The Noble Pundit

Quick Links

Faltering Chirac urged to step aside - He must really be getting bad if even the French want him to go.

Hillary Clinton urges slower handover - Gee first it was that we were turning it over too slowly, now we're going too fast. The contrarians are so confusing sometimes.

Taiwan's president tests China's nerves, threatens sovereignty vote in March - I don't know how good an idea it is to twist the tail of the tiger, but I like the spunk.

Chinese city to cut electricity one day out of four to save power - Maybe Gray Davis' California wasn't the best model to emulate....

Guns Drawn, No Drugs Found

Nothing like a little overzealousness on the part of law enforcement. In a scene reminiscent of something that would happen in the little town I live in, 14 officers raided a high school looking for drugs. During the raid 12 to 14 kids were restrained with plastic handcuffs, 3 officers drew their weapons, and no drugs were found.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the idea that the cops should be able to enter a public school and to search kids for illegal narcotics. And by no means do I expect them to be successful in every search.

The officers were there based on school officials’ suspicions of pot sales. If the cops had conducted a normal, reasonable search, then I would have been cheering this as a wonderful example of the school system and law enforcement working together trying to clean up the schools to make them safer for everyone.

But what justification could there be for drawing weapons in a hallway inside a school? There are no reports of weapons being found on any of the students. There are no reports of students getting violent or threatening the safety of the officers. It sounds more like a couple of cops with a John Wayne syndrome going on, probably overreacting to a kid with a fresh mouth (surprise that would be).

I'm going to have to watch this one, looking to see what the Solicitor in the county has to say. I'm guessing that unless there is absolutely clear cut, unavoidable evidence of illegalities on the part of the cops, he'll probably decline to press charges. But the tone of his report, and any suggestions of imprudent action by the officers, will be interesting to see. I think that it will tell us more about what really happened in that hallway than anything else.

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

Quick Links

Billy Bob says Bad Santa controversy is 'ridiculous' - Gee, if Europe is so much more accepting of this crap maybe it would be a great idea if all of his movies were made for release over there. And they complain about the degradation of American tastes....

US eyes plan to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program - I sure hope the plan consists of several demands and very little, if anything, in the way of concessions. We do not need to be appeasing this little tyrant whose nation is ready to implode anyways.

Federal splurge causes worry: Critics see the Medicare bill as the latest sign that U.S. spending is out of control. - I hate to say it, but this is a real concern. Where is the money coming from? Some deficit spending sometimes is ok, but this is starting to get out of hand - again.

TCU: Finals Over Football

Quite a while ago (right around the beginning of college football season), I wrote a post lambasting a number of colleges for not recognizing that even football players are student-athletes. Now comes a report, first reported in the Washington Post, that Texas Christian University may forego a bid to the GMAC on December 18 because it would interfere with finals.

"I have to be sensitive to our young people," [Athletic Director Eric Hyman] told the newspaper. "They are student-athletes, but they are also students, and they are coming to school to get an education. We cannot disrupt their exams. It's not fair to them."

Now the cynic in me says that if this were a BCS bowl bid, TCU would have figured it out and that this is all a bit of posturing because the GMAC Bowl has a much smaller payout for the schools. But at the same time, TCU did lose to Southern Miss and really wasn't a BCS caliber team so they really don't have too much room for being upset. They were Cinderella and the clock stuck midnight as it struck 0:00 on the scoreboard in the Southern Miss game. The GMAC Bowl isn't in the same league as the Orange Bowl, but it's still better than sitting home (and more profitable to the school).

But at the same time that I'm feeling cynical about the motivations I also think here's a guy who's actually making the unpopular statement that football players are students first.

It's tough to decide whether or not this is motivated by a true concern for the educational welfare of the students or by the hubris of a 9-1 team that feels they deserve better than a pre-New Year's Day bowl. But regardless of the motivation, in the end, the AD is supporting the very core of college athletics - the student-athlete concept.

It's going to be real interesting to see what happens when the invitation is formally extended by the GMAC Bowl officials. Does AD Hyman have the strength of conviction? Or will he accept the bid despite the statements made in these reports?

It's Still Not Right

A British intelligence agent gets charged with leaking an email in which American spies requested British intelligence to tap certain telephones. The defendant has pled not guilty claiming "The disclosure made by her was a sincere attempt to prevent what she believed to be an unlawful war and saved the lives of British servicemen and women and Iraqi citizens."

Just because she didn't agree with her government's position, and just because she had a sincere desire to save lives does not mean that she is not guilty of violating the law.

