The Noble Pundit

Quick Links

Dean dispute puts focus on Dems' lag in the South - Yeah, points out that the Democrats lost the South, but mainly points out that Dean hasn't got a clue about us.

Education 'Miracle' Has a Math Problem - My kids are currently being taught using the new math crap, and let me tell you, I can believe that there is a math problem in the statistics. After seeing the new math up close and in person, I can understand why our kids can't do it.

Paris Store Offers Striptease Lessons - I wonder which waiting list was longer: the one to take the lessons, or the one to watch the lessons?

Will Investors Stampede Out of Mutual Funds? (link requires registration) - Coming full circle for the day. It's no surprise that people are pulling their money out of the mutual funds that are accused of dirty dealing. I would not be surprised if a few go out of business or are merged out of existance.

Hijacking Cargo Planes Next?

I actually saw this yesterday, but didn't think too much of it. But Al Jazeera expanded on the story a little and offered an explanation as to how this might happen.

I don't think that this would so much a hijacking, as it would be a theft. To hijack a cargo plane in flight would be nearly impossible, as there are no passengers and the cargo is separated from the cockpit by heavy duty netting designed to hold back the cargo during high G-force events.

Now if they were trying to steal an airplane sitting on the tarmac in Canada, or Mexico, or in the Caribbean it probably wouldn't be too difficult as airport security, especially south of the United States, is lax. Sneaking onto the airport and stealing a 727 or a DC-3 wouldn't be a real challenge.

But the effects of crashing such an airplane wouldn't be all that impressive. The WTC and Pentagon were both so destructive because of the nearly full fuel loads on the airplanes. Stealing a relatively small airplane, which is what flies around North America, they would be running low on fuel by the time they reached their destination. A lower fuel load at impact means that they would need to be more accurate with their aim.

The idea of hijacking or stealing a cargo plane to use as a bomb is great for creating terror as it invokes the memory of the horror of 9/11. I don't see it as being a particularly practical or effective threat. The airplanes would be smaller than those used on 9/11 and would be nearing the edge of their range by the time they could actually be used as a weapon.

Does make for an impressive sounding threat though.

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

Einstein, Marx, Von Braun?

It's interesting to see who other countries consider to be their greatest citizens. This time, it's the Germans doing a "best German" contest.

It has the usual expected assortment of athletes and pop figures for a public poll. But some of the other names are interesting.

In the top ten you have: Marx, Einstein, Willy Brandt, Bach, Goethe, Adenaeur, Bismarck, Martin Luther, Gutenberg and the Scholls.

Some of the names that surprised me were: Beethoven at 12th. Wagner at 69, and Mozart at 20. I was really surprised at how high some of the athletes were ranked, as well as the current German regime of Schroeder and Fischer.

But that's what I get for viewing the poll from an American point of view.

I'll be interested to see who they chose as the "best German." If I were over there and had those ten choices, I'd probably go with Gutenberg, then Luther, and then Einstein. But I don't get a say in this one.

Arafat Says No To Peace, Again

Once again, Yassar Arafat had an opportunity to make a real gesture of conciliation in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Once again, he refused to let control of the security apparatus of the state pass to someone else.

So long as Yassar is pulling the puppet strings in Ramallah there is no hope of the Palestinian Authority morphing into an organization that can be reasoned with or trusted. Arafat is an unreformed terrorist, pure and simple. Somewhere along the way, we forgot that maxim "never negotiate with terrorists." This would be a good time to remember.

So long as the Palestinians think that we're going to negotiate with this twit there will be no incentive for them to actually figure out how to pursue peace. They constantly claim that arresting terrorists will lead to civil war. That's only because the top terrorist will not stand in the way of the thugs formenting the discord.

Arafat fears giving up the security apparatus because he knows that if someone else were in charge they could squash a rebellion by the rabble rousers. And then, a true peace, based on trust could be formed as opposed to Arafat's goal of peace through annihilation.

But for the time being, Arafat still has control of his brownshirt squadrons. And the prospects for peace are still in the gutter. Just like Yassar wants.

Bomb Detonated In Riyadh

Looks like the terrorists are at it again. Three explosions around midnightrocked a residential compound in western Riyadh. Estimates of the wounded run as high as 100 people, with an unknown number dead.

This is another of the terrorist's brilliant moves. The shopping mall they bombed this time was full of Saudi and Arab citizens out reveling in the night due to the fasting restrictions of Ramadan. If you're going to wage jihad wouldn't it make sense to go after the people least likely to support you, not your most die-hard adherents?

But I guess my not understanding that is why I'm not a terrorist. Obviously there must be some sort of logical reason behind this or else they wouldn't keep going and blowing up their financial backers (unless you want to cook up a conspiracy theory about Wahhabi being under the control of the Mossad and it all ultimately being a Jewish plot to eliminate the Arabs, but I kind of doubt it. I just think they ain't none too bright.)

I also caught one other thing I thought was interesting as I was reading through the article:

He [a Saudi official] said most of the wounded were believed to be children because their parents were out shopping during Ramadan. Most of the residents are Arabs and few Westerners live in the area. (emphasis mine)

So we're just up and leaving the kids at home alone at midnight on a Saturday night so that we can go run down to the mall for some midnight madness shopping? Maybe if it were Saturday afternoon, I could understand, but the middle of the night? Come on. Where's the sense of familial responsibility? I'm not a big fan of "For The Children," but this is ridiculous. No one in their right mind leaves their children (not teenagers, mind you. Children) sitting at home at midnight. At least one of the up to five parents should have been at home with the kids. Someone capable of making a thought out and reasoned decision should have been there.

