May 31, 2004

Part of the Problem

Alan Dershowitz is right: The Geneva Convention has become the terrorists' best friend.

Bike-Rider-In-Chief

Today's New York Times takes a look at the bike-riding habits of President Bush and John Kerry.

When George W. Bush fell off his mountain bike and banged up his face the week before last, the world took modest note of the president's new hobby. What it did not know was that over the past three months the 57-year-old chief executive, sidelined from the fast track with runner's knee, has become so consumed by mountain biking that he now rides at least an hour a day on most weekends, and monitors his heart rate with a wrist strap during workouts.

May 30, 2004

Offshoring Impacts Thousands of Tennessee Workers

The Tennessean has an interesting story about how the "offshoring" of jobs is impacting tens of thousands of workers in Tennessee. Read the whole story here or an excerpt follows. (Yeah, I know I wrote yesterday that I wasn't gonna blog much this holiday weekend, and I'm not - but an economic trend that involves the jobs of 157,000 Tennessee workers is too important to not blog.)

Hundreds of foreign firms operating in Tennessee employ tens of thousands of people. During his first trip to Japan in 1987, Matt Kisber thought the governor of Hokkaido, a prefecture in the northern part of the country, might need a little help recognizing his home state of Tennessee.

"Being from Tennessee, I tried to pinpoint it for him - Jack Daniel's and Elvis," recalled Kisber, who at the time was a young member of the Tennessee General Assembly. "And he said, 'Oh, I know exactly where Tennessee is. You're the one taking all of our jobs.' "

The reference, of course, was to the scores of Japanese companies that had set up operations in Tennessee in the previous decade. Of these, the most notable was Nissan, whose landmark decision in 1980 to build its first U.S. automotive assembly plant in Smyrna represented the largest foreign investment ever by a Japanese firm.

"That was a real defining moment for me," Kisber, now Tennessee's commissioner of Economic and Community Development, said of his conversation with the governor from Hokkaido. "As we had concerns about what was taking place in the (global economy), likewise they had concerns in their own home market that they were losing jobs - the same concerns we've had today about the outsourcing of jobs."

Concern about jobs moving ''offshore,'' particularly to lower-cost locales such as China, India and Mexico, is without question on the mind of many American workers these days. Their fears speak to a larger apprehension about life in an economic climate where companies and investors can search the globe for the best place to do business or invest their hard-earned capital.

While acknowledging those worries, proponents of globalization argue that focusing solely on work moving abroad ignores the thousands of foreign companies that decide to set up operations here in the United States. They have even coined a new phrase to cast new light on the practice, which economists usually refer to as foreign direct investment: "insourcing."

"The media has focused on one facet of globalization: outsourcing," said Todd Malan, executive director for the Organization for International Investment, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association that represents the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. "But the flip side of outsourcing jobs abroad is insourcing jobs to the U.S. by companies based abroad."

May 29, 2004

Break Time

Blogging will be light to not-at-all throughout the Memorial Day weekend. I'm going to enjoy the time off and spend it with my family. You should do the same. See ya Tuesday...

Memories

Back when I was a kid, my parents took me here. It was cold. And on the way down - at night - we could see thunderstorms off in the distance in the sky below us. Incredible.

Speaking of Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Bloggers Bash was last night.

May 28, 2004

Consumer Spending Latest Indicator of Bush Boom

The latest economic indicator of the growing strength of the Bush economic boom is consumer spending, up stronger than analysts had expected.

Consumers - whose behavior plays a crucial role in shaping economic activity - increased their spending in April by a solid 0.3 percent, a good signal that the recovery remained firmly rooted as it entered the current quarter. The increase reported by the Commerce Department on Friday came after a brisk 0.5 percent advance in March and suggested that consumers continued to do their part to support the economy.

Americans' incomes, meanwhile, rose by a strong 0.6 percent in April, marking the largest gain since January 2001. The growth in income last month, which followed a 0.4 percent rise in March, was especially encouraging because that is the fuel for spending in the future. The income and spending figures are not adjusted for price changes.

Economists said an improved job climate is lifting wages and aiding income growth. "We are making our money the old-fashioned way, we are earning it," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. "People have money to spend and they are doing just that," he added.

Economy Signing Happy Tune

The Nashville area's unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent in April, it's lowest level in 16 months. I blame the Bush tax cuts.

