weissblog

Sometimes I wonder if I should have hung around Helena-West Helena a bit longer. I really do miss being a police officer and I miss some of the people there. But recent events have reminded me of why I left in the first place, political chaos. As reported by the AP, Crime-ridden Arkansas town expands 24-hour curfew. Yep, the city counsel has voted unanimously to impose a city-wide curfew (seems more like martial law to me).

This is nuts! And, with great sadness I have to actually agree with a ACLU lawyer. There’s no way I feel this can be legal. And I really feel bad for the officers. They’re in a situation where they either lose their job or do something they’ll probably get sued over.

And to think, a couple years ago the citizens of the towns of Helena and West Helena thought it was a good idea to merge the cities. Yeah, I miss law enforcement, but I definitely don’t miss The Nation of Phillips County, Arkansas.

Those those who haven’t been keeping up, Microsoft is trying to acquire Yahoo! and the latest round of press releases is a bit interesting. Last Friday, Microsoft issued a nice press release chiding Yahoo! for not being willing to play ball. There’s a couple interesting phrases in it that I’d like to comment on:

Finally, you have adopted new plans at the company that have made any change of control more costly.

So MS is upset because Y! has taken steps to make a takeover harder? Umm… excuse me, isn’t that what a company is suppose to do when facing a potentially hostel takeover? And, take a gander at this:

If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board. The substantial premium reflected in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you. If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal.

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a threat in a press release. In non-legalese, MS is telling Y! to sell now or they’ll start a proxy battle which will drive share prices down, and then MS will buy Y! out for even less than they’ve offered.

Over the weekend, a lot of people were wondering how Yahoo! would respond to the Redmond giant. This morning they responded by pointing out all the holes in Microsoft’s press release.

Our Board’s view of your proposal has not changed. We continue to believe that your proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders. Contrary to statements in your letter, stockholders representing a significant portion of our outstanding shares have indicated to us that your proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo!. Furthermore, as a result of the decrease in your own stock price, the value of your proposal today is significantly lower than it was when you made your initial proposal.

Here Y! takes a line from Oceans 13. “Well, I know all the guys that you’d hire to come after me, and they like me better than you. ” Yahoo subtly lets MS know they’ve already spoken with the major shareholders who’s support MS would need for the proxy battle and those shareholders agree that the offer was to low. Then they point out that since MS’s offer was ½ stock and the MS stock has declined, then the value of the offer has declined. And I loved this line, in response to MS’s comment about no meaningful meetings:

Moreover, Steve, you personally attended two of these meetings and could have advanced discussions in any way you saw fit.

And they closed their press release quite nicely with

In conclusion, please allow us to restate our position, so there can be no confusion. We are open to all alternatives that maximize stockholder value. To be clear, this includes a transaction with Microsoft if it represents a price that fully recognizes the value of Yahoo! on a standalone basis and to Microsoft, is superior to our other alternatives, and provides certainty of value and certainty of closing. Lastly, we are steadfast in our commitment to choosing a path that maximizes stockholder value and we will not allow you or anyone else to acquire the company for anything less than its full value.

So, basically, Y! is saying “either put up or shut up; we’re not afraid of your threats.” And now let us all sit back and continue to watch as this Internet soap opera continues…

Sometimes it’s odd. As we grow up and move on we spend less time with the things, ideas, and even the dreams, of our youth. When I was a kid, all the way up through my teenage years, I loved motorcycles. I was never in the position to be able to do anything professionally, though I always felt I could have, but I was always doing hair-brain stunts on my bikes and had my fair share of crashes as well (even going as far as riding with a cast on one leg). During this time in my life I used to love watching and reading everything I could about Evel Knievel. He was my inspiration many times… usually a bad inspiration, but I was inspired none the less. But it’s been over 14 years since I owned a motorcycle. I’m fast approaching my 31^st birthday and the memories of those times have been pushed aside in the hustle and bustle of life.

But this evening, when I discovered that Robert Craig ‘Evel’ Knievel passed away today, many of those old memories came rushing back to the front of my mind. And, as I sit here reading about Evel’s life it gives me pause… he lived life to the fullest. He did the things that everyone said would kill him. And you know what? They didn’t. He did what others are afraid to do and he lived through it all. Now, I never had the opportunity to meet the man, but something tells me that when he passed on, it was with few regrets. And for those who don’t know, Evel did accept Jesus as Lord and Savior of his life earlier this year. So, I guess I will get a chance to meet him after all, some day.

And, in the mean time, I think come summer I may start looking for me another bike. It’s about time my older daughters learned how to ride and I can’t wait to teach them.

My prayers go out to the whole Knievel family during this time of loss. God Bless.

Safe Landings.

For many years I, along with countless other conservatives, have complained about the bias in the media. Well, an article in Investors Business Daily yesterday mentions an interesting joint study that was conducted by Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harverd’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. The study uncovered some interesting facts about how television, radio, and newspapers show an obvious favoritism toward the Democrats. For starters, the Democrats get more coverage than the Republicans. Then, it was shown that the coverage was more likely to show the Democrats in a positive light while Republicans were more likely to be shown in a neutral light. Here’s the chart Investor’s Business Daily used.

chart © 2007 Investor’s Business Daily

Of course the article will likely have no effect whatsoever on anything. The media still claim they’re neutral.

