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31 December, 2006

HOORAY! THE BUTCHER OF BAGHDAD IS DEAD

See here



A great New Year present for Iraq. But no doubt the Left will now immediately make a saint of some sort out of him. They don't care about mass murder. They never have. If they could canonize the vicious "Tookie" Williams (above), and excuse mass murderers like Stalin and Mao, they can do it for anyone.

I imagine that the Left might say that Saddam was no worse than Pinochet -- ignoring the fact that Pinochet took power at the invitation of a democratically elected parliament and that he handed the country back to democratic rule when he had sorted out the mess that the Left had plunged Chile into. But differences like that will be invisible to those who will not see. I imagine that the Left might say that Saddam was no worse than Pinochet -- ignoring the fact that Pinochet took power at the invitation of a democratically elected parliament and that he handed the country back to democratic rule when he had sorted out the mess that the Left had plunged Chile into. But differences like that will be invisible to those who will not see. Les Bates also has some cynical comments on the Leftist attitude to Saddam.

Mind you, I am not unsympathetic to the view that the recent atrocious behaviour of large numbers of Iraqis towards one-another shows that Saddam was what they deserved. Their mentality suggests that they may well have a Saddam Mark II in their future.

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ISLAMISTS ON THE RUN IN SOMALIA

Post lifted from Daniel Mandel

Since warning in this opinion piece and this blog against US passivity in the face of the gradual take-over of Somalia by the al-Qaeda-linked Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), some provisionally good news: Ethiopian forces have moved from defending the beleaguered Interim Federal Government in Baidoa to ejecting the SCIC from the capital of Mogadishu, which it seized in June. It did this, according to Ethiopian leader, Meles Zenawi, without the US contributing "a single bullet, a single soldier, or a single military equipment to this operation."

Ethiopia has however done this in the face of EU, Arab League and Organisation of the Islamic Conference condemnation.

Additionally - and for some, this factor will be damning - Ethiopia has been criticized editorially by the New York Times. On what ground? - Because it was a "unilateral pre-emptive attack" which "seldom solves anything" and because "Ethiopia's armed forces crossed an international border". Its advice? That "the Security Council must meet urgently to find ways to replace Ethiopian troops with a neutral international force and keep the violence from spreading to other countries."

It is true that violence could indeed spread and that action is needed. However, Ethiopia's "unilateral pre-emptive attack" comes after months of remorseless SCIC aggression against Somalia's lawful government, which has welcomed Ethiopia's help. In these circumstances, coming to the aid of a lawful government under internal assault can be called several things, but unilateral or pre-emptive are not among them. For the meantime, Ethiopia certainly seems to have "solved" something - preventing the imminent demise of Somalia's lawful government. And the proposal the New York Times advises the Security Council to adopt - inserting an international force - is probably a foredoomed idea whose possibility exists at all solely because of Ethiopia's "unilateral," "pre-emptive attack" and "crossing of an international border."

One suspects that the New York Times cannot welcome a non-Muslim victory over Muslim extremists and has plucked out its proposal of a "neutral force" (i.e., mainly Muslim) to preserve what Ethiopian arms alone achieved.

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ELSEWHERE

There is a fabulous non-satirical post about hurricane Katrina by Scott Ott on Scrappleface here -- which shows that the mockery Scrappleface serves up comes from the real, old America that is constantly threatened but not so far defeated by Leftism and bureaucracy. The comments Scott Ott makes in his post about how it is local efforts that work best in recovery from floods and hurricanes were amply confirmed in Australia last year -- in the aftermath of Northeast Australia's big cyclone. See here.

Nobody (not even blacks) likes working for blacks: "Last month, Jennifer Freeman sat in a Chicago coffee bar, counting her blessings and considering her problem. She had a husband with an M.B.A. degree, two children and a job offer that would let her dig out the education degree she had stashed away during years of playdates and potty training. But she could not accept the job. After weeks of searching, Ms. Freeman, who is African-American, still could not find a nanny for her son, 5, and daughter, 3. Agency after agency told her they had no one to send to her South Side home."

Chris Brand points out that the unbelievable has happened: The New York Times has achknowledged the low average IQ of Africans. They explain it erroneously (as due to malnutrition) but acknowledging it at all is at least to raise the matter for discussion among the "caring" (self-important) classes. Even the United Nations says that poor nutrition accounts for a loss of only 5-7 IQ points and severe food shortage (which the NYT discusses) can in fact be eugenic (raise IQ slightly) -- as the Dutch famine study showed. See about half-way down here. For academics, the usual reference is: Stein Z, Susser M, Saenger G, Marolla F. Famine and Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

A rare apology. But Muslims are special, of course: "The Homeland Security Department sent a letter apologizing to a Muslim woman who was detained at the Tampa airport and strip searched at a county jail. Safana Jawad, 45, a Spanish citizen who was born in Iraq, was detained on April 11 because of a suspected tie to a suspicious person, authorities said. She was held for two days before being deported to England."

UK: 1,000 pound fine for failing to update ID card: "A draconian regime of fines, which would hit families at times of marriage and death, is being drawn up by ministers to enforce the Identity Card scheme. Millions of people, from struggling students to newly-wed women and bereaved relatives, will face a system of penalties, netting more than 40 million for the Treasury. People would be fined up to 1,000 pounds for failing to return a dead relative's ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least 30 pounds for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a 1,000 pound fine if they do not comply."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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30 December, 2006

DENYING THE OBVIOUS ABOUT ISLAM

Shoebat begins by explaining his frustrations with Westerners who consistently misunderstand the nature of the Islamists: "Ever since I left radical Islam, I have consistently run into Westerners who are oblivious to the mind-set of radical Islamists, and being on both sides of the fence, I have felt like I am Captain Spock of Star Trek - always having to explain to Captain Kirk how the aliens thought. Yet the first problem I encountered when speaking to Westerners is that they always think that the Muslim world has the same aspirations as they do, seeking liberty, equality, modernisation, democracy, and the good life."...

Trifkovic argues that much of the media, and many of our leaders, are still trying to act as apologists for Islam: "That consensus, as we see in the opening clips of Blair, Bush and Clinton, rests upon the implacable dogma that there is something called 'real Islam' (peaceful, tolerant and as American as apple pie), and then there is 'extremism' that is an aberrant and unrepresentative deviation of Muhammad's faith. (Blair's assurances that the 9-11 attackers were not 'Islamic terrorists' but 'terrorists plain and simple' would have been on par with U.S. President Roosevelt declaring, after Pearl Harbor, that the attackers were not 'Japanese airmen', but 'airmen' plain and simple.)"

Radical Islamists may in fact simply be acting in accord with their own Islamic faith and tradition. But many Western classrooms downplay the numerous violent and unpleasant aspects of Islamic history. "The upholders of the mindset that promotes and mandates such rubbish in our classrooms will naturally treat the truth about Islam as inadmissible, and that's why What the West Needs to Know will be ignored by them. They dominate the entertainment industry - just look at Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, which conveyed the message that, in a conflict between Christians and Muslims, the former attack, the latter react. The true hero of the movie is Saladin, a wise warrior-king sans peur et sans reproche; its villains, the coarse and bloodthirsty Europeans."

Spencer concurs, saying: "The free world is under assault everywhere from the forces of jihad, working from the teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah, and notably the words and deeds of Muhammad. Yet in America and the West, taking note of these rather obvious facts only brings one opprobrium, if the chattering classes deign to take notice at all: one is compelled in the mainstream of public discourse to deny the obvious. Everyone is busy tossing away common sense, reason, and basic powers of observation."

Shoebat recounts how, in some public speeches he gave warning of Islam, many in the audience attacked him, not radical Islam. He recalls: "At another speech, one Rabbi critiqued the New Testament as 'riddled with violence', I had no problem with his right to state this, yet when I confronted him I asked 'Why do you feel free to critique the New Testament, but afraid of critiquing Islam's well documented violence?' to which he could not reply. It didn't matter that I stated in my speech that a Jew had the right to critique Christianity, a Christian had the right to critique Mormonism and Islam, and a Muslim had a right to critique the Bible and Christianity, I was still accused of racism and bigotry against Islam. One can say almost anything against any other religion but Islam. Why?"

Concludes Spencer: "Today the comprehensive guilt trip that is multiculturalism makes it impossible for Western policymakers and media to look squarely at the nature of Islam. If the Islamic world has a problem with the West, it must be our fault - because of Iraq, or Abu Ghraib, or Israel, or Mossadegh, or something. This is an intriguing inversion of the old colonial paternalism: whereas the 'white man's burden' assumed that it was the role of the West to bring civilisation to the colonised areas, and that the civilising 'burden' was in no sense shared by the colonised people, so today the Left sees the evils perpetrated by the enemies of the West as entirely provoked by the West: once again, the 'non-white', non-Christian West has no responsibility for its own actions. But the arrogance of this perspective likewise never registers in the public sphere - it is as invisible as the Islamic doctrines of jihad and the supremacism of the Sharia."

More here

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SARCASTIC BUT TRUE

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was designed to make U.S. company finance more transparent and company bosses more accountable. In practice it has placed huge bureaucratic burdens on companies domiciled in the USA. The solution? Move domicile! The post below says that the move is on

Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley... London loves you! The more I read about the flood of money coming into the City of London from the United States, the more I am convinced that in the spirit of Christmas and fraternal Anglosphere conviviality, the people of London should say a heartily thank you to Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes and Ohio Republican Michael Oxley.

In fact, in the new year I plan to launch a subscription appeal to put up a pair of gold plated statues somewhere in the square mile, depicting these two fine politicians throwing handfuls of dollar bills to a multitude of grateful City of London bankers, fund managers, stock brokers and other sundry worthy capitalists, as great numbers of companies decamp from New York and list in London instead.

And so Paul and Michael, on behalf of all those fine folks here in Merry old England whose Christmas bonus packages have gone through the roof, thank you. We could not have done it without you. God bless globalisation.

If England is less bureaucratic, it shows how exceedingly bureaucratic the alternative is. Prof. Bainbridge has more details about the idiocies of Sarbanes-Oxley

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ELSEWHERE

How Britain gets people out of those evil cars: "The chance of being assaulted at a mainline railway station has nearly doubled in the past five years, according to figures from the British Transport Police. There were 1,270 violent attacks against passengers at stations last year compared with 702 in 2001 - an increase of 80 per cent. By far the most dangerous station is Leeds Central, where there were 159 attacks. In 2001 there were 75. Next are listed the main London stations - including Victoria and Waterloo - Birmingham New Street and Cardiff Central. The amount of violence had increased or stayed level at all the 61 stations covered by the British Transport Police figures, with the sole exception of Liverpool Lime Street".

Regulators Scuttle Proposal for Budget Airline: "The US government has blocked plans by Richard Branson's Virgin Group to launch a budget airline in America. Officials refused to grant Virgin America an operating licence because the carrier was 'not under the actual control of US citizens'. Under US law, airlines must be 75% owned and controlled by US citizens. California-based Virgin America, part of British billionaire Mr Branson's Virgin Group, had planned to start domestic US flights in 2007. Virgin Group has stakes in airlines in Europe, Australia and Nigeria." Why not let American air travelers decide if they prefer an airline carrier owned by non-American?

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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29 December, 2006

IS SUPPORT FOR THE TROOPS MASCULINE?

Every now and again, somebody gets the idea of saying that conservative values are male and Leftist values are female. I have critiqued the assertions by Leftist George Lakoff to that effect some time ago.

But the idea also seems to be a favourite of conservative psychologist Gagdad Bob. Gagdad Bob is however in the tradition of the psychoanalysts and is essentially a speculative writer. He rarely provides much evidence for his assertions. So, while many of his analyses are thought-provoking, whether they are right or wrong is essentially unknown. And on this issue I think he is wrong.

Why? Because of the voting patterns. If Leftist values were female, should not women vote overwhelimngly for the Left? They don't. In fact, in the 2004 Presidential election, George Bush and John Kerry split the female vote almost equally. One could argue that Presidential candidates have to be centrists with only a slight "lean" to Left or Right but even so it is strange that there is not SOME regular tendency for the female vote to polarize if the theory is true.

Whether support for the troops is a male thing is however a different question. There is an amusing attack on an anti-troop writer here -- in which the writer concerned was described as a "neuter". Since some of the most vigorous pro-troop campaigners are women (such as Melanie Morgan) however, I am inclined to suspect the reverse.

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ELSEWHERE



I have just posted here a brief review of a book about an allegedly "faith-based" (but Leftist) approach to affordable housing. After doing everything in their power to make housing LESS affordable (with attacks on the "developers" who provide it etc.), Leftists then blame others for the consequences of their own actions and advocate "solutions" (such as rent control) that will only make the problem worse. They are so hate-filled that they don't care how many ordinary people they hurt by their attacks.

Kerry shunned by the troops in Iraq: "Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops. What is amazing is Bill O'Reilly came to visit with us and the troops at the CSH the same day and the line for autographs extended through the palace and people waited for two hours to shake his hand. You decide who is more respected and loved by us servicemen and women!"

Hindu nationalists not appeasers: "On the weekend, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main parliamentary opposition, forcefully repledged themselves to the policy of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. At a meeting in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh where elections are due early in the new year, the new BJP president, Rajnath Singh, called for his party to be given 10 years "to replace the politics of Muslim appeasement with the politics of nationalism". In a chilling enunciation of the BJP's stance in a country where there are about 180 million Muslims, he declared: "Give us a clear majority and 10 years' time ... and I will promise the BJP will put an end to the politics of appeasement that is ruining the nation."

Muslim apartheid: "It is not just Egypt where Christians are being driven out of the middle east. It is in Iraq, Lebanon and Bethlehem. Muslim apartheid is worse than South African apartheid, because it is comes with the threat of not only discrimination but death and torture. Muslim religious bigotry is the root cause of terrorism in the world today and it is getting worse. It is now pushing the survivors of the Christian faith from there homes."

What a laugh! A government-sponsored rival to Google!: "French and German developers have split over a plan to rival Google with a new-generation internet search engine, but will be continuing in their efforts separately. A spokeswoman at the French Agency for Industrial Innovation said it was continuing with the project to build a search engine called "Quaero" that would be able to index not only text but also photos and videos. Some German firms would still be involved in that project, despite the withdrawal of others to work on the separate German-developed engine called "Theseus" that would be more focused on analysing text. "There will be a French project and a German project, and as they are not working in the same areas, they will not be rivals but complementary to each other - there will be two programs instead of one," she said. [It's already a bureaucratic bunfight!]

The virtues of sweatshops: "An acquaintance said to me the other day how appalling it is to see so many Americans revel in the gifts received during the holidays. 'We should be ashamed of ourselves,' he lamented. 'Most of this stuff was manufactured in sweatshops.' Such a misinformed notion shouldn't go unanswered because it reinforces this fallacy in the minds of those who don't know better."



Some good satire: "Activists of several Latino advocacy groups hailed the recent E. coli outbreaks at Taco Bell restaurants as "the biggest success yet in reclaiming Aztlan culture on the territories occupied by the American invaders." Groups as La Raza, MEChA, Organization for the Liberation of Aztlan, and other advocates for the restoration of a legendary Chicano country called Aztlan, are celebrating victory. "Mexican people across North America can finally get fast food just like back home," said Margarita Cagada, executive director of the New Jersey state chapter of La Raza. "On behalf of all Hispanics everywhere, La Raza praises Taco Bell for its loyalty to diversity and the promotion of Chicanismo within the community."

The young dimwit at the WSJ who dissed bloggers gets his comeuppance on the Hugh Hewitt show

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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28 December, 2006

THE HIGH QUALITY OF MILITARY MEN

Below is one of the many letters from American servicemen published by Taranto. I recognize every bit of what the writer says. My own time in the Australian army was of no importance at all (though I enjoyed it greatly) but the one thing it taught me very clearly was how many high quality people serve in the Armed forces

I am your now stereotypical top-of-class full-ride law school graduate veteran. I secured all sorts of jobs that seem to indicate intelligence, working in various sorts of litigation with a major defense firm. Now, I am in senior management and am an equity participant in a multinational construction firm. But 20 years ago, I was a private in the United States Army.

A graduate of the Special Forces Qualification Course, I met many bright people in the Army. I met people who were extremely intelligent. I met people with vast stores of wisdom. I met them in higher concentrations than in any other setting I have ever experienced. I met them on equal ground, wearing the same uniform, obeying the same oath. And now those people are spread across all dimensions. My comrades who stayed in, those who left, my grandfather who is now dead but who once shared admiration for my military accomplishments and I for his, my father who gave me his silver jump wings to wear when I graduated jump school more than two decades after he did--we all share an experience that, to a person, is deeply felt and sincere. And this experience does not have one damn thing to do with "opportunity" when opportunity is defined as money.

I think the representative must have misspoken. He must have meant that those who forgo "opportunity" to serve should be treasured assets who should be carefully and reluctantly deployed. This would have supported his argument on Iraq. And even if we disagree on the practice, we would agree on the premise.

But generally, there is the notion that the military is nothing but underclass idiots. Sure, they can deploy thousands of miles away and coordinate military assaults that are so precise and so technically driven that relatively small concentrations of our troops can defeat an entire nation's organized army in days. But still, they are manipulated idiots, according to the popular theory. This is wrong. Even if you disagree with the president's decision to attack Iraq, or more wisely the implementation of our plan after military victory over the Iraqi army, this does not mean the troops doing the work are idiots. Most of them are not; many of them are quite smart; almost all of them are decent folk who understand that the concepts of freedom and justice must be secured on the ground if they are to be real.

For me the service of my father, my grandfather, even General Washington called me to serve too. I wanted to earn the right to be in the same class of people as these men. Money could come later, when the important things were done. I have never, ever regretted that choice.