UPDATE: Today's new edition of Nashville Business Journal reports that the local economic recovery "has quickly blossomed into a broad upswing." The paper notes the economic recovery "is spreading its wings to take in virtually all sectors and indicators." Housing construction - a foundation of the economy - is especially strong. Story not online until Monday - I'll link to it then.

A second NBJ story this week says passage of worker's compensation reform in the just-ended session of the state legislature "is already showing positive ramifications for business recruitment efforts" for the state of Tennessee, but doesn't give specifics.

Amnesty International's Willful Blindness

By George Miller
HobbsOnline London Correspondent
LONDON - The Daily Telegraph explains why the organization Amnesty International has no credibility with anyone but those on the hard Left:

Earlier this week, Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary-general, said of America: "Not since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 has there been such a sustained attack on its values and principles."

Er, what about the Russian gulag, Pol Pot's Cambodia, the Great Leap Forward and mass starvation in China, the Hutu slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda, Ne Win's Burma, North Korea under the Kims, the Argentinian disappearances, French colonialism in Algeria, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Idi Amin's Uganda, Jean-Bedel Bokassa's Central African Republic, Slobodan Milosevic's quest for Greater Serbia.

We could go on.

Do You Know The Way to MBA?

Jeff Cornwall has some thoughts on why the typical MBA program must change with the times. He's commenting on a different aspect of the same article from The Economist that I wrote about here a few days ago.

May 27, 2004

Mosque Marquee

Blake over at the Nashville Files blog got me a picture of the sign on the local Islamic mosque that I wrote about here earlier today.

Thanks.

I need to buy a digital camera.

Saddam Agent Helped Plan 9/11?

BlogsForBush pointed me to this story from the Wall Street Journal, which identifies very strong evidence of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda - and specifically the planning of the September 11 attack.

One thing we've learned about Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein is that the former dictator was a diligent record keeper. Coalition forces have found - literally - millions of documents. These papers are still being sorted, translated and absorbed, but they are already turning up new facts about Saddam's links to terrorism.

We realize that even raising this subject now is politically incorrect. It is an article of faith among war opponents that there were no links whatsoever - that "secular" Saddam and fundamentalist Islamic terrorists didn't mix. But John Ashcroft's press conference yesterday reminds us that the terror threat remains, and it seems especially irresponsible for journalists not to be open to new evidence.

If the CIA was wrong about WMD, couldn't it have also missed Saddam's terror links?

One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own.

It is possible that the Ahmed Hikmat Shakir listed on the Fedayeen rosters is a different man from the Iraqi of the same name with the proven al Qaeda connections. His identity awaits confirmation by al Qaeda operatives in U.S. custody or perhaps by other captured documents. But our sources tell us there is no questioning the authenticity of the three Fedayeen rosters. The chain of control is impeccable. The documents were captured by the U.S. military and have been in U.S. hands ever since.

As others have reported, at the time of the summit Shakir was working at the Kuala Lumpur airport, having obtained the job through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraqi embassy. The four-day al Qaeda meeting was attended by Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi, who were at the controls of American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. Also on hand were Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. Shakir left Malaysia on January 13, four days after the summit concluded.

President In Town

President Bush was today for a Republican campaign fundraiser. Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, greeted him at Nashville International Airport.

That's interesting. Bredesen is a centrist Democrat who has governed Tennessee like a conservative these last two years, balancing budgets by cutting spending rather than raising taxes, earning himself a glittering 70 percent-plus approval rating. A Democrat can't get to 70 percent in Tennessee without a lot of Republican support.

Bredesen has helped Democrats running for state offices, but he's not been overly partisan. And - notably - he has kept a low profile in the presidential campaign, deflecting media inquiries about the race by saying he was busy governing Tennessee.

I believe it was Gov. Ned McWherter, another Democrat, who once made sure to be out of town - on a fishing trip, if I recall correctly - when then-presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, another Massachusetts liberal, brought his campaign to Tennessee. McWherter knew which way the political wind was blowing in Tennessee. Bredesen, perhaps the most informed and hands-on governor Tennessee has ever had, no doubt also knows which way the political wind is blowing in Tennessee.

Bredesen didn't have to greet Bush at the airport today. He could have gone fishing.

