyard Kipling. He also flagged a number of pieces for me to read. One of them was "The White Man's Burden." As I was reading it, even though it was written in 1899, a number of much more modern images flashed through my head. I thought that I might indulge to share what I saw, as best I can.

"The White Man's Burden"

Take up the White Man's burden-


  Send forth the best ye breed-
Go bind your sons to exile-


  To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
  On fluttered folk and wild-
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,


  Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden-


  In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror


  And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,


  An hundred times made plain.


To seek another's profit,


  And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden-


  The savage wars of peace-


Fill full the mouth of Famine


And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest


  The end for others sought,


Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
  Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden-


  No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper-


  The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
  The roads ye shall not tread,


Go make them with your living,


  And mark them with your dead!

Take up the White Man's burden-


  And reap his old reward:


The blame of those ye better,


  The hate of those ye guard-
The cry of hosts ye humour
  (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
  "Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden-


  Ye dare not stoop to less-
Nor call too loud on Freedom
  To cloak your weariness;
But all ye cry and whisper,
  But all ye leave and do,
The silent, sullen peoples
  Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden-
  Have done with childish days-
The lightly proffered laurel,
  The easy ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
  Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,


  The judgement of your peers!

After having read through the poem, I came to the conclusion that the only thing that has really changed since it was written is that the White Man's burden became America's collective burden, as evidenced by the last photo. Black, white, red, brown or whatever you might be, the burden of being American will also fall to thee.

It is our national burden.

Poetry Time!

Opinion Journal printed another Kipling poem today that has some relevance given the events of last weekend:

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:--
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to says:--

"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Now that I have a real job, when I get some money saved up, I think I'm going to have to go out and buy a complete collection of Kipling's poetry.

And to think that I generally dislike poetry....

"Or Glow In The Dark"

Via Dean's World

In the comments for Stephen Green's post on Impure Thoughts, there is a priceless quote.

Referring to the quote "Live free or die" a gentleman named Joe says:

Ultimatly it will be: Live free or glow in the dark.

The element of the day is cobalt (60)

Too funny.

I Did Not Need To Find This

Via Dean's World.

Well, the last thing I needed to find was Victor Davis Hanson's website. I just finished reading Ripples of Battle (a thouroughly interesting book, I must say).

Now I just got to make sure that I don't spend too much time on his site....

A Neat Little Site

Kind of interesting. I can now find out about other bloggers in the same general area.

Via: The Commissar at the Poliboro Diktat

Cool Pic

From NavLog.org where it was captioned: "How's This For Flying?"

Recipe For Success?

A wonderful quote from a spam mail I got overnight last night:

"Good afternoon. To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is to swear off having ideas."

Well that certainly sounds a brilliant recipe for sucess now doesn't it?

Morons.

A Family In Need

The Esmay's over at Dean's World are having a hell of a time right now. They are good people, and I can certainly understand the desire to try to find whatever means are available to help improve the quality of life for their pet. I've been there. I know how strong that bond can be.

Go over and do what you can. Give 'em emotional support or financial. But let them know that they're important.

They Must Be Out To Turn Me Against Them

I've been saying for a while now that I'm am generally for a form of legalized gay civil union (and I'll admit that I sometimes lapse into incorrectly using the term marriage instead of civil union. There is a fine distinction and I believe that it is important to maintain that distinction). First we had the Massachusettes Supreme Court decision that I found offensive because of the way it was handed down. Now we have the mayor of San Francisco defiantly and willfully violating California state law to "marry" gay couples. This is really starting to go to far....

There is no excusable reason for the mayor of a city to deliberately violate state law. He may not agree with the law. He may even believe that it violates a portion of the State Constitution. But until a court rules on the Constitutionality of the law, it is his responsibility to uphold the law as written. The mayoral office is in the executive branch. In our system of government, and even that used in San Francisco, it is the responsibility of the executive branch to uphold the will of the people, as expressed through the legislative bodies, until such time as the judiciary determines that a law violates the Supreme law of the state or the nation.

Now in the system of checks and balances, I can see a real and justified reason for the executive branch to fail to enforce a law, for instance one that requires the summary execution of all three foot tall, one armed black, jewish, American Indians whose mother hailed from any South American country ending with "-zil."

But this isn't a failure of enforcement. This is open defiance. This is a usurption of the legislative and judicial functions of government. It is the Imperial Mayorship.

I also believe that it should be grounds for his immediate removal from office. If the mayor is allowed to openly flaunt the law, why should there be any expectation that anyone else would obey any law either?

The precedents being set in both Massachusettes and now San Francisco are deeply disturbing. In both cases the will of the people, as legally expresssed through our elected representatives is being discarded or ignored by other branches of government that happen to find it distasteful. Our government is one of the people, by the people and for the people. Or least it was.

Now it seems, the people don't matter.

We're becoming more faced with this question every day: are we the government as the by, of and for would indicate or are we now the simply the subjects of a benevolent tyranny?