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ORLANDO PATTERSON

Jamaican sociologist, Orlando Patterson, is often quoted because he has more moderate and realistic views on race and racism than is usual. And, as he is a black man, his views on that matter are not described as "racist" -- which they would be if a white man had uttered them.

Patterson is far from a paragon of wisdom, however. His latest article starts out by completely ignoring the well-attested importance of IQ, for instance. What he says in the article is that it does not matter whether people have racist attitudes in their minds as long as they treat everyone politely. It is a version of the "deeds, not words" dictum. I think he has a point but there is a hostile review of the article here. I myself would say that the important thing is for each of us to treat all others as individuals as far as possible -- because there is good and bad in all groups. I say more about that here.

An earlier article by Patterson is well worth reading, however. He does a pretty good job of demolishing the standard Leftist claims that black backwardness is due to "discrimination", "poverty" etc.

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ELSEWHERE

There is an article here that I find most moving. It catalogues the long history of American support for at first the idea and later the reality of a restored Israel -- a support dating back all the way to Plymouth rock. I have long thought that no real Christian could forsake Israel -- since our entire Bible was written by Israelis and we sing constantly about Jerusalem and the Holy City (etc.) in our hymns. Our entire religious culture and belief is from Israel. I am pleased to see that great numbers of American Christians have shared my view of that for over two centuries. I think you can imagine what in my view all that says about so-called Christians in other lands.

British Leftist antisemitism driving out Jews? "There is an ancient Jewish prayer that says: "Next year in Jerusalem." That, however, is not soon enough for 40 British Jews, who will board aircraft today taking them to Israel, leaving one country in the dying days of 2006 and beginning their new life in a new land and a new year: 5767 under the Jewish calendar. The migration of British Jews to Israel stands in marked contrast to the general decline in immigration to the Jewish state from elsewhere. While the number of immigrants to Israel dropped by 9 per cent worldwide in 2006, arrivals from Britain increased by 45 per cent, the largest rise of any nation."

A new Margaret Thatcher needed in Britain: ""Britons will have to pay ever higher proportions of tax for the rest of their working lives, the Government’s own figures revealed. Despite an unprecedented era of economic stability and growth, the burden of taxation is set to rise or stay constant in every decade for the coming 50 years, according to little-noticed forecasts published by the Treasury this month. The Government’s best estimate of the tax burden it will bequeath to future generations is printed in figures less than two millimetres in size and buried within an obscure document published alongside Gordon Brown’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR). Entitled Long-Term Public Finance Report: an Analysis of Fiscal Sustainability, it revealed that taxes as a proportion of national income will rise from 38.4 per cent this year to 40.5 per cent in 2026 and up to 41.6 per cent in 2056, if current policies are continued. Government spending is set to rise even faster, pushing the country’s finances deeper into the red with every successive decade from the 2030s onwards.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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27 December, 2006

ISLAM LEADS TO FAILURE

Excerpt from Daniel Pipes

The book that most shaped my understanding of modern Muslim life was Wilfred Cantwell Smith's Islam in Modern History (Princeton, 1957). To reduce Smith's nuanced thesis to a few sentences, he argues that Muslim military, economic, and cultural success in the premodern period created an expectation that God's people would be rewarded for their faith in mundane ways. That expectation left Muslims incapable of explaining what happened when, in modern times, they fell behind in those same arenas.....

This background comes to mind with the publication of two recent studies, in the United Kingdom and in India. Each of them makes my point in spades. Some highlights of the British report, as summarized by Reuters:

Based on data from the 2001 national census, the 162-page study paints a relatively bleak picture of life for Britain's 1.8 million Muslims, most of whom are ethnic Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. "Of the different religious groups, unemployment rates among Muslims were more than double those in other groups," it found. Some 17 percent of Muslim men and 18 percent of Muslim women were unemployed compared to just five percent of Christian men and four percent of Christian women. "Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African groups had low levels of participation in the labor market," the study found. "Their high unemployment rates suggest that even when active in the labor market they experienced difficulties finding employment."

A third of Muslims lived in households which, according to the census definition, were overcrowded, compared to just six percent of Britain's Christians. Some 44 percent of ethnic Bangladeshi and 26 percent of ethnic Pakistani households were deemed to be overcrowded, against an average for the country of seven percent. In a country of nearly 59 million where home ownership is widespread and regarded as a key measure of wealth, Muslims were less likely to own their own houses than followers of other faiths. Just over half of Muslim households owned their houses compared to a national average of nearly 70 percent.

The Indian report has not been released, only portions leaked. From a summary by the prime minister's office: The Muslim community is "lagging behind" in most areas: they are "relatively poor, more illiterate, has lower access to education, lower representation in public- and private-sector jobs and lower availability of bank credit for self-employment. In urban areas, the community mostly lives in slums characterized by poor municipal infrastructure." Some particulars, as presented by the New York Times:

in many states Muslims are significantly overrepresented in prison. In the western state of Maharashtra, for instance, Muslims make up 10.6 percent of the population but 32.4 percent of those convicted or facing trial. In the famed national bureaucracy, the Indian Administrative Service, Muslims made up only 2 percent of officers in 2006. Among district judges in 15 states surveyed, 2.7 percent were Muslim.

Educational disparities were among the most striking. Among Muslims, Mr. Shariff said, the literacy rate is about 59 percent, compared with more than 65 percent among Indians as a whole. On average, a Muslim child attends school for three years and four months, compared with a national average of four years. Less than 4 percent of Muslims graduate from school, compared with 6 percent of the total population. Less than 2 percent of the students at the elite Indian Institutes of Technology are Muslim. Equally revealing, only 4 percent of Muslim children attend madrasas, Mr. Shariff said.

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ELSEWHERE

Tony Blair versus Tony Blair: "On this page a few weeks ago, Tony Blair set out his case for the ID card scheme that his Government is preparing to foist upon the British people over the next eight years or so. This was, presumably, a different Tony Blair from the one whose thoughts I stumbled across at the weekend while digging out books for the local Christmas fair. New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country, published in 1996, was a collection of newspaper articles and speeches that encapsulated Mr Blair's Third Way political philosophy, the prospectus on which he would be elected to office the following year. On the cover, he said: "When we make a promise, we must be sure we can keep it. That is page one, line one of a new contract between the Government and the citizen." So what did he think of ID cards? The answer was on page 68: "Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local community." So much for Mr Blair's new contract."

Pathetic British Tories: "Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher are conspicuous by their absence in a list of 12 great Britons who created the institutions that shaped the country's history, compiled by the Conservatives and eminent historians. The ranking was prompted as part of the Tory party's review of the teaching of history in schools and comes after surveys showing that many children lack a basic knowledge of history."

Cyber cafes un-Islamic: "Using political violence between Hamas and Fatah as cover, radical Islamists are bombing internet cafes, pool halls and chemists in Gaza to impose their own brand of fundamentalism. Cybercafes have been singled out for allegedly allowing customers to download pornography. Chemists have been bombed for selling hallucinogens smuggled from Israel or through tunnels from Egypt, while pool halls are accused of encouraging immoral behaviour. A group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Righteousness is believed to have carried out more than a dozen attacks in recent weeks."

A good comment on why GWB is as he is: "Read this. The tenor of the story is that there's something wrong with President Bush because he won't publicly acknowledge that things aren't going well in Iraq. But wouldn't it be self-defeating for the leader of our country-its commander in chief-to gnash his teeth in public? His job is to lead and inspire. If he expressed ambivalence about the war, it would be lost in a heartbeat. For us to have any chance to win, he must remain firm and strong. Leftists say that he's being insincere, even duplicitous. They want him to pour his guts out, to admit to doubts, to wonder aloud whether he did the right thing by invading Iraq. In short, they want Jimmy Carter. Leftists don't understand leadership, perhaps because it's been so long since they had power. President Bush is doing what he believes right, and he was elected twice to lead this nation. Those who don't like his decisions or his leadership style can elect someone more to their liking in 2008.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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26 December, 2006

WALTER WILLIAMS ON RACIAL PROFILING

Racial profiling controversy is nothing new. For a number of years, black Americans have made charges of racial profiling by police and store personnel who might give them extra scrutiny. Clever phrases have emerged, such as "driving while black" and now "flying while Muslim," but they don't help much in terms of understanding. Let's apply some economic analysis to the issue.

God, or some other omniscient being, would never racially profile. Why? Since He is all-knowing, He'd know who is and is not a terrorist or a criminal. We humans are not all-knowing. While a god would have perfect and complete information about everything, we humans have less than perfect and incomplete information. That means we must use substitutes such as guesses and hunches for certain kinds of information. It turns out that some physical attributes are highly correlated with other attributes that are less easily, or more costly, observed.

Let's look at a few, and the associated "profiling," that cause little or no controversy. Mortality rates for cardiovascular diseases were approximately 30 percent higher among black adults than among white adults. The Pima Indians of Arizona have the world's highest known diabetes rates. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men. Would anyone bring racial profiling charges against a doctor who routinely ordered more frequent blood tests and prostate screening among his black patients and more glucose tolerance tests for his Pima Indian patients? Of course, God wouldn't have to do that because He'd know for sure which patient was more prone to cardiovascular disease, prostate cancer and diabetes.

It is clear, whether we like it or not, or want to say it or not, that there is a strong correlation between terrorist acts and being a Muslim, and being black and high rates of crime. That means if one is trying to deter terrorism and in some cases capture a criminal, he would expend greater investigatory resources on Muslims and blacks. A law-abiding Muslim who's given extra airport screening or a black who's stopped by the police is perfectly justified in being angry, but with whom should he be angry? I think a Muslim should be angry with those who've made terrorism and Muslim synonymous and blacks angry with those who've made blacks and crime synonymous. The latter is my response to the insulting sounds of car doors locking sometimes when I'm crossing a street in downtown Washington, D.C., or when taxi drivers pass me by.

It would be a serious misallocation of resources if airport security intensively screened everyone. After all, intensively screening someone who had a near zero probability of being a terrorist, such as an 80-year-old woman using a walker, would not only be a waste but it would take resources away from screening a person with a much higher probability of being a terrorist.

More here:

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ELSEWHERE



Global cooling! Midsummer snow in Australia: "Victorians dreaming of a white Christmas had their wish come true this morning, with snow falling in parts of the state. Early morning snow is reported to have fallen in the south-east suburbs at Keysborough, Dandenong North, Rowville and Kalorama in the Dandenongs. Snow also capped Victoria's Mt Buller, Lake Mountain and possibly Mt Baw Baw, where the temperature plunged to minus two degrees this morning. Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Ward Rooney said snow had or would fall to higher than about 900 metres above sea level today. [It proves nothing of course but Greenies claim that any unusual hot weather shows global warming so I am following suit]

Zimbabwe Food Crisis Worsens : "Ever since Zimbabwe's black racist dictator Robert Mugabe drove away productive white farmers, stole their land and gave it to his incompentent cronies and the equally incompentent land-invading thugs that called themselves "war veterans", Zimbabwe's economy has been collapsing... Now, the food crisis and therefore the general economic crisis has worsened further. At least one third of the population in this once food exporting country will require food aid from abroad to survive, while unemployment have reached 80% and inflation 600%. The latter number is rising rapidly as food prices rose 30% just during the latest week."

Toyota to trump GM: "Toyota is soon expected to overtake General Motors as the world's No. 1 car maker. The company said it expected to produce 9.42 million vehicles worldwide next year. That figure would give the Japanese car maker a clear lead over its US rival, which produced about 9.2 million vehicles this year but was struggling to deal with competition from Japanese and Korean vehicle manufacturers. GM has not released a production target for next year, but falling sales mean it is unlikely to build on this year's total. Toyota has dented GM's market share in North America with its range of fuel-efficient cars which appeal to drivers concerned about mileage and pollution. Interest in its hybrid cars, notably the Prius, has increased as a result of rising oil prices. Growing demand in North America has prompted Toyota to consider opening another plant there. [Congratulations to the UAW!]

More union stupidity: "Labor union problems in Denver are part of what forced the Democrats to delay their decision on which city will host their 2008 convention. The leader of Denver's Theatrical Stage Employees Union is refusing to sign a no-strike pledge. The head of the city's host committee says a lack of full union support is "probably a deal-breaker." Denver's City Council president says - "the irony is we are wanting to pay hundreds of union people and pay them union salaries, and we would think that's what they want."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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25 December, 2006

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

To all who come by here. And let us reflect thankfully on our Judeo-Christian heritage which mandated kindness and impartial justice (Exodus 23), among many other things.

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SOME ECONOMICS

If Trade Surpluses are So Great, the 1930s Should Have Been a Booming Decade: "The incessant fretting over the U.S. trade deficit is unwarranted. As I point out (probably too) often, the trade deficit, along with its broader cousin, the current-account deficit, are no cause for concern. Earlier today I visited the National Bureau of Economic Research's Macrohistory Database. I clicked on Chapter 7 and then looked at the value of U.S. imports and the value of U.S. exports for each of the 120 months during the 1930s. Turns out that for only 18 of the 120 months of that dreary decade did the United States run a trade deficit (that is, imported more, value-wise, than it exported). For each of the remaining 102 months of the decade of the 1930s the U.S. ran a trade surplus."

Farm subsidy stupidity: ""The very policies touted by Congress as a way to save small family farms are instead helping to accelerate their demise, economists, analysts and farmers say. That's because owners of large farms receive the largest share of government subsidies. They often use the money to acquire more land, pushing aside small and medium-size farms as well as young farmers starting out."

The corn is as high as the subsidy's aye: "The price of corn shot up during the last months of 2006. Corn sold for $2 per bushel at the beginning of 2006, and by the end of the year, the price had zoomed to $3.75. It's not that folks are eating more corn on the cob. The rising demand has come from the increased production of ethanol, the ethyl alcohol fuel made from corn. The higher corn price affects all uses of corn, so the cost of food will also be rising. Chicken, pork, and beef will become more expensive, as well as corn for eating by human beings. Stock up on canned corn while it is still relatively cheap. Corn is also made into a syrup that is used to sweeten food and drinks, so those prices will also be rising. So what about the ethanol? Will fuel made from corn reduce dependency on oil and reduce air pollution? Or is it a subsidy due to the political clout of corn farmers?"

More government follies: ""Politicians . . . have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from large farmers to conservation, nutrition, rural development and energy research. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, for example, favors programs that improve environmental practices on farms." [Why can't the government just get out of farming? The Soviets showed how wise about farming governments are]

Nike Ends Labor Contract with Supplier Over Child Labor Concerns: "By severing its contract with Saga, Nike is likely to score moral points with its customers in the West. But it's also likely, observers agree, to sink Saga, a corporate giant that makes about 6 million of Pakistan's annual production of 40-million soccer balls. Saga estimates that as many as 20,000 families could be affected, since 70 percent of the local market relies on them for work."

Bad politics at a minimum: "It's a cliche of politics that the name of a proposed bill or initiative depends largely on its name. (More on this later.) It's also a cliche now that free market advocates expecting Republicans to control the growth of government shows the triumph of hope over experience, but these days the Bush Administration doesn't seem to even pretend to fight. On Wednesday, the President announced that he would support a hike in the federal minimum wage ..."

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Brookes News Update

Will the US dollar collapse?: The US dollar is having a hard time of it. But why is this so? Why has the dollar been falling? The basic argument is that the trade deficit is unsustainable and is driving down the dollar. But this does not tell us what is driving the deficits
The Australian economy, falling productivity and recession: It's understandable that Howard should feel satisfaction with the current course of the Australian economy, particularly in the area of unemployment. Unfortunately he neglected to mention Australia's declining productivity. On this question the Government was sold a phony bill of goods
The Republican dilemma: No ideas: The Democrats and the media are lying to the public about social security. While they enjoy the benefits of personal accounts (Thrift Savings Plan) they have sabotaged attempts to deny the American public the benefits of the same savings scheme. Better to be poor and a Democrat than wealthy and independent
Australian Keynesianism, spending and inflation: Rightwing bloggers should learn that though mocking Keynesians is an easy task, actually refuting them is a very different matter
America: Muslims' Heaven on Earth: As an article of faith, Islam considers all non-Muslims, even the so-called People of the Book, as infidels - people who are to be subjugated or cleansed from Allah's earth
Black activists condemn Senator Leahy's promised judicial obstructionism: Senator Leahy criticized President Bush for his efforts to keep tabs on suspected terrorists, and threatened to frustrate the President's constitutional right to appoint federal judges
President Bush's tax cuts and the Democrats' economic illiteracy: Filthy rich Democrats like Pelosi, Kerry and Kennedy need to explain why tax cuts that promote capital formation and raise real wages and living standards manage to benefit only the rich

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ELSEWHERE

Brazil's Mussolini: "Brazil's air force said it will use eight of its passenger jets to fly civilians on domestic routes, responding to a presidential order to aid holiday passengers stranded by overbooked and cancelled flights. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the air force to "make all means of aerial transport available" on an emergency basis to complement commercial flights as long delays and overcrowded flights snarled holiday travel across Latin America's largest country. The Air Force Command said in a statement that it would make two Boeing 707s, two Boeing 737s and four Embraer EMB-145s available for flights between Brasilia, the nation's capital, and the country's two largest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The Air Force's expenses will be paid for by commercial airlines, which have been dogged by mechanical problems, bad weather and a protest by air-traffic controllers, resulting in nightmares for travelers at the country's airports. Ticket sales by the nation's biggest airline, TAM Linhas Aereas SA, were halted today until the long delays and overcrowded flights are brought under control, aviation officials said. The suspension of sales by TAM airlines will remain in effect "until the effective departure of all the passengers on each flight," the National Agency of Civil Aviation, or ANAC, said in a statement"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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24 December, 2006

THE NEOCONS ARE THE DECENT LEFTISTS

Now that neocons are being slow-roasted in effigy all over the world, this may be the right time to ask the question: Why isn't the whole Left neoconservative? Remember that neocons like Norman Podhoretz and Daniel P. Moynihan were former left-wingers who saw the light --- which only seems like common sense, after witnessing Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims (Dad and Junior), and the whole mass-murdering gang of cutthroats. After the Soviet Union crashed and no one could possibly ignore the bloody mess the Left kept making over seventy long years. So why didn't all the decent Leftists just read their Milton Friedman and grow up?