Good Vs. Evil Vs. Moral Relativism

I stumbled across this bit of moral bankruptcy while surfing the web:

Adults know better, or we're supposed to. We learn that no leader really has evil intentions. Hitler and Stalin were nationalists. Osama Bin Laden considers himself a defender of the faith. What makes you good or evil, in the end, isn't ends but means. Those who do evil are "evil-doers." Now all nations have evil-doers among them. We call them our military... - Online business journalist Dana Blankenhorn.

Disguss amongst yourselves.

Meanwhile, despite his wacky view of evil, Blankenhorn, a journalist and blogger, has some good ideas for bloggers collaborating to ensure financial stability. He wrote the advice for a liberal blogger who was whining about having to beg for money.

UPDATE: I spelled "discuss" wrong above. Stupid typo. But I can't fix it, because if I did it would cause a comment someone posted below to confuse you. Sorry.

The Bush Boom Accelerates

The economic boom is accelerating. From the Associated Press:

The economy grew at a 4.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter of this year, slightly faster than previously thought and fresh evidence that the recovery possessed good momentum as it headed into the current quarter.

The increase in gross domestic product from January through March reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday marked an improvement from both the 4.2 percent pace first estimated for the quarter a month ago and the 4.1 percent growth rate registered in the final quarter of 2003.

The GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States. While the latest reading was just shy of the 4.5 percent pace that some analysts were forecasting, it nevertheless represented a solid performance.

Separately, the Labor Department reported that new applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week by a seasonally adjusted 3,000 to 344,000, another hopeful sign for a labor market recovery.

From April to June, the economy is expected to grow at a rate in the range of 4.5 percent to 5 percent, according to some analysts.

"The Pizza Church"

Mark D. Roberts explains in the third part of his "Salt and Light" series of blog posts...

Blog News Roundup

Here's the latest in an irregular series of round-ups of news about blogging...

Dan Froomkin, a Washington Post columnist, writes an article in Online Journalism Review in which he says newspapers aren't maximizing their use of the Internet.

Consider if you were starting a "newspaper" today. Wouldn't you want to facilitate exchanges with readers? Wouldn't you want to encourage your readers to find out more than what you can publish? Wouldn't you want to make it easier for them to take action? Wouldn't you want to define and create a community? Wouldn't you want to make your readers feel important? Blog tools give you all that - not to mention the ability to easily and quickly post something you just found out about. (What could be more journalistic?)

eWeek says some guy named "Bill Gates" is starting to pay attention to RSS.

And, finally, the New York Times has a must-read story today on blog obsession.

UPDATE: In the NYT story, blogging is dismissed as a senseless activity, people writing for no readers:

Never have so many people written so much to be read by so few. By Jupiter Research's estimate, only 4 percent of online users read blogs.

Sign On A Mosque

Not far from my home in the suburbs of Nashville, a Christian church has one of those marquee signs where they put up inspirational messages. The latest says something like, "Life is a puzzle, come here for the missing peace." A few blocks from my office, on 12th Avenue South, there is a mosque called the Islamic Center of Nashville. It also has one of those marquee signs.

The current message on the mosque marquee:

Enough Killing
Enough Revenge
Stop The War

And are we to stop the war now, before al Qaeda is wiped from the earth, before Islamist wacko fundamentalists bent on making "holy war" (jihad) against us and killing we infidels, are defeated? Are we to stop the war before a murderous ideology that leads to things like 9/11 and the beheading of Nick Berg is defeated? Are we to stop the war while there is intel suggesting al Qaeda terrorists are planning a major attack on America this summer?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the sign is directed at the Islamist wackos around the world, telling them to stop making war against America. But somehow I doubt it.

Incidentally, I photographed the sign and will post the image when I have the film developed. Yeah, I know. I should get a digital camera. One of these days I will.

If any of my Nashville readers have a digital camera and snap a picture of the sign and email it to me, I'll post it. (The message is on the side of the sign facing Wedgewood Avenue.)

UPDATE: Scroll up (or click here) to see the sign.

UPDATE: I have emailed the mosque, so they are aware of this post, but they have not responded to explain the intent and target audience of the sign.

May 26, 2004

Saddam and al Qaeda WERE Linked

ABC News has admitted that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were linked through top terrorist Ayman Aal-Zarqawi - and were so linked before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Captain Ed has posted a good summary and analysis, with links, at Blogs For Bush, and Cori Dauber also has a good summary.