I will never understand how these terrorist can preach their hatred of the Jews, the Christians and the infidels and then they turn right around and blow up Muslim kids. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Insults Unpunished Has Moved

OK, update your links. Robert Prather has moved his site Insults Unpunished over to its own domain http://www.insultsunpunished.com.

The Pot Calling The Kettle Black

The NAACP is accusing the President of "playing the race card" because he has nominated a black woman for the US Court of Appeals for DC.

I really believe that the NAACP has lost the moral authority to stand up and claim discrimination based on racism. They have shown themselves to be one of the remaining, and nearly unassailable, bastions of institutionalized racism in this country. Through affirmative action, set asides, and quotas, they encourage and promote racism at all levels of society and government. The NAACP is a racist organization every bit as dedicated to the destruction of Martin Luther King's dream as the Klan. To the NAACP, color blindness is not an option. For every man to be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin is unacceptable.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Just their name strips them of any moral grounding for opposing racism. Their goal is to promote, to advance, the situation of the black race in America. And that is fine.

As long as they're honest about it.

They are actively promoting one race over another. That's racism. They just won't admit it.

I believe that part of the reason why they won't admit to it is because they are not actively promoting one race over another. They are promoting an ideology. They don't necessarily want to promote the advancement of black people, otherwise they would be supporting the nomination of Justice Brown, rather they only want to advance colored people who toe the party (usually coinciding with the Democratic Party) line.

If they admitted to being racist and to only being interested in the welfare of the black people in America, they would be between a rock and hard place. They would have to choose between supporting a Janice Rogers Brown and a Clarence Thomas, or admitting that they only cared about the advancement of liberal blacks. To avoid being exposed, it's easier to lie and dissemble. It's easier to try to push the racist tag off on someone else - usually a white person, someone most people are conditioned to accept as racist without question.

In the nomination of Justice Brown there was no race card in play, until the NAACP introduced it. Too bad they're not honest enough to admit it.

Dang, Missed!

Israeli forces tracked down and captured another "militant" yesterday:

Amjad Abeidi was tracked down to a neighborhood in the West Bank town of Jenin by soldiers who began a house-to-house search.

They discovered a weapons cache under one house and when they destroyed it with a grenade, Abeidi emerged from hiding, slightly wounded.

So this great jihadi, this terrorist mastermind, comes whimpering out of his hiding spot when the Israelis blow up his guns. Did he forget that it would be more glorious to bleed to death than to surrender to the Israelis? Or was he afraid that by dying while hiding from the "infidels" that Allah might not bless his sorry soul? Or maybe he just felt that he was to important to martyr just yet, surely he has more Hanadi Janarat's in the pipeline.

The guy should be happy that the he's being captured by the Israelis. If the roles had been reversed, I seriously doubt that he'd still be alive and I don't think the execution would have been able to be defined as anything other than excessive torture.

But hey, it is one more bomb maker off the streets.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Reading along through Free Republic this morning, I came across a post linking to an article on some of the Congressional responses to the improving job market.

The responses were pretty much what you would have expected: Daschle tries to twist it into a negative, and Hastert tries to tie it directly to the tax cuts (although he is correct in asserting that raising taxes now would kill the recovery).

One of the commenters on the post really caught my eye though:

Expect to hear that the jobs created are merely "hamburger flipper" jobs and not of the same quality as those 'created' under Clinton.

I hate to say it, but his statement, obviously meant as a sarcastic one, is dead on accurate. The jobs being created right now are going to be, for the most part, minimum wage jobs - not the high salary jobs that came into being in the late 1990s. But it's not Bush's fault any more than the quality jobs were Clinton's.

Right now, we starting the climb out of a recession. As the economy begins the process of expansion, it is faced with a lack of consumers and a surplus of labor. So when companies hire, they tend to be very conservative. They hire people for minimum wage to try to keep costs contained.

As more people re-enter the workforce, consumer demand begins to expand pushing the economy solidly into the growth phase of the economic cycle. As demand for consumers increases, so will demand for labor until that point is reached where the economy is running at full employment.

Once full employment is reached, wages offered will begin to rise as the labor supply and demand curves cross. As wages rise, people begin job hopping and companies are forced to create "quality jobs" to recruit or maintain quality employees.

Eventually a point is reached where the whole process reverses itself, cost control becomes an issue for companies again, and the cycle starts into decline heading towards recession again.

It's simple economic cycle theory. Yes the jobs being created right now are "burger flipping" jobs. But the idea is that they will eventually lead to more spending (increasing the velocity of the money in the system) which will in turn lead to quality jobs. Like it or not, the burger flipping type jobs are the foundation of our economy. To build a strong economy, we have to start at the bottom.

Which is why I think if this recovery continues and if Bush is re-elected in '04, he will eventually end up being viewed as a President who "created" high quality jobs, just like Clinton is now.

And in neither case will the perception be accurate. They will both be the beneficiaries of an improving economy over which they exerted very little control. It's not accurate, but the perception is what it is. And in politics, perception is often more important than truth.

From Cuba To Iraq

Peter Foster had a very interesting column in the National Post yesterday in which he looked at how Kennedy handled Fidel Castro in light of Iraq and Saddam today.

Fidel is one of those little problems we should have dealt with properly a long time ago. He's nothing more than a two bit, banana republic tyrant with some friends in the right places to exert influence on public opinion (like the New York Times, Hollywood, France, etc.). The only thing Fidel has going for his is his charisma. It is how he controls the apparatus of government in Havana. His ideas are a intellectually bankrupt as his national treasury. Without the Soviet Union propping him up, militarily Cuba is a joke.