That's what the so-called neocons did, and more power to them. I take it as obvious that they were correct and morally decent, in learning to see how wrong they had been. They grew up. My question is: What happened to all the others? Or to ask it a different way: Why is it that in Britain, of all countries, a BBC4 survey showed that the greatest philosopher of all time is considered to be ... Karl Marx? A hate-filled parasitical scribbler who spent his life in the British Museum, stoking the fires that killed 100 million people in the 20th century? What is wrong with British education that the plain facts do not shout out for themselves?

The fact that the Left never, ever learns gives the lie to all its high-falutin' claims of "idealism," "progressivism," and superior morality. There is one and only one reason the Left isn't blamed for its misdeeds: It still controls the organs of propaganda, following der Uebermenschlicher Karl. Thus some 90 percent of our media functionairies are left wingers. A predominant percentage of professors and teachers are, too.

To hold on to their beliefs leftists must shut down any competing ideas, which is precisely what they do. Just take your favorite leftist friends, and tell them some obvious fact they don't want to hear. You can see it working right in front of your eyes: They just won't hear it. Like the stone idols of the Bible, they have eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear. (Ps. 115) As long as they control the dominant media, our society will keep teetering at the brink of destruction.... Such mental fixedness is utterly irrational. A psychiatrist would have to ask whether the people who keep peddling the same toxins over and over again are themselves deeply malevolent and destructive: Whether unconsciously they really want to murder their societies. Why else would they keep pushing toward chaos?

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Why won't Jimmy the hater debate his book?: "You can always tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Carter's book has been condemned as 'moronic' (Slate), 'anti-historical' (The Washington Post), 'laughable' (San Francisco Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and not by 'representatives of Jewish organizations' as Carter has claimed. Carter has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's 'persecution' of Palestinians was '[e]ven worse ... than a place like Rwanda,' Carter answered, 'Yes. I think -- yes.'"

Iranian students hide in fear for lives: "Iranian student activists who staged an angry protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week have gone into hiding in fear for their lives after his supporters threatened them with revenge. One student fled after being photographed holding a banner reading, "Fascist president, the polytechnic is not for you", during Ahmadinejad's visit to Tehran's Amir Kabir university. At least three others have gone underground after being seen burning his picture. Vigilantes from the militant Ansar-e Hezbollah group have been searching for them. In a startling contrast to the acclaim Ahmadinejad has received in numerous recent appearances around Iran, he faced chants of "Death to the dictator" as he addressed a gathering in the university's sports hall last week"

Spain in trouble: "Mujahedin fighters have returned to bases in Spain after gaining combat experience in Iraq and are now a potential threat to European security, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday. According to El Pais the fighters worked alongside cells controlled by late Al Qaeda senior leader and Jordanian extremist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, killed in June. `They are the new Trojan horse of Al Qaeda and its satellites on our territory and they are already preparing themselves,' deputy director of the European police network Europol, Mariano Simancas, told El Pais."

How defectors cope in South Korea: "North Korea is an enigma to most of the world -- but not to its defectors. Those who left, including the elite who helped lead the country, provide a picture of the secretive, crumbling regime -- whose nuclear bomb test in the fall alarmed the world again. They have little faith that talks with the North will do any good. '[North Korea] blames everything on America, and says that America has nuclear weapons and so do we,' said Jang Guk Cheol, a military officer who defected in 1999. 'They're so proud.' Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, more than 9,000 defectors have made the arduous journey to South Korea by boat, on foot, by plane, through China and Southeast Asia. Only a handful arrived each year, until the mid-1990s when numbers surged amid a long, devastating famine. Nine North Korean refugees arrived in the United States in the last year, and more are expected, U.S. officials said."

A realist on drugs: "A former US policeman and undercover drug agent has appalled narcotics officials by introducing a Christmas video for drug users on how to avoid arrest and fool the police. Barry Cooper, who is described by former colleagues as perhaps the best drug- enforcement officer in America, will next week begin marketing Never Get Busted Again, which will show viewers how to "conceal their stash, avoid narcotics profiling and fool canines every time". Mr Cooper, who supports the legalisation of marijuana, made the video because he believes that the fight against drugs in America is a waste of money. The convictions of marijuana users fills prisons with non- violent offenders, he says.... Mr Cooper argues that murderers, child molesters and rapists often receive shorter jail terms than drug users. "The trillions of dollars we're spending in our war on drugs should be used to protect our children," he said. "Our children are being molested every day and everyone knows we have lost the war on drugs."

Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts: "A company that helps advertisers connect with bloggers willing to write about their products for payment will now require disclosures amid criticism and a regulatory threat. Before this week, advertisers were barred by PayPerPost Inc. from telling bloggers they can't disclose the sponsorship, but bloggers were able to decide on their own whether or not to do so. Under the new policy, bloggers must disclose that they are accepting payment, either in the write-up or in a general disclosure policy on the blogger's Web journal."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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23 December, 2006

BBC PROPAGANDA

The BBC is leading this morning with the ridiculous Chatham House paper on Blair's Foreign Policy record. Who are these people? The author of the document (all five-and-a-half pages of it) is Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, who had a background in Latin American politics before taking over at the RIIA [Royal Institute of International Affairs or "Chatham House"]. It's an astonishingly thin, intellectually hazy, and lazy piece of work. He writes that:

"Tony Blair's successor(s) will not be able to offer unconditional support for US initiatives in foreign policy and a rebalancing of the UK's foreign policy between the US and Europe will have to take place."

And that's as detailed as the argument gets - basically an assertion of the random political preferences of Prof. Bulmer-Thomas. Margaret Beckett has hit the nail on the head with her response: "This paper is threadbare, insubstantial and just plain wrong. Chatham House has established a great reputation over the years, but this paper will do nothing to enhance it."

So why does this ludicrous piece of junk get on the top of the news? It coincides exactly with the BBC world-view: Blair's a poodle, Bush is an ape, we should bin the yanks and "get deeper into Europe" in some unspecified way. Quite apart from the headline message, the paper is a frustrating read. For example there is a throwaway line about how "The emphasis on aid and debt relief for Africa in return for an improvement in governance may come to look strangely old-fashioned." What does this mean? We are not told.

The sniffy tone doesn't help either: "Tony Blair has learnt the hard way that loyalty in international politics counts for very little." That sort of stuff obviously does it for the BBC in a big way, but it doesn't leave any of us any the wiser about how the RIIA think we should run our foreign policy. The only good thing about the report is that it's a good distillation of the intellectual incoherence / fantasy politics at the heart of the pro-euro movement.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

U.K.: Leftist policies bad for employment: "More young people are out of work now than when Labour won power in 1997 by promising to cut youth unemployment, official figures obtained by The Times reveal. There are now 37,000 more unemployed people aged 16 to 24 than in May 1997, with the total rising from 665,000 to 702,000, according to the Office for National Statistics. The unemployment rate has risen to 14.5 per cent among young people, overtaking the 14.4 per cent rate Labour inherited from the Conservative Government. The figures are acutely embarrassing for the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who in 1997 described the youth unemployment he inherited as a "human tragedy", "sickening" and "an economic disaster". Tackling youth unemployment has been one of Labour's priorities, and the target of billions of pounds of public spending on schemes, including the New Deal for the young unemployed. The rise is particularly startling since it has occurred despite ten years of sustained economic growth and the creation of more than two million jobs."

British army recruitment solid too: "Recruitment to the Army has jumped 16 per cent over the past 12 months, indicating that the casualty tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan have not put off teenagers from considering a career on the front line. Defence sources said that the reasons for the rise were complex, but that it was clear that the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had provided an incentive for many young men and women to join up because of the excitement involved."

Crime a career for young British blacks: "Young men in deprived urban communities see crime as a better career opportunity than the legitimate labour market, ministers have been warned. Dealing drugs and committing other crimes gives those with little education an opportunity to overcome deprivation and gain wealth and status in their neighbourhoods. A report on gun crime commissioned by the Home Office warns: "Dealing in illegal drugs appears to significantly underpin the criminal economy in many locations and seems to be instrumental in legitimising crime as a career option for some individuals. "There are many indications that drug-dealing and other criminality are `out-competing' the legitimate labour market. "For individuals whose employment prospects are limited by a lack of qualifications, and an existing criminal record, a criminal lifestyle can be seen as an attractive proposition."



Charming British illegals: "Three members of an armed teenage gang who killed a woman as she cradled a baby at a christening party were illegal immigrants with a string of convictions. Diamond Babamuboni, 17, and his brother Timy, 15, were under supervision orders when Zainab Kalokoh was shot in the head. Jude Odigie, 16, had been given a conditional discharge. They were convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey yesterday. A 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of murder. All four face long prison sentences. The conviction of the Babamuboni brothers and Odigie, all from Nigeria, raises questions about the Home Office's immigration service and the criteria for deportation. The trio could be sent home after serving their sentences, but John Reid, the Home Secretary, is certain to be asked why this had not already happened."

Black Activists Criticize Use of Taxpayer Funds to Buy New NAACP Headquarters: "Members of the black leadership network Project 21 are critical of the District of Columbia City Council's vote to give the NAACP $3.5 million in taxpayer money to relocate the NAACP's headquarters from Baltimore to the nation's capitol. The NAACP is not a revenue-generating industry and does not pay the full range of DC taxes due to its nonprofit status, Project 21 members say, and also point out that the economic revitalization cited by proponents may actually hurt poor black Washingtonians. "Given the District's precarious financial state and its trouble with education and transportation budgets, it's outrageous to use taxpayer money to subsidize the NAACP's relocation,"

Immunity may not protect Duke prosecutor: "Michael Nifong, the prosecutor handling the Duke lacrosse rape case, may single-handedly cause a reconsideration of 'absolute prosecutorial immunity,' the legal doctrine by which certain acts of a prosecuting attorney are literally immune from lawsuits or criminal charges. The doctrine is intended to protect prosecutors from frivolous and retaliatory actions. District Attorney Nifong's crusade to convict three white Duke students of raping a black woman (race is a key factor in the case) has been so outrageous, however, that it reveals how the immunity invites and rewards abuse. Is Nifong absolutely immune for his bad acts, even intentional ones?"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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22 December, 2006

Does the study of economics tend to make people conservative?

Greg Mankiw comments:

I believe the answer is, to some degree, yes. My experience is that many students find that their views become somewhat more conservative after studying economics. There are at least three, related reasons.

First, in some cases, students start off with utopian views of public policy, where a benevolent government can fix all problems. One of the first lessons of economics is that life is full of tradeoffs. That insight, completely absorbed, makes many utopian visions less attractive. Once you recognize, for example, that there is a tradeoff between equality and efficiency, as economist Arthur Okun famously noted, many public policy decisions become harder.

Second, some of the striking insights of economics make one more respectful of the market as a mechanism for coordinating a society. Because market participants are motivated by self-interest, a person might naturally be suspect of market-based societies. But after learning about the gains from trade, the invisible hand, and the efficiency of market equilibrium, one starts to approach the market with a degree of admiration and, indeed, awe.

Third, the study of actual public policy makes students recognize that political reality often deviates from their idealistic hopes. Much income redistribution, for example, is aimed not toward the needy but toward those with political clout. This Dave Barry column, which is reprinted in Chapter 22 of my favorite economics textbook, describes a good example.

For these three reasons, many students in introductory economics courses become more conservative--or, to be precise, more classically liberal--than they began. Nonetheless, studying economics does not by itself determine one's political ideology. I know good economists who are distinctly right of center and good economists who are distinctly left of center. In my department at Harvard, I would guess that Democrats outnumber Republicans among the faculty (although there is surely more political balance in the economics department than in most other departments at the university).

Source

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The Hispanic underclass

Many of the police and youth workers blame the increase in gang appeal on the disintegration of the Hispanic family unit . . . and it's worsening by the day - especially for U.S.-born Hispanics. Fifty years ago, 70 percent of the children of U.S.-born Hispanic parents lived in an intact family. By 1999 that number had dropped to 56 percent. The percentage of Hispanic children living with a single mother rose from 18 percent to 35 percent. Single parent households constituted 25 percent of all Hispanic households with minor children in the 1970s. By 2005 the proportion had jumped to 37 percent.

Teen parenthood - the marker of underclass behavior - has affected the crime and gang rate. In 2002 there were 83.4 births per 1,000 Hispanic females between ages 15 and 19. Today the figures are out of sight. Hispanic mothers have higher birth rates, and here in California, most newborns are of Hispanic origin. Parenthood is all but forgotten with teen youngsters giving birth while they are little more than children. Many of these teenage Hispanic girls are having four, five, and even six babies by their mid-20s. Many of the fathers simply disappear. And 80 percent of teen births to Latinas in 1999 were to unmarried girls.

The crime rates are soaring and these young Spanish offspring drop out of school and resort to gang activities. And, tragically, many of these young Hispanics are unable to communicate in either Spanish or the English language. Impoverished youth become lethargic and obese with little or no drive and end up on the streets, and the easy way out for them is criminality. Much to our dismay, with teen pregnancies out of control and the crime and gang rate running rampant, we have developed a complete third world underclass America - a ghettoized Hispanic subgroup in terms of welfare use and out-of-wedlock child-rearing.

More here

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ELSEWHERE



There is an amusing dismissal of blogs by an orthodox newspaperman here -- who sounds like he read three blogs two years ago and now thinks he knows all about them. His generalizations are wild and one in particular is most amusing. He accuses blogs of "leaving underexamined more fundamental issues, say, Iraq". Iraq underexamined! Never have so many written so much as bloggers have written about Iraq! Maybe our dyspeptic newspaperman has just been dumped by his girlfriend. That would both explain and be consonant with his sourness about the world. Another indication of his systemic sourness is that his judgment of his own MSM is that it "is not wholly imperfect". Poor man!

There is a superb example of arrogant Leftist ignorance here -- a video of a protest by charity group Oxfam against the Starbucks coffee chain. Their basic point seems to be that the third world-farmers who grow the coffee beans get only a tiny percentage of the final price of a cup of coffee. But ALL farmers get only a small percentage of the price of the final product. What percentage of the price of a loaf of bread do these ignoramuses think American or Australian wheat farmers get? I am sure the boneheaded "protesters" have never even asked that question. The final price of ANY product is built up mainly by transport costs and processing costs. Do the boneheads think the Starbucks waiters work for nothing? THAT is the main factor in Starbucks' costs. And no doubt landlords give Starbucks use of their expensive central city premises for nothing too!

Flushing Congress from the toilet industry: ""Every time I have to flush a toilet twice, I think of Congress. No, I'm not crazy. It's actually Congress's fault. Well, I may be crazy, but in this case my point is: it really is the fault of our legislative wonders in Washington. After so many decades of we citizens taking our toilets for granted, well, Congress wandered into the toilet regulation business. And now I'm buying plungers."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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21 December, 2006

YOUR CHRISTMAS CARD

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!



This is your Christmas card from me. Since I started blogging, I have received a huge number of emails -- nine out of 10 of which were encouraging. For a long time I kept a file of the email addresses of those who wrote positive things to me and used it to send out a Christmas greeting at this time of the year. This year, however, with 10 blogs to post to daily (and membership of some group blogs as well!) I was too snowed-under to keep my file of addresses up to date. So I hope all those who have been supportive towards me will be reading this.

I have no connection with the lady above but she did look pretty Christmassy to me. Definitely better than Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer.

Christmas cards often include a Christmas letter detailing all the news of the year about the sender. My version of that is here.

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THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IS MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN YOU MIGHT BE AWARE OF

This time of the year is an appropriate one to reflect on the Christian message so regard the comments below as the inside message of your Christmas card:

Although I am an atheist, I grew up steeped in the New Testament so reading the Bible is for me like visiting an old friend. I do not however know the Old Testament as well as I should so I recently read right through the Book of Deuteronomy. Its main theme is avoidance of false gods and when I think of the many false Gods around today -- socialism, global warming, anti-"obesity" etc. -- it is clear that people have not changed much and we do still need to be alert against false gods.

Another prominent theme in Deuteronomy however is what some might call "Christian" charity. There are frequent instructions to be kind, forgiving and generous to the poor. The compassion and concern for the outcast shown by Jesus was very Jewish.

But giving the poor your OWN goods is very different from giving the poor OTHER people's goods, which is what the Leftist wants to do and which would once have been called robbery.

And the Torah does make clear that abstract justice is an absolute -- a duty. Where PUBLIC matters are concerned (as distinct from deeds in private life), you are NOT allowed to favour the poor. Exodus 23:3 is clearest about that. The NIV probably gives the most accurate interpretation of the text. It says: "Do not show favouritism to a poor man in his lawsuit". So, just because a man is poor, the law is not allowed to be biased in his favour. Moses was clearly not a Leftist.

I probably should leave it at that but the pedant in me causes me to note further that the Hebrew word rendered as "lawsuit" above has a rather broader application than that in the original. The KJ renders it as "cause" and it could refer to any controversy. So again we see that special favour towards the poor in any public way is OUT. Private charity is the proper response to the poor.

Being a bit of a language freak, I wrote about the interpretation of Exodus 23:3 to David Boxenhorn, an Israeli who often blogs about the interpretion of Hebrew and the Hebrew scriptures. I received his comments after I had written the above and his comments would seem to broaden even my interpretation. He wrote (inter alia):

"That quote refers to favoring the poor in court, one of many possible dangers to justice cited in the Bible - see previous and following passages. Not distorting judgment is a major theme of the Bible....