First off, a warning. This article is a rant. However, it is a rant that I believe needs to be heard. So, if you don’t like rants you can can be excused. For the rest of you, I’m going to rant about two different subjects, but then I’ll tie them together at the end.

Cop vs Cop?

A couple days ago I came across a site where police officers ranted and complained about other police officers writing them tickets. Now, as many of you know I am a former police officer (and do plan to return to that line of work in the future) so I’m always looking for new LEO websites. But after about ten minutes on this particular site I felt sick to my stomach.

In some of the submissions I read while there officers were complaining because other officers had the audacity to write them a ticket. One guy even admitted to having his “cruise set at 77-79 in a 65″ which means he was at least 12 mph over the limit. He states that he was “clocked by airspeed doing 84.9 miles per hour.” But he’s still pissed because he got a ticket and is asking all other officers to now return the favor to everyone who works in the same troop as the officer that wrote the ticket.

In another submission an officer is complaining about another officer in his department! He calls this other officer out by name and says that he was wrong to arrest a police officer’s wife for driving on suspended DL. Then he says this officer was wrong to ticket another officer who, while off duty, pooped a wheelie on his motorcycle and wrecked. And, in addition to those two incidents, this officer is known to have written other officers tickets when their tags (vehicle license/registration) expire.

As you will notice I’ve not given the name or URL of this website. That’s because, in my opinion, it casts LEOs in a bad light. They ask on the site, where’s the professional courtesy? To those who are writing in these complains, where is your professional courtesy? It’s extremely rude to go speeding through another officer’s jurisdiction and you know it. It’s cops like this that give the rest a bad name. You think you’re above the law, that just because you have a badge on you shouldn’t have to follow the law. WRONG! Because you are a trained law enforcement professional you should be held to a higher standard.

And before anyone asks, yes I did regularly give breaks to the family and friends of other officers. And there has been a time or three when I was cut some slack as well. But on the occasions that I was given a break I appreciated it because I knew that I was in the wrong. The times when I wasn’t given a break I was still polite to the officer because I understood that I was wrong and that I had gotten what I deserved. I guess what I’m saying here is, don’t go online fussing because you got caught doing something you shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. You were wrong, admit it and get over it. As an officer, you should know that the person writing that ticket has a hard enough job, s/he doesn’t need you throwing a temper tantrum, too.

On to the next topic…

In the most recent issue of Forbes there’s an article about illegal immigrants and the companies that hire them (Who’s Gonna Do the Work?). In this article Robert and Judith Ahlers admit that they suspect some of their employees are illegal immigrants and then argue that if they were to obey the law and not hire such employees that they would be be starving for workers. In a letter written to their local newspaper Judith Ahlers says

“Every contractor in our state knows that the construction industry has been built on the backs of Mexican workers, legal and illegal. We need the Mexican labor force to keep our businesses going. It is the same for many other industries–agriculture, hospitality and landscaping, to name a few,”

So, let me get this straight. According to the Ahlers, without the underpaid, illegal labor force they can’t build buildings? That’s odd. There’s buildings in every nation on this planet and I’m pretty sure there aren’t Mexican laborers doing the majority of the work in all of them… just here in the USA.

Laura Reiff, cochair of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, whose members depend on low-skilled labor is quoted as saying

“One of our employers got 25,000 no-match letters last year. You can’t lose 25,000 workers and continue to run your show.”

And to Ms. Reiff and her clients I say, if you had never broke the law and hired illegal immigrants in the first place then you wouldn’t be facing a problem now. Why should we feel sympathy for you because you fixing to get busted for breaking the law?

The article does give one example of someone who’s trying to do it right.

Road contractor Mark Gould of Glenwood Springs raised his wage from $14 an hour to $16 after half his new hires for unskilled jobs failed the E-Verify check. He got 90% of the workers he needed and passed the higher cost on to local governments.

Those two sentences point out the problem and the solution. The problem is all these companies don’t want to hire American laborers because then they would have to pay a decent wage so instead they whine about everything and act like they’re victims. The answer is as simple as it sounds, offer people a competitive wage and pass the cost along to your customers. That’s how business works. If your expenses go up, your prices go up.

To all those out there that are whining and complaining about the crackdown on businesses hiring illegal immigrents I say tough luck. I have no sympathy for you. You’re getting what you deserve. For years you’ve been using cheap labor which has allowed you to undercut honest American businesses.

All together now…

It seems to me that both of these situations I ranted about show the same basic thought process. The individuals involved feel, for some reason or other, that they should be exempt from the law. Evidently they feel that they’re special and that the rules don’t apply to them. They lack a strong moral foundation which, were they to have one, allow them to at least admit they were breaking the law. Instead they all seem oblivious to that fact. They seem to think life is like Burger King and they can have it their way.

What do you think about these situations and my opinions of them? Let me hear from you. How far off base am I?