The man is a walking, talking human rights violation. He has destroyed a nation. He has enslaved the people. He is every bit as evil a loser as Saddam. So why do we let him run his little prison camp? Why don't we just go ahead and remove the cancer in the Caribbean?

He's hung around for 40 years already. He needs to go away. It is in the best interest of the United States if he does.

Marriage, Lesbians, and Adultery

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has decided, in a 3-2 decision, that homosexual sex is not adultery.

The basis for their decision? The "...definition of adultery in the 1961 edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary..."

Apparently the decision had to be made after a man sued his wife for divorce, claiming that she had been engaging in an adulterous lesbian relationship during their marriage, which led to the ultimate breakup. He and his lawyer believe that the affair violated the sanctity of the marriage covenant.

I believe that they're right.

The problem I have with basing a legal decision on a strict interpretation of a 42 year old dictionary definition of a word is that dictionary definitions change. I'm guessing that when the Webster's people sat down in 1961 to commit to paper their definition of adultery they probably didn't ask "So is it adultery if two chicks get it on? Or what about two guys?" In 1961, these weren't big questions. Marriage was the norm and homosexuality was viewed as a deviant perversion. In the intervening 42 years, we have gone through a radical revolution in the way in which we view marriage and homosexuality. Which makes the 1961 definition a relic of a time long gone - and ripe for being updated in the next version of Webster's.

In my view, this creates a problem. What happens if the definition of adultery gets updated in the Fourth Webster's? Does that change the legitimacy of this ruling? If I found a more favorable definition in, say, the Second Webster's, could I use that? It strikes me that by basing the ruling on a dictionary definition - a very specific definition decided by a party other than the court - creates a situation in which court decisions could be changed or nullified by the editors of that dictionary.

I think that the dissenters in this decision have an excellent argument:

"We respectfully dissent because we believe that the majority's narrow construction of the word 'adultery' contravenes the legislature's intended purpose in sanctioning fault-based divorce for the protection of the injured spouse. To strictly adhere to the primary definition of adultery in the 1961 edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary and a corollary definition of sexual intercourse, which on its face does not require coitus, is to avert one's eyes from the sexual realities of our world."

I'm guessing that the three justices didn't want to make a real decision. They didn't want to truly address homosexuality and it's relationship with heterosexual marriages. It was a decision in which no one would end up happy, no matter what the final decision was. So they found a cop-out instead. They passed the responsibility for exercising judgment off to the editors of Webster's in 1961.

What they did was not right, was not fair, was not what they were paid for, and was not surprising given the cowardice of most judges in the face of political correctness.

They shirked from their duty of calling adultery what it is, an unacceptable betrayal of the bonds of marriage.

Gee, This Is A Real Surprise

The Securities and Exchange Commission has come out with news that more than 25% of brokerage firms broke the law by allowing late day trading in mutual funds by certain select investors. Further, they have discovered that 70% of the firms know about customer's market timing activities.

What does this mean? Well, it means that 30% of the brokerage firms are lying. They all know that they have customers who are trying to time the market. Nothing is done about the timing because you can always blame the failure on the client and it can be awfully profitable while they're self-destructing. At a time when trade revenue is down, does anyone really think that there is going to be a brokerage firm out there that is going to discourage trading, no matter how ill-advised it might be? I don't think so.

As for the late day trading, I'm guessing that the 25% number is probably about right. Before now, late day trading was really viewed as a distasteful thing, not a significant illegality. Even at firms that did everything through computerized trading systems instead of on paper tickets, it would have been simple to get around the 4 o'clock cutoff times. Time stamp a couple of paper tickets beforehand, do something to lock up your computer right at four o'clock, and then hand in the paper tickets with the time stamps after the client makes the decision.

Gaming the system like that would work, because there are really no controls on the paper ticket system. The last firm I worked at was completely computerized, yet I had a stack of paper tickets two inches thick on my desk, just in case the system went down. Getting them stamped would have been simple. Just claim to be checking the time, date or function of the time stamp. Probably would have shown up on a review as taking the initiative or some such positive.

Most established, respected brokers are going to have your best interest at heart. The article talks about brokers being dismissed from Merrill Lynch and Prudential, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of illegal activity was talking place among the boiler room crowd. Use diligence in selecting your broker. If they offer to "bend a rule" for you, take your money elsewhere. In the securities industry, rules don't bend - at least not legally. And the SEC will come after individuals also. Don't let your broker get you into trouble. Use your common sense and your sense of right and wrong.

If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't.

Quick Links

Mini job miracle - Germany learns about the value of reducing the burden of overtaxation. The unions are, of course, up in arms about it.

There once was a word for tax freedom: 'fray-oh-dome': U of T releases next letter in dictionary of Old English - Too bad we don't have a word for tax freedom today...

"I didn't know I was suing you!" - Lawyers interfering in the doctor-patient relationship in the name of venue shopping. This is truly offensive. The lawyers have got to be stopped before they destroy our civilization.

How To Win Support For Your School

So, if you attend a school that is under attack for being offensive to a large segment of the population would you go and dress up as undercover cops posing as prostitutes for the purpose of robbing the johns? It doesn't strike me as the best way to win over the affections of the general population, but that is exactly what five transgender students have gone and done.

These guys are now going to be the poster children for why this school is not a wise idea. Cross dressing, homosexuality, prostitution, deceit, and illegal activities all rolled into one. Like it or not, they now epitomize all of the objections of the school's opponents.

Now for as much as wonder what the kids were thinking, I really have to wonder what the "johns" were thinking. They actually propositioned underage crossdressers posing as police officers and not only fell for all that, but they willingly turned over their ATM cards and PIN numbers, along with cash. I don't want to say that these guys deserved it (as no one does), but honestly, how clueless can you be?