But the word translated as "poor" - dal - is probably better translated as "weak", the usual Biblical word for poor is evyon, as you see three verses down in 23:6. Also, the word translated as "cause" - riv - is more simply translated as "argument", and the word "favor" - tehdar - I might translate as "make more wonderful or enhance". So I might translate the passage as: "and you will not enhance [the testimony] of the weak, in an argument"

So it is the disadvantaged generally that the passage applies to and it is arguments generally that the passage applies to. So you are not allowed to glorify the disadvantaged beyond what reality shows -- no absurd accounts of the glories of African history, for instance. Truth is paramount -- not the distorted and selective truth that is the stock in trade of the Left (Noam Chomsky take a bow).

You can see the original Hebrew (with accompanying translation) here.

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ELSEWHERE

Public statement by Melbourne orthodox Jews: "The Adass Israel Congregation, a community founded by Holocaust-survivors, joins worldwide Jewry in publicly denouncing the nefarious and totally irresponsible handful of Jewish charlatans, who attended the recent "Holocaust-denial" conference of Jew-haters in Teheran. These individuals who have been depicted in local and international media embracing fanatical anti-Semites bring shame and pain to our people. We hereby reiterate and declare that Charedi/Chassidic/Orthodox Jews everywhere are disgusted and repelled by the treacherous and contemptible conduct of this deranged and reviled group of misfits and Mechallelei Hashem [desecraters of G-d's Name], who in their boundless and obsessive craving for publicity habitually raise their ugly heads and besmirch the reputation and honour of all observant Jews. We join communities the world over in denouncing them and fully endorse and applaud the severe sanctions and sharp condemnations that have been issued by every single major Charedi community in Jerusalem, New York, Antwerp, London and Manchester."

Stupid British "security" again: "The circumstances surrounding the murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky would be disturbing at the best of times. She was shot by a gang whose members (foreign nationals) had extensive criminal records; they were considered for deportation but were allowed to stay in Britain because their homeland - Somalia - was determined to be too dangerous a place to which to send them back. If no other information about this killing had surfaced, questions would and should have been asked about the balance to be struck between law and order and deportation. Yet, as we report today, matters are worse than they appear. One of those who was wanted for this murder - Mustaf Jama - is believed to have fled Britain in the days after the shooting, disguising himself as a veiled woman. His brother was one of five other men left to be tried and convicted of murder or manslaughter. Jama was able to sneak on to an international flight at Heathrow dressed in a niqab despite extensive publicity about this murder. His photograph had been circulated to every police force, port and airport in the country. Had he been asked to reveal his face he would have been detected in a moment. He is instead now believed to be at liberty in a region of Somalia where his family wields much influence - the very same Somalia that had been too dangerous for these criminals. This shocking affair reveals fundamental lapses in what should surely be considered elementary security measures."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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20 December, 2006

Charles Murray on Immigration

Some succinct thoughts from a scholar who is not afraid to call a spade a spade

Regarding illegal immigration:

1. Making laws about who gets to become a citizen, under what circumstances, is a legitimate function of the state.

2. Protecting borders is a legitimate function of the state.

3. Enforcing the law is a central function of the state.

4. Immigration reform must begin first with enforcement of existing immigration law. If it takes a wall, so be it.

5. And while I'm at it, I'll mention that English should be the only language in which public school classes are taught (except for teaching English as a foreign language) and in which the public's business is conducted.

Regarding legal immigration:

1. Immigration is one of the main reasons-I'm guessing the main reason apart from our constitution-that we have remained a vital, dynamic culture, but immigration of a particular sort: Self-selection whereby people come here for opportunity. That self-selection process used to apply to everyone. It still applies to the engineers and computer programmers and entrepreneurs who come here from abroad, but it is diluted for low-job-skill workers by the many economic benefits of just being in the United States. Most low-job-skill immigrants work very hard. But Milton Friedman was right: You can't have both open immigration and a welfare state. The tension between the two is inescapable.

2. Massive immigration of legal low-skill workers is problematic for many reasons, and some of them have to do with human capital. Yes, mean IQ does vary by ethnic group, and IQ tends to be below average in low-job-skill populations. One can grant all the ways in which smart people coming from Latin American or African countries are low-job-skill because they have been deprived of opportunity, and still be forced to accept the statistical tendencies. The empirical record established by scholars such as George Borjas at Harvard cannot be wished away.

3. I am not impressed by worries about losing America's Anglo-European identity. Some of the most American people I know are immigrants from other parts of the world. And I'd a hell of a lot rather live in a Little Vietnam or a Little Guatemala neighborhood, even if I couldn't read the store signs, than in many white-bread communities I can think of.

4. When it comes to the nitty-gritty, I would get rid of reuniting-families provisions, get rid of the you're-a-citizen-if-you're-born-here rule, and make immigrants ineligible for all benefits and social services except public education for their children. Everybody who immigrates has to be on a citizenship track (no guest workers). And I would endorse a literacy requirement. Having those measures in place, my other criteria for getting permission to immigrate would be fairly loose. Just having to get through the bureaucratic hoops will go a long way toward reinstalling a useful self-selection process. But, to go back to basics: None of this works unless illegal immigration is effectively ended.

Source

Although I am extremely glad of my Anglo-Celtic heritage, I am inclined to agree with point 3 immediately above. I certainly feel safer in a roomful of Chinese or Indians than I do in a roomful of my fellow Anglo-Australians. Most Asians just seem more civilized

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ELSEWHERE

Pentecostals flourishing in Britain: "Pentecostals are the fastest-growing group of Christians. Attendance at their services has moved into third place behind Anglicans and Roman Catholics in England, according to research published today. Once regarded as a fringe sector, they outnumber Methodists, although it is not strictly fair to compare the two. Methodists belong to one church while Pentecostals tend to gather in independent churches or groups of churches.... Figures show that worshippers in half of the Pentecostal churches in England are predominantly black. In addition, half of all Pentecostal churches in Britain are in London. But many evangelical, predominantly white churches also have Pentecostal elements to their worship, in particular prophecy and speaking in tongues. The Methodist Church closed 264 churches between 1998 and 2005, more than any other denomination, as attendance declined by a quarter. By contrast, Pentecostal numbers grew by a third and many new churches have opened"

Chavez and the fascist left in Latin America: "To many the bumptious Chavez, who ceaselessly spouts phrases from Fidel, Mao Zedong and Simon Bolivar, seems something special, but mostly he is just a typical big-mouthed caudillo of the sort that has for centuries enthused and betrayed Latins who want solutions to perennial problems. He is different from most caudillos in his international orientation and the fact that his arrogance is funded by multi-billions of dollars pouring in from oil sales to energy addicts worldwide, much of which he passes out to supporters at home and abroad."

India rising: "As its relationships with the United States, Japan, and China show, India has reemerged as a geopolitical swing state after decades of marginalization as a consequence of the Cold War, its own crippling underdevelopment, and regional conflict in South Asia. Although its status as a heavyweight in the globalized world of the 21st century is new, India's identity as a great power is not: It was for centuries one of the world's largest economies and, under British rule, a preeminent power in Asia. Today, a rising India flush with self-confidence from its growing prosperity is determined not to be left behind by China's economic and military ascent. 'The [Indian] elephant,' says an admiring Japanese official, 'is about to gallop.'"

When do Democrats cut tax? When it affects them: "Already called into question is the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, which was designed 35 years ago to make sure wealthy people could not use loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Since then, the AMT, which was not indexed to keep up with inflation, has bumped up against the incomes of about 20 million American taxpayers and the number affected by the tax is growing each year. "AMT is certainly a priority," said Beck. "If we don't do anything next year it will hit 23 million families." While lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that the AMT is unfair to middle income wage earners, the big price tag -- an estimated $1.3 trillion in lost revenues over the next 10 years -- has made the issue of tossing the tax more complicated. So far, Congress has responded by doing annual fixes -- extending exemption levels to reduce the number of people who have to pay AMT. The latest exemptions are set to expire at the end of the current tax year... "Politically, the Democrats cannot let [AMT] get out of control," said Mike Franc, congressional expert with the Heritage Foundation. "It is mostly an exclusively blue state tax. Like it or not, this has the potential to crowd out the rest of the agenda." One Democratic aide who did not want to be named, said Democrats are determined to reform the AMT as an early priority.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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19 December, 2006

Jim Flynn gets one thing right

It always seemed obvious that the 20th century rise in measured IQ was due to a reduction in environmental barriers (such as minor brain damage due to poor obstetric procedures) to the realization of full genetic potential. The interesting and unresolved question has always been which were the main environmental barriers. That IQ has now largely stopped rising (in statistical terms: "approached an asymptote") confirms the defining role of genetics. Jim Flynn has all sorts of his usual Leftist waffle about what the implications of the asymptote are but appears not to have mentioned the genetic elephant in the bedroom. Excerpts below from "The Times":

It is a common refrain, repeated in response to every new television reality show and every bumper crop of school exam results: society is dumbing down. Scientists have long argued the opposite, pointing to the now widely accepted "Flynn effect", which shows that over the past century average IQ scores have improved across the developed world, irrespective of class or creed. Now the man who first observed this effect, the psychologist James Flynn, has made another observation: intelligence test scores have stopped rising.

Far from indicating that now we really are getting dumber, this may suggest that certain of our cognitive functions have reached - or nearly reached - the upper limits of what they will ever achieve, Professor Flynn believes. In other words, we can't get much better at the mental tasks we are good at, no matter how hard we try....

In a lecture in Cambridge yesterday, he said that the study of intelligence has for too long been asking the wrong question: "The questions are not `Are we getting smarter?' and `Are our children really smarter than we are?' If the rise in IQ scores meant that we were smarter, that would mean our grandparents were dull and our great grandparents idiots, which is clearly not the case. The question should be, `Have certain cognitive skills risen?' And the answer to that is yes."

What accounts for our rise in intelligence test scores, Professor Flynn believes, is social and environmental changes that have given us the opportunity to exercise the kinds of skills that IQ tests measure. We increasingly fill leisure time with cognitively demanding pastimes, such as puzzles and computer games. We have also developed a more scientific way of viewing the world. "In 1900 if you'd asked a child what do a dog and a rabbit have in common, they might have replied with a concrete answer like, `Dogs are used to hunt rabbits'. Today a child would be more likely to say, `They're both mammals'. We classify things scientifically."...

Professor Flynn believes there is no reason to believe IQ gains will go on for ever. He points out that although gains are still robust in America, they have stopped in Scandinavia. "Perhaps their societies are more advanced than ours and their trends will become our trends," he told his audience at the Cambridge Assessment Psychometrics Centre.

More here

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A REALISTIC IRAQ WINNING PLAN TO BE ADOPTED?

There would be nothing as realistic as partitioning Iraq into three separate States for the three separate ethnic groups but partition of any State appears to be the great no-no of modern politics -- as the unfortunate Ibos of Nigeria found out some decades ago. Czechoslovakia shows that it can successfully be done, however.

Last Monday Bush was, at last, briefed on an actual plan for victory in Iraq, one that is likely to be implemented. Retired general Jack Keane, the former vice-chief of staff of the army, gave him a thumbnail sketch of it during a meeting of five outside experts at the White House. The President's reaction, according to a senior adviser, was very positive. Authored by Keane and military expert Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, the plan (which can be read at aei.org/publication25292) is well thought out and detailed, but fundamentally quite simple.

It is based on the idea - all but indisputable at this point - that no political solution is possible in Iraq until security is established, starting in Baghdad. The reverse - a bid to forge reconciliation between majority Shia and minority Sunni - is a non-starter in a political environment drenched in the blood of sectarian killings.

Why would the Keane-Kagan plan succeed where earlier efforts failed? It envisions a temporary addition of 50,000 troops on the ground in Iraq. The initial mission would be to secure and hold the mixed Baghdad neighbourhoods of Shia and Sunni residents where most of the violence occurs. Earlier efforts had cleared many of those sections of the city without holding them. After which the mass killings resumed.

Once neighbourhoods are cleared, US and Iraqi troops in this plan would remain behind, living day to day among the population. Local government leaders would receive protection and rewards if they stepped in to provide basic services. Safe from retaliation by terrorists, residents would begin to co-operate with the Iraqi Government. The securing of Baghdad would be followed by a full-scale drive to pacify the Sunni-majority Anbar province.

The truth is that not all of Iraq needs to be addressed by an increased US presence. Most of southern Iraq and all of the Kurdish north are close to being free of sectarian violence. It's Baghdad that has become the centre of gravity for the insurgency, according to Keane. And it could be brought under control by the end of 2007.

The Keane-Kagan plan is not revolutionary. Rather, it is an application of a counterinsurgency approach that has proved to be effective elsewhere, notably in Vietnam. There, Creighton Abrams cleared out the Viet Cong so successfully that the South Vietnamese government took control of the country. Only when Congress cut off funds to South Vietnam in 1974 were the North Vietnamese able to win.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Obama sagging: "The hottest potential contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, has been drawn into his first scandal, coming under scrutiny for links to a shady businessman over the purchase of his $US1.65million ($2.1 million) family home in Chicago. After winning extraordinary adulation, the Illinois senator's honeymoon period is coming to an end. Senator Obama, a relative political novice, is being mocked for his middle name, Hussein - "like the dictator", as a member of his staff helpfully put it - and pilloried as Odumbo the elephant because of his jug ears. The public is beginning to learn that the charismatic senator took drugs, including cocaine, as a young man and that he still smokes cigarettes. And his left-wing voting record in the Senate is being picked over" [If he is typical of blacks, there will be plenty of lawbreaking to be found in his background].

Real Christians desert the Church of Homosexuality: "Two of the most prominent Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly yesterday to leave the Episcopal Church and join fellow Anglican conservatives to form a rival denomination in the United States. Truro Church, in Fairfax, and The Falls Church, in the city of Falls Church, plan to place themselves under the leadership of the Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola, of Nigeria, who has called the acceptance of gay relationships a "satanic attack" on the Church. Martyn Minns, Truro rector, was consecrated a bishop by the Church of Nigeria this year to lead Archbishop Akinola's Convocation of Anglicans in North America. "This has been our spiritual home, so separating is very hard," he said... Four other Virginia parishes have left, and eight more are voting or will vote soon on whether to follow."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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18 December, 2006

Killers! Not "Senior Hamas Intelligence officers"!

Arlene Peck calls a spade a spade:

I usually avoid the L. A. Times like the plague, mainly because I find them to be as favourable to the Jews and Israel as Mel Gibson and Jimmy Carter. However, needing something to wrap the trash recently, I came across a recent glaring front page banner which got my attention. "Killings Put Gaza on Edge" (Frankly I was hoping for "Gaza to be put on the Edge of a Cliff". The lead line said, "The gunning down of a Palestinian official's sons inflames tensions between rival factions." The latest 'incident' from a very long line, brought to us almost daily by these barbaric savages, means Hamas and Fatah are at it again.

Wow! Do you think the security fence our anti-Semitic "former President" Carter described as being part of the "apartheid" of these poor downtrodden Palestinians, (all Israel's fault, of course), was the cause? They weren't able to cross over into Israel proper and so now are killing their own, because they can't reach the Jews as easily anymore? Besides, killing for the sake of killing is just part of the Arab mindset.!

Relax everyone! This latest rampage through the streets of Gaza is only one more of their daily OK Coral-style shoot-out rituals in the middle of the snake pit called Gaza, referred to by our state Dept. and President Bush as the homeland of the Palestinian. We all know there will be more to come; it's what Muslims do!

Actually, what I would really like to see now are more photo-ops of Carter, except this time showing him signing his book in downtown Gaza bookstores. Oh! wait, I forgot... this bunch doesn't read anything but the Koran and the idea of a bookshop, where people could possibly learn how to improve their lives, is laughable, given they can't yet build a Hospital or control their sewage.

Don't you find it is ever so cute when these flesh-eaters and body mutilators of bodies are referred to in media reports as "Senior Palestinian intelligence officers?" What is a person to think; that this is an acceptable face of Government? Perhaps to post-modernist leftist, culture-haters, it is. Never seems to matter either if they are the ones who are riddling cars and nearby children with bullets or are the ones being riddled. It's what Muslims do, and we have grown so used to it, it passes for normal. Even the weekly be-headings barely get a response. No, the new-speak is to always refer to them, as does the LA Times, as "Senior Palestinian intelligence officers." Or, to lovingly refer to them in their preferred term, "freedom fighters.! Just don't tell the truth. Might upset someone.

More here

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Why they deny the Holocaust: On top of nearly constant anti-Semitic propaganda, much of the Muslim world hasn't even heard of it.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant who served in the parliament of the Netherlands until earlier this year

One day 1994, when I was living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit from my half-sister. She and I were both immigrants from Somalia and had both applied for asylum in Holland. I was granted it; she was denied. The fact that I got asylum gave me the opportunity to study. My half-sister couldn't. In order for me to be admitted to the university I wanted to attend, I needed to pass three courses: a language course, a civics course and a history course. It was in the preparatory history course that I, for the first time, heard of the Holocaust. I was 24 years old at that time, and my half-sister was 21.

In those days, the daily news was filled with the Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. On the day that my half-sister visited me, my head was reeling from what happened to 6 million Jews in Germany, Holland, France and Eastern Europe. I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish. I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed." She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.

