Hikers Deserve Scorn Not Sympathy

We have a new leader in the clubhouse for the title of "Person Currently Getting Our Sympathy Who Really Deserves Our Scorn."

One of the top news stories in the past week was about Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans arrested last year while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border. Iran finally released her, and now she's doing the U.S. media ciruit talking about her captivity and urging the release of the other two male hikers (her fiancee and their friend).

Here's the thing: When asked why they were hiking so close to an unmarked border in such a dangerous part of the world, she acts like it was no big deal. They'd been staying in Syria, and were looking for a place to hike, and other people hiked around there, and they meant no harm, it was just a simple navagational mistake for which they were imprisoned.

Really!?

First off, people deserve what they get when they willfully choose to go hiking in one of the most volitile and lawless places in the world. It doesn't matter if you weren't spying. Frankly, it doesn't matter what you were doing. A lot of people there want to kill Americans, pure and simple. And don't you think maybe, just maybe, if there were people hiking there, they were locals who knew what they were doing and where they were going?

Next, to make matters worse, our Sarah met with the Iranian President - and International Madman - Ahmadinejad while he was in New York City this week on a United Nations visit. Nothing like giving that idiot more publicity by asking him to release the others. And this was right after that douchbag gave a speech suggesting the U.S. orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attcks. Note to Sarah - again, that A-hole wants to kill as many Americans as possible. We shouldn't even allow him in the country to speak to the United Nations, a liberty no other country would give him.

Finally, has Sarah or anyone else thought about the huge amounts of taxpayers dollars that have indirectly gone to freeing them? You're welcome, Sarah, you immature loser. Why doesn't she mention this when she's talking about all of the hardships faced because of her own stupidity?

Since she was reportedly living in Syria because she was "fascinated by the region" I wish she would just go back over there and stop sucking up any more resources from America. And after she gets a lucrative and very undeserved book deal, I'm sure she will! Oh, and I'm sure she'll use that money to pay back us taxpayers.

Sarah, this scorn is for you!

Of Mosques And Book Burnings

When I started to write a blog, I initially wanted to stay away from politically or socially sensitive topics, and so not offend anyone who I might one day work with. As time went by I decided, screw it, I'm politically independent, I have as many good things as bad to say about any particular party or ideology. If people get angered by something I write, I'm willing to accept that risk.

And so we come to the issue of the proposed mosque that an imam is planning to bulid near Ground Zero in NYC. I'll also throw in the proposed Quoran-burning planned by a Florida pastor, because they do have a tangental relationship.

Americans have constitutional protections and, more specifically, first amendment rights. As a quisi-Liberitanian, I believe in that as much as anyone. Those rights effectively allow both the imam and the pastor to do what they are proposing to do. But in the end, I believe any reasonable person would reach the same conclusion for either one - neither should be allowed to do what they are proposing.

The first amendment does not grant absolute rights. For example, it doesn't give anyone the right to endanger others through their actions, such as shouting, "Fire!" in a crowded theater. It seems to me that age-old argument applies here. Both of these proposed actions are obviously going to cause potential harm to others, either physically or mentally, and the right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins.

In the past I've alwasys made a distinction between that which is insensitive (hurting someone intentionally) versus that which lacks sensitivity (hurting someone stupidly). Here the imam lacks sensitivity, while the pastor is being insensitive. Either way, they should recognize that, and fade into the backgrounds from which they came.

People want to make it out to be more than this, but really, isn't it that simple?

Best Song Lyrics (Part III)

It's hard to believe I waited until Part III to get to a John Mellencamp song. It will not be the only mention he gets - he has too many good song lyrics.

In fact, I'm going to reference two of them right now. First, these lyrics from the song The Real Life were the ones I actually used when I wrote some friends to tell them I was changing careers a few years ago:

Jackson Jackson [William Streff] was a good kid
He had four years of college and a bachelor's degree
Started workin' when he was 21
Got fed up and quit when he was 43
He said, "My whole life I've done what I'm supposed to do
Now I'd like to maybe do something for myself
And just as soon I figure out what that is
You can bet your life I'm gonna give it hell!"
He says
I want to live the real life
I want to life my life close to the bone
Just because I'm middle-aged that don't mean
I want to sit around my house and watch TV
I want the real life
I want to live the real life

I still don't understand why Mellencamp left that song off of his greatest hits CD years ago. Anyway, the next one is from an anthem for the ages, Check It Out. Similar to The Real Life, it's about letting time slip away, but in this case also regretting not doing something about it:

A million young poets, screamin' out their words
To a world full of people just livin' to be heard
Future generations, ridin' on the highways that we built
I hope they have better understanding
Check it out
Goin' to work on Monday
Got yourself a family
All utility bills have been paid
Can't tell your best buddy that you love him
Check it out
Where does our time go
Got a brand new house in escrow
Sleepin' with your back to your loved one
This is all that we've learned about happiness
Check it out
Get too drunk on Saturdays
Play football with the kids on Sundays
Soarin' with the eagles all week long
And this is all that we've learned about living

East Coast Media Bias

A lot has been made over the years about media bias, especially as it relates to politics. Somebody is always breaking down a news report, looking for key words or angles that are questionably liberal or conservative. This is really stupid, because even if it is true (and Fox News, I'm looking at you again), the last I checked everyone has the free will to made up their own mind. (Exception: Those who watch Fox News seem inclined to just swallow anything that Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity will say.)

But when it comes to one topic - weather - there is no doubt that we have media bias. To wit, this week the top story on the national morning news shows was always Hurricane Earl. Even when Earl was just a baby storm thousands of miles from the U.S. east coast, we were so very concerned about the threat. Now that it's scraping along the east-northeastern seaboard as an average-sized hurricane, it's like the end of the world.