Viruses, Spyware, & Such

I've been sick the last couple of days, so I've been using the extra time at home to continue my quest to clean up my computer.

I found something interesting with the online virus scanners that Venomous Kate had on her site. I used the House Call scanner, and while it did not find any viruses, it did find another malware program that both AdAware and SpyBot missed JS_FORTNIGHT. I also found (I think) another malware program that was making my system absolutely unstable tatss.exe. This thing was opening Internet Explorer sessions independently. It also was consuming resources until the system would finally get to a point where you could not use the Start Menu for anything - including shutting down. Again, nothing was catching it.

I also went and downloaded a registry checker from Cnet.com and downloaded TuneUp Utilities 2003, which ended up finding almost 1000 invalid registry entries - along with bringing to my attention three other spyware and malware programs that I wasn't finding any other way.

This adventure in computer cleaning is absolutely eye-opening. All it took was one trip to the wrong website and over a month later I'm still trying to clean it up, while still keeping out the new additions.

I've worked my way down to one more program that I can't track down and that doesn't show up in Google searches. Whatever it is works similarly to tatss.exe opening webistes without my input. It goes specifically to http://69.20.62.53/yyy(x).html where the (x) is a number between one and five. Whatever is doing this is my last, great obsession. I have to figure out how to get it removed. I know that it is hosted by a hosting company called Rackspace out of San Antonio, but that doesn't exactly do a whole lot to help me eliminate the auto-open feature.

UPDATE:

It looks like the last program was (fingers and toes are still crossed!) Look2me which attaches itself as a subprocess of Explorer (not Internet Explorer) which makes it almost impossible to remove. SpyBot and AdAware have both told me that they removed it in the past, but apparently it didn't work. Follow the instructions found here if you find that this abomination is torturing you also.

Question About BlogAds

I'm thinking about adding BlogAds to the site. Does anyone have any feedback on them? Good, bad, indifferent. I'd just like to hear some independent feedback before I sign up and start selling out. :-)

Sometimes There Is A Small Smidgeon Of Justice

A few weeks ago I briefly mentioned a creep whom I was slightly acquainted with who nearly beat a man to death down in Jupiter. Perusing the Palm Beach Post as I will looking for updates I found this little gem:

A man who was brutally beaten outside a Jupiter bar Jan. 13 has been upgraded from critical to fair condition at St. Mary's Medical Center...

Good news most certainly for the victim.

And then there was this:

Construction workers Darrel Blackman, 27, of Altamonte Springs and Geoffrey Simmons, 20, of Casselberry are being held without bail in the Palm Beach County Jail...

Good news for the rest of society.

So Jay Wants To Know

The other day, Jay Solo posed a question: which six blogs are the top ones you go to? It's a tough question, but here we go (in no particular order):

Dean Esmay
Electric Venom
On The Third Hand
Random Fate
Jay Solo
Insults Unpunished

There are others I also frequent: Allah is in the House, One Hand Clapping, The Happy Husband, and then a whole host or others that I check depending on their update status. Lately I've really been slacking due to having way been working way too much, but I'm slowly trying to get back into the swing of things.

I really find it interesting that I don't hit InstaPundit every day. Glenn was really the first blogger I read, but I guess I am just looking for a little more analysis and opinion any more. Odd really.

A Surprise!

When I first started this site, I swore to myself that I would never publish a photo of me online.

Well, I changed my mind. If you're so interested I am posting a photo of me enjoying one of my Christmas presents from my father.

I'm the one in the front seat.

A Morning Poetry Recitation

I've never been a big fan of poetry. I generally find it to be rather boring and stale. The other day while researching something, I came across one of Rudyard Kipling's poems, The Gods of the Copybook Headings, which I thought was pretty timeless in its point.

I apologize if you've read it before or are not interested in it for some reason. I think the message, dating from 1919, is so powerful that it doesn't hurt to remind people of it now and again.

A complete collection of Kipling's poetry can be found here.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four --
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

* * * * *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man --
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began --
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mice,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire --
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Perspective, Perspecive, Perspective

My dad was passing along some good emails today. Here's another that I though was interesting:

The next time you hear a politician use the words "billion" casually, think about whether you want that politician spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:

A billion seconds ago, it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

And also:

The politicians are complaining about how long the war is taking but consider
this:

It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.

It took less time to find Saddam's sons in Iraq than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sunk at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!!

That last one is a bit of an embarassment, I must confess. But I'll just go along happily blaming it on the folks in Palm Beach County (Look! A common theme for tonight! Palm Beach County!)

A Banner Day For Law Enforcement

Yesterday was apparently a banner day in the annals of law enforcement, particularly here in Florida. But let us first look at the latest request by the British police:

Police call for remote button to stop cars - Oh, yeah. This is a brilliant idea. What happens when the button falls into the wrong hands? How do we avoid inadvertent stoppage? It would give a very new and literal meaning to getting stopped by the cops, though.

