Curiosity is a lust of the mind.
Thomas Hobbes
Congratulations, Dr. Shaquille O'Neal!
Probably the most dominant big man ever to play center in the NBA, Shaquille ("Don't call me 'Dr. Shaq'") O'Neal formally received his education doctorate from Barry University through an organizational learning and leadership, earning a 3.813 GPA in courses taken over the last 4 years; his doctoral project involved the use of humor by business leaders in the workplace (interesting topic; I've found executives with good senses of humor as rare as a balanced budget in the Obama Administration--no doubt Romney needs some expert advice about his jokes....)
Surely Shaq will scale greater heights with his doctorate than I have with mine; of course, he's over a foot taller... On a more serious note, I like the fact that Shaq has followed up on his commitment to furthering his education, a good example to hero worshiping minority community youth and college basketball players applying for the early NBA draft status.
Christian Science Monitor: Unacceptable Reporting
Thumbs DOWN!
Life isn't fair. It seems every election is predicted to be the worst ever, but elections have had their dark moments since the early years of the republic. But surely we can expect the national media to play it down the center, right? Well, of course, Dan Rather's career at CBS News came to an end soon after a poorly validated 2004 critical news piece regarding George W. Bush's National Guard experience, and in early 2008, the Gray Lady, on questionable evidence, alleged an intimate relationship between John McCain and a lobbyist.
But just to make less familiar examples. consider the Dem talking point for the 1964 election that Goldwater was too extreme and mentally unstable to be trusted with the Presidency. Surely the press would debunk this claim:
Shortly before the Republican convention, CBS reporter Daniel Schorr wrote from Germany that "It looks as though Senator Goldwater, if nominated, will be starting his campaign here in Bavaria, center of Germany's right wing" and "Hitler's stomping ground" and finding that Goldwater would be speaking to a gathering of "right-wing Germans" uniting the extremists in both countries. In fact, there was no such meeting nor trip planned.
Fact Magazine published an article polling psychiatrists around the country as to Goldwater's sanity. 1,189 psychiatrists appeared to agree that Goldwater was "emotionally unstable" and unfit for office, though none of the members had actually interviewed Goldwater.Rand Paul (R-KY), the libertarian-conservative son of Presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul, has introduced two bills aimed squarely at privatization, one aimed at stripping the USPS of monopoly privileges in the access of one's mailbox, and the other at ending the TSA.
Let me point out that the same legislation that creates the TSA allows airports to substitute via a private sector TSA partner. TSA has been protecting its bureaucratic turf, denying Orlando its rights, specifically in the law. At least 17 airports filed to do this over the past 2 years, but the Obama Administration, as usual, is refusing to comply with explicit Congressional policy options which don't further the aims of monopolistic government.
I am well-aware of the fact that a Republican President and the Republican had something to do with the implementation of the DHS mega-bureaucracy (including TSA), a textbook example of rushed, imprudent lawmaking in the wake of a nationally traumatic incident. [Don't get me wrong; I am all for legitimate government reorganization and streamlining--but this was more of an overly expensive add-on which addressed symptoms--not the disease--by tweaking interfaces, while maintaining an unmanageable, unsustainable bureaucracy.] And Republicans can't understand why Barack "we can't afford to do nothing" Obama and the Dems keep playing the same old same old games with a $15.6T national debt!
[And don't get me started on the Bush Administration's bizarre, historically unprecedented use of the term 'homeland'. (Bartlett has a good essay on a historical perspective here; we do know the term surfaced earlier, e.g., in a 1998 Clinton Presidential Decision Directive.) Its usage is stilted; related terms are normally used in reference to an ancestral land associated with one's ethnic/racial/religious/cultural identity. We have been a melting pot, a nation of immigrants.
We use terms like 'defense', 'security', 'federal', and 'central' in a conceptually muddled way. We might broadly define public safety/security within the context of our federal system with internal/domestic and federal/central responsibilities. From an internal perspective, we can further subdivide these into intrastate (with state/local responsibilities) and interstate/federal infrastructure aspects. From a public executive perspective, we can differentiate from strategic (e.g., proactive) through operational aspects of security; intelligence gathering is a key resource for security decision making.
Clearly state/local public safety/security responsibilities are not subordinated to federal/central ones, but information sharing interfaces must be defined, e.g., so international criminals being held by local authorities can be identified.
I don't think 'homeland' properly reflects internal security issues. I probably would have used the term 'federal' or 'federalist', 'internal' or 'domestic', or simply 'security'.]