Perhaps conscientious objection should be considered as a mitigating factor in determining the punishment, but it does not change the fact that she violated the law (a fact that her lawyer has even stated she will not dispute).

I'm starting to have some real problems with the idea that activists should, for some reason, be given a pass for acting in "sincere" faith. If their beliefs are so strong that they are willing to willfully violate the law, then they should be willing to stand up and accept their punishment for having done so.

See, anyone can make a stand when there is no consequence. But only a true believer for their cause can face the music for their action.

Hopefully, the British courts will take this opportunity to remind the fair weather activists that there are penalties for violating the law, even when it is a disagreeable one.

Giving Thanks

This Wall Street Journal editorial, published every Thanksgiving, has got to be one of my all time favorite holiday essays.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

Despite the advances made since 1961 when this was written, I think that this paragraph still holds true and that it underlines the source of our greatness, our ambition and the ability to fulfill it.

Written 42 years ago, it still sums up things up pretty well. Take a few minutes out of your holiday to go read it.

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...

Quick Links

Al-Qaida terrorists to gas U.S. subways? - Is anyone really surprised that Osama and friends are trying to get hold of a gas weapon to use in the subways?

Study Says Medieval New World Map Is Real - So maybe Leif Erickson did make it here before Columbus.

3Q GDP Revised Up To 8.2%

But don't go getting all giddy yet. While GDP growth was revised upwards from 7.2% to 8.2% for the 3Q we're still not out of the woods.

Politically for Bush this new number can be a blessing or a curse. If the economy can sustain this kind of GDP growth for the next couple of quarters, Bush will effectively negate the "It's the economy" argument of the Democrats and will have an even easier path to reelection.

If growth slows (and 8.2% is really an unsustainable number for any length of time given current monetary and fiscal policies of the government) then Bush may be exposed to a pretty harsh assault campaignwise on the economy. If the growth rate drops to 2.5%-3% (a more sustainable number), Bush faces the probability that the Democrats will assail him for a false recovery. They'll talk about how the declining rate of growth is pointing to the fact that we have not recovered from the recession, and they'll blame the tax refund checks for providing the one quarter boost.

They would be wrong, growth is growth, whether it be at 8% or 3%. A recession is not characterized at all by growth.

They would however be right in asserting that we still have not seen a complete recovery from the recession. Right now, companies are boosting productivity by increasing overtime for existing workers. I recently read somewhere (no link right now, I'll try to find it tonight) that overtime is at its highest level in years. For a complete recovery, companies need to start hiring more people, instead of laying off and increasing overtime. Yes, layoffs and overtime provide a short term productivity and profit boost, but ultimately they will harm the business more than they do it good (higher absenteeism and higher turnover). It is also concerning that business inventories are not reducing as fast as they were originally stated to have. Excess inventory will hold back the growth of the company by tying up assets that could be put to more efficient use elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong. Things are looking much better than they were even back in June. I think that for now the threat of a deflationary recession has passed us by. But, as with everything in life, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. 8.2% is a great number, but it is not proof that we have entered a new economic age. At the same time, just because the jobs are not being created as we would normally expect to see at this stage of a recovery does not mean that the end of the world is here either.

The Stuff That Goes Air Cargo

When I used to work for the airlines, I was consistently amazed at the stuff that was sent via air cargo. Magazines, oranges, penguins, tigers, computer parts, live crabs, dead people, pills in 55 gallon drums, and I'm quite sure that there was stuff that wasn't supposed to be in there also. I'm guessing that for every hazmat tag we saw, there were probably 2 that we didn't and the occasional box that shouldn't have been on there at all. And with the folks at the air cargo facility allowing people to "build" their own containers and pallets I'm really not too surprised that two tons of machine guns were found in the holds after a Czech Airlines flight to New York diverted to Iceland.

Two tons on a 767 is really not much. If it's a stretch '67, that would be about 2 out of the 30 container positions in the belly. International flights in particular carry a very odd assortment of freight, so two containers manifested as "machine parts" wouldn't arouse too much suspicion. So long as they're tarriffed at a reasonable level, whoever was sending these had a pretty good chance of sneaking them through Customs, unopened and uninspected. I'm guessing that the only reason we found these weapons is because some nutjob decided to email in the bomb threat after figuring out that Air Force One and the Czech airplane were going to be in the same area at about the same time. Had that not happened, we'd have another couple of container loads of machine guns on the streets.