And then, down in Naples:

Thief mistakenly hops into cop car - You just know that you're having a bad theiving day when you try to make your escape and the getaway driver is wearing a jacket that says "Sheriff." Just not a good experience, but still better than the next guy.

And a little closer to home (actually, about 4 miles from home):

Former inmate rejailed when picking up belongings - Remember, when you go to get your belongings from the jail after getting released on a DUI conviction in which your license was revoked for life, don't drive yourself. And most certainly don't drive yourself in a stolen car. I swear, there are some people that are simply too dense to be out on the streets.

Bush Derangement Syndrome

My uncle sent me a link to a pretty good Charles Krauthammer piece in the Miami Herald: Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Krauthammer points out some of the most egregious examples of folks wracked with this disorder and also points out how it has been around since the days of Cynthia McKinney and her "Bush knew" crusade.

It's really an excellent piece, exposing a few of the anti-Bush crowd for what they are: knee-jerk overreactionaries relying on the recycling of old rhetoric.(Hitler and Frankenstein? War in Iraq to protect the logging industry? Bush knew about 9/11?)

Give me a break. Come up with something new or admit to intellectual bankruptcy. Just don't keep trying to tell me that the horse is still alive.

America's Hottest Selling Video?

Well at least the spam is becoming a little different. Now I'm getting emails for Uday Hussein's Private Videos. I can see the girls, the parties, and, most importantly, the beatings. How exciting (right?)!

I have trouble believing that it is really America's Hottest Selling Video. I actually expect that it really falls somwhere behind the Girls Gone Wild series in popularity.

Guess it's time to autodelete the subject line Get Your U.day H.ussien Vid.eo Today.

Book Recommendations

OK, I've spent most of the afternoon so far revamping my page of book recommendations (what, you didn't know that I had such a thing? Didn't you ever look around my other site, Noble Books & Ancient Coins?)

Well, the new page structure is basically up and running with most of the recommendations moved over. I've also added a new section for political books.

Please note that the books tend to be heavy towards ancient history, ancient Rome in particular because that is what the main subject is for my other site.

If I ever get adventerous, I may try to add a sitebar with rotating recommendations pulled from a database, but that's something for another day.

Also, in the event that you get a frame with a default logo (you'll know it when you see it. There is no picture of a book.), just hit the reload button and it should refresh and display the book without a problem.

If you have any questions or suggestions, email them to me at blog - at - cbnoble.com

Uh Oh, Santa Is Back

This was one of my favorite seasonal blogs last year, Ho Ho Holy Shit!

Looks like they're back for another year, but with the same bad attitude!

Warning: This probably isn't a work safe site. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Dean's Latest Special Interest Group

I got home too late tonight for doing any in depth, analytical posts, so go take a look at this photo of Dean's latest attempt to reach out to an underrepresented minority, found over at The Politburo Diktat

Happy Thanksgiving

A happy Thanksgiving to all. May your day be full of family, friends, and things to be thankful for.

All I Want For Christmas Is...

A monitor that works! I now have two computers and one working monitor after the second monitor in 6 months decided to let its power supply give up the ghost. I realize that the newest monitor I have was almost 6 years old, but this is ridiculous!

You listening Dad? 17" flat screen would be nice.... Or if you have an extra one laying around the house that works, I can pick it up tomorrow...

New Carnival Of The Capitalists Is Up!

Argggh! and double Argggh! I forgot to get in my entry for the seventh edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists hosted this week by Kevin at Truck and Barter.

Go over and take a look. It looks like this week's edition is one of the best yet!

I'm Still Here!

Don't worry! I'm still alive, sort of.

Today was a mess of a day. I was up until about 1 last night due to one of the kids ending up in the ER. Our outstanding local hospital sent her home saying that they didn't want to do an ultrasound there (she has a lump forming in her chest), but that she would be better served by seeing her doctor and having him write a referral for the procedure (which in normal circumstances will push the actual test back a couple of weeks). In the meantime, today the lump got larger, so she has a doctor's appointment at 9:45 tomorrow and hopefully we can get this ball rolling a little quicker, m'kay?

On top of that, today was also my first day at my new job! More money, better work environment, and a more focused job. I kind of felt like I did the first day I worked in the brokerage industry: questions and answers flying at me from all directions with me standing there in the middle trying to figure out what's going on. This job is requiring me to learn a new product (for me at least), billiard tables. I don't play pool. Before last week when I picked up the first brochures to start studying, I had absolutely no idea what to look for in a pool table. Today, one of my first phone calls was from a two-time female world champion billiard player. One of first questions: "Don't you know who I am?" My answer: "No ma'am, I can't say that I do. Sorry." That's rough. It did give my boss a good chuckle though.

Tomorrow should be a better day. Thursdays we're open til 7; Fridays until 6, so I should get home in time to do some reading and blogging before bed. I may also start trying to get a post up early in the morning since I don't have to get there until 10, but that'll have to wait until I figure out how long it's going to take me to get there.