ABC News, in a long report posted on its website, said this:

In late 2002, officials say, Zarqawi began establishing sleeper cells in Baghdad and acquiring weapons from Iraqi intelligence officials.

But remember that sentence. And, as the Blogosapien says, "Play that sentence back in your mind when your liberal pals start squawking on about no connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda."

UPDATE: BlogsForBush pointed me to this story from the Wall Street Journal, which identifies a link between Saddam and the planning of the September 11 attack.

One thing we've learned about Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein is that the former dictator was a diligent record keeper. Coalition forces have found--literally--millions of documents. These papers are still being sorted, translated and absorbed, but they are already turning up new facts about Saddam's links to terrorism.

We realize that even raising this subject now is politically incorrect. It is an article of faith among war opponents that there were no links whatsoever--that "secular" Saddam and fundamentalist Islamic terrorists didn't mix. But John Ashcroft's press conference yesterday reminds us that the terror threat remains, and it seems especially irresponsible for journalists not to be open to new evidence. If the CIA was wrong about WMD, couldn't it have also missed Saddam's terror links?

One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own.

It is possible that the Ahmed Hikmat Shakir listed on the Fedayeen rosters is a different man from the Iraqi of the same name with the proven al Qaeda connections. His identity awaits confirmation by al Qaeda operatives in U.S. custody or perhaps by other captured documents. But our sources tell us there is no questioning the authenticity of the three Fedayeen rosters. The chain of control is impeccable. The documents were captured by the U.S. military and have been in U.S. hands ever since.
As others have reported, at the time of the summit Shakir was working at the Kuala Lumpur airport, having obtained the job through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraqi embassy. The four-day al Qaeda meeting was attended by Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi, who were at the controls of American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. Also on hand were Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. Shakir left Malaysia on January 13, four days after the summit concluded.

Blame Bush for MBA Enrollment Slump

Via Dane Carlson's blog, I bring you more evidence of the robust economic recovery underway in North America: Applications for enrollment in university MBA programs is down between 15 percent and 25 percent compared to this time last year, according to Economist magazine.

Kenneth Dunn, dean of Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, says that applications for the full-time MBA programme, one of the country's best, are about 30% lower than this time last year. Allan Conway of the University of Calgary, and programme director of the MBA Roundtable, an industry body, estimates that applications this year for MBA programmes in America are down by between 15% and 25% on 2003.

Does that spell disaster? Not for top schools such as Tepper, which turn away far more applicants than they accept. Applications for MBA courses are counter-cyclical: they tend to rise when executive jobs are scarce and shrink when they are plentiful. This year's decline is a sign of the current economic boom, just as the 40% rise in applications to Tepper two years ago partly reflected hard times in the managerial job market.

The Housing Bubble

The run-up in housing prices is not a bubble. Instead, it reflects an increase in the quality and size of new homes, the effect of falling interest rates on making renting a home less attractive, increasingly competitive mortgage lenders (leading to a doubling of home loans to low-income borrowers), government initiatives to boost the rate of home ownership, rising demand for housing driven by immigration and population growth, and the increasing attractiveness of real estate as an investment.

Of course, I told you there was no "housing bubble" in the economy way back in September 2003.

"Solid" Dem States Turn For Bush

John Kerry ought to be way ahead in states like Michigan and New Jersey, traditionally solid Democratic states. But he isn't.

Several states once seen as "solidly" behind Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, including Michigan and New Jersey, have turned into battlegrounds where President Bush is a serious contender. Months ago, Michigan and New Jersey, which are heavily unionized and voted for Al Gore in 2000, were considered beyond Mr. Bush's reach. Now, despite the president's falling national approval rating for his handling of the Iraq war, pollsters say the economic recovery and perception of the president as a strong leader have turned both states in his direction.

"It's very hard to see us winning in November without carrying Michigan and New Jersey," said a Democratic National Committee official.

The swing in these two pivotal states underscores growing criticism within Democratic councils that Mr. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, has not put together a compelling message for the swing voters he needs. Mr. Kerry has grabbed the lead in one state that Mr. Bush carried in 2000, taking a seven-point advantage in Ohio, but he remains in virtual dead heats with the president in five states that Mr. Gore won - Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Oregon.

In New Jersey, Mr. Bush has surprised even his own campaign by overcoming Mr. Kerry's double-digit lead in the past month, as the state's unemployment rate remained below the national average at 5.3 percent.