The shippers in this case were shipping the items air cargo because they knew that they had a more than reasonable chance of getting the weapons through the system unimpeded. This is pointing to a failure in the system. We need to, as a nation, figure out someway to better secure ourselves. What's the answer? I don't know, maybe some kind of a prescreening done by a computer using shape matching or some such technology. What I do know is that the system as it currently exists is broken and there don't seem to be too many suggestions on how to fix it, except for to hire more customs agents (and to further bloat the bureaucracy).

Two tons of machine guns is just the tip of the iceberg.

Hat tip: On The Third Hand, where Kathy is right to question why the mainstream media isn't reporting this. This is a matter of national security - even if the airline involved by from the Czech Republic.

What Goes Up....

You know, I don't know who is the stupider party in this story, the guy tied to the tree with a noose around his neck or the moron firing live rounds into the air.

Joining the Klan or not, what would possess a man to willingly allow a noose to be placed on his neck as he's tied to a tree? From the sounds of it, the only difference between an initiation and a lynching is where the rope is tied to the tree.

And didn't the guy firing the gun understand basic physics? You fire a live round, that lead slug has to come down somewhere. It doesn't just harmlessly disappear into thin air if it doesn't hit anything on the way up. Hell, even the Palestinians have figured this out - they at least hold their AK-47s at a slight angle when they fire off their celebratory shots. Is it extraordinarily unlucky that Jeffery Murr ended up getting hit in the head with a bullet from heaven? Yes. Was it unforseeable? Not to anyone who had passed eighth grade science (which as I think about it is probably doubtful for Freeman).

God Almighty these guys are clueless.

Link via: A Small Victory

Quick Links

The 'new' anti-semitism: is Europe in grip of worst bout of hatred since the Holocaust? - Ignore the scare quotes for a moment. It's actually a pretty insightful article for the Guardian: " 'Anti-semitism has become politically correct in Europe' ," " 'What we are facing in Europe is an anti-semitism that has always existed and it really is not a new phenomenon' ," and " 'This anti-semitism is fundamental, and today, in order to incite it and to undermine the Jews' rights for self-defence, it is re-aroused. These days to conduct an anti-semite policy is not a popular thing, so the anti-semites bundle their policies in with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.' "

Fresh nod to peace process in Israel? - Unilateral concessions haven't worked in the past, so why would they work now? But I'll give Sharon credit for trying again and again and again.

Britain threatens veto on EU - This would be the best move for protecting British sovereignty that there could be. If it's going nuclear, then go nuclear.

A Blast From The Past

This morning I get to work and was sitting there watching the airplanes on final approach into Orlando-Sanford International Airport while waiting for someone to get there to open the door.

As I'm sitting there, it's like going back into the late '70s or early '80s. A Pan Am 727 with the meatball logo. A Southeastern shortbody DC-9. Another Pan Am 727. It was really, really wierd. I haven't seen that assortment of airplanes and airlines on approach since I was a kid watching them head into Orlando International.

I've always been fascinated with airplanes and it was really, really odd watching a scene from my childhood apparently replaying itself 20-25 years later. I'll have to see if I have a long enough lense for the camera to get some good pictures.

Priorities

Now here's an example of an author with some odd priorities:

A man caught driving naked from the waist down while watching kiddie porn on his laptop has become the first man in Toronto charged for allegedly stealing an Internet connection...

Police allege the man downloaded the movie using an Internet connection he intercepted from a nearby house

Is stealing the Internet connection really the most important story here? Don't you think that the fact that we got a kiddie porn enthusiast off the streets (literally) might be a little more relevant?

Someone needs to take this writer out back and explain to them that the kiddie porn is a much more serious violation of community standards than stealing someone else's bandwidth to download it.

Internet connection over kiddie porn, what a sick sense of priorities. I hope the cops and the prosecuter in Toronto have a little more clue (which I'm sure they do).

Via Kevin at Wizbang.

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!

Why Do I Do This?

Sitting here doing some light reading before going to bed this evening, I noticed another rash of "how to build your blog traffic without Instalanches" posts that are going up all around the 'sphere. Dean Esmay has one, Robert Prather has one, The Commissar has one, as does Donnie at Ain't It Done.

OK, now I'll admit that for a while I chased the fabled Instalanche, only to find out when it came that it wasn't all that impressive. And it kind of missed the point of why I started writing this whole blog thing to begin with.

I started this as a way for me to write down some of my ideas and to expose them to the harsh criticism of the world. It was (and still is) intended to allow me to continue working on my communication and debating skills even though I don't have the money to continue in school right now.

I don't do it for the hit count (although it is nice, especially when you pass a milestone like 25,000 visitors as I did an hour or so ago! Woo Hoo!). I don't do it for ego reasons (although it does feel good when my Dad tells me that he thought something was really well written). And I certainly don't do it for monetary reasons.