A New Site For Me

Don't worry, this one isn't going away. Rather, I've decided to start a second blog site: Unofficial Orlando History Blog where I am going to try to build a site with photos, remembrances, and other stuff about the city in which I grew up and live.

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round

Michele at A Small Victory has a post about virtues of exploring the blogosphere through links and blogrolls.

I've got to admit that I was introduced to the blogosphere by a link from OpinionJournal.com to InstaPundit way back in 2000 while I was bored at work one day. From there I would click and click exploring from site to site, finding some good ones and finding some lame ones, but almost always finding something of interest. Several times along the way I almost started my own site, only to back away for one reason or another (usually having to do with concerns about the compliance department at my previous job). Finally in February of this year, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. And I've been exploring even more ever since (I just have to remember to link to more of the good posts I find. A downfall on my part.).

Go through links on some of those blogs and you will come upon entire worlds that you never knew existed. By following one link from one blog that you've never been to, you can be an explorer and discover that the depths of the blogosphere are much, much deeper than you ever imagined. You'll meet authors and artists, mothers and fathers, cops and lawyers, gamers and hackers, cooks and waitresses, humorists and essayists.

This is part of blogging I love the most, just going from site to site to see what interesting stuff is out there. My father also does the same thing and usually ends up finding sites that I had overlooked (Allah Is In The House is the most recent example). Between us, we have found sites and people we never would have known about otherwise. I believe that we are richer people for the experience.

So jump on the bus! Take some time to go exploring. You never know what you might find.

Supermarket Cards

Jay Solo has an interesting post "Please Don't Card Me" in which he discusses the pros and cons of the supermarket customer loyalty cards - and also why he doesn't like them.

I got to agree, they are a pain in the butt. Anything like the loyalty cards, where they demand an address and/or phone number (or a zip code) before I get some benefit, I'm going to screw around with. No one with one of those programs has the right address or phone number for me. The address I always give them is for a PO Box I closed a while back; the phone number is my old one, which has been changed - without a forwarding number being available. Stores that ask for zip codes? I usually tell them something along the lines of 33311 (a South Florida zip code). I figure that if they want to get real demographic information, they need to do some real work for it. Just because I buy a package of hot dog rolls from you does not mean that I want you to know where I live or my phone number. It simply means I wanted a hot dogs for dinner.

Go over and take a look at Jay's post. He hit most all of the upsides and downsides to these kind of loyalty programs. It is well worth the read.

Random Thought Of The Day

Found this on my desk when I got to work this morning. Too bad my boss didn't leave it for me, just happened to leave it lying around.

Like I said, too bad someone didn't leave this as a motivational message or some such thing.

A Little Odd Observation

So I'm going and researching something on google a few minutes ago and I came across a post on a discussion board with this heading:

Posted by lily on February 28, 19100 at 17:19:5219100? I think that this is the first actual example of a Y2K issue that I've seen.

To think I worked 17 days straight, 12 hours a day in anticipation of a complete technological meltdown and now, almost four years later, I see my first actual issue. And all it does is make the date look stupid.

Sheesh!

Posted by Chris at 08:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Site: Blogs For Bush

There is a new site out there: Blogs for Bush. Rather than trying to describe it, I'll let Matt Margolis, one of the founders do it:

Blogs For Bush is a new online grassroots campaign dedicated to helping George W. Bush get reelected as President of the United States. With a year to the election there's a lot of work to be done to ensure that President Bush remains in office-keeping America on the right path to winning the war on terror, improving the economy, bettering education, and reforming health care in America.

With nine candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, we have witnessed despicable, unprecedented anti-Bush rhetoric, and virtually no policy initiatives. This is a sign not of viable candidates, but of desperate Democrats blinded by political ambition, and not guided by devotion to America's security and prosperity.

Blogs For Bush is a collaborative effort by individuals who want America to prosper under good leadership. The Democrats running for President have shown their inability to lead this country down the right path. Their juvenile finger-pointing and name-calling is behavior unbecoming of a President.

This website offers visitors commentary and analysis by a group of writers with varying backgrounds, hailing from around the United States. Blogs For Bush also hopes to organize blogs and websites dedicated to helping reelect George W. Bush and make them accessible in one place on the Internet. Visitors will also find other resources and information showing how to get involved in the Bush/Cheney '04 Campaign, and how to help Blogs For Bush reach as many people on the Internet as possible.

As the months pass, Blogs For Bush will hopefully continue to grow. We hope you will become a part of this effort and help reelect George W. Bush.

Go over and take a look. We're less than one year until the election. The time has come to start figuring out what's really going on with the candidates. Blogs for Bush is a good place to start.

Wanted: One Good Troll

I guess I still haven't quite come of age as a blogger, yet. I still don't have a good consistant troll. Oh I've had people try, but look at this latest attempt to a post I had over at SportsBlog:

Brock Berlin has to come to the realization that God nor Jesus cares one whit whether he throws for a touchdown or a first down or anything else about football! They also don't care if Sammy Sosa hits a home run! People are dying all over the world and in this country! In Iraq, Ethiopia, Tibet, China, etc.,etc. Does anyone think He really cares about sports? Can any of them really get real? Put the responsibility on where it really lies? Maybe themselves? Are they all nuts? Or is it me?

