Rodent Regatta

I’m a thinker more than a talker. I’m an analyst more than a well of opinions. I like to really consider the reliability of my sources and the facts they present. I’d rather be roughly right than precisely wrong, to quote Warren Buffett.

Deming always encouraged managing with facts. Intuition simply isn’t enough. So often the things that are factual are counter-intuitive. Stacy Tabb pointed to Bill Whittle this morning with an entry she called There Is Always Hope. In it she provides the link to Bill Whittle’s Confidence from February 23, 2003. I like the way the logic lays out. I like the feelings I get when I read these pieces.

In an era when the media services are full of speculation without substantive fact, confidence is something Americans have lost. They’re told not to trust our government by a liberal media elite. They’re told to worry about what the French think by a liberal media elite. They’re told that world opinion is against America, its people, its government and all that it has stood for these past two hundred plus years.

It’s in my genes to want to be accurate and right. If I don’t know for certain that something I’m saying is true, I’ll try to mind my tongue. Select any media service, any network, any news organization and you won’t find much of that. They’d rather ”break” an erroneous story than provide facts to Americans a few hours later. All too often, the citizenry is picking up on that method and repeating it in the coffee shops, barber shops and conversation pits of our communities. It’s tiring and frustrating, particularly when we know that they don’t really know!

Trust me when I say that we have a very finite number of people in this country today who really know what the threats to our existence have been and might be. We have an even smaller group who knows when we might use our military in Iraq or elsewhere. No matter how many news sources you search, no matter how many press conferences you listen to, the detailed planning in this country is still a matter for a very closed circle of people.