Later, as a teenager in Kenya, when Saudi and other Persian Gulf philanthropy reached us, I remember that the building of mosques and donations to hospitals and the poor went hand in hand with the cursing of Jews. Jews were said to be responsible for the deaths of babies and for epidemics such as AIDS, and they were believed to be the cause of wars. They were greedy and would do absolutely anything to kill us Muslims. If we ever wanted to know peace and stability, and if we didn't want to be wiped out, we would have to destroy the Jews. For those of us who were not in a position to take up arms against them, it was enough for us to cup our hands, raise our eyes heavenward and pray to Allah to destroy them.... For generations, the leaders of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and other Europeans) were fed - that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with as such

More here

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The True Source of Arab Hatred of Israel

Weak Arab egos. They cannot bear to recognize their own mediocrity. Post below lifted from Stefan Karlsson

I've always been amazed at the breath-taking hypocricy of Arab accusations against Israel. How could someone actually raise the issue of a [probably accidental] killing of 18 Arabs in Gaza into a proposed (but by the US vetoed) UN Security Council -resolution and a UN General Assembly resolution (opposed only by Israel, the US, Australia and a few pacific island states) when Arabs are slaughtering each other and Muslim blacks in for example Iraq and Sudan by the hundreds every day? And a lot more amazingly, how come most of the world is falling for this?

Well, the latter question will remain a mystery. But for long it has been obvious to me the answer to the former question. The truth is, that Arab representatives don't really care particularly much when fellow Arabs kill other Arabs, much less when Arabs kill non-Arabs, like they do in Sudan's Darfur province. It is all a propaganda hoax to fool gullible infidels into supporting jihad. I've pointed out for a long time that the basis of Arab hatred against Israel is that the very existence of a Jewish state in what once a Muslim land represents a insult to the teachings of Islam (which says that any land which was once Muslim must remain so forever) and Arab pride.

People who believe a few concessions from Israel will create peace, like the person who was refered to as history's greatest monster in a Simpson's episode believe, are either hopelessly naive or dishonest.

And so now, Via Johan Norberg I see this rather revealing interview with Al-Jazeera´s editor-in-chief Ahmed Sheikh. In it, he reveals the true reason for Arab hatred of Israel (and bizarrely attributes all Arab shortcomings on it):

"Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?

I think so.

Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?

The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.

In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?

Exactly. It´s because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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17 December, 2006

BLAIR'S LEFTISM SHOWS: THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS

Even if the means is abandonment of the historic rule of law in Britain. Comment below by Daniel Mandel. A more extended comment is available from from Oliver Kamm

In his book The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, David Pryce-Jones writes at length of the time-honoured "extension into the West of [Saudi] money-favouring" - a subject now in the British headlines for a startling instance of its power: the halt called in Britain to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into a 60 million pound slush fund for Saudi royals. The SFO was investigating payments to the Saudis in the form of lavish holidays, luxury cars and rented apartments which were apparently made to guarantee Saudi commitment to Britain's largest ever defence contract, the so-called Yamamah deal.

Under this deal, Saudi Arabia agreed in 1985 to buy from BAE Systems, Britain's biggest military contractor, 72 Tornados and 30 Hawk fighter aircraft, plus a further 48 Tornados in 1993. This year Saudi Arabia agreed to pay 10 billion pounds for 72 aircraft, part of a package that was expected to grow. The agreement has kept BAE in business for 20 years.

However, Saudi displeasure and British loss of nerve has resulted in a spectacular climb-down: following a Saudi threatened rupture of ties and loss of future contracts (worth 2.5 million pounds annually), the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, has announced the suspension of the SFO's investigation. The SFO says it called off its investigation after representations made "both to the Attorney General and the Director [of the SFO] concerning the need to safeguard national and international security … It has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest."

That is a statement of forensic significance. The rule of law is the special achievement of democratic society and its purpose, among other things, has always been the protection of what the SFO calls "the wider public interest." How is it possible, then, that protection of the "wider public interest" is now deemed to lie in the suspension of the rule of law under foreign pressure?

More detail of this disquieting episode is available on Pryce-Jones' blog.

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Leftists as misfits

An interesting post lifted from New Zeal

Spirit of 76 asked: "In terms of the Western countries, where do all of these commies come from ? Who indoctrinates them ? When I was a union delegate 12 years ago, hearing Karl Andersen spout his beliefs, I honestly thought he was taking the piss ! Why do people still adhere to a political system that has done nothing apart from advertise itself as an abject failure ?

These are questions that have interested me for a long time. Ever since I was a bit pink myself, I've wondered why many intelligent people can invest their whole lives into a project that is so clearly nonsensical.

I remember a conversation with US former socialist Tammy Bruce, when she visited NZ last year. I asked Tammy exactly why she thought people devoted their lives to socialism.

Tammy, had been at the pinnacle of the US left/feminist establishment. She knew hundreds of senior socialists. She is a lesbian, who herself had a pretty tough upbringing and her share of personal tragedy.

Tammy's theory was that socialists tend to be "damaged" people and/or misfits. They are people on the "outside"-whether through personality defects, such as intense jealousy and envy, a deep sense of inadequacy or something that sets them apart from the "mainstream", homosexuality, physical disability, belonging to a persecuted minority etc.

Most of us have some of those or other problems in our lives. We try to cope, to overcome our shortcomings and get on with our lives.

Others can't handle the thought that they are the odd one out, or that they should work to address their personal faults. Socialism appeals to such people, because socialism claims that all problems are caused by external factors and can be addressed, not by confronting oneself, but by altering the world.

In other words, socialists tend to be damaged people who are driven to "fit in" by changing the world to suit their particular shortcomings. They want to make the world fit their faults-not as most of us do, try to fix our own shortcomings first. Socialism, is in short a manifestation of mental illness or major character deficiency.

This is perhaps why universities are the main recruiting ground for socialism these days. At university you can theorise a better world according to any preference you like. In the real world of the marketplace, bad ideas lead to heartache and bankruptcy. In universities they lead to tenure, overseas conferences, fawning sycophants and good salaries.

I remember one US socialist saying something like "communism is a system of political economy-not a character deficiency". I think he was 100% wrong.

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ELSEWHERE

The Church of Multiculturalism: "The thirteenth Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne will be enthroned in a multicultural ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral today. Representatives of 38 denominations and faiths will attend the ceremony including the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, who will say a prayer for church unity. The Wurunjeri people will welcome the attendees with a dance and didgeridoo performance. Representatives of Melbourne's Chinese, Sudanese, and Tamil communities will also attend. Federal Treasurer Peter Costello and Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews will represent Prime Minister John Howard. Victorian Governor Professor David de Krester will read one of the lessons.

The odious Jimmy Carter: "Earlier this month in a Washington Post Op-Ed article Jimmy Carter blamed the current violence in Lebanon and Gaza on Israel, which had purportedly violated “key U.N. resolutions…by occupying Arab lands and oppressing Palestinians.” He got through an entire article without ever mentioning that Lebanon had failed to comply with the 2004 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which called on Lebanon to disarm the terrorist group Hezbollah whose members now sit in its legislature and cabinet.... Concerning the Carter Peace Prize and word that it was given to denigrate President George W. Bush’s pro-Israel, anti-Iraq policies, editorialized the otherwise-liberal New York Daily News, “Excuse us if we detect a whiff of anti-Semitism wafting from Oslo. It wouldn’t be the first time, Norwegian Nazis having happily collaborated with Hitler.”... Jimmy Carter has won the Nobel Prize he lobbied for, so the only prize left he has to fight for is his place in the history books. Perhaps he wants fellow Leftists to win the ongoing historical struggle so that his history will be written favorably. This may be why Mr. Carter obsessively scapegoats Israel and undermines America.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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16 December, 2006

Far from being an evil dictator, Pinochet rescued Chile

Historian James Whelan says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, former Chilean autocrat Augusto Pinochet averted civil war and saved millions from the destruction of socialism

Six months before Salvador Allende was overthrown on September 11, 1973, Volodia Teitelboim told an interviewer for the Communist Party daily newspaper in Santiago that if civil war were to come, then 500,000 to one million Chileans would die. Teitelboim knew whereof he spoke. He was then the No.2 man in the Chilean Communist Party, the third largest in the Western world (after France and Italy), and a senior partner in Allende's Marxist-Leninist government. The Communists were then planning to seize total power in the country, though they were not in as much a hurry to do so as the Socialists, the principal party in the Allende coalition and one passionately committed to revolutionary violence. So the Communists and the Socialists shared the same goal - ending once and for all the bourgeois democratic state - but differed on methods. Allende, a Socialist, was somewhere in between, wavering between his own bourgeois tastes and the totalitarian temptation.

Allende had come to power in September 1970 with not enough votes to win outright election - only 40,000 more than the conservative runner-up - and so had to be voted in by Congress in exchange for a statute of guarantees drawn up by the Christian Democrat majority. A few months later, Allende told fellow leftist Regis Debray that he never actually intended to abide by those commitments but signed just to finally become president, having failed in three previous runs for the office.

In those first 2 1/2 years, Allende had plunged Chile into hell-on-earth chaos. Former president Eduardo Frei Montalva - the man more responsible than any other for Allende's ascent to the presidency - called it "this carnival of madness". Violence, strikes, shortages and lawlessness stalked the land. The Supreme Court declared Allende outside the law. So, too, did the Chamber of Deputies in August 1973 in a resolution that all but demanded the armed forces seize power to rescue Chile from the inferno. So, when the armed forces finally did act on September 3, they did so in response to the clamour of an overwhelming majority of Chileans and not as the jackboot power bandits of typical Latin American revolts. News stories about what happened on that Tuesday in September routinely speak of the bloody coup. It was no such thing. About 200 people died in the shooting on September 13 and a little more than 1000 in the first three months of virtual civil war.

But not the civil war the Communists were perfectly prepared to accept as their price for power: 500,000 to one million. Indeed, in all 17 years of military rule, the total of dead and missing - according to the only serious study - was 2279. The Chilean Revolution thus was, by far, the least bloody of any significant Latin American revolution of the 20thcentury, though you would never guess that from reading or watching news reports.

The Chilean revolution was different from other Latin American revolutions in another respect: it left the country far better off than the one it found. Indeed, Chile is the envy of the entire region for its spectacular economic progress and for the solidity of the institutions the military government created. Consider: Inflation was slashed from 600 percent to 6 percent; infant mortality rates came down from 66 per 1000 to 13 per 1000; urban access to drinking water increased from 67 per cent to 98 per cent; and living standards more than doubled.

Pinochet et al realised, from the start, that the country they had agreed to rescue was in an institutional shambles. More than half a century of cheap politicking had - in the phrase of Chile's leading historian - so rotted the country's institutions as to bring about their death. A brand new beginning was needed. Crafting the new constitution and other institutions was complicated by the presence in the country of thousands of foreign and local terrorists. Indeed, as late as 1986, Fidel Castro shipped 25 tonnes of arms to Chile: the largest clandestine arms shipment in history, sufficient to arm 5000 terrorists. (News reports routinely refer to these people as political opponents. The overwhelming majority of the dead and missing were, in fact, either outright terrorists or those who were sheltering, financing and supporting them.)

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Homosexuals need to lose a little something: "Circumcising men cuts their risk of being infected with the AIDS virus in half, and could prevent hundreds of thousands or even millions of new infections, researchers say. Circumcising men worked so well that the researchers stopped two large clinical trials in Kenya and Uganda to announce the results today, although they cautioned that the procedure does not make men immune to the virus."

Censure Israel-hating Jimmy: "The past few weeks the news media has been fixated on discussions of efforts by Democrats to either impeach or censure President Bush. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has made the push to censure President Bush for the administration's wiretapping of suspected terrorists. Meanwhile a group of activist liberals has launched ImpeachPAC, which is raising money to support congressional candidates who favor impeachment proceedings against Bush for taking the fight to the terrorists in Iraq. I have a better idea, how about censuring a president who has increasingly led an effort to undermine American foreign policy and who has embraced terrorist organizations and urged international funding for them. How about censuring former president Jimmy Carter? While the mainstream news media has portrayed Carter in a saintly light, preoccupied with building homes for the underprivileged, Carter has devoted most of his time to condemning the United States to any audience who will have him. The man who sat impotent while Iranian radicals stormed the American Embassy in Tehran has been busy appeasing America's enemies since he left the White House."

The cure for poverty: "Countless studies have shown that children raised in a two-parent family are less likely to be raised in poverty, less likely to do drugs, less likely to be criminals later in life, and more likely to graduate from and do well in school. Married people tend to take care of themselves better and live longer. They typically eat better, have more settled lives with less stress and fewer risky habits, monitor each other's health, and are quicker to seek medical attention for problems that arise. Married people, particularly those with children, seem to be motivated to save and invest more for the future and to live longer to enjoy their savings and their children's future. Out-of-wedlock births increase the national incidence of: lowered health for newborns; retarded cognitive, and especially verbal, development of young children; lowered educational achievement; lowered job attainment as young adults; increased behavioral problems; lowered impulse control (aggression and sexual behavior); and increased anti-social development. It's been said you need only do three things in this country to avoid poverty: finish high school, marry before having a child and marry after the age of 20. Among those who follow such advice, only 8% are poor, while 79% of those who do not are poor. The consequences of this trend are crime rates higher than they should be, graduation rates lower than they should be and a treasury depleted in the name of trying to solve both problems by throwing more money at them. No culture can remain healthy with illegitimacy rates like these. And it is simply impossible to understate the socially catastrophic consequences of America's crisis of illegitimacy. The family is still the best department of health, education and welfare ever invented."

How pesky for the Left: "Though Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the war in Iraq, the Pentagon said Tuesday it is having success enlisting new troops. The Navy and Air Force met their recruiting goals last month while the Army and Marine Corps exceeded theirs, the Defense Department announced. The Army, which is bearing the brunt of the work in Iraq, did the best. It signed up 6,485 new recruits in November compared with its target of 6,150 - meaning 105 percent of its goal. All the services turned in similar performances in October as well, meaning they so far are meeting their goals for the 2007 budget year that began Oct. 1. "The services are starting off well," said Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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15 December, 2006

The Real Hanukah: A Celebration of the Religious Right

By Michael Medved



Who are the bad guys in the Hanukah story? And who are the good guys? These are serious questions with serious consequences.

Most Jews (and certainly most Christians) dismiss the winter holiday as a trivial, feel-good festival about candles, potato pancakes, spinning tops (dreidls),and eight nights of gifts, without coming to terms with its serious, relevant and distinctly uncomfortable messages. While frequently (and fatuously) described as a "celebration of tolerance," Hanukah is more properly designated as an annual re-dedication to the values of the Religious Right.

No wonder that so many American Jews (with their reflexive, often ignorant liberal instincts) refuse to acknowledge the real Hanukah and its politically incorrect messages. In last week's Washington Post, a householder from Potomac, Maryland named Kenneth Nechin proudly explained that his home attempts to honor the "deeper meaning" of the holiday: "Religious tolerance, the freedom to practice religion, minorities overcoming majorities who are trying to take your rights away."

Actually, far from celebrating "diversity" or "tolerance" or "respect for every faith," Hanukah (the name means "dedication" in Hebrew) marks a singular display of intolerance-- when religious zealots, exalting the values of "that old time religion," came into the Temple in Jerusalem and drove out all alternate, "creative" forms of worship. In the "For the Miracles" (Al HaNissim) prayer recited at least three times a day by religious Jews during the eight days of the festival, we salute this uncompromising assertion of absolute truth: "Your children came to the Holy of Holies of Your House, cleansed Your Temple, purified the site of your Holiness and kindled lights in the Courtyards of Your Sanctuary." No, the fervently faithful rebels did not assign a special area for other religious impulses as part of some ancient commitment to multiculturalism....

The bad guys of the Hanukah story weren't so much foreign occupiers as they were indigenous traitors who junked the demanding faith of their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for the trendy, hedonistic, easy-going relativism of Aristotle, Alexander and Antiochus. By placing Greek gods in the Temple in Jerusalem, the Hellenist Jewish leadership didn't try to exclude or prevent the old worship - they meant to open up the Holy of Holies to worshipers of every nation and of every deity in a grand celebration of diversity.

Anyone who takes even ten minutes to read the actual history of the Maccabean revolt will see similarities between its priestly leaders (most conspicuously, the great commander Judah Maccabee, son of Mattathias) and today's prominent figures in the Religious Right. The Maccabees insisted on re-affirming ultimate right and wrong, and saw their battle as part of a timeless struggle of good and evil. They demanded a return to the old ways, to the authentic, uncompromising laws of God and the Torah, and they felt only contempt for the Hellenizing modernists who fought against them. The rebels represented the common people - the poor and the humble artisans and the struggling farmers who remained loyal to the ancient faith - while their enemies represented the pampered urban elites, over-educated in the cosmopolitan ways of Judea's Greek overlords.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Dumb Democrats: "He is expected to have a deep understanding of terrorist groups and their threats to the US. But the incoming chairman of a US congressional intelligence committee was struggling yesterday to explain his ignorance of al-Qa'ida and Hezbollah. Silvestre Reyes, the Democrat chosen to head the House of Representatives committee, was asked whether members of al-Qa'ida came from the Sunni or Shia branch of Islam. "Al-Qa'ida, they have both," he answered, adding: "Predominantly probably Shi'ite." In fact, al-Qa'ida was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organisation, and views the Shia Muslims as heretics. And Sunnis dominate the militias and death squads in Iraq. A reporter for Congressional Quarterly, Jeff Stein, then put a similar question about Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group. "Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah," replied Mr Reyes. "Why do you ask me these questions at five o'clock?" he said. "Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?" Go ahead, said Mr Stein. "Well, I, uh ...," said the congressman. His apparent ignorance of the basic facts raised fresh questions over his suitability for the key intelligence post - as well as the judgment of Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House, who picked him for the job".