Applications for quality trolls are now being accepted in the comments section.

Carnival Of The Capitalists #4 Is Up

Carnival Of The Capitalists #4 is up over at Robert Prather's Insults Unpunished.

He's got 34 entries this week, all of which look great! Go over and take a look!

A Sign For Halloween Only

Stopped by a convience store to get a drink while I was out picking up lunch today. On the door they had a sign that could only work for Halloween:

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see that working any other day. Unless maybe you're in a bad section of town.

Know why I remember it so well? It's because it made me feel pretty stupid. I completely forgot that it was Halloween at that point and the first thing to go through my head was: "That probably won't really help the robbery problem too much."

<sarcasm>I'm glad that there's no stress in my life!</sarcasm>

Caption This!

So what were these guys talking about?

Well That Wasted A Lot Of Time

Getting a late start on blogging tonight because, while perusing the latest over at Electric Venom, I came across a fairly addictive timewaster: Iraqi Blackjack. Oh well, better get started on the articles I found.

Supply, Demand, Price Controls, Economics, Etc.

While I had the honor of compiling this week's Carnival of the Capitalists, one of the articles that was submitted (by Jonathan Wilde of catallarchy.net) was an analysis of an article by Paul Krugman about a babysitting co-op in the Washington DC area.

Now Jonathan did an excellent analysis of the article itself, one that I wholeheartedly recommend reading, and I do not plan to recreate his wheel, as it were. Instead, I want to use the article to help illustrate how inflation and deflation are both vital to a healthy economic cycle.

The biggest flaw that I saw in the co-op's scheme was that of price controls. The value of the coupon was pegged at 1 hour of babysitting per coupon. Period. It did not vary upwards in times of great demand; it did not vary downward in times of little demand. Consequently, the only tool available to influence the "economy" was the size of the money supply, which is not entirely realistic.

Jonathan also pointed out that they coupons used in the co-op were not true money, as their use was limited. They could only be exchanged for other babysitting services. In doing full blown economic effectiveness analysis, this would be a significant factor hampering the extrapolability of the results, but for the discussion I want to have, this isn't really a factor.

Hypothetically, let's eliminate the price controls in the co-op and create a given coupon supply. The number of coupons is a fixed number and their par value (or issuing value) is, as it was in Krugman's article, 1 hour/coupon. Further, we're going to say that there is no banking mechanism, no issuance of additional scrip, and no "virtual" coupons. Every coupon is paper, there is no credit, and every transaction is paid immediately in scrip.

Now when the coupons are first issued, people will freely exchange them for 1 hour of babysitting, just as the par value indicates. But what happens as we head towards winter and people decide that they need to start saving coupons, perhaps in anticipation of the State of the Union? The demand for babysitting services naturally declines, but the demand for coupons is still there. So how can people acquire more coupons?

Well, we have already prevented the co-op from issuing more coupons, so the value of the coupon should naturally begin to deflate. Coupons should begin to be valued at say 2 hours per coupon, maybe more. Eventually, prices will drop enough (coupons will buy more hours per coupon) to begin to stimulate activity again. People who want to collect and hoard coupons will have them become available and people who maybe have more coupons than they really need or who want to spend more time going out will begin to use more of them as they see the value increase.

Eventually, though, the spenders will need more coupons and the service providers will need to use the co-op services. At that point, the coupons start to flow the other direction and the value stabilizes at the new lower level.

But then what happens when the State of the Union comes up and everyone wants to go? Now you have huge demand and little supply. Prices will begin to rise (each coupon will buy fewer hours of babysitting) until a point is reached where there are enough people willing to spend the night at home working that the need is satisfied. That point may be at, say, 10 coupons per hour. Inflation will have eroded the value of each coupon substantially, but eventually there will be more people willing to work than that price level will support and prices will deflate back towards a reasonable level, followed by the whole process running its course again.

The cycle I've just described could be described something like this: contraction-bust-growth-boom. Look at a sine graph for a graphical representation of what
it would look like. It is a "perfect" cyclical model.

Unfortunately, the textbook, theoretical model does not exist in the real world, as we all know.

Let's look at what might happen if there was a bank involved in the process that was capable of creating and destroying scrip at will, not unlike the Treasury (although the Treasury does it through the issuance and open-market redemption of bonds).

In the contraction phase of the cycle, the bank could, as Krugman proposed in his original article, make more scrip easily available through low interest rates (maybe borrow 10 scrip, only repay 11) to help stimulate demand. It makes sense to do so, because it avoids the harsh effects of deflation on an organization (in this case the co-op), which has debt as part of the capital structure. The risk, however, is ending up in the dreaded liquidity trap where no amount of Keynesian pushing the string will stimulate demand.