"With continuing good news like this, it makes a compelling case for a really aggressive move on New Jersey," a key Bush strategist said.

Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt said New Jersey's proximity to New York is playing a role in the polls. "The September 11 attacks hit very close to home and are very much on the minds of people in New Jersey, and the president has a strong record on those issues while John Kerry has backed away from them," Mr. Holt said.

Keep Your Eyes Open

These are the suspected Al Qaeda operatives who may be planning a major terror attack inside the United States soon. If you see them - if you think you have seen them - contact the FBI. You may save thousands of lives. Here's more info from the FBI.

According to the WaPo, "Some law enforcement and firefighter union representatives, supporters of Democrat John Kerry for president, suggested that the timing of the threat report was suspicious because of polls showing a sagging approval rating for President Bush."

Idiots.

If President Bush failed to release this information and these suspected Al Qaeda terrorists managed to pull off another major attack, they'd be blaming Bush for NOT acting. But now that his administration has acted to alert the American people, in hopes of thwarting the attack, they criticize him and call it politics. It isn't politics. It's part of the War on Terror, which the Bush administration appears determined to fight and win, and the Bush administration's critics appear determined to politicize, no matter what the cost or risk.

The Other Media Bias

Donald Sensing is back from his holiday in the South Pacific (or wherever that Ramada was) and he's doing media-crit. And doing it well, analyzing a story in the local daily today as an example of the media's other bias. Read the whole thing.

Blogging To DC

Blogging helps a nice guy land a good internship with a great think tank. Hey, this blogging thing might be worth something after all...

War Updates

Winds of Change is the place to go for the latest comprehensive round-up of news from the War on Terror.

Good Ideas, Bad Results

Michael Williams says regulations such as vehicle fuel efficiency standards may be based on good intentions, but they often cause unintended and often unwanted results. Those federal fuel standards lead to the demise of the station wagon - and the creation of the SUV, according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences, Williams reports, commenting:

So, instead of families with $25,000 station wagons that get 25 mpg, environmentalists created families with $35,000 SUVs that get 20 mpg - fuel efficiency regulations have had an effect precisely opposite of what was intended.

Blowback

Sean Hackbarth wonders if anti-American protests certain to occur as President Bush attends the G-8 Summit in Georgia, and the 60th anniversary celebrations of D-Day in Europe later this year will cause Americans to rally 'round Bush.

Knocking off Saddam in spite of world opinion took courage. Seeing crass and harsh displays of anti-Bushism/anti-Americanism could create a backlash with the American public. Think of it as a form of blowback. Oh, wouldn't that just tick off the anti-Bushies?

May Ad Sale Nears End

The half-price sale on ad space at HobbsOnline runs through the end of May. If you place an ad before the end of May to run for one month, I'll also allow you to renew the ad for a second month at the sale price. The sale price for a one-month ad run on HobbsOnline is $10, $32 or $38 depending on which Blogads ad strip you select.

Argh

I just glanced at the calendar and realized that I turn 40 in less than a week. Tuesday, June 2, at around 6 a.m. Sympathy cards and gifts accepted. It seems like I turned 30 just a few days ago. Where did the last decade go? I have two children, ages 6 and 20 months. She was just 3 last year, and he was born a few months ago - or so it seems. When did they get so big? I can not imagine it, but I know one day soon, the little girl who still wears bows in her hair will be 46 and the little boy who says "dottle" for bottle and shouts my name "da!- DA!" will be turning 40, (and I'll be approaching 80!) and I'll be thinking, "Where did the time go?"

Is that what my mom is thinking now?

Oops

Disregard the previous item. HobbsOnline isn't mentioned in Tim Chavez's newspaper column today, and the issue of the legislature exceeding the state constitution's cap on the annual growth of government spending isn't addressed. Perhaps in a future column...?

May 25, 2004

Busted Cap to FINALLY Get Press Coverage

NASHVILLE - Look for HobbsOnline to get a mention in Tim Chavez' column Wednesday in The Tennessean - Chavez is writing about how the Tennessee legislature once again is exceeding the spending-growth cap in the state constitution, a story first reported here back on May 3. The story - one of fiscal excess that increases the likelihood of a tax increase down the road - was pretty much ignored by the mainstream media until tomorrow. Kudos to Chavez for covering a story his paper's political reporters and editors ignored.