I want to itemize sentences by Christian Science Monitor staff writer David Grant that I found unprofessional and unacceptable:
[First, the author makes the rude case that Ron Paul is a gadfly; then he says:]
- "Paul the younger's petition to end the TSA cites several mortal sins for the agency:"
- "What's are the chances of Senator Paul's TSA-ending bill becoming law? About the same as his unsuccessful amendment to the postal reform bill that would have ended government tyranny over individual mailboxes."
- "Poking through the petitions therein, it's pretty clear that ending the TSA is far from the most quixotic petition out there. Nearly 27,000 folks want the FDA to have nothing to do with regulating "premium cigars," more than 100,000 want the White House to respond to their argument that the Sea of Japan should be called the East Sea ..."
Join me in supporting Rand Paul's bill to end the TSA and sign the online edition available through this link.
If the TSA Does This To a Congressman...
This video shows one of the incidents I referenced in Tuesday's TSA Hall of Shame segment.
These types of abuses of privacy and dignity must not be allowed to stand. What you are observing in the video has nothing to do with making the airwaves safer. It's about self-righteous, audacious, aggressive, arrogant "we're just following procedure" government bullies exercising power for its own sake. Have you ever witnessed a situation where the victim is made out to be the aggressor by the perpetrator? I have... According to the Blaze (my edits):
“I went through the full-body scanner, they stopped me and they said ‘we’re going to have to pat you down,’” Canseco, a freshman representative, said. “I said OK; I lifted up my arms, they start patting my leg very, very aggressively. The guy goes up close to my groin and when you get pat there it hurts! And there’s a very human reaction when it hurts there — you move the offensive thing out of the way and you step back.”
He continued, “In doing so, I would expect the TSA agent to say hey, I’m sorry, which would have been OK. Instead he raises his hand, he says ,’I need a manager here, I’ve been assaulted!’”
What followed, Canseco said, was a huddle with “managers, supervisors, police, the whole bit” as the screener wanted to press charges against him and have him arrested. He had his boarding pass and driver‘s license confiscated until about 25 minutes laterIn the Alice in Wonderland view of the TSA, government employees have a blank check to assault your genitals, and if you act in self-defense, say, by fending off future blows, you are considered the aggressor? All because of the Diaper Bomber (term via Ann Coulter)? Just a reminder: you could have the most rigorously defined safeguards,but it's a human being doing the inspection, plus in most cases, the risk is theoretical, not substantive. In my view, assaulting a US Congressman is a crime, regardless of the circumstances or the agent's intent/incompetence.
At Least The Batman Remains a Patriot
I loved comic books as a kid and in fact created my own character/alter ego while I was in the fifth grade (this led to one of those embarrassing stories my mom has been waiting all my life to tell my future wife... )
Last year Superman renounced his American citizenship in the aftermath of trying to stand up for the pro-democracy movement in Iran. The Obama Administration was upset because the Iranian theocracy was holding them responsible for Superman's interference in their internal affairs. Superman realizes that he has outgrown his Smallville roots and doesn't want to be limited to solving American problems and renounces his citizenship so he can serve ALL the world. (As if Superman didn't have enough challenges at home, given the fact that Democrats can burn through trillions of dollars faster than his own heat vision!) But I think the real story is that Superman was running against the Batman for the title of All-American Super Hero. Bruce Wayne must have handed fellow 1%-er Donald Trump a copy of Kal-El's birth certificate.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Rolling Stones, "Street Fighting Man". This is one of the few songs where the Stones take on politics and protests, inspired by a 1968 London protest against British government political (but not military) support of the US involvement in Vietnam; there's a good essay about the song here. I don't believe in violence, and Mick Jagger claims that he doesn't either. I think what he's really doing in this song is celebrating the right and efforts of young people to be heard on matters of national importance, i.e., "palace revolution". That is, he's celebrating the process, not necessarily its means or its ideology. I think this is probably among the top 2 or 3 rock vocal performances ever and one of the most memorable arrangements in pop music history.
There's a personal anecdote to this particular song. I guess I must have praised the Rolling Stones in a letter or conversations which resulted in my curious mom purchasing a just-released hit anthology. I never thought I would ever hear the words "street fighting man" come out of my mom's mouth; to this day, the memory amuses me. Unfortunately, Jagger and Richards lost my mom on that hit; on the bright side, I got a new Stones anthology.out of it...