During the boom part of the cycle, the bank could, attempt to contract the scrip supply by making it more expensive to borrow (say borrow 10 and repay 20), which would contract the scrip supply by the process of some people paying off their debts, while limiting the amount of scrip being created. This would help to avoid inflation by reducing the number of coupons available to chase after the limited supply of babysitting time (it limits how high up the demand curve the economy can go). The risk here however is that if people have been borrowing scrip to repay with scrip, it makes sense to encourage the continued rise in prices through further borrowing as it then takes less effort to repay the debt than the value received in incurring it.

Notice the similarities between the two. In the first scenario, we are expanding the money supply to encourage spending, thereby discouraging deflation. It is assumed that a little inflation is a better alternative than a little deflation. In the second scenario, the goal is to rein in inflation, but it is still assumed to exist.

In other words: inflation=good; deflation=bad.

Here are the two problems I see with that the actions of the bank. First, deflation is the monetary equivalent of a check and balance in the government. Deflation discourages the piling on of debt by making it more difficult to repay that debt down the road (imagine the person who borrows 10 coupons for 1 hour of services, only to have to repay 20 coupons in which they receive 1 coupon for every 2 hours of babysitting - a 40 to 1 ratio in hours).

Inflation, conversely makes saving less attractive by devaluing the worth of each coupon (imagine the person who hoards 10 coupons at 1 every 2 hours only to use them at a rate of 10 per hour - that's a 20 to 1 ratio). Too much of either extreme, savings or debt, is bad for the economy. Inflation and deflation are the checks against the extremes. By cutting out one, we remove one of the consequences of poor economic decision-making.

The second problem I have, is that constant inflation erodes confidence in the value of the scrip. You run into a scenario where people eventually ask what the point is of working for a coupon that will get you half of what you put into it, so they either remove themselves from the economy by transitioning to a barter system, or they immediately spend their earnings, regardless of the utilization value, in an effort to stave off the effects of inflation, when if fact they are simply exacerbating the problem (this is where it turns into hyperinflation).

In our economic system, we have virtually eliminated (on an economy wide scale, in certain industries the effects are still felt and even then I would argue that they are offset to a large degree by substantial productivity gains in those same industries) deflation as a real risk to business today. That's not good. There is no check against out of control borrowing and we're now starting to see the effects of an economy being strained under the weight of simply too much debt. I think that we're at a crossroads, economically right now. Our nice little 2-3% inflation rate has been outstripped by our mushrooming debt. If businesses start hiring large numbers of people again, I think we're going to see the inflation rate increase significantly. If they don't start hiring pretty soon, I think we're going to see debt induced deflation - which will not be pleasant at all, as each default will lead to more defaults as everything is based on a house of cards, where one debt backs another debt which in turn is backed by another debt which is backed by the original debt. Default on any one and the whole group comes down.

What really scares me is that a form of the circle may, in fact be what our entire economic system is based on. In another article from the Carnival, Mike Northover of Master of None did an excellent post on the Real Bills Doctrine, in which it is proposed that our currency is in fact backed, backed by commercial paper issued by corporations and bought and held by the Fed.

Before I go too far into this discussion, a little look at what commercial paper is. Commercial paper is basically an IOU written by a company in which they promise to pay you back x number of dollars plus interest in say 90 days. Commercial paper has absolutely no backing; if the company defaults there is no recourse - you're just out of luck. Generally, commercial paper is issued by the largest and most stable companies out there as a way of doing short term financing. It saves the companies on the costs of doing a bond issue and generally commercial paper is easy to roll over. It is usually attractive to investors because it offers a combination of decent return (due to the risk associated with no recourse) and relative safety from the short time period.

But what is the commercial paper backed by? It is backed by the full faith and credit of the issuing corporation. One of the reasons why commercial paper is considered to be such a decent short term parking place is because it is denominated in dollars. People like the perceived strength and stability of the US dollar, which is fine. But it means that to a degree, the value of the commercial paper is backed by the perception of the US dollar (GE commercial paper issued in Mexican pesos will not be as valuable to a Mexican as a dollar denominated scrip is to an American because of the perceived risk in the peso, even removing exchange rate risk).

And according to the real bills doctrine, the value of the dollar is backed, to an extent, by the value of the commercial paper. In other words, the paper provides some backing to the dollar, which in turn provides some backing to the paper. But so what, you say?

What happens in the event that some event shocks one side of the backing or the other? Say an active paper issuer like GE goes bankrupt? If real bills holds true, the dollar should lose some of its luster, which in turn would devalue the rest of the commercial paper, which would take the dollar down more, so on and so on and so forth.

Think it can't happen? It already has once. In 1970, the Penn Central railroad, then the largest issuer of commercial paper in the market, went belly up. It was at the time, the largest bankruptcy in US history. It can happen. It has happened. The question is, could our economy, if the value of our money is based on the real bills doctrine, withstand another shock like that? Luckily, in 1968 when we left the gold standard, we were about two years from the end for Penn Central. The Fed would have had an opportunity to avoid stocking up on PC scrip. But even so, the revelation of the true depths of the problem at PC came out in early June of 1970; by the end of the month they were in bankruptcy - and all the paper holders were SOL.