Press coverage a little earlier might have lead to public pressure to derail the legislation that exceeds the spending cap by $105.1 million, but probably not. The legislation passed the state Senate by a large margin (23-3), indicating a number of Republicans voted for the Democrat-sponsored bill to spend more than taxpayers can afford on a recurring basis. It also passed the House 78-19, again indicating a lot of Republicans voted for it.

I don't have a list yet of which legislators voted for it, but I'll try to get that and pass it on. Legislators who voted yes made it more likely the state will face revenue shortfalls (caused by excessive spending) and will require a tax increase (probably an income tax) the next time the economy turns sluggish. Meanwhile, I also don't know if Gov. Phil Bredesen has signed the legislation into law yet, and I'll try to find out.

Also, there was a second piece of legislation authorizing breaking the cap in the next fiscal year. The good news: It did not pass.

Blog Tour ... and more

Hugh Hewitt is taking a "media break" until June 3. Meanwhile, he's published a pretty good list of blogs you should read regularly. (I'd have loved to have been on that list!) Hewitt's right - read those blogs and you'll pretty much know what you need to know. Several of the blogs Hewitt lists are also on my regular reading list - Instapundit, Evangelical Outpost, Roger L. Simon, Belmont Club, Little Green Footballs, RightWingNews, Mark D. Roberts and Lileks. I'd also urge you to read Donald Sensing, ScrappleFace, Winds of Change, and Hugh Hewitt regularly. Oh, um, and HobbsOnline. Speaking of which, I've come to the pleasant realization that my blog probably has much higher readership than I've thought - I checked my Awstats logs and found that the RSS feeds for my blog have been read more than 29,800 times this month. That means that, in addition to the 1,500 or so daily unique visitors to my blog, 1,190 people per day, on average, are getting HobbsOnline via an RSS feed.

Small Biz Trends

Jeff Cornwall has posted several good things lately, including a look at a "very bullish report" from the National Federation of Independent Buisiness on small business trends, Cornwall says "the employment outlook, capital expenditures, and general optimism about the near future are all continuing to increase with small business owners," more evidence of "the robustness of this entrepreneurially driven economic expansion." Just go here and start scrolling.

Numbers Game

How many people read Nashville's largest daily newspaper, The Tennessean? Well, if you aspire to be the paper's next religion reporter, the paper has 177,000 weekday subscribers. But if you aspire to be the paper's next assistant presentation editor (designer), the paper has 179,000 weekday subscribers. The ads were placed six days apart.

Paved With Gold?

Are Tennessee's road-builders engaged in illegal price-fixing? A NewsChannel5 investigation sparks a government investigation. Coverage also from today's Tennessean here, which reminds us that two decades ago, a number of road building contractors in Tennessee were convicted of rigging the bidding process, and several went to prison.

This story involves far more taxpayers' dollars than NewsChannel5's other investigation, into possible corruption in the administration of former Gov. Don Sundquist involving state contracts steered to businesses run by Sundquist's friends. However, that story goes on too, as the first criminal proesecution of a former Sundquist official moves along, revealing more evidence that a no-bid contract was wrongly steered to a company started by one of the governor's friends. Tennessean coverage here. I am happier than ever that Sundquist is no longer governor. Not only did he push for an unconstitutional income tax - and do so by rigging the state budget to create a fiscal crises - his administration was, at the least, lax about policing itself and preventing conflicts of interest. There should be no question about whether companies run by friends of the governor got preferential treatment and lucrative state contracts - an ethical governor would have told them not to bid, period. And if the road-builders are indeed engaged in bid-rigging, it didn't just start last week. That kind of behavior only grows over the long term in an environment that allows it to grow. An environment of lax ethics and shoddy oversight.

I don't know if Tennessee's road-builders rigged bids. We're a long way from knowing the truth on that. But if they did, I predict it started during the Sundquist years and festered because the Sundquist adminstration was either too dumb to notice, or - more likely - wouldn't have done a thing to investigate because it was in bed with the road-building industry.

May 24, 2004

The Best Place To Live

The American City Business Journals chain has put together a list of the best places to live, based on 20 quality-of-life factors.