This seems to be a story in which no one had any semblance of common sense. And unfortunately, I think that a lack of common sense is becoming much more prevalent.

What Is It With These Guys?

Via On The Third Hand

So two raving geniuses have gone and blown themselves up in Mecca after the Saudi authorities tried to arrest them for having ties to al-Qaida.

So, do these guys just walk around town with "emergency" bombs in case the cops try to arrest them? Are all their clothes made of Semtex? If this were in Gaza or Nablus, I could understand running into a guy carrying a bomb (it still wouldn't be right, but it's semi-expected in the Territories), but this is Mecca, one of the two home cities of the Religion of Peace. Muslims are supposed to be there to worship and pray, not to take part in bomb making seminars. Have they no respect for the sanctity of their own holidays? Don't the rules for Ramadan include such restrictions as no eating, having sex, or self-detonating during daylight hours?

The legitimacy of Saudi rulers rests partly on their custodianship of Mecca, which is off-limits to non-Muslims. A strike on Mecca could be seen as a strike on the regime

So we're going to blow up religious shrines to get back at a government we don't like? Doesn't seem like it would be too effective. For some reason I don't think that for an American to blow up the National Cathedral would really have much effect on the governance of the nation. Wouldn't have an effect on the legitimacy of the government either. Would get someone's butt thrown in jail for long time, though.

Even a religiously based government like Iran's wouldn't lose any perceived legitimacy because the biggest mosque in Iran blew up. The moron that did it would lose his head, but the government wouldn't fall.

Which makes me question what these guys were thinking if they thought that blowing up Mohammad's childhood home would bring down the modern Saudi government. But then again, they blew themselves up, which indicates to me that they weren't thinking too much.

Oh, well. Two less people in the gene pool.

Carnival of the Capitalists Reminder

Just a reminder. Entries for this week's Carnival of the Capitalists over at The Accidental Jedi are due by midnight Saturday. Make sure to get your entires in to capitalists - at - elhide.com!

Trains and Memories

Just got to see a relative rarity in these parts: a near mile long, mixed freight train. Most all of them that come rumbling through downtown are either solid coal trains heading to the power plant south of town, or they're a mix of double stack containers and tri-level autoracks. To see a train with boxcars, tank cars, open hoppers, covered hoppers, gondolas - basically everything but a little red caboose at the end - is really kind of cool.

What made it even more interesting was the fact that quite a few of the covered hoppers hadn't been repainted for many years now. They carried the logo for the SCL/L&N Family Lines System, one of the precursors to the modern CSX. The SCL/L&N is also the railroad of my first train memories. It was like a little mini-flashback for me.

Oh, well. Guess I need to go back to thinking of how I'm going to train my replacement at this place. This should be a really fun two weeks.

Quick Links

Bush Challenges Iran, Syria to Adopt Democracy - Good to see Bush raising the pressure on the nutcases in the Middle East.

Reality show looks for porn stars of tomorrow - I wonder how long it will be before this follows Joe Millionaire IV....

The Improving Economy

I've been seeing all kinds of articles about the "Bush Boom" as the current nascent recovery is being called in some quarters. And now, Gallup is reporting that a majority of people (53%) believe that the economy is improving. Count me among those that believe it is getting better.

I can say that because, after several months of looking, I finally found a new job. In two weeks, I'll finally be able to start a job, which pays more, but requires less responsibility. But it points to a larger problem in the economy today.

Unemployment has been getting better, jobless claims are down, but there is a growing issue with people who are underemployed. The underemployed are people like me, who have degrees, have experience, and yet can't find a job that takes advantage of and compensates us properly for our skills. This new job, while paying better than the one I'm leaving, doesn't pay as much as I made just 2 years ago and still doesn't allow me full rein to use all my knowledge and skills.

I know that I'm not the only person in this position. I've got friends who are in similar positions. Even the Gallup poll found that "73% of those surveyed said now is not a good time to be looking for a 'quality' job."

That means that there is a large segment of the employed population that is not being used in the most efficient and expedient manner possible. Which means that our economy, despite the improving GDP numbers, is still not firing on all cylinders. We could be doing a lot better.

I believe that if we don't start to see improvements in the quality of jobs available and a decline in the underemployed then the recovery will eventually stall out. I got lucky and was able to move up on the job quality matrix. Many others are not so lucky. There needs to be an across the board improvement.

Or else the economy could still be a big issue in '04.

Howard Dean: Smug Yankee Elitist

So the good doctor Dean is at it again. First, he went and pissed off the traditional Democratic base by saying he wanted to be the candidate for the Confederate flag on a pickup truck crowd. So how to follow up with his new following? Let's piss them off by telling them how they should vote.

Just who in the hell does Dean think he is? If God, guns and gays are the most important issues to someone, why shouldn't they vote for the person most in line with their feelings? If those are the issues, those are the issues and no amount of elitist condescension by Dr. Howard Dean, or Senator John Kerry, or Representative Dick Gephardt will change that. The issues are what the people say they are, not what the politicians want them to be.

Howard Dean getting the Democratic nomination has got to be the Republicans highest hopes. The man has not figured out how to speak responsibly.

Dean sticks his foot in his mouth through a complete ignorance of people. His backtracking, his "apology," and his waffling on the Stars and Bars comments, along with his talking down to Southerners have almost guaranteed that he will lose the South in '04. I thought Kathleen Parker summed it all up pretty well today:

The whole episode smacks of classism if not racism: Northern Nobility embraces Southern Idiocracy. How long before one of them says: "Why some of my best friends are Southerners"?...