Today, if something like that were to happen, if real bills is at work (which I don't doubt it is), it could be a devastating blow to our economy. Particularly now that a number of companies are issuing Euro denominated commercial paper, which now adds in exchange rate risks on top of everything else. A blow to the dollar could dry up significant parts of the paper market, leading to more insolvencies, further hurting the dollar and putting us into a vicious circle until some sort of equilibrium is reached.

But here's something to consider that kind of ties together both parts of this post: We left the gold standard in 1968, Penn Central went bankrupt in 1970, and Nixon imposed price controls in 1972 that lasted until 1974. This all coincided with the beginning of the bear market of '70s and was followed by stagflation. It was nearly 15 years, until about 1983, before we were able to pull out of the issues caused by the events of the late '60s/early '70s. Recently, consumers and corporations alike have seen an explosion of debt burdens and we're now possibly approaching the end of the debt boom. Our economy is sick, there is no doubt about that (and before someone says look at the stock market, that is not a reliable indicator of the health of the economy.), what is in question is whether or not the sickness is getting better or worse.

I think that we've harmed our ability to rectify difficult economic circumstances by taking away one of our check and balance tools - deflation. It is a necessary evil to maintaining a healthy economy. Just a few months ago I was arguing the need to depreciate the dollar to try to export our way out of recession. The more I study the whole situation, the more I'm becoming convinced that we need a broad based deflationary environment for a short period of time to try to introduce a measure of rationality into the economy. The biggest obstacle I see is that we have accrued so much debt in anticipation of never ending inflation that deflation would be catastrophic to many. We may have inflated our way into a situation where we can no longer inflate, but we cannot afford to deflate like we need. We, too, may have hit a liquidity trap, and may be in for a long ride while the economy tries to absorb and/or wring out all the extra debt created money floating around out there. I'm not sure what's worse: rapid fire deflation where all the pain comes now and we can begin rebuilding, or a long drawn out economic collapse, like Japan has gone through for the last 10 years, where the pain just keeps coming and coming and coming in little increments for a long time before you can begin the process of rebuilding.

Do I have the answer? No. Just kind of thinking out loud here. And getting really tired of seeing supply and demand curves in my head.

IndyMedia Cheap Shots

I don't spend much time, if any, scanning the IndyMedia message boards. Just not enough good stuff to counter out the absolute BS, in my opinion.

But while looking over at Wizbang today, I saw where Kevin had noted an attack on Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.

LGF was one of the first blogs I ever read, although lately I've kind of slacked on reading it. Sometimes I think Charles goes a little too far out there, but this IndyMedia post is just way too much.

The author (Moonbat?) shows a complete lack of taste and/or tact. There are lines of civility that shouldn't be crossed and this guy crossed quite a few.

Does it reach the point of libel? I don't know. I'll leave it to the lawyers to figure that one out. I just know that it reached the absolute depths of tastelessness - even by nutcase standards.

The worst part of this: no one has pulled the post yet. One of the moderators should have noticed the deceit in the byline and the questionable nature of the post and should have in good conscious pulled it.

This is not journalism, not by any stretch of the imagination. IndyMedia should have had no qualms about pulling it.

Carnival Of The Capitalists #3

Welcome, welcome one and all to the show that never ends! I'm going to dispense with all the Earnhardt paeans (even though I have the perfect opportunity for them, having week #3 and being Southern and all) and get right into the meat of why you came: this weeks collection of excellent posts having to do with capitalism in all its forms and pieces.

Entries for next week's Carnival, which is being hosted by Robert Prather of Insults Unpunished, can be sent to editor - at - robertprather.us or to the old standby capitalists - at - elhide.com.

And now for the entries, in no particular order:

What's Your Threat Business Model? by Tim Oren. Tim analyzes how we managed to end up with SSL (secure socket layer - the technology that runs e-commerce right now) despite the best efforts of the tech developers to screw it up.

Time Inconsistency and Social Security by Steve Verdon. Steve looks at how privatization of Social Security isn't as clear cut and simple as everyone wants to believe. His analysis of risk behaviors is dead on.

Google IPO by Beth Mauldin. Beth takes a look at the proposed Google IPO and a few of the very real issues with how IPOs are issued. She points out a number of facts about IPOs that most investors don't know, but should.

A possible answer to the economic puzzle of the Do Not Call list by Craig Newmark. Craig looks at a few of the reasons why telemarketers oppose the Do Not Call list.

Dow 10000, Psychology, and the ECMH by Stephen Bainbridge. Professor Bainbridge looks at one of my favorite topics - market anomalies. The psychological barrier of 10,000 is just one.

World Series Web Browsing by Matt Certo. Matt looks at some of the different advertising techniques that Sprint used during the National League Championship Series and their effectiveness.

