The Noble Pundit

Links From This Week

Is chivalry outdated? - Only if you have no interest in dating....

Woman, 70, hurls knife at husband who wouldn't prepare for hurricane - If he was watching the Dolphins, I can certainly understand his position....

Muslims Urged to Marry More Wives - Too many things to say here, too many things.

Election economics - Nice big article that misses the one, most obvious answer. That nice big gap is reflective of a growing black market in labor. And as labor laws get more restrictive and payroll taxes rise, we're going to see more of discrepancy.

Dedication, Honor, Respect

Donald Sensing has a great story about how the 3rd Infantry Regiment was given permission to abandon their posts guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier if they "thought they were endangered by Hurricane Isabel." They, of course, did not.

Say what you will about the military, but realize that these men, maintaining their vigil in the middle of a hurricane understand the meaning of the words dedication, honor and respect. They understand the cause of our nation and are showing a very deep understanding and reverance of the sacrifice that is required to maintain our unique "experiment."

I'm glad to see that they have not forgotten the importance of our history. We can not forget and we cannot adandon those who gave their last measure in the furtherance of our nation.

It's good to see that the men of the 3rd Infantry Regiment have not.

Spherewide Short Story Symposium

Allrighty then, for all you who think that you want to be a writer, here's your chance. Michael Williams over at Master of None is hosting the Spherewide Short Story Symposium. Here's your opportunity to send him your stories and to have them read by the vast multitudes of the web.

Information on the Symposium and how to submit your story can be found here.

What A Week

So I'm sure that a few of you out there have been wondering what happened to me this week. Simply put, during the last server upgrade my webhost somehow "changed the ownership" on the blog database files and essentially made the blog think that there were none. Since I no longer existed, I wasn't able to get in to make any new posts.

I'm working on converting all the database files over to MySQL, although that has run into a small snag also - but I'm working on it! Once the conversion is done, the site should become much more stable.

So what did I do during the week? Spent a lot of time reading various websites: blogs, mainline media, etc. Later tonight I'll post links to some of the more interesting stories I came across. Some of them were really, umm, unusual.

I do want to bring a bit of special attention to a new blog I found the other day, The Happy Husband written by Curt Hendley. He describes it as "celebrating marriage in a hostile world." That covers it pretty well, although I would also say that it's pretty insightful and enjoyable to read as well. Go take a look, it's worth the time.

I'm Back! Again!

I finally got back in!

Of course this would happen on a night when I'll have limited posting opportunities and I'm going to be out of town for a portion of this weekend.

Posting will be light tonight as I switch the site over to an SQL database so that these problems don't happen again.

I'm back, I'm back, I'm back! So, so happy!

Quick Links

Reaction to Monday's ruling postponing the recall election - Would someone please tell me when the Voting Rights Act became "the core of our democracy?" Was this like some little known law on the books for nearly 200 years before someone said "Oh! Look! A Voting Rights Act that Washington and friends used as the core of our democracy! What a find! We should enforce it from now on!"? Bustamante has got to get a grip on what really makes our democracy work.

U.S. to Withhold Some Funds from Israel - Is there a similar withholding for the Palestinians? If not, this is a crock. Fair is fair. If the claim is being made that Israel hasn't lived up to its obligations, the same needs to be said for Arafat and his corrupt cronies.

Tax wealthy to pay for Iraq war - No, no, NO! This was a war fought by the American military, not the military forces that defend only the rich Americans who pay for their services. "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL." This means that everyone can kick in their fair share - even poor folks like me. To put the financial burden on a select few would be to set the country down the slippery slope of elitism in which the poor are disenfranchised by virtue of not being able to afford a stake at the table. Raise my taxes or whatever else needs to be done, but do not financially disenfranchise me or any other poor person.

They're Wrong, But Good For Them

OK, so there's an organization, Veterans for Peace, that is running around telling their stories to school kids to try to open their eyes about war. Now this, of course, gets the anti-hippie crowd up in arms (especially once they see the picture of the guy in the hippie shirt). But are these guys really doing something evil?

I'll give you that they should not be in preaching to middle schoolers. That's a little too young to be hitting kids with nuanced arguments about when killing might or might not be appropriate. But is it a bad thing for high school kids - or college students - to get exposed to ideas that may be different than their own beliefs?

I do not agree with their message, beyond the simplistic statement that war is bad. It is a bad thing. But sometimes, a bad thing is better than a worse thing. You might even be able to convince me that there have been times that we've gone to war unnecessarily. But that doesn't change the fact that sometimes war, death and destruction are needed to maintain order. It's an unfortunate, but undeniable, fact of life.

All that being said, I'm glad that these two are out there challenging kids to think before enlisting. The true strength of our military lies not in superior weaponry, but in a superior conviction in the good intentions of our action (Yeah, yeah, I know the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. You know what I meant.). These two act almost as a filter to weed out the kids lacking that conviction. And in the long run, that can only help the effectiveness of the military.