So we have a storm, with literally days to prepare for, that may or may not affect the U.S., but that doesn't matter. The east coast has the largest population concentration - also TV viewers - in the country, and the east coast based networks need to make sure the nation knows about a potential weather event that might ruin their Labor Day weekend plans.

Note to news media: THE OTHER 99% OF THE COUNTRY DOESN'T CARE ABOUT HURRICANE EARL. It's had to imagine how anyone taking precautions would be harmed by this storm, yet in places like the Midwest we lose lives and property to sudden weather events all of the time. Ever see that get this much media coverage? Of course not.

It doesn't matter if it's weather, or news, or sports, the east coasters are the drama queens of the U.S. We've got real issues to talk about that impact the entire country, maybe we could focus on that?

Random Wallet Testing

In honor of the start of college football season, here's another past article by Rick Reilly of ESPN.com about a simple way to identify cheating in college sports.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5468374


Along with Bill Simmons, ESPN.com has the best pound-for-pound sportswriting going now.

Dumb Rules

It might take a bit to get to my point, but follow along here.....

The other day I played golf at a local course that, like many courses in my area, had some flooding damage. In this case, large portions of several fairways were comprised of compacted dirt that remained after the floodwaters receded. In the end, this meant that hitting from some fairway lies was like hitting from a mixture of dirt/sand.

This made me think of this year's PGA Championship at Whisting Straits in Wisconsin, where one of the leaders was assessed a two-stroke penalty on the final hole for grounding his club in a sand trap, which neither looked like nor was maintained as a bunker.

This made me think of a fantastic column by ESPN.com writer Rick Reilly, on what a dumb rule that was, along with many other dumb rules of golf. (Read it at this link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5470940)

This made me think - now to the point - of a few other dumb rules (laws?) in life. To wit:

*Motorcycle helmet laws. If someone wants to crack their skull open and die - the primary outcome of a helmet-less motorcycle accident - and no one else is hurt, why should we care? It isn't like a seat belt law, because people in cars who don't wear those restraits will often still survive accidents, but then are permanently disabled, which puts on cost on society. Speaking of death and dying.....

*Bans on 'assisted' suicide. Again, if someone wants to end their own life, in this case with dignity, who else is harmed by that?

*No instant replay in baseball or soccer. We have the power of technology, but not the will to apply it. (Kind of like 'assisted' suicide.) If you have to defend something using the old 'integrity of the game' argument, consider yourself on the losing side of the argument.

*Criminalizing the possession of marijuana. Just go to the keyword 'marijuana' for this blog to find out all you'll ever need to know about why this is in the dumb rules Hall-of-Fame.

*Continued extension of unfunded unemployment benefits. Paying people to not work is not a viable or sustainable national economic policy.

*24/7 'citizenship' policies in schools. Schools have a hard enough time policing kids at school / school activities, why do they think they should also police the kids' behavior outside of school? Regardless, they don't have my permission to do it, so they need not bother.

Women Are Better Than Men.....At Investing

Here's a controversial thought: Men and women are different.....in terms of how they invest.

A variety of studies have been done on gender-based financial behavior. The 2007 Sharebuilder Women and Investing Survey finds that women tend to be more involved in the family balance sheet. Just over 60% of women manage the household checkbook; 58% pay the bills; 44% (versus only 23% of men) oversee the budget.

Yet only 15% of married women take primary care of the family investments. This in spite of the finding that, when it comes to choosing investments, women tend to be more diligent, spending almost twice as much time researching mutual funds before investing. This could be due to greater caution on the part of women, or, depending how you look at it, greater confidence on the part of men. Whatever the cause, it pays off for the ladies. Finance professors Brad Barber and Terrance Odean find that—though women hold less risky portfolios than men, pursuing (and expecting) lower returns—after adjusting for differences in risk, women achieve better returns.

Before women take a victory lap, note that there is a larger, gender-neutral point: Overconfident investors trade too much. Barber and Odean take pains to assure us that gender is but a convenient statistical tool for the real factor at work – overconfidence. Psychology researchers have long held that men are more prone to overconfidence, so we'd expect them to trade more aggressively. We'd also expect this trading to increase costs, which in turn will reduce performance. To test this, the authors set out to determine if the population that is naturally overconfident earns lower average returns than the population that isn't. (See? It's not about men and women at all!)

The professors analyze a huge database of brokerage accounts from the 1990s. They find that married men trade 45% more than married women and earn annual risk-adjusted net returns that are 1.4% lower. Moreover, the differences widen when the sample isn't married people: Single men trade 67% more than single women and earn annual risk-adjusted net returns that are a full 2.3% lower. Worse still, the men have average turnover (a measure of trading frequency) of 77% per year, while the women have average turnover around 53% per year. (Both of those percentages are high – maybe both groups need advisors instead of commission-paid brokers!)

If you believe the stereotypes, these results shouldn't surprise you. Men are supposedly brought up to embrace competition and risk. This translates into winning short-term sprints, not waiting out marathons in broadly diversified strategies. Sure, research is great, but guys don't like to ask for directions. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to avoid knife-fights, or take a flyer on some dicey investment. The research shows they're also more likely to seek out data and expert help, and to take their time – perhaps too much time – before committing assets.

In the final analysis, it’s best for both genders to avoid the pitfalls of emotional investing, the symptoms of which are frequent trading and/or improper asset allocation. Successful investing requires a mixture of confidence and caution, along with a healthy dose of objectivity, patience, and knowledge. These traits will make better investors of both men and women.....and there’s nothing controversial about that.