ACBJ used 20 statistical indicators to rate living conditions in all 3,141 counties and independent cities across the nation. Topping the list is Los Alamos County, located about 30 miles northwest of Santa Fe, N.M. Rounding out the top five are Olmsted County, Minn., which includes the city of Rochester; the Colorado counties of Pitkin and Douglas; and Loudoun County, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Affluence plays a role in the rankings, which reward counties whose residents have large incomes, big homes and college degrees. But high scores are also given for qualities not directly related to earning power, such as racial diversity, short commuting times and the availability of affordable housing.

Nashville Economy Shows More Signs of Growth

Here's the story I mentioned Friday from Nashville Business Journal, headlined, "Region's hiring activity picking up pace."

Nashville Skyline

This very cool photo comes from today's edition of The Tennessean, by staff photographer John Partipilo, and depicts a view of the Nashville skyline from the deck of the new Gateway Bridge connecting downtown and east Nashville over the Cumberland River. Click the photo for the story.

Diversity in the Newsroom

A new survey finds that far more journalists are liberal than conservative. But of course it doesn't impact the way they report the news.... Yeah. Right. As Glenn Reynolds comments:

If despite aspirations toward objectivity, reporters' gender and ethnicity is as influential on the news as newsroom diversity advocates tell us, then surely reporters' views are even more significant. So where's the move toward greater diversity there?

Spam

HobbsOnline was attacked by comment-spam over the weekend. About 500 comments, all posted from the same IP address, from some site selling Lipitor. In response, I (finally) installed Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist plugin. It took only a few moments, and worked like a charm. The scurvy spam pirate dogs have been put to the sword.

Sunday Sermons

Donald Sensing, the blogging pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tenn., points out the yesterday was Ascension Sunday, the seventh Sunday of Easter, celebrating Christ's ascension into heaven 40 days after his resurrection. Sensing says the Ascension is the elephant in the living room of 21st-century, North American Christian faith.

The 21st-century Western mind pretends the miracle isn't there. We search for the moral of the story or its implied meaning for our day and ignore the miracle. Lay people are taught, by implication, to do that in our secular school systems and colleges. Clergy are taught to do that in mainline seminaries and divinity schools. Every mention of biblical miracles in my classes at Vanderbilt Divinity School was to show how the event itself wasn't really important and wasn't the real point of the story, anyway. Don't dwell on the miracle - with the unspoken implication being that the miracle didn't really happen or that the event was really an ordinary event that occurred in unordinary circumstances and was mistaken for a miracle. Besides, the people who wrote the Bible were educated for their day, but not for ours, and did not enjoy the benefit of the scientific method as a way of understanding reality.

But we have to face the elephant in the living room of 21st-century, North American Christian faith, the fact that the entire Christian religion inescapably rests on miracles. And whatever other points the Ascension stories may have for us in our day, the central part of the story is that Jesus ascended bodily into Heaven.

There is a lot more to the Ascension story than the Ascension itself, but without the Ascension itself, there isn't much else about the story that matters.

Not enough Sunday Sermon for you? Okay. Check out this second part of a sermon series on Whole-Life Discipleship, ongoing at the Family of God at Woodmont Hills, .

And there's a very good series, Servanthood 101, exploring the theology of Christian service, that you can follow on the Internet. (Ya gotta love the Net, which makes it possible to be a member of one congregation and also watch, hear or read good lessons from a number of other churches...) Servanthood 101 comes to you from The People's Church in Franklin, TN., a church that really understands how to use the Internet. You can watch the service live, or after-the-fact, or listen to just the sermon, or even download the sermon outline. Sunday's lesson focuses on Philippians 2, where the apostle Paul urges Christians to emulate the servant attitude of Jesus. Philippians 2: 12-13 has long been used by some to claim that salvation is accomplished through human work rather than by the supreme act of God's grace, but read in context it actually says the opposite.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed - not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Staying (on) The Course

Reuters can't miss a chance to bash Bush with a snarky remark, even in a story about Bush crashing his mountain bike.

Bush's rival in this year's presidential election, Democratic candidate John Kerry, who fell off a bicycle and grazed his hand earlier this month, wished the president well after learning of Saturday's spill. "I hope he's OK," said the 60-year-old Massachusetts senator, who took a bike ride in Boston on Saturday but managed to stay upright.

Except that, as even Reuters admits in its story, Kerry crashed his own bike a few weeks ago. And while riding on a flat Boston street, no less, not riding a rough trail on a Texas ranch. Oh, and Kerry, who grazed his hand, took a car ride home after his mishap. Bush - with lacerations to his hand, face and both knees - got back on his bike and finished his ride. And then, according to press reports, Bush rode another 20 miles the next day.