High achievers leaving France: "After failing to become a Belgian, Johnny Hallyday, France's biggest rock star, is planning to move his residence and his money to Switzerland, it emerged yesterday. The imminent exit of the country's most popular singer was used by ministers to bolster a promise by Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right candidate, to cap France's crippling taxes on the wealthy. Hallyday, 63, is an active supporter of the presidential campaign of Mr Sarkozy, who is Interior Minister and leader of the Union for a Popular Movement. Le rockeur national, who has sold 80 million records since 1961 and is still touring and topping the charts, was reported by L'Express magazine to be aiming to settle in Gstaad, the mountain resort. It is assumed that he wants to join the 100,000 other rich French citizens who have fled their country's annual wealth tax. Like Belgium, Switzerland imposes no wealth tax and it taxes only part of the annual income of rich foreigners."

Plenty of money for Britain's ballooning bureaucracy: "Gordon Brown's claims to be getting to grips with the ballooning government workforce took a battering yesterday from official figures. Far from taming the public sector jobs juggernaut, the figures suggested there has been a resurgence in hiring of state workers this year. The Office for National Statistics reported that the number of public sector workers rose by 7,000 to 5.86 million in the six months since March this year. The rise is mainly down to hiring by local authorities. The figures clash with claims by the Chancellor earlier this month that he is successfully taking an axe to public payrolls. Mr Brown has promised to shed tens of thousands of posts by 2008 as he tries to cut back black hole in the public finances, and in his Pre-Budget Report he claimed to be well on the way. Official figures show that state hiring has accounted for a third of overall job creation since 1998, the year after Labour came to power"



Amazing. Competition between London's airports coming: "Gatwick Airport could be for sale within weeks with a price tag of up to 3 billion pounds after the break-up of BAA's London airport monopoly was signalled by the UK's competition authorities. With BAA's control of 90 per cent of the London market through its ownership of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted set for a probe by the Competition, industry insiders believe BAA's new Spanish owner Ferrovial could be set to hatch a Gatwick sale plan... In a stinging attack on the BAA monopoly - also seen as a rebuke to a Labour Government that has allowed the company to keep ownership of the UK's three busiest airports - the Office of Fair Trading said BAA should be subjected to a full-blown investigation by the Competition Commission. Citing poor passenger ratings for its London airports, OFT chief executive John Fingleton said: 'Greater competition [between airports] could bring significant benefits for passengers.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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14 December, 2006

The backlash against the illegal immigration flood is at full boil in Tennessee

You can push people too far

Kit Brewer doesn't like immigrants. "While America was harnessing electricity, while America was winning World War I, winning World War II, inventing the computer, inventing nuclear weapons [and] breaking the DNA code, what were the Mexicans doing?" he asks. "They were making tacos." He pauses to clarify. "By Mexicans, that's kind o' a generic term for me that also includes Salvadorans, Hondurans, etc.. I don't want any immigrants from the Third World." He also mentions Iraq and Sudan.

Brewer used to live in Antioch-which he calls "Hispanioch," because of its large Hispanic immigrant population-but moved after getting tired of his child "having to step over drunk Mexicans in a ditch to get to the school bus." "Thank God I got out," he says. "While I could still get something for my house."

Brewer insists that he doesn't have a problem with all immigrants, just the "Third Worlders." "If somebody wants to come here form Western Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, that's fine. I would have hated to turn away Albert Einstein," he says. "I don't think that the next Albert Einstein is going to come from the Sudan, Mexico or Honduras."

Brewer also thinks that Americans are inherently better and smarter people than those from other nations. "Like it or not, their I.Q.s, except for Orientals, average seven to 20 points below the average American white." When asked how and where he found such a statistic, Brewer cites "the Internet." [See here]

Unlike some other people who have strident opinions about immigrants and the impact that they're having in the U.S., Brewer doesn't differentiate between most legal and undocumented immigrants. "A legal immigrant from the Third World is just an illegal immigrant with a green card," he says.

Kit Brewer is not alone in his isolationist leanings. Throughout Tennessee in recent months, there have been many public and private displays of sentiments that closely echo Brewer's.

More here

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OBAMA AS A RORSCHACH INKBLOT

If you love Barack Obama, as almost everybody interested in U.S. politics does right now, ask yourself this simple question: What do you know about his opinions on any subject? You probably remember he gave a masterful speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. You recall how he spoke and that it was he who spoke: a poised and handsome black man with a deep voice that's reassuring and commanding at the same time.

But what did he say? Admit it. You don't really care. Obama is an uncommonly opaque rock-star politician, though not through any fault of his own. He's written and published two wildly successful books, a memoir and a rumination on politics and policy. But of the million or so people who've bought his books, I'd wager only a tenth have sampled more than a few pages. They don't need to read Obama to love him. They love that he writes and he publishes. They love how he speaks. They love the fact that he exists. They love the way he makes them feel.

This is the key to his appeal, and it places Obama in a very unusual position for an elected politician: He is now the semi-official Rorschach Candidate of 2008. The Rorschach Candidate is the one who provokes enthusiasm not because of the positions he takes but because of who he is. He doesn't seem like a politician; he seems to be better than a politician - fresh, new, different. The Rorschach Candidate is especially exciting because under normal circumstances he couldn't possibly take the nomination, and his race for president would seem like a revolutionary and transformative act in itself. Rorschach Candidates have hovered around presidential contests for the past couple of decades....

Obama is a different kind of Rorschach Candidate, because he's actually run for office and won. A sitting senator, albeit one with only two years under his belt in Washington, he's already cast hundreds of votes - and his votes suggest only that he is a down-the-line liberal Democrat with nothing remotely unconventional about him. Indeed, his close relationship with a crooked Illinois fund-raiser - a relationship that will surely become clearer and more public if he runs - suggests he is a conventional politician in another, more distressing way.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

There is a very good bit of sarcasm here about the media hatred of the too-successful Chilean General Pinochet. It is often forgotten that the world-transforming free market reforms instituted by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were in fact pioneered some years earlier by Augusto Pinochet. It is also usually forgotten that Pinochet overthrew the Marxist President Allende in response to a request from the Chilean Parliament -- not unlike the way Cromwell and Fairfax overthrew the tyrannical King Charles I in response to a request from the English Parliament (You won't read THAT in the newspapers!). I also have an article about Pinochet on Political Correctness Watch today.

A new monument in France -- to French decay: "This one was unveiled at the end of October in Clichy-sous-Bois. If that name rings a bell, it’s the bell on the fire truck racing through the streets to douse the flaming Citroens and Renaults in last year’s riots. They began when two of France’s legions of — what’s the word? — “youths” were fleeing the cops and decided to hide out in an electrical substation. Bad choice. They were electrocuted. Their fellow “youths” blamed the police and launched a three-week orgy of destruction. Now Clichy-sous-Bois has put up a monument to the unfortunate Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore. As in Arizona and London, this is an official memorial. That’s to say, the mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois unveiled the monument to Messieurs Benna and Traore in the front of their school and then led a “silent march” to the substation where he laid a wreath commemorating their death — or, indeed, manslaughter, if some of the complaints against the pursuing gendarmes come off.

Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts -- including a big coverage of Tony Blair's recent watering down of official British multiculturalism.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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13 December, 2006

THE KATRINA DISASTER .... WHOSE FAULT?

An interesting comment from Boortz

Are you starting to get an idea just why the people of New Orleans were so messed up by Katrina? Are you starting to understand that most of the problems were of their doing, not the fault of FEMA or George Bush?

This idiots down there have reelected William Jefferson as their congressman. This is the crook that was found with $90,000 in cash in his freezer, cash that is believed to have come from a $100,000 bribe he took. He is most likely headed to an indictment in the next few months, and these idiots voted him back in office.

Now we know that a huge portion, perhaps a majority of the people who live in this congressional district are completely lacking in any sense of right-and-wrong. It's a welfare district and Jefferson delivered the goods ... both to himself and his district. It should come as no surprise at all that people who would send a crook like this back to congress would be unable to care for themselves in the face of a hurricane.

Boortz also has a rather amusing picture of arrogant Leftist Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. It reminds me of the old British "Golliwog" caricature:



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"LAME DUCK" CONGRESS HAS SOME FUN

In a final, late-night surge of legislating, the 109th Congress passed $45 billion in tax cuts and a trade package affecting at least 150 developing nations, as well as a range of smaller bills on issues from healthcare to energy. But they left most of the current fiscal year's spending decisions to the next Congress...

The 11th-hour output includes popular tax extenders, such as the research and development tax credit for businesses and the tax break for college tuition. It also includes more controversial provisions, such as opening some 8.3 million acres along the Gulf Coast to oil and gas drilling, and a trade deal with Haiti that could hurt US textile interests....

As late as Friday, eight senators from textile states were threatening to block the omnibus trade and tax bill unless a proposal to lift tariffs on clothing manufactured in Haiti was removed. They said it would open US markets even further to unfair competition from China, but they fell short of the votes needed to prevail. "It's stunning that the House leadership and Senate as its last act before it adjourns is going to ramrod a job-destroying trade bill past the Congress," said Auggie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, before Friday's vote. In response, backers said the trade package, including permanent normal trade relations with Vietnam, will lower costs for US manufacturers and consumers. "This legislation will help to create stronger trading partners for the future, while also recognizing our responsibility as having one of the world's strongest economies to help developing countries grow," said House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R) of California in a statement after the 212-to-184 House vote.

The 109th Congress also voted to postpone completing nine of 11 FY 2007 spending bills until Feb. 15, forcing Democrats to take up divisive spending issues as they are ramping up in the next Congress. "It's real act of defiance by the lame-duck Congress and a conscious attempt to set up a political problem for the next Congress," says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at the Boston University. "It's more than just leaving a budgetary mess. It's creating a huge problem in how Democrats will solve the tension within their party between fiscal conservatives and those who want to start new spending initiatives and how Democrats will deal with corruption and whole pork-barrel issues," he adds.

More here

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Brookes News Update

President Bush's tax cuts and the Democrats' economic illiteracy: Filthy rich Democrats like Pelosi, Kerry and Kennedy need to explain why tax cuts that promote capital formation and raise real wages and living standards manage to benefit only the rich
Is falling unemployment bad news for the Australian economy?: Australia has been running an unsustainable monetary boom that can only result in recession. The Reserve Bank's reckless monetary policy has created a mass of imbalances, including the current account deficit. This means that sooner or later the bank must apply the monetary brakes
Democrats and the two Robin Hoods: Nancy Pelosi's former chief of staff announced this week the Dems' intention to demonize Big Business, harassing corporations with investigations and hamstringing their capacity to produce. It's all the same classic pander to envy as an excuse to gain more power over people's lives and fortunes
Giving away the Israel and the candy store: What is wrong with the Israelis? What have we become? I know one thing: despite all, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Ariel Sharon taught his protege, Olmert, well: the country is your personal candy store
The utter nonsense of the Iraq strategy: The pure lunacy of the Iraq debate is only understood when one arrives at the understanding that the collective we in the West are not really a part of this mislabeled 'War'
Gullible Jews and the Jewish press : Contrary to the common belief of anti-Semites that Jews are shrewd, we are quite a trusting people and naivee leader of the free world

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ELSEWHERE

AFL-CIO wants to eliminate low-skilled jobs and low-cost consumer goods: "As the AFL-CIO gathers in Washington today for a post-election organizing summit, the labor movement is assured of a seat at the table in the new Democrat-controlled Congress, and it has an ambitious agenda: raising the minimum wage, restricting trade agreements, beefing up worker health and safety protections and rewriting the National Labor Relations Act to make it easier to organize unions."

The Dec. 11 post here has a nice bit of sarcasm about the awful sin of being a white male.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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12 December, 2006

ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS

Explaining basic reality so simply that even a Leftist might understand:

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me: "Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, themurder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another.

Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial. "Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."

Much more here

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WHY ARE BLOODY CONQUESTS BY MUSLIMS IGNORED WHILE THE WEST IS ACCUSED OF "IMPERIALISM?

Once known as Constantinople, this was one of the great cities of Classical and Christian culture, home to one of Christendom's most magnificent churches, Hagia Sophia, the church of the Holy Wisdom. On May 29, 1453, Constantinople ceased to exist, falling to the armies of the Sultan Mehmet II: "By noon," John Julius Norwich writes, "the streets were running red with blood. Houses were ransacked, women and children raped or impaled, churches razed, icons wrenched from their golden frames, books ripped from their silver bindings. . . . In the church of St. Saviour in Chora the mosaics and frescoes were miraculously spared, but the Empire's holiest icon, the Virgin Hodegetria, said to have been painted by St. Luke himself, was hacked into four pieces and destroyed. The most hideous scenes of all, however, were enacted in the church of the Holy Wisdom. Matins were already in progress when the berserk conquerors were heard approaching. Immediately the great bronze doors were closed; but the Turks soon smashed their way in. The poorer and more unattractive of the congregation were massacred on the spot; the remainder were lashed together and led off to the Turkish camps, for their captors to do with as they liked. As for the officiating priests, they continued with the Mass as long as they could before being killed at the high altar."

Ancient history, you say, irrelevant to the present? But do not the Muslims repeatedly invoke the historical crimes of the West to justify terrorism? Are not the sins of colonialism and imperialism continually cited, even though France and England's 150 years in the Middle East and North Africa are dwarfed by Islam's several centuries in Spain and the Balkans and the cradle of the West, Greece? Is there some statute of limitations on conquest and the transfer of territory that attends it, so that the conquests of Islam are legitimized by time, while those of the West can never be?

Why do we accept this double standard? Why are the continuing persecution of Christians today, despicable anti-Semitic slanders, and the desecration of temples and churches in Muslim lands shrugged away in the West, while trivial cartoons and mere statements of historical fact are met with hysteria, violence, and threats? Why are churches disappearing throughout the lands of Christianity's birth and growth, while huge mosques are going up in London and Milan? Why are Christians and Jews forbidden entry into Saudi Arabia, while Muslims in Europe demand special privileges and recognition of their faith?

Nowhere is this insane, groveling capitulation of the West more obvious than in its treatment of Israel. By all rights, when Israel recaptured Jerusalem from Jordan -- in a defensive war Israel did not want, a war Israel literally begged Jordan to stay out of -- Israel could have razed the Aqsa mosque and rebuilt the temple on the site it had stood on for centuries before Islam even existed. Instead, the Temple Mount is still controlled by Muslims, who are free to worship in the mosque all the while they allow the children of Allah to throw stones on the Jews who come to worship at the few scraps of the temple wall, all that is left to them of their holiest site. Meanwhile the countries of the West decry the "illegal occupation" of Jerusalem and Judea and Galilee, refuse to put their embassies in the capital of Israel, and continually demand more and more concessions to a people who have made it clear that their conquest of Jerusalem is legitimate, that Israelis, not they, are the interloper in the Jews' historical homeland, and that violence against innocents is justified to undo a history deemed to violate Allah's will.

Much more here

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AN INTERESTING SCENARIO

Suppose for a moment that Iran has acquired a nuclear weapon - either on the black market, as many sources believe; or through a clandestine uranium enrichment program, which the CIA discounts (because they have no spies in Iran who might detect such a program).

Iran could send a heavily-shielded nuclear warhead to Venezuela, where it would be fitted to a short-range missile and stowed on board a U.S.-bound cargo ship. That cargo ship would not be owned by Iranians or by Venezuelans, but perhaps by some Qatari millionaire through a front company in the British Virgin Islands. The deadly ship would then depart Venezuela carrying perfectly legitimate, declared cargo for the port of Newark, New Jersey. Perhaps the ship might not even be bound for the United States at all, but for Halifax, Nova Scotia, further up the Atlantic seaboard. Either way, the likelihood it would be inspected on the high seas are very low.

Steaming along in commercial shipping lanes one hundred miles off the coast of Washington, DC, the ship's international crew brings the missile launcher up from the hold and prepares it for launch. Under the cover of darkness, they fire their weapon, then stow the launcher and continue on their way. Two minutes later, Washington, DC is hit with a fireball that obliterates the White House, the Capitol Building, and the national monuments in seconds. And no signature links this act of war back to Iran. This, of course, is just fiction. But the technology is known and available. Iran has been testing sea-launched ballistic missiles since 1998.

Much more here

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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11 December, 2006

HOLLYWOOD ECONOMICS

It is not really news that Hollywood is still producing anti-business movies, but there is a certain irony in it nevertheless. Although these movies tap a certain envy and resentment of corporate wealth, that large corporate wealth comes from far more modest individual amounts of money from about half the population of the United States, which owns stocks and bonds -- either directly or because money paid into pension funds or other financial intermediaries are used to buy stocks and bonds. The irony is that the average Hollywood star who is making anti-business movies is far wealthier than the average owners of those businesses, who are half the population of the country.

The Los Angeles Times refers to documentary "films" that are "critical of corporate power." But just what does this vague word "power" mean when it comes to businesses? Wal-Mart is the big bugaboo these days but what "power" does Wal-Mart have? I lived three-quarters of a century without ever setting foot in a Wal-Mart store and there is not a thing they can do about it.

It so happened that this past summer in Page, Arizona, I needed to buy some toiletries, which caused me to go into a nearby Wal-Mart for the first time. Inside, it looked more like a small city than a large store. But the prices were noticeably lower than in most other places. Is that the much-dreaded "power"? Apparently Wal-Mart does not pay its employees as much as third-party observers would like to see them paid. But obviously it is not paying them less than their work is worth to other employers or they probably would not be working at Wal-Mart. Moreover, third parties who wax indignant are paying them nothing.

Much more here

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IMMIGRATION: THE BRITISH LEFT GETS A MESSAGE

The chairman of the Labour party, Hazel Blears, has warned that immigration is set to explode as an issue before the next general election in a way "unseen before in UK politics". Blears suggests the government's argument that the current policy benefits the economy holds little sway with voters, and says Labour risks appearing "unconcerned and out of touch".