I do it because I want to. I do it because I think that it makes me a better person in some way (although I'm sure a few would disagree). But mainly I do it because it is fun.

Somehow, I've built my traffic up to an average of about 215 visitors a day, despite two seperate week long outages caused by problems with my ISP. I partially credit it to advice I got from David at Better Living Through Blogging who told me early on to try to post something every day, even if it's just a "no posting today" post. Something to let people know you're still alive. Oftentimes, I use my Quick Links posts, a roundup of interesting news stories that I didn't write on during the day as that post.

There's a lot of good advice in the above posts. The biggest thing to get out of those posts is that a true readership is based on being yourself, on posting regularly (ideally at slack times in the 'sphere - less competition for eyes at that time), and be generous with the links. An Instalanche is nice, but watching your readership go from 30 to 60 to 125 to 200 readers a day is much more satisfying long term.

Quick Links

Israel threatens strikes on Iranian nuclear targets - So why are the Israelis still talking about it? Just do it already.

Muslims have just as much to fear from militant Islam - Towards the end of the column it starts to talk about a budding tyranny of the minority in Britain also. Just more proof that freedom must be defended against all threats - both foreign and domestic.

Why the Democrats Are All Boxed In - I don't agree with all the statements and insinuations, but the conclusions are pretty accurate.

THE PATH TO REBUILDING - I love this. Reopening a building with "WORLD TRADE CENTER" written across the front of it. Somewhere, if Osama is still alive, he's got to be beating his head against his cave wall. Just more proof that he failed in his quest to defeat or demoralize the American Spirit.

Democrats look away from Dixie - An absolutely brilliant strategy - position yourself as a national party by ignoring a large chunk of the nation. This has to be the most brilliant move I've seen in a while.

War on Terror: Holy War 101 - MSNBC looks at the madrassas as the next big ting in quagmires.

Moving Targets - And they follow up by trumpeting al-Qaida's latest success as proof that thy're on the rise, not the decline.

Al-Qaeda's hatred could be route to their demise - Obviously, the MSNBC folks don't read the Scotsman or else they wouldn't have such a doom and gloom glee about them.

Parades & Public Relations

I just got back from taking the kids up to see the However-manyeth Annual Winter Springs Holiday Parade. Had the usual assortment of kids throwing candy and organizations that you wonder why they joined the parade, but no collision between the Shriner's go-karts this year (it actually happened last year. Never actually saw a go-cart get totaled, but that fiberglass body just busted into pieces on impact). And, of course, as it always is, the parade was kicked off by a police color guard, followed by motorcycle cops from about 7 local agencies.

What really caught me as interesting though were the actions of the motorcycle cops. They rode by, 5 rows of 5, 25 in all. And then there were two more, almost riding along like an afterthought. They were the two cops from the Orlando Police Department.

The OPD cops were the only ones from Orange County (Winter Springs is in Seminole County). And these two were riding around like they were on the Shriner mopeds. They were doing figure-8s, leaning the bike over as far as they could without falling off, tight circles, all of that.

But more importantly, they were having fun. They both had big grins on their faces. They would ride right along the side of 434 where all the kids were lined up and they were high-fiving the kids, stopping to show them the bikes or how the sirens worked. They were laughing and making the kids laugh.

It was an amazing dichotomy.

You had the Seminole County officers riding along in perfect rank and file. They were anonymous. They stared straight ahead; stealing only glances to the side to make sure that they were still in perfect lines. It was almost like a Stalinist show of force military parade. Perfectly pressed uniforms. Hard steely faces looking forward. Jackboots. It was all very impressive - if this had been a police funeral procession where discipline is the order of the day.

But this wasn't a funeral. This was a holiday parade. It was a wonderful opportunity for the cops to show the community that they too are human. All too often, especially with kids, the only contact with a motorcycle cop comes when they pull you over for a traffic violation. People forget that the cops on bikes are capable of having fun, too. They are seen only as stern authority figures.

The two OPD cops played the public relations game beautifully. The other 25 were, as on every other day, the stern, unyielding authority figures. The two OPD cops were a couple of regular guys, who liked to show off (just like kids do) who just happened to wear a badge, a uniform, and ride a motorcycle with flashing lights. When the 25 went by, the kids just sat; when the two came by, they were up on the road cheering, pointing, laughing, and most importantly learning that not every encounter with a cop has to be bad.