Some people (get) cut and run. Others finish the course.

UPDATE: Don't miss NRO's comparison of Kerry and Bush on their athleticism and physical fitness.

The proof of Bush's athletic superiority, ironically enough, is evident in - of all things - his tumble. When Kerry fell while snowboarding a few months ago, he famously said, "I don't fall" before blaming a Secret Service agent for running into him.

The truth: Athletes fall, Mr. Kerry. They trip, they stumble, they are sacked. They fall off their horse, they get hit by a ball, they twist their ankles, bruise their elbows, and dislocate their shoulders, but they get up and ride back to the ranch. The real jock knows this and is not embarrassed by the occasional tumble.

Employment Surges in Election Battleground States

From USA Today:

Employment has picked up significantly this year in a number of closely contested states that could decide the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. The latest Labor Department figures on state jobs show that 10 of the 17 states expected to be the most tightly contested this campaign season were among the fastest-growing job markets in the country in April.

The report, out Friday, showed a marked acceleration in job gains in industrial states in and around the Midwest defying the expectations of economists who predicted last year that those states would lag the national recovery.

"The hemorrhaging is over," said Sophia Koropeckyj, an analyst at the consulting firm Economy.com. "These states are bouncing back."

May 22, 2004

Um, Excuse Me?

As I mentioned below, I'm not blogging much today. This morning I participated in a mass bike ride along some new bike trails in the city of Nashville. Before the start, the politicians felt the need to speak. Nashville's mayor irked me a bit when he talked at length praising the Metro Council for funding the bike trails. Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but the government doesn't fund things. The taxpayers do. Would it kill you to thank them when you cut the ribbon on things built with their money?

Democrats Defeat Tax Cuts in Tennessee

NASHVILLE - Not blogging much at all today or this weekend, but it's worth noting that the Tennessee legislature passed a budget and adjourned. It's also worth nothing that Republicans in the state legislature tried to be fiscally responsible and to reduce taxes in a way that would especially benefit the poor and the lower middle class, but Democrats opposed those amendments.

In the first case, the Republicans tried to restore some $36 million in "state-shared" taxes that had gone to city and county governments until last year, but Democrats had the votes to block that proposal. That is significant because the loss of those funds lead dozens of cities and counties to raise property taxes, and more are likely to do so this year.

The Tennessean story I linked to has an odd turn of the phrase in reporting that this Republican initiative wasdefeated by Democrats. The paper says, "The House beat back Republican attempts ..."

No it didn't. The House, after all, includes nearly four dozen Republicans. They didn't defeat this proposal - Democrats, who control the House, did. So, if you live in Tennessee and your property taxes go up this year, blame the Democrats in the state legislature.

In the second case, the Republicans tried to use the state's rapidly growing revenue surplus to reduce the sales tax rate on groceries by one cent. Democrats defeated that proposal too. A few years ago Democrats were pushing for creation of an income tax in part to lower the sales tax on groceries, claiming the sales tax on groceries was "regressive" and hurts folks who don't make a lot of money.

Huh. I guess the Democrats didn't really mean it. I guess they just wanted to raise your taxes. Imagine that.

May 21, 2004

Three Strikes For Skip

NASHVILLE - Nashville City Paper reporter Skip Cauthorn still can't get his facts straight when it comes to the state of Tennessee's revenue surplus. In his story today, Cauthorn says:

The $24.1 billion budget includes a plan to appropriate a roughly $277 million surplus. The surplus includes $129 million in extra funds for this year and an estimated $148 million for next.

Somebody, please email Skip and tell him the surplus for this year is estimated at $256 million. Ask him to please please get it right at least once before the legislative session ends.

Fallujah, Through The Eyes Of Pax

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Salam Pax has signed a movie deal, based on his book,The Baghdad Blog,which is based on his world-famous blog. In the story, Pax comments on events in Iraq, specifically in Fallujah.

He admits his thoughts are never far from his home in western Baghdad, on the road to Falluja. "Sometimes you really worry. The resistance, quote unquote, this is not anything for the benefit of Iraq. And Falluja is a tiny city. It was a place where you'd go have a kebab sandwich on your trip to somewhere else. And then it suddenly became a centre for this? It gets you really frustrated because it's this tiny little place and it's creating a problem for all of Iraq."