In an intervention which will surprise cabinet colleagues, she told The Sunday Times: "Labour must address people's concerns about immigration head on. "Simply making the `liberal' argument that immigration is good for the economy, or starting from the viewpoint of `human rights' does not give people the reassurance that politicians understand people's genuine concerns."

Blears has been alarmed by an internal analysis of campaigns by the Labour party in Keighley, West Yorkshire, where the British National party (BNP) is particularly active. The document, which has been seen by The Sunday Times, is being studied closely at Labour headquarters. It says the party's failure to address public concern about immigration is playing into the hands of both the Tories and the BNP and warns that Labour "will not be forgiven by the electorate" if it does not address the problem.

In a further warning to Labour, the report says the Asian community in Keighley is becoming "disengaged". The threat is being taken seriously by Blears, who believes there is a risk that support for Labour from Asians is diminishing elsewhere in the country. The document also questions the quality and performance of some Labour councillors in the area, describing some as "woefully inadequate". It says potential Labour voters are defecting to the BNP, not because they are racist, but because they believe their "genuine grievances" are being ignored by mainstream parties...

Blears's warning comes after Tony Blair, the prime minister, declared that immigrants who do not like British values should leave the country...

More here

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ELSEWHERE

British Conservatives back return to Victorian values: "The Conservatives are to launch a crusade for personal morality to try to halt what they say is a breakdown in traditional family values. It comes in the wake of a Tory report that says unmarried parents are driving a generation of children into crime and drug dependency. Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney-general, said last night that people who tackle teenage yobs should not be prosecuted for assault. He added that strict Victorian values on family life had in some ways been successful. The Tories claim the rise in cohabitation and single parenthood is unleashing a social and economic crisis. In an appeal to grassroots supporters, the party will this week put the promotion of marriage back at the heart of its agenda, warning of dire consequences if more couples are not encouraged to wed. A report commissioned by David Cameron, the Tory leader, claims the breakdown of the family is driving boys into the arms of street gangs at an annual cost to the country of more than £20 billion... It is the first heavyweight submission by the panels Cameron set up when he became leader to thrash out party policy. The interim report of the Social Justice Policy Group, headed by Iain Duncan Smith, gives an insight into the possible elements of the party’s next election manifesto. It warns that family breakdown, drug and alcohol addiction, welfare dependency and educational failure have created an underclass mired in misery and “cut off from much of mainstream society”. The burgeoning underclass also “threatens the wellbeing of middle-class people living in once tranquil neighbourhoods”. The report suggests that without a radical reappraisal of government policy towards marriage and the family, social tensions will grow, fuelling violent crime.

Stupid Leftist populism: "What is the difference between "populism" and "fascism by the majority"? I sure can't see any difference. I love it when I see stuff like "take on the oil companies" or "take on the drug companies." The oil companies make about an 8% profit in a good year. Drug companies are a bit higher, but not that much. Let's say the government runs their profit down to zero. That would then yield everyone about a 6% discount at the pump (presumably gas taxes would not go down, thus the lower percentage) and an average 12%-ish discount on drugs. Is it really the Democrat's intention to trash incentives in these critical industries for future long term investment (oil exploration in one, drug R&D in the other) so politicans can hand out a 6% discount to the voters?

Britain. Islamic martyrdom redefined: "A government-backed Islamic organisation is teaching young Muslims that dying while fighting for the British armed forces is an act of martyrdom. The British Muslim Forum (BMF) explains to young people that even if a Muslim soldier dies in combat while fighting in an Islamic country such as Afghanistan, he will still be regarded as a martyr and a hero for this country. The BMF is holding talks across Britain to persuade young people not to follow the teachings of Muslim extremists who instruct their followers that joining the British military is a "traitorous act". Its aim is to counter radicals' misuse of the term "martyr", which has become associated with terrorist suicide operations."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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10 December, 2006

FLYNN THE FOOL

Ideology can make a fool out of otherwise creditable scientists. The way that the remarkable temperature stability of the 20th century (according to the U.N. only .6 of one degree rise over the entire 20th century) can be portrayed as an era of global warming is ample proof of that.

And James Flynn is another example of that. He does generally good science and knows heaps about IQ research but when it comes to interpreting scientific findings which clash with his faith he goes bananas. He is a fervent Leftist -- with all the faith in being able to "mould" people into some sort of ideal man that usually goes with that faith. And genetic influences have a nasty unalterable character that clashes with that faith.

So what does he do when faced with an unremitting torrent of research findings that show a consistent black/white gap in average IQ of around 15 points? He points to just ONE study which shows no significant gap. And that study must be just about the most irrelevant one in the literature. He points to a study which shows that the illegitimate children of black GI's in Germany are no dumber than the illegitimate children of white GI's in Germany.

I don't know how to put this politely, but, as far as I can see, all that that result shows is that German women don't go to bed with dumb blacks. They only go to bed with the brighter ones. And the U.S. army of the 40s and 50s was a good place to find the brighter ones. Blacks had to be at least as bright as whites to get into the U.S. army of the 40s and 50s. Ever since 1917, the U.S. army has accepted only those recruits who pass an IQ test at a standard level. And there have always been SOME blacks who pass. So Flynn bases his faith in the unreality of black/white IQ differences on a sample which has been deliberately equalized in terms of IQ! What a fool! I can think of no other term for him that fits.

You can find detailed accounts of Flynn's follies in the matter here and here. In his most recent posts, Chris Brand also points out the limitations of the study Flynn relies on. I have commented previously in the academic literature on explanations for his own findings that Flynn does not consider. See here and here.

Related:

Black/White IQ gap still large: "Despite widespread claims that the gap is closing between Blacks and Whites in educational achievement and intelligence test scores, new research shows the 15-point IQ difference is as large today as it was 100 years ago. A study published in the October 2006 issue of Psychological Science showed the same Black-White IQ difference in large standardization samples for four major IQ tests. The researchers reported on the Wonderlic Personnel Test, the Kaufmann Assessment Battery for Children, the Woodcock-Johnson test, and the Differential Ability Scale, which all combined to show a Black gain of less than 1 IQ point over the last 30 years. The study's authors were veteran IQ researchers J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario and Arthur R. Jensen of the University of California at Berkeley... Rushton also said the results could undermine affirmative action policies as the US Supreme Court's 2003 decision on the University of Michigan only being permitted affirmative-action on the assumption that Black-White test scores were converging. That assumption has been shown to be untrue."

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ELSEWHERE

Recent vote was NOT for open borders: "The idea is spreading that this month's Republican electoral defeat somehow represented voter rejection of the enforcement-first approach to immigration championed by the House Republican leadership, and meant, instead, voter endorsement of the Bush-McCain-Kennedy approach that would amnesty (or "legalize") the illegal aliens already here and double or triple future legal immigration. This notion is so colossally wrong only a senator could believe it.... The open-borders crowd scavenged for results they hoped would confirm their pre-packaged conclusions. A favorite was the defeat of two Republican immigration hawks running for the House in Arizona, incumbent Rep. J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, who was seeking liberal Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe's seat. The problem with pointing to these results as proof of the public's support for the Bush-McCain-Kennedy "comprehensive" amnesty plan is that the very same voters overwhelmingly approved four good ballot measures related to immigration: denying bail to illegals, barring illegals from winning punitive damages in civil suits, prohibiting illegals from receiving certain state subsidies for education and day care, and declaring English the state's official language. Clearly, the actual policy issue of immigration control remained hugely popular"

Blue Dogs no longer runts of Dems' litter: "Now that the results of the midterm election have demonstrated the strength of moderate to conservative Democrats in swing districts, the clout of the independently minded Blue Dog Coalition is on the rise, say political observers, and its bite could match its bark. 'They can cause fits for the majority leadership,' said Brookings Institution scholar Ron Haskins. Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi 'is going to have a lot of trouble holding that coalition together.' Democrats will hold 232 seats in Congress come January; Republicans will have 200, and three races are still undecided but looking to go to the GOP. With 218 votes needed to pass legislation, and 44 incoming Blue Dogs next Congress, according to the group, a strong voting bloc could make or break Democratic-sponsored legislation."

A right to earn a living? "Imagine you own a business that you built from the ground up. You have satisfied customers, good employees and provide a useful service. There's just one problem: your competitors don't like that you charge less while providing better service. Instead of lowering their prices and working harder, they call their lobbyists and get the government to make your business illegal. Can they get away with this? According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the answer is 'yes.'"

Corrupt Associated Press: "The most powerful media institution in all of human history is the Associated Press. Its news feed is ubiquitous - used, directly or indirectly, by every U.S. newspaper and TV news program and a vast number of foreign ones, too. AP maintains the largest world-wide coverage, and its reader base is nearly immeasurable. Unfortunately, and repeatedly of late, this behemoth has not only been getting it wrong - but increasingly refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Instead, acting more like a politician or the mega-corporation that it is, the AP crew spins, obfuscates and attacks. Now they're at it again in Iraq. I have got direct experience of this.... "

There is a post just up on Strange Justice which adds to the evidence that the FBI these days is a decayed organization.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************



9 December, 2006

THE ISG IGNORES HISTORY

A powerful condemnation of the latest Iraq proposals by Ralph Peters

The superannuated membership of the Iraq Study Group shepherded by former secretary of state James Baker conjures a line from the film The Sixth Sense: "I see dead people." Two centuries ago, Europeans dreaming of reform and freedom must have felt just as crestfallen as they watched their continent's ghoulish elder statesmen gather for the Congress of Vienna. Both assemblies symbolize a victory for the ancien r‚gime, the bloody-minded refusal to accept that the world has changed profoundly and will continue to change.

If the Baker commission is the K-Mart version of the Congress of Vienna, its influence may prove no less pernicious. Baker is the dean emeritus of a reactionary school of diplomats--inaccurately labeled "realists"--whose support of the shah of Iran, the Saudi royal family, Anwar Sadat, then Hosni Mubarak, and, not least, Saddam Hussein delivered short-term stability that proved illusory in the long run. It was the "realist" elevation of stability above all other strategic factors--echoing Prince Metternich--that gave us not only the radical regime in Iran, but, ultimately, al Qaeda and 9/11.

The leading modern practitioner of this profoundly reactionary approach to international relations was, of course, Henry Kissinger, whose doctoral thesis championed the diplomats and heads of state who redivided Europe into reform-school states after Napoleon's defeat. A classic revisionist, Kissinger ignored the wisdom of 19th century observers who recognized that the oppression sponsored by the Congress of Vienna created only a mockery of peace. The century of Biedermeier sensibilities and Victorian manners was, in fact, punctuated by a long series of failed--and often grisly--revolutions that radicalized those who found the status quo unbearable. The Staats ordnung of the day created the cult of political assassinations that haunts us still. Metternich and his peers induced the social forced labor that gave birth to Marx and all the utopian extremists who came afterward. From the lesser figures, such as Kropotkin or Bakunin, down to Lenin and Hitler, the political distortions of the "orderly" 19th century led to the unprecedented bloodbaths of the 20th century.

The Kissinger school amplified our Cold War support for authoritarian and even dictatorial regimes, deforming the Middle East as Metternich, Talleyrand, Nesselrode, Castlereagh, Wellington, and their lesser contemporaries crippled Europe. For his part, Baker argued--wrongly--that Saddam Hussein should be spared in the wake of Desert Storm; tried to persuade the Soviet Union to remain whole after its comprehensive collapse; and pretended against the increasingly gory evidence that Yugoslavia could be preserved as a unified state. He tolerated Saddam's savage suppression of a Shia revolt we incited, and only grudgingly--and belatedly--acquiesced in our protection of Kurdish refugees.

One of the many tragedies of our experience in Iraq is that the incompetence of the Bush administration's occupation policy has obscured the necessity of igniting change in the Middle East. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was both an intelligent act and a moral one. But the aftermath was so badly botched that many in Washington now long--as did those powdered cynics in Vienna--for the status quo antebellum. They would renew our commitment to Saudi Arabia and other autocracies, while quietly selling out the Lebanese, the Kurds, and the region's moderates in order to get us out of Iraq. We would return to a version of the old order and might gain a brief respite from our troubles in the region. But the greater effects of a renewed stability-ueber-alles doctrine would play into the recruitment schemes of the most radical Islamist elements in the region, while instigating human rights violations on a breathtaking scale. We would throw away any hope of a better future for a brief timeout today.

More here

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McCain disses the ISG report: One excerpt: "The report embraces the idea that peace between Arabs and Israelis - which, the report states, can only be achieved through land for peace - is a necessary element of success in Iraq. All of us desire peace in the region and peace between Arabs and Israelis. But it is impossible to see how such a peace can be achieved so long as Hamas, a terrorist group that rejects a two-state solution and the very existence of Israel, stands at the helm of the Palestinian Authority. We must not push our Israeli ally to make concessions to groups that refuse to recognize its right to exist. In addition, the linkage the ISG report makes between this issue and the violence in Iraq seems tenuous at best. While I desire peace for Israel in its own right, it is difficult to see how an Arab-Israeli peace process will diminish Sunni-Shia violence in Baghdad or al Qaeda activity in Anbar Province. The report recommends the establishment of a regional diplomatic conference on Iraq, to include Iran and Syria. We must be both cautious and realistic about what Iranian and Syrian participation is likely to achieve. Our interests in Iraq diverge significantly from those of Damascus and Tehran, and this is unlikely to change under the current regimes. I do not object to reasonable efforts that might modify these countries' behavior in Iraq, but if the price of their cooperation is an easing of pressure on Tehran over its nuclear ambitions, or on Damascus over the Syrian role in Lebanon, then that price is too high".

The Ayatollahs can't even pump oil out of the ground: "Iran has a surprising weakness: Its oil and gas industry, the lifeblood of its economy, is showing serious signs of distress. As domestic energy consumption skyrockets, Iran is struggling to produce enough oil and gas for export. Unless Tehran overhauls its policies, its primary source of revenue and the basis of its geopolitical muscle could start to wane. Within a decade, says Saad Rahim, an analyst at Washington consultancy PFC Energy, "Iran's net crude exports could fall to zero." That's not to say Iran doesn't have abundant resources. The country's 137 billion barrels of oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's, and its supply of gas trails only Russia's, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Getting it all out of the ground, though, is another matter. Iran has been producing just 3.9 million barrels of oil a day this year, 5% below its OPEC quota, because of delays in new projects and a shortage of technical skills. By contrast, in 1974, five years before the Islamic Revolution, Iran pumped 6.1 million barrels daily."

Economic success for Australia's conservative policies: "Employment jumped sharply in November, more than reversing an unexpectedly large drop in the previous month, leaving the unemployment rate at a 30-year low of 4.6 per cent. Employment rose by a seasonally adjusted 36,200 in November after a 32,100 drop in the previous month. Full-time employment jumped by 57,400. Market economists had expected a 10,000 employment increase, and forecast the jobless rate to rise to 4.8 per cent. Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has hailed the figures as proof that a labour market that has seen "extraordinary" growth this year is still booming.... Mr Costelo has said it appears employers are now more confident in hiring new staff and the problem is not a lack of jobs, but a lack of workers. "There are more Australians in work than ever before," he has said. "It may well be people are putting on employees and they will slow their employment growth next year, but you would have to say, I doubt that we have seen a year like this." He has said unemployment has been below 5 per cent for seven months in a row. "We have gone below what used to be considered full employment." [A bit better than the 9% in socialist France! Reform of "unfair dismissal" laws succeeded in Australia, while it failed in France]

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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8 December, 2006

MEDIA COVERUP OF MUSLIM ATTITUDES TO HOMOSEXUALS

Post lifted from Bruce Bawer's blog -- dated October 29, 2006

I have before me two news items dated October 24th. One of them is from the Gay Community News, which reports that "The leading imam in Manchester...thinks the execution of sexually active gay men is justified."  The imam made his comments in a discussion with a Manchester psychotherapist, John Casson, who wanted the imam to clarify the Islamic position on the execution of gays in Iran.  Both Jihad Watch and Little Green Footballs linked to this story at GCN.  I've looked in vain for it in the major British newspapers.

The other item is a story from LifeSiteNews.com reporting that the BBC "has admitted to a marked bias against Christianity and a strong inclination to pro-Muslim reporting among the network's executives and key anchors."  It has also admitted that "the corporation is dominated by homosexuals."  These admissions came at a secret "impartiality summit" that the Daily Mail reported on last Sunday.  The Telegraph ran an opinion column about this summit, but otherwise I can't find any reference to it on the websites of other major UK papers.

So the question is this: did the gay-dominated but Muslim-friendly BBC report on the Manchester imam's comments?  I searched the BBC site and found a brief story dated Thursday, October 26 -- meaning that apparently the BBC took two days to get around to reporting this.  And look how they spun it.  The story is framed not as a report of a Muslim leader's affirmation of the legitimacy under Islam of executions of gay people, but as a report of an effort to smear Muslims. 

The headline: "Imam accused of 'gay death' slur."  The lead: "A gay rights campaigner has accused an Imam of saying the execution of gay Muslims to stop the spread of disease is 'for the common good of man.'"  The brief story that follows seems designed to raise doubts about the accuracy of Casson's account of his conversation with the imam.  And the piece concludes with comments from Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, who essentially dismisses the issue of Muslim executions of gay people -- "He said homosexuality was 'not compatible' with Islam, just as it was not compatible with other orthodox religions, such as Catholicism" -- and who complains that giving attention to this issue "is part of demonising Muslims."

That's right -- to draw attention to the fact that orthodox Muslim belief approves of the execution of homosexuals is to demonize Muslims. The BBC story ends there.  There's no indication of any effort to pin Shadjareh down on Muslim attitudes toward gays, no mention of the many previous occasions on which Muslim religious leaders have said essentially the same thing the Manchester imam did, no quote from a gay-rights activist, and (of course) no quote from a straight-talking Islam expert like Robert Spencer who might have explained that sharia law does indeed prescribe capital punishment for homosexuals

If the BBC is in fact dominated by gays, I as a gay man am ashamed of and disgusted by every last one of them.  What can they possibly think they're accomplishing by whitewashing Islam in this fashion?  It's as if a Jewish media organization in the 1930s kept itself busy propagandizing for the Nazis and covering up plans for the Holocaust.