What Would Adam Smith Do? by Robert Prather. Next week's host looks at how regulation and protectionism affects the economy through a phenomenon known as "rent-seeking."

Globalization by Kyle Markley. Kyle looks at globalization and how it has helped to make more efficient use of the factors of production in the US.

The New Economics of Music: File-Sharing and Double Moral Hazard by Umair Haque. Umair has an excellent post about how downloading of .mp3s is as much a form of risk transference as it is of piracy

The Grinding Heel of Socialism by Kin Kinayda. Kin takes on the socialist mindset, particularly in Israel, but also in the US through a use of personal anecdotes and well reasoned argument.

The Real Bills Doctrine (who needs gold?) by Mike Northover. Mike and I had been having a crossblog debate on the gold standard and this is the last post (for the time being). A very interesting theory and one which has made think.

American Airlines Showing Profit by Michael Williams. Michael looks at the government bailout of the airlines and the flaws in the current airline business model.

First Thing...Let's Quell All the Liars by David Giacalone. David looks at legal ethics from the point of view of the consumer, analyzing Shakespeare's famous "Kill all the lawyers" quote and the ABA's attempts to put a positive spin on it. I love the part about the profession needing more PR: "Professional Responsibility," not "Public Relations."

Rant Ahead by Chuck Simmins. Chuck takes on all the folks who refuse to volunteer and then complain about paying taxes to pay for services that volunteers used to perform.

Truth by Kevin Aylward. Kevin points out that the Free Software Foundation is espousing a form of communism by calling for all software and digital media to be made open source by virtue of its very production.

It's An Improving Economy, Stupid by Director Mitch. Mitch takes us, step by step, through an analysis of the macroeconomic environment and how it will trickle down to his company and the upcoming Presidential election. This post shows in detail how to do an analysis like this - a skill that really is lacking in today's business world.

Student loan rip-off by Michael Kantor. Michael looks at how the explosion of student loan debt may have hurt graduates by making their degrees less valuable while simultaneously saddling them huge debt loads. I think he's right that this is a problem issue that very few people want to address.

The Frankenstein Economy? by Barry Ritholtz. Barry states many of the points I've been trying to express, mainly that we may be seeing not a fundamental strengthening of the economy, but the result of massive economic stimulus. He, of course, does it in a much more concise and interesting to read format than me.

Choose the right words by Todd. Todd takes a look at the most valuable words to have when selling Google ads with Adsense.

Business and the "Tragic" View of Human Nature by Rob. Rob looks at and compares the art and science of management. He also analyzes how human nature affects our decision making process in regards to management decisions.

Capitalism and Complacency by Sorge Diaz. Sorge offers his advice to the government and to the citizens in how to improve the economy and welfare of our citizens.

Mutual Fund Corruption could be serious by Howard. Howard takes a good look at the possible ramifications of the mutual fund scandal along with the relative lack of recognition about the problem on the part of the political left.

DUMB COMPANY TRICKS Call Center Clownishness by David Foster. David takes on companies that script calls for their call center reps - and refuse to allow any discretion in times of high call volume. This is one of my pet peeves also since I was once on the other side of the phone trying to help as many people as possible.

Should someone be penalized for a bad roll of the genetic dice? - by Jack Grant. Jack takes on the insurance industry and its unusual position in our society. I agree that the insurance industry has substantial problems that need to be addressed and unfortunately agree that it won't happen.

No Way To Run Things by Jay Solo. Jay has provided us with an excellent post on some of the most important lessons to remember when setting up a contract between companies. He also is calling for commentary on items he might have missed. The company I currently work for is in the position of his customer, so I completely understand everything he talks about.

Paul Krugman sings the babysitting blues by Jonathan Wilde. Jonathan takes a long hard look at fiat currency, pricing via the market mechanism, and inflation by analyzing a Paul Krugman article. An excellent read.

I gotta say this by Drumwaster. Drumwaster takes issue with the striking grocery workers in Southern California, pointing out how they are helping to contribute to the higher price of food in the area.

Anti-Spam Legislation by Dean Esmay. Dean takes a look at the whole issue of anti-spam legislation, in particular at how spam does in fact cost the recipient, in terms of time and productivity. He also proposes a reasonable penalty for violation, one that is scaled based on the egregiousness of the violation.

Hell Froze Over by Jeff Walters. Jeff looks at the "new" Apple iTunes Store and comes away suitably impressed. He also goes through the marketing points that Apple is using and their effectiveness on him.

This has really been fun and has introduced me to a number of blogs that I probably never would have read otherwise. I really appreciate Rob and Jay offering me the opportunity to host this event and I look forward to seeing what everyone enters in the future!

Jay also has a poll going over at his site about possibly renaming this Carnival. Some of the proposed names are pretty good! Go over and vote on your choice or to keep the Carnival of the Capitalists name.

If you find any errors, omissions, or broken links, please send me an email at blog - at - cbnoble.com

Idea for the logo shamelessly ripped off from Professor Bainbridge