Now I'll grant you that OPD is a much larger organization and probably much more in tune with the beat officers doing PR. But it's not hard. These small agencies seem to want to make everything into a proving ground of their discipline and their orderliness. Along the way, they lose their connection with the community. Yes, they're disciplined. Yes, they're orderly and efficient and all that other stuff. But they also are, from all appearances, smug and elitist, not willing to mix it up with the "common folk" who pay the taxes that pay their salary. They don't seem like they're one of us; they don't seem like they want to be one of us. They act like they believe themselves to be above us, there only to keep us abiding by their laws.

Maybe if they had treated the holiday parade like a fun, festive event - like it's supposed to be - I wouldn't have a problem. But my kids have already had such poor experiences with the cops around here that they distrust them. I have spent more than a few nights trying to explain to them that not all cops are bad, evil, or uncaring. But the cops here do nothing to help in that. They look and act the very part which I'm trying to convince my kids that they're not.

Why couldn't these guys at least try to smile during a holiday parade? That's not even PR, that just basic humanity.

Redefining Culture Through Education

As I'm looking around at Free Republic this morning, I found an excellent column by Bill Maxwell of the St. Petersburg Times in which he discusses "black culture" and how it seems to be related to a loss of focus in the areas of education, manners, and work ethic. I've got to say, his statements hold true not only for blacks, but for everyone. Where I live, we've got white kids and Puerto Ricans running around pretending that they're "gangsta." They don't know how to communicate in any way other than swearing every third word. They don't know how to resolve disputes without violence, usually extreme violence. They are rude. They are impolite. Reading, writing, 'rithmetic? They have no clue how to do stuff that I used to do in junior high (and I'm only 30 for God's sake!) As far as I can tell, we have an entire generation setting itself up for massive failure.

Sure, in Generation X we have our issues. For a long time the talk was have about we X'ers would never amount to anything because we lacked this or that or the other. And we're still faced with significant obstacles, most commonly a ceiling on opportunity in the business world due to the large number of boomers working later in life. But we have also taken the tools we have: education, communication skills, and a certain civility to still forge ahead and to make progress despite everything.

Generation Y, my little sister's generation, is facing much the same as the X'ers. But like us, they are finding ways to succeed and to prepare for the time when they become the big dogs.

But this new generation, call them Z or whatever you want, I don't think that they're going to be able to adapt as well as X & Y did. Huge numbers of them are lacking the manners and civility needed. Many are dismissing as useless the education, and more importantly the educational ethic of lifetime learning, that will be needed to improvise, adapt and overcome. Generations X and Y headed into the world with a lack of focus and a disheartened attitude, but we had the tools in our toolbox to create success. Generation Z seems to be heading into the world with an empty toolbox.

I know I'm not the only one who shares these concerns. Look at some of these comments I've pulled from the Free Republic thread:

"I remember how these unflappable people put their families before everything else; how children dared not insult an elder inside or outside the home; how doing well in school was taken for granted; how "cutting up" in public and "shaming the family" were not tolerated.

Good article. More white people should have these standards, too." - Tax-chick, post #7

"White culture and white Americans, Eminem, and a host of other substitutions could be made for the authors reasons of why this country as a whole needs to wake up and get back to basics before the sound of a toilet flushing can be heard 'round the world." - freeangel, post #9

"Excellent points. A polite society is a civil society. We've become very course and it shows." - Cincinatus' Wife, post #13

"Very good post. You are absolutely right, of course. I would only point out that you black leaders are going to have to do the heavy lifting to effect corrective action in the black community. In today's PC climate, for a white to comment on, much less be critical of anything "black", gets him labeled racist. Perhaps that's the first problem you need to work on." - zebra 2, post #23

"I agree with this column. People are judged - black or white - by their behavior. More specificially, their attitude, the words they use, their ability to interact with others in a civil manner, even the way they dress.

I know young white men who similarly place themselves at a socio-economic disadvantage. You know the type, the ones who are always copping an attitude, wearing a baseball cap backwards with sneakers and baggy ill-fitting pants, spewing obscenities, "talking trash" and showing no mastery of the English language whatsoever. Well this is the way that many young black men are perceived as well, and this, not race, is what is holding them back." - SamAdams76, post #25

I'm starting to fear that we may actually have an entire generation coming along without the skills needed to function properly. And people without functioning cognative skills are easily manipulated and terrorized, as I pointed out in my last post.

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism...The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin...would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities." - Teddy Roosevelt

The hyphenated Americans are starting to impose their will on the majority of American-Americans. They can only succeed if we are too intellectually weak to resist their simplistic demagoguery. The tyranny of the minority starts up front with a lack of education.