But the Confederate flag is tricky among Southerners - a volatile issue, the nuances of which are often lost on Northerners and other visitors to the kudzu states. Not everyone with the battle flag in his home or on his truck is a dangerous racist, though some are...

For many others - well-educated, prosperous, thoughtful Southerners, as opposed to the undereducated, uninsured, vacant-staring Walker Evans sharecroppers Dean apparently envisions - the Confederate flag is a symbol of Southern history, of battles fought and lost, of family members valiant and dead, of a person's right to express himself even if it offends others.

Gephardt, Dean, Lieberman and Kerry probably needn't waste too much time trying to court the Southern pickup crowd.

Dean might as well spend the rest of his campaign in all those blue states and the red ones north of the Mason-Dixon.

Dr. Howard Dean is no better than any of the other proponents of institutionalized prejudice in this campaign. He just happens to conceal his prejudices a little better.

Quick Links

Republicans Win Kentucky, Mississippi Governorships - For all the claims that they Republicans would suffer from the war and the economy, this doesn't bode well for the Democrats.

Advocates Want Other Cities to Follow San Francisco and Raise Minimum Wage - Hmmm. Another brilliant economic move. Let's raise the minimum wage to an unrealistic level to encourage illiegal immigration, a black market in under minimum wage labor, and many more unemployed poor people. I love it, let's help people by taking away opportunities. Pure genius, it is.

Judge dismisses lawsuit that sought to legalize gay marriage - Oh! OH! A judge who understands that the proper way to change the law is through the legislature, not by judicial fiat. Someone needs to promote this lady!

A Trade War?

The EU has decided it would be a good idea to start slapping the US with trade sanctions for violations of the WTO rules. In the spirit of generosity they're starting only at $200 million, even though the WTO has said they are entitled to $4 billion in sanctions. If we don't change our ways they have threatened to raise the sanctions by $40 million a month until we come in to compliance with their wishes.

In the universe of stupid moves, this comes pretty close to being one of the top ones. The world is tottering on the brink of a global recession and we're going to threaten to raise protectionist tariffs in a quest to make trade more fair - by stopping it for everyone. Having everything of nothing is still nothing. It would be a lesson the WTO/EU crowd would be well advised to learn.

If the EU carries through on this threat, I see it as being but the first shot in a much wider trade war. What the WTO imperialists need to remember is that without the WTO, the US still has clout in the world, but without the US, the WTO is nothing more than a trade version of the League of Nations, doomed to irrelevance and failure.

Hopefully the eurocrats are figuring out how they're going to get themselves out of this rhetorical corner while saving face. Otherwise the blood of a vicious trade war and the resulting recession/depression will be on their stubborn hands.

The United States is a sovereign nation. We have not been a colony of any European nation since 1776 and they will not use the WTO to impose a new form of taxation without representation. We've fought that Revolution once. We'll fight it again, if necessary.

More On Dean And The Flag

Howard Dean made his Confederate Flag comments the other day and managed to tick a lot of people off. Last night, during the Democratic debate, Dean had an opportunity to seperate himself from the other racists running for election. But instead, he manages to pander to the traditional Democratic constituancy while refusing to apologize. How he pulled that off, I don't know, but he did it. And in the process, probably ticked off even more people.

That wasn't the part that really got me though. I was really intrigued by this:

Asked whether they had ever used marijuana, Edwards, Dean and Sen. John Kerry said they have....Alone among the eight, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun declined to answer.

Why am I not surprised that Kerry used? Why? I guess I just find it hard to believe that someone could be that out there and not have fried a few brain cells with the wacky weed.

I tell you, these guys just look worse every time they open their mouths. There seems to be no discussion of real issues going on, which if it holds will make the campaign for the general election in 2004 a very ugly one indeed.

Memo To My Readers

November 5, 2003

To: ALL LOYAL AND NOT-SO-LOYAL NOBLE PUNDIT READERS

From: Chris

Subject: Writing an effective memo

One of the skills that is most lacking in today's workplace is the ability to write clearly. Oftentimes, the ability to communicate effectively via writing will make the difference between who gets promoted and who doesn't. By following a few of these simple steps, you can get a leg up on everyone else.

Grammatically, writing an effective memo is very simple. Keep the language simple and clear. Be concise. Use simple sentence structure. Use the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid!

The biggest challenge facing you in writing an effective memo is organization. Your first paragraph must tell the reader why this memo is being written and why it is important to them. Miss either of those requirements and you will lose most of your readers. Your middle paragraphs should tell the reader the information you want them to know. Try to limit the memo to no more than three middle paragraphs. And finally, close with a paragraph reminding the reader of what was written and why it is important. Most memos fail to communicate because they lack a basic outline structure like this.

When writing a memo, your goal is to quickly and efficiently communicate an idea to the reader. You do not want to waste their time or yours. Learning to write that kind of memo is a skill that can be practiced and perfected. Being able to effectively communicate is one of the key skill sets managers look for. Writing effective memos will help you to excel in that area.

Chris

On my way into work this morning, the Orlando Sentinel billboard along I-4 was flashing a notice about an article on the do and don'ts of writing memos. It occurred to me that most people see these articles, but never see how to apply them. A list without context is pretty useless.

I've always found that the best way to write a memo is, like I did above: tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell 'em, and tell 'em what you told 'em. Or in grammatical terms: intro, body, conclusion.

In the intro paragraph make sure that you tell them why you're writing and why it's important to them. Otherwise people will question why you're wasting their time and they may never get to an otherwise excellent point.

In the body, get across your information in a clear, concise manner. Leave no room for ambiguity. You don't want people to be sitting there questioning what you meant. You want them to act! Make absolutely sure that they know what they have to do, without question.