By telling their stories these two will challenge the convictions of the students. Those who have strong, defensible convictions will withstand the challenge. Those who don't will have to reconsider and reform their positions. That process of critical thinking cannot be bad for the kids.

It's kind of ironic that the anti-warriors may in fact be strengthening our military simply helping to provide the service with kids that are able to absorb, comprehend, and critically analyze information better.

But the purpose of VFP, he adds, is that "we have a responsibility to make sure young people hear both sides of the story."

So long as they hear both sides of the story, it's fine by me.

Did Sweden Make A Good Choice?

So, now that Sweden has voted "no" on the Euro referendum, the question arises: what price will there be for sovereignty?

The EU ministers have already begun their campaign of disapproving scowls in Sweden's general direction. They have already begun the standard bully tactic of making implied threats about the relevance of Sweden in the EU. In short, the EU has begun their normal process of dithering about, making lots of noise, while accomplishing nothing.

It's pretty obvious to just about anyone who has paid any attention to the Eurozone financial "challenges" recently, that the big countries - like France and Germany, in particular - view the Euro currency controls as mere inconveniences to their fiscal policy. But God help a Luxembourg or Norway or Ireland should they need to "bend" the rules to ensure their national fiscal stability.

I believe that the EU is showing itself to be more and more a power and control grab by the big nations. There is a definite two tiered structure forming in the EU: France and Germany (with Belgium tagging along) constitute the top tier - where rules are set in stone only for others. The rest of the EU countries are rapidly becoming second class citizens in their own nation. Think I'm wrong? Look at the financial gyrations that Greece had to go through to gain admittance to the Euro club, only so that France and Germany could flaunt those very same rules in the name of economic stability.

So what price does Sweden pay for their "No?"

They might lose some decision making influence? Did they ever really have any, other than the token influence that the Franco-German axis would throw them? They might not be able to fully participate in the Euroland market? Sounds to me like codespeak for they won't be able to fully subsidize Franco-German largesse. Just how bad is the "No?"

...Sweden's crown rallied from early falls on relief after a year's uncertainty.

"Traders are again looking at fundamentals -- the foreign trade surplus, strong public finances, higher interest rates and prospects of economic growth faster than in the euro-zone," said Peter Kaplan, economist at ABN AMRO.

Sounds like a much better deal to me. Sweden's economy, while heavily statist, is at least sound.

The EU, for all its high ideals, in becoming a textbook study in elitist governance. If you're not French or German, you are one of the great unenlightened masses who need guidance from the true leaders, as France and Germany always have been (at least in their minds). Is the vote of a Greek or a Swede or a Spaniard or even (for the moment) a Briton worth as much in the EU as that of a Frenchman or a German? In theory yes; in practice - not a chance.

And therein lies the crux of the EU problem: it's a great theory, but a terrible practice.

The Swedes made the right choice. They stayed Swedish instead of becoming Euro-Swedes.

I Wonder How Much This Cost?

Kids do best when they are raised in homes with loving authority and faith.

I think that this is what they call a "blinding flash of the obvious."

Of course kids need structure in their life. Of course kids doing better emotionally and psychologically when they're loved. Is there really anyone out there that thinks we'd be better off if we let our kids run wild and treated them with contempt and disdain?

All that this study points out is the importance of family: biological and extended.

A loving family gives a child a sense of security. A loving family gives a child a feeling that they can try something - and it'll be ok even if they fail. A loving family gives a kid the empathy, understanding, compassion and judgment - all the social skills - that they'll need to survive in the real world.

Now maybe it's the website I found the linked article on, or maybe it's really in the study (I'm going to try to have to find an original copy. Tried googling it without success.) but there almost seems to be a "revelation" that religion can help kids to adjust better. I don't think that it's because of the religious lesson per se, but rather because the Church reinforces those same social skills - empathy, understanding, compassion, and judgment - that the immediate family teaches. And the multigenerational aspect of that reinforcement only makes it stronger.

Perhaps the influence of religion is understudied. Perhaps that would have been a better topic of study for this report. Did we honestly need a study to tell us that family is important? I'm glad to see that someone is interested in studying things that might help children, but we do we really need to reinvent the wheel?

Research money is not unlimited. What money there is needs to be spent a little more wisely, I think.

Have I Ever Mentioned...

Just how much I hate Progress Energy? The power surge I mentioned a few days back was actually more damaging than I thought. I sat down at my good computer Saturday night and found out that both the power supply and the motherboard had been fried in the surge. Luckily the CPU survived, but I had to buy a new case, a new motherboard (and new memory to boot), and I spent yesterday taking apart what was left of the old computer and put it all together in the new box. What a pain! Surge protector was too slow I guess.

I've got some good stuff that I hope to get up before Monday Night Football tonight.

Oh yeah, my web host One World Hosting says that they're going to be doing some server upgrades and to expect the site to be intermittent between midnight and 6 am Eastern tonight.