In your conclusion, recap what you wrote. Give a quick synopsis and call to action. Your conclusion needs to be short, but effective.

For most bloggers, the problem won't be writing something coherent - it's rare that I stumble across a blog post that is simply impossible to follow. The problem will generally be keeping it simple. Big words and grandiose flourishes are out. Simple sentences and a third grade vocabulary are in. It's tough. I know it is. At my last job I had one supervisor who was constantly telling me that I needed to be a little less verbose. So I know it's a challenge, but if you can overcome it, the benefits are huge.

Hopefully, a quick example of a good memo will help more than another bullet-pointed list to hang on your cube wall. Hopefully, it will help you to write a better memo, rather than the stilted sounding memo born of religiously following a do/don't list.

I am consistently amazed at how poorly most people write. For people who can communicate effectively through writing, the opportunities out there are legion. It is, by far, the most in demand skill I've found.

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.

More Interesting History

I'm thinking of maybe starting an additional site for history articles like this and maybe even a third for railroad type articles (two of my other interests). If you're interested in helping, send me an email at blog - at - cbnoble.com

Earliest Stone Tools and Bones Site Discovered - 2.6 million years old. I have trouble with the idea that I have things 2500 years old in the house with me, I just can't fathom 2.6 million years. Incredible.

Quick Links

Al-Qa'ida Website Issues Ramadan Warning of Imminent Attacks: Calls on Muslims in DC, NY, and LA to Leave Those Cities - These guys are becoming a joke. They threaten, threaten ,threaten, but nothing ever seems to happen like they claim. Either we're really, really good at stopping them, or they're really, really inept. I'm guessing it's probably somewhere in the middle.

THE COMING COLLAPSE OF FREE TRADE (registration required) and FOLLIES: New Republic Blames America First (Again) - Two different looks at free trade. The first article tends to contradict itself at times, but it's interesting to read nonetheless.

How Not To Treat Employees

As I've mentioned before, I work at a retail furniture store just outside of downtown Orlando. In my job I handle everything from accounts payable to accounts receivable to inventory management to human resources. Out of all the various and sundry responsibilities I have, HR is, by far, the most challenging.

When I'm dealing with my employees, I try to treat them right. I try to give them respect. Mistakes are not acceptable, per se, but they are viewed as learning opportunities. They know that if they mess up, they'll have to make it right, but so long as they learn how to avoid it in the future everything is cool. I try to talk to them, to get to know what's going on in their professional life as well as their personal lives. This allows me to nip problems in the bud before they become real issues. And most importantly, when I ask someone to do something for me, I try to make sure that they have the tools and/or information necessary to succeed.

My boss, on the other hand, would manage to get kicked out of a Dale Carnegie course. She has not figured out how to talk to people to save her life - or her business. Here are some of the most poignant examples of her in action:

She completes a sale with a customer. She gives me the item numbers of what she sold so I can place the order (mind you, she did not give me any description or idea of what we were ordering). We order it. It comes in. We place it on her desk - and she promptly loses it for a month. After she finally finds them, she delivers them to the client, who turns around to complain that the parts are wrong. My boss' response: "I don't know why I pay eight of you guys when I just end up doing it all myself anyways."

She hires flamboyant, gay designers because they're gay and flamboyant and then threatens to fire them because they're too gay and too flamboyant.

She discusses hiring a replacement for me with a third party not affiliated with the store - while I'm at lunch with them.

When employees try to inform her of the actions of a certain ethically challenged employee, she threatens to fire everyone else for telling her what's going on.

She goes on shopping sprees in which she buys tens of thousands of dollars in new merchandise. When the bills come due and she doesn't have the cash for them (the store budget is on a tighter shoestring than my own personal one), she accuses me of "trying to ruin her credit."

In responding verbally to a racial discrimination complaint lodged against her, she tells the city human relations board that she can't be a racist because she has "lots of those people working for me."

She accuses honest employees of stealing from her and of trying to ruin her and thinks the ones who actually are thieving and plotting against here can do no wrong.

She hires people after five minute interviews (questions: "When can you start?" and "Is $6.50/hr OK?") and no reference checks and then wonders out loud, in front of them, why she can't seem to get good help.

A picture falls off a wall onto the head of an employee, breaking the glass in the picture. First question: "Is it [the picture] salvageable?"

I go across the street to get a drink from the store as a guy in a suit walks in and come back to find that she hired a new employee in the meantime. When he turns out to not be the ball of fire she wanted, she asks: "Why did you bother to hire him?"

She complains about inventory not moving, yet when we propose various basic advertising ideas, she refuses because we don't have the sales to make those expenditures worthwhile and we can't get the sales until we figure out how to increase the floor traffic. So we have to increase our floor traffic before we can begin advertising to increase the floor traffic.

I could go on and on (her daughter is getting divorced; she wants to know if she still can use her soon to be ex son-in-law's employee benefits), but I think you get the point.

The business is failing. It is failing mainly because she has no idea what is actually going on. She thinks that everything is going just fine; we all think that her favorite sport is kick the dog. No one will tell her what's going on. She doesn't just shoot the messenger; she shoves bamboo shoots under our nails before drawing and quartering - without the mercy hanging to start. I keep trying, but it's like talking to the wall - as it falls on you.

If she had treated her employees better, we would be on the verge of booming. Instead, we're on the verge of making a real boom - as we implode.

Managing the human resources aspect of a business is tricky at best. But it can be every bit as important as finance or advertising (and this is coming from someone with a heavy finance and accounting background). Look at the examples I gave above. Learn from them. HR is tricky enough without the self sabotage. Properly managed, HR adds little to the bottom line. Managed poorly, HR will crush it.

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.

Sharon Has More Confidence Than Me

Sharon: PA leadership that objects to terror will soon arise - Sharon must know about some societal change in the Palestinian culture that will lead to this change. I just don't see this happening until something big changes, but that's just me.

Time To Thank The French

Got to give credit where credit is due. Our erstwhile friends the French probably made the biggest contribution to the success of the war in Iraq by, in concert with the Russians, convincing Saddam he could survive an American land invasion. Saddam, being the obvious student of history he is, went ahead and took this brilliant military advice from Jacques.

As a result, Saddam sat more immobile than Hitler when he was convinced Patton was coming ashore at Calais. So convinced of French and Russian intervention he conveniently ignored every indication of what awaited him. So convinced as his salvation was he that he didn't bother to create a real plan for defending his country. All this because the French and Russians convinced him that the war would begin with a long, drawn out bombing campaign during which the UN would be used to try to stop us.

And Saddam believed the whispered promises from Paris. He believed the shadowy statements coming from Moscow.

Paris and Moscow unwittingly saved hundreds of American lives with their disinformation campaign. Think of how many more casualties we would have had if the Iraqis had actually put up a fight. They tried to save Saddam, but instead they cost him everything: his dictatorship, his sons, and quite possibly his own life.

Thanks for the help, Jacques! Think you can pull off the same thing with Tehran?

And An Era Comes To An End

It is the end of an era here in Florida. Bob Graham will not seek re-election in 2004. I would say that it's truly a shame that Florida's senior senator is retiring, but that would be lying. It's really about time.

So what is Bob Graham's legacy? Well, let's listen to what Rep. Peter Deutsch (D) of Lauderhill has to say about that:

"I think we owe a debt of gratitude to Graham as far as his career, which hasn't ended. And I look forward to the next 14 months in terms of him being a senator and whatever he does in the future. ... There's a living legacy of Bob Graham right now in our school system, in terms of the environment, in terms of the Everglades. I think today is really his day to really focus on what he's done for the people of Florida." (emphasis mine)

Oh boy. The Florida public school system in its current form is not what you would to have as a legacy. We seem to have spent the last fifteen to twenty years trying to fix the system. It fails the students and it fails the people of the state. About the only people who benefit from the current school system are the teacher's unions and the politicians who keep vowing to fix it.

We're graduating students that can't read. We're graduating students that can't do the basic arithmetic needed to run a cash register. We consistently appear at the bottom of nearly every measure of our educational system. And this is Bob Graham's "living legacy."

Heck, even if they want to forget about the screwup that is our school system, the other two legacies - our environment and the Everglades - aren't exactly doing much better.

A while back, I asked around among people who had been in this state for a while asking: What did Bob Graham do while Governor? Nobody could remember anything. He has no legacy in the state, at least none worth bragging about. Bob Graham leaving public service really won't change anything, as his greatest achievement seems to be his collection of diaries.

Not exactly a great loss in the grand scheme of things.

Quick Links

Saudis fear that Britain sees them as the next Iran - If the House of Saud is getting concerned that the West is seeing through the facade, that's a good thing.

Power-tower 'terrorist' arrested in California - The guy is complaining because it was difficult to negotiate his surrender. He's pulling bolts out of power towers and endangering people, and his biggest concern is getting an exact answer regarding his fate?

Two original Erie Canal locks rediscovered - See? Not all cool historical discoveries happen overseas. I'm just surprised that we managed to lose the canal in the first place.

Spanish treasure ship missing since 1681 found - But then again, a lot of cool discoveries do happen overseas (or in this case, in the seas).

Bigots In Jacksonville?

Interesting story, this is. A bus driver in Jacksonville removes several Muslim kids from the bus. The kids end up walking home and are refused transport two days later (the first event happened on a Wednesday, the second on a Friday). Those are the facts that are agreed on. It gets interesting when you start reading differing accounts of the story.

This isn't just a simple local story. With there being Muslims involved, we of course, ended up with CAIR involved and then the ACLU. This leads to a situation in which the truth becomes relative and subjective, rather then strictly factual. But then, to make it worse Al Jazeera got involved.

Al Jazeera is making the claim that the kids were thrown off the bus eight miles from home and forced to walk, along with being denied transport on Friday, simply because they were Muslim. They merely brush past the allegations of disciplinary problems, as though they never happened, and instead focus on this being a racist act by the evil, bigoted people of Jacksonville.

However, the racist bigots at the Florida Times-Union seem to have a bit of a different story.

They agree that the kids were removed from the bus. But according to the school officials (never quoted in the Al Jazeera article) they were dropped at the school and chose to walk, even after being given a chance to call their parents. School administrators and a school police officer trying to get them back to the school. On Friday, the school system indicates that they were twice offered transportation and twice refused to get on the bus.

Two very different stories, huh?

Something doesn't sound right to me. I'm guessing that the story of the school officials is probably the more accurate. I'll bet that there were disciplinary problems on the bus. I'll bet that the kids were brought back to school and then chose to walk home on their own accord. And I'll almost guarantee that the bus driver was motivated by anything but racism.

What lessons are the kids involved here learning? Simple. They're being taught that the best way to deal with an uncomfortable situation is to scream racism. What they should be learning is how to behave according to normal rules of conduct. What they should be learning is how to accept the consequences of poor decisions without reaching for the crutch of victimhood.

It's too bad that these parents, CAIR, and the ACLU are more concerned with pandering to the Al Jazeera reporters than they are with teaching their kids how to act responsibly.

Syria: An Exaggerated Threat

Well, they're an exaggerated threat in their own mind.

I think that after the concern expressed about their most recent "veiled" threats against Israel, they started to get the message that the US is not going to brook that kind of language.

They threatened to hit settlements in the Golan Heights if Israel were to go after any other targets in Syria again. So how would that be different?

Well, Israel went after a training camp for Palestinian militants. Where might those trainees be heading when they finish their lessons? If you guessed Israel, you'd probably be right.

So what about the settlements in the Golan? Syria still believes the Golan to be their territory, but what do the settlers do when they're done settling? They go home. They don't go out and blow themselves up in the middle of Palestinian markets. They don't fire rockets off into Syria. Basically they're good, if unwanted, neighbors.

If Syria were truly committed, as they occasionally claim to be, to peace then they would be accepting of Israel's action. They may complain about a lack of warning. They may have made noises about a violation of national sovereignty. But their response is not one of a peace loving nation. It is the response of a belligerent trying to threaten fro a position of weakness.

Syria claims the quote was taken out of context. I don't believe them. I believe that they are trying to take it out of the context of the relationship between Israel and Syria. Without that context, nothing between these two nations makes sense.

Syria's threat was not exaggerated. If anything, it was understated. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

A Democratic Donnybrook

A "donnybrook." I like that.

The cause of this little flare-up? Howard Dean's comments that he would like to "be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks..."

OK, so he's pandering to the last group that is still officially allowed to be oppressed: poor Southern white males. Being a member of that group (sans the flag or the pickup) I really have no problem with his pandering. I think it's transparent, but hey - he's a politician trying to get elected. I don't really expect any different.

Dick Gephardt and John Kerry could not resist an opportunity to destroy their credibility with a fairly large potential voting block.

Gephardt:

...accused Dean of making a blatant move to win the votes of people "who disagree with us on bedrock Democratic values like civil rights."

"I don't want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Gephardt said in a statement. "I will win the Democratic nomination because I will be the candidate for guys with American flags in their pickup trucks."

It's a good thing that Dick doesn't want to represent the poor Southern white male.

From Merriam Webster OnLine: Racist: 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination (emphasis mine)

Dicky boy is assuming that all owners of pickups with Confederate flags are against civil rights. Given that this group will be comprised almost exclusively of white Southerners, it would seem that Dick is exactly what he is accusing the pickup truck crowd of being: racist. The only difference is that unlike Dean, he is pandering to a politically correct crowd: blacks.

Most every person that I've met who owns a pickup with a Confederate flag in the back window has no problem with civil rights or equality of opportunity. What they don't like (and neither do I) is the argument that civil rights justifies an imposition of equality of outcome or reverse racism in the name of "correcting past wrongs." Both are nothing more than rhetorically elevated hypocrisy, the kind that only a person without conviction - like Gephardt - could love.

Of course, as I said before, Gephardt wasn't the only one to make an ass out of himself with Dean's comments. John Kerry jumped in on the public self-immolation:

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts contended that Dean's "pandering" to the National Rifle Association gave him an inroad to "pander to lovers of the Confederate flag."

Dean's comment was reported in story about Kerry's criticism of Dean's record on guns. The senator claimed that Dean was an NRA favorite who opposed a 1994 law that banned assault weapons to civilians.

"I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA," Kerry said in a statement.

As did Gephardt, Kerry uses racism as his springboard for jumping on the anti-racism bandwagon. He makes the same assumption about the flag/pickup crowd as does Gephardt. I'd put dollars to doughnuts that neither man has ever bothered to come out of their ivory towers long enough to actually meet real people. For being members of the "party of inclusion" they seem to be awfully exclusionary of those who might have grease under their nails or those whom taking the time to meet might involve getting dust on their neatly pressed pants.

Kerry and Gephardt are nothing more than racists with a different focus. Instead of Jim Crow, they support a racism of quotas, "affirmative action," and of cultural relativism - except when that culture happens to involve white men, particularly from the South. Our culture is evil and deserves to be stamped out, while the Wahabbi Islam of Bin Laden is to be embraced and understood.

Dean had a wonderful opportunity here to actually gain some ground with reaching out the most politically ignored (and one of the potentially more potent) voting blocs. But Dean, being a Democrat, found a way to blow it:

"I want people with Confederate flags on their trucks to put down those flags and vote Democratic — because the need for quality health care, jobs and a good education knows no racial boundaries.

"We have working white families in the south voting for tax cuts for the richest 1 percent while their children remain with no health care," Dean said. "The dividing of working people by race has been a cornerstone of Republican politics for the last three decades - starting with Richard Nixon. ...

The last thing the good ol' boys want to be told is that they need to give up their heritage, their flag, in the name of anything. No one asks any other group to set aside their flag in the name of "quality health care, jobs and a good education..." Why the special singling out?

I really love Dean's appeal to the conspiracy theorist in most people: "The dividing of working people by race has been a cornerstone of Republican politics for the last three decades - starting with Richard Nixon..." I love how he conveniently ignores that it has actually been a bi-partisan effort, with the NAACP (which has an incestuous relationship with the Democratic Party, at best), leading the charge for quotas and set asides - a divisive position if there ever was one. It also ignores the basic fact that race relations are quite a bit better than they were before Nixon and the Republicans initiated this divisive policy.

I seem to be getting mixed messages from all three of these guys. Well, actually, from Gephardt and Kerry, it's pretty clear: they want nothing to do with Southern white males who are too poor to make significant campaign contributions. Dean is sending a mixed message: he wants to represent us, as long as we'll give up our culture as a sop to the other interest groups he'll piss off in courting us.

Two racists and a waffle. What a group the Democrats are putting together for us this time.

As Bugs Bunny would say: "What a bunch of maroons."

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!