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ELSEWHERE

NYT hates Coulter: "Book review contributor Jacob Heilbrunn takes in three new books attacking conservative writer and provocateur Ann Coulter. "The latest testament to Coulter's notoriety is the appearance of no less than three books devoted to bashing her. In 'Soulless,' 'Brainless' and 'I Hate Ann Coulter!,' Susan Estrich, Joe Maguire and 'Unanimous' seek to outdo one another in exposing what they see as her uniquely malign influence on American politics and culture." Heilbrunn finds the anti-Coulter books feeble. But at least they got some publicity, even if its the bad type. By contrast, a search indicates that "Godless," Coulter's latest, has yet to receive a notice in the Times, even though her books invariably top the paper's own best seller charts. (Her 2005 book, "How to Talk to a Liberal," got a ferociously negative review from contributor and self-described liberal Leisl Schillinger.)"

Texans use pigs to deter Muslims: "There's an awful lot of exciting news when you round the corner on Baker Road. One of two big yellow signs announces a new neighbor is coming soon. K.I.A., that's the Katy Islamic Association, plan to build a mosque here. "It's not an appropriate place to have a mosque or church," said resident Barbara Simpson.... Neighbors tell us they're concerned about traffic and drainage and a little fear of the unknown. Some of the homeowners even offered to buy the land back for more than a million dollars. The K.I.A. doesn't seem very interested in the offers.... So it seems the community at the end of Baker Road has a pretty good fight. But this fight has gone much farther than many between two neighbors. You see in these fights, sometimes neighbors throw mud at one another. In this instance, they're wallowing in it. Craig Baker owns pigs. He's the guy behind the second big yellow sign on Baker Road. That's the one announcing Friday night pig races."

The great property rights revival : "In a powerful response to last year's Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London, voters approved nine state-ballot initiatives prohibiting the seizure of homes and businesses for private development. These initiatives -- in Florida, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Michigan -- won in a landslide, with a nationwide average of some 75 percent in favor. Louisiana passed a similar initiative in October. Only two eminent-domain initiatives -- in California and Idaho -- failed. California's came within a few percentage points of succeeding, despite the powerful opposition of government and wealthy interest groups. Add these to new laws enacted by the legislatures of some 25 states and recent anti-eminent-domain decisions by the supreme courts of Ohio, Oklahoma, and Michigan, and the message is clear: Americans are fed up with eminent-domain abuse."

Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts on his usual themes of race, IQ and political correctness -- with particular emphasis on the British scene.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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7 December, 2006

Tough test of Britishness widened

Mainly applicable to white immigrants from Eastern Europe. Not applicable to hordes of illegal Muslim immigrants of course

Britain has almost doubled the number of new arrivals who must sit new tests on the English language and British way of life. The Blair Government announced yesterday that the tests would be extended to all people seeking to stay in the country indefinitely, after first imposing it last year on applicants for British citizenship. About 200,000 people applied for citizenship last year but another 180,000 would have been covered by the new requirement on people seeking indefinite leave to remain, a status one step short of citizenship.

The so-called Britishness test has also been widened to cover questions about the nation's welfare system, a move lampooned by critics as training new arrivals how to apply for welfare.... The Britishness test involves 24 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 45 minutes, with applicants needing to get at least 18 correct. Sitting the test will cost $34 but failed applicants can sit it as many times as they want, unlike the tougher policy in The Netherlands where there is a maximum of three attempts.

People over 65 will be exempt from the tests, and those with poor English can opt to take a "skills for life" and language course rather than doing the test.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

France, steeped in genocidal blood, must face trial: "In April 1994 the French Embassy became the setting for the formation of the extremist Hutu Government that was to organise and carry out the meticulously planned genocide of the Tutsis. Witnesses spoke of these ministers, many now facing life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, sitting in plush embassy chairs comparing notes on where the killing was going best. Their host, the French Ambassador, later helped to evacuate those extremists to Paris, away from the apocalypse they had created. The ambassador then made a bonfire of two rooms piled high with documents linking his Government with that of the Hutu dictatorship of Juvenal Habyarimana... During the next three years Mitterrand had no compunction in sending in troops to save a brutal and corrupt regime. The Hutu army received millions of dollars of French weaponry; and the French elite training corps trained its Rwandan allies in how to dismember bodies, fire its new heavy artillery and use attack Gazelle helicopters."

Theologian rejects Christ. Allah OK: "To live peacefully with Muslims and Jews, Christians must put aside the notion that their faith requires the creation of a Christian kingdom on Earth, a Lipscomb University theologian told an interfaith gathering at the university. 'We are not going to get very far in our relationship with Jews or Muslims if we do not let go of this idea,' Lipscomb professor Lee Camp said at Tuesday's conference. The unusual gathering of several dozen clergy and lay people was devoted to resolving religious conflict in Nashville and around the world. 'We need to forsake the Christendom model,' Camp said. 'The most basic Christian commitment ... is that we say we believe in the Lordship of Jesus. But, if we claim that, how can a Muslim or Jew trust us, if we say Jesus is the Lord of all Lords?'" Update: Bill Hobbs says Dr Camp was maliciously misquoted.

Jihad against music: "Music is forbidden in Islamic law, although this law is often ignored. Muslim hardliners don't ignore it, and they don't want you to, either..... An Al Qaida-aligned cell has declared war on music and the Internet in the Palestinian Authority. The group, entitled "Swords of Islam," has claimed responsibility for attacking stores that offer music and Internet. About a dozen such stores have been bombed in the Gaza Strip."

A good start: "Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, began the first full week of his six-year term Monday by signing a decree to reduce his own salary and the salaries of top government officials by 10 percent. The money saved, which amounts to around $2.5 billion, will be spent on social programs and law enforcement. As VOA's Greg Flakus reports from Mexico City, the new president is also seeking more foreign investment to boost job growth in his country"

Ford in deep doo-doo: "Struggling Ford Motor says it has pledged substantially all of the company's assets--including factories, equipment and its highly profitable Ford Motor Credit arm--to obtain $18 billion in badly needed loans that will help finance its turnaround effort. It's the first time in Ford's 103-year history that it has been forced to pledge its core automotive assets as collateral to obtain financing. But the cost of borrowing money for Ford increased substantially last year after credit rating agencies cut the company's debt ratings to "junk status."

Democrats To Slash Missile Defense: "This has long been one of the most bizarre articles of faith among liberals -- that a purely defensive system to stop the incineration of entire cities is morally wrong. Don't buy the various claims they make about the system not working or being too expensive or, strangest of all, it being "destabilizing." Wouldn't want to "destabilize" that carefully-calibrated Balance of Terror in our favor or anything. As can "can't work," it can, and elements of the system work even now. As for too expensive -- well, how much is Los Angeles worth, exactly? Seems to me it's pretty pricey, and would be difficult to replace. The liberals are committed to spending trillions to stave off a farfetched threat of losing ten meters of shoreline, but won't spend a penny to defend against an increasingly-likely attack against the US via missile. We can simply use a smile as our nuclear umbrella".

Britain: Adulterer wins the right to privacy: "A high-profile figure in the sports world who had an affair with another man’s wife has won a court order banning the betrayed husband from naming him in the media. In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, Mr Justice Eady granted a temporary injunction to the adulterer — who is in the “public eye” but can be identified only as CC — against the husband, AB. The judge ruled that even a public figure engaging in an adulterous affair had a “right to privacy” under the European Convention on Human Rights to protect his wife and children. The order, which stands until further order or the main trial on February 12, gags the husband from spilling the beans about the affair from “revenge” or “spite” or to make money from the story... The judge, who could find no legal precedent from the 19th or 20th centuries, said that he was faced with “the striking proposition that a spouse whose partner has committed adultery owes a duty of confidence to the third party adulterer to keep quiet about it”. ... He added that since English law did not offer an enforceable right to privacy, CC’s claim was that publication would be a breach of confidence"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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6 December, 2006

FONT SHENANIGANS

I have had a complaint from one reader saying that the font size on this blog is too small and hard to read. I have sometimes wondered about that but thought that spectacles should solve any problem. Nonetheless, not being a rigid Leftist with a "one size fits all" ideology, I have decided to cater for those who would like a larger font. I have enlarged the font here by one pixel and I also now post all content on my old site at the same time as I post it on this site -- and I use a much larger font on my old site -- hopefully making it a good site for the partially blind. See HERE.

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THE CHILDISH LEFTIST MIND

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history's lessons on the evils of collectivism.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are "workers," "minorities," "the little guy," "women," and the "unemployed." They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims' plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the "root causes" of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: "Big Business," "Big Corporations," "greedy capitalists," U.S. Imperialists," "the oppressors," "the rich," "the wealthy," "the powerful" and "the selfish."

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is "In Government We Trust." To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone's material welfare, provide for everyone's healthcare, protect everyone's self-esteem, correct everyone's social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions.

With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.

It should be apparent by now that these social policies and the passions that drive them contradict all that is rational in human relating, and they are therefore irrational in themselves. But the faulty conceptions that lie behind these passions cannot be viewed as mere cognitive slippage. The degree of modern liberalism's irrationality far exceeds any misunderstanding that can be attributed to faulty fact gathering or logical error. Indeed, under careful scrutiny, liberalism's distortions of the normal ability to reason can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche. The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.

As is the case in all personality disturbance, defects of this type represent serious failures in development processes. The nature of these failures is detailed below. Among their consequences are the liberal mind's relentless efforts to misrepresent human nature and to deny certain indispensable requirements for human relating. In his efforts to construct a grand collectivist utopia-to live what Jacques Barzun has called "the unconditioned life" in which "everybody should be safe and at ease in a hundred ways"-the radical liberal attempts to actualize in the real world an idealized fiction that will mitigate all hardship and heal all wounds. (Barzun 2000). He acts out this fiction, essentially a Marxist morality play, in various theaters of human relatedness, most often on the world's economic, social and political stages. But the play repeatedly folds. Over the course of the Twentieth Century, the radical liberal's attempts to create a brave new socialist world have invariably failed. At the dawn of the Twenty-first Century his attempts continue to fail in the stagnant economies, moral decay and social turmoil now widespread in Europe. An increasingly bankrupt welfare society is putting the U.S. on track for the same fate if liberalism is not cured there. Because the liberal agenda's principles violate the rules of ordered liberty, his most determined efforts to realize its visionary fantasies must inevitably fall short. Yet, despite all the evidence against it, the modern liberal mind believes his agenda is good social science. It is, in fact, bad science fiction. He persists in this agenda despite its madness.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

An excellent brief comment on the shambles that is the British Conservative Party here. It is such a straight-talking piece that even Britain's conservative "Sunday Telegraph" would not publish it, despite it being written by one of their regular columnists.

Crass Senator update: "The "icy exchange" between President Bush and Virginia Sen.-elect James Webb has occasioned a great deal of comment... With all respect to the many commenters, the copious commentary may be missing the most likely root of this exchange: Senator-elect Webb's son probably does not agree with his father's anti-war stance. If that's true, then the elder Webb has very good reason to fear being drawn into a conversation with the President that a more customary response to "How's your boy?" would have occasioned. If the Senator-elect had been drawn into the conversation that the President invited, Mr. Webb pŠre might well have faced the need to either admit that his son supports the war or to dissemble to the President. It's not surprising that the new Senator would choose to evade that choice after his original plan - completely avoiding the President at this gathering - was frustrated by Mr. Bush's attempt to be friendly.

Planned Parenthood covers up sex abuse: "Sexual activity with underage girls is illegal in all 50 states-yet Life Dynamics discovered that Planned Parenthood counselors are willing to cover up sexual crimes against underage girls by adult males! LDI encouraged a team of girls to call PP clinics and pretend to have been sexually abused by adult males. In case after case, PP counselors willingly ignored state law to cover up these molestations and violations of statutory rape laws! These conversations were taped by LDI. Each PP clinic that has covered up child molestation must be prosecuted!"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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5 December, 2006

Western aid to the Third World does not alleviate poverty

The humanitarian case for aid has been based on an analogy with the Western welfare state. The idea was that many people favour welfare to transfer wealth from the relatively rich to the relatively poor within a country, so they will favour welfare to transfer wealth from relatively rich countries to relatively poor ones.

But many commentators not necessarily hostile to foreign aid, I.M.D. Little and J.M. Clifford for example, disagreed. They emphasised that the humanitarian motive for giving aid may have justified transferring Western taxpayers' money to poor people, but not to poor governments: the latter may have no effects on the former.

With the likes of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Joseph Mobutu of the Congo, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and a host of other kleptocratic tropical gangsters in power, aid money has simply been stolen. Many African rulers rely on aid to feed their people while they destroy their livelihoods through a neglect of, and even by destroying, infrastructure.

According to New York University professor of economics William Easterly, despite more than $2billion in foreign aid being given to Tanzania for roads, the roads did not improve. What increased was the bureaucracy, with the government producing 2400 reports for the 1000 donor missions that visited each year....

But statistical studies of the effects of foreign aid on growth and poverty alleviation have not been favourable. A recent study found that foreign aid "appears to redistribute from the reasonably well-off in the West to most income groups in the Third World except the very poorest". This is consistent with the evidence from both poor and rich countries that the middle classes tend to capture government transfers. Another study found that, after correcting for the link between aid and income levels and growth, the effect of aid on growth is often negative. A survey of other such studies concludes that "there is now widespread scepticism that concessional assistance does have positive effects on growth, poverty reduction or environmental quality". In badly run developing countries, governments channel aid to small elites. Poor people in villages and shanty towns never see any aid. Infant and child death rates remain high and women still die in unattended childbirth in countries on which aid is focused.

Source

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THE LATEST ARTICLES UP ON ICJS

No tolerance for love and mercy in Bangladesh
Olmert's ill-timed Washington visit
Hezbollah's missiles back in Lebanon
Mideast: Lessons from classical warfare
ABC Current editorial policies etc
How Should Israel Respond to War Crimes
Jihad in cyberspace
A public broadcaster acknowledges its left-wing bias
Greg Price: Taking moral equivalence to an extreme
Scott has power to ensure we see the last latte at the ABC
Goings on in the Senate
No, sheik, sorry isn't good enough

See the video of a BBC interview on the Muslim Veil Row here. Do watch particularly the last question the BBC interviewer asks.

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ELSEWHERE

French Leftist rhetoric combines with capitalist deeds: "Yet Jospin, the socialist, pursued privatizations of state-owned enterprises with extraordinary vigor: during his five-year tenure, from 1997 to 2002, he privatized more than any of his "conservative" predecessors, and almost more than all of his predecessors combined. France Telecom, Air France, Cr,dit Lyonnais, Aerospatial-Matra, Banque Hervet--just some of the names of the more than 900 companies that saw shares floated on the stock market. With roughly 31 billion Euros ($40 billion) in privatization revenues, Jospin left his "conservative" predecessors, Prime Ministers Chirac (€13 billion in privatizations), Balladur (€17 billion) and Jupp, (€9.4 billion) in the dust. At perhaps no point was the irony more poignant than in 1999, when Jospin put his Communist Minister of Transportation, Jean-Claude Gayssot, in charge of ensuring a clean and proper near-majority privatization of Air France. Even as the French state continued to retain a slim majority of the shares until several years later, the symbolism was extraordinary..... The rhetoric aside, Air France's IPO took place on February 22, 1999.... In 2000, to the surprise of many American observers who had been misled by Jospin's rhetoric, his government implemented noticeable cuts in the value added tax (sales tax), the income tax, and even the corporate tax"

New "hate crimes" legislation? "With the Democrats taking control of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives this January, we can expect the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and its pro-homosexual surrogates newly elected to Congress, to begin an aggressive push for passage of a "hate crimes" bill designed to provide federally protected status to the behavior of homosexuality.... The side-effect of this effort will be to criminalize criticism of homosexual conduct and to violate religious freedom and freedom of conscience. It is also likely that all attempts to pass a constitutional marriage amendment will be dead on arrival in the Senate. Newly-elected Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey (D) who defeated pro-family Senator Rick Santorum (R) has already indicated his plans to push for a hate crimes bill that includes "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." Casey's announcement is payback to HRC for its strong support of his race for the Senate. Gender identity, for those unfamiliar with the term, is code for an individual who thinks he is the opposite sex. (This includes cross-dressers, transvestites and transsexuals.) Sexually confused individuals will be a protected minority if Casey and his minions in the Senate have their way."

First Minneapolis `Lesbian' Fire Chief Gets Booted Over Harassment Charges: "Bonnie Bleskcheck, the nation's first openly-homosexual Fire Chief is on the verge of being fired from her post in Minneapolis. She had agreed to resign, but a city panel has rejected her closed door negotiations and is urging that she be officially fired from her position as Fire Chief. Bleskcheck has been sued by three female firefighters over discrimination and sexual harassment. A male firefighter has sued claiming he was denied advancement because he's not a homosexual. A 2003 complaint filed by another male firefighter claimed that her department gave preferential treatment to lesbians or those who associated with them."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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4 December, 2006

The case for economic turbulence

Is a volatile economy good for American workers? To judge by the news accounts of layoffs and downsizing and families grimly adjusting to straitened circumstances, the answer would seem to be no. Three in five jobs for 22- to 55-year-old workers last three years or less. In a typical quarter of the year, about one in 13 jobs ends. For certain obvious reasons, labor-market turbulence has a reputation as a wrecker of lives, families and pocketbooks.

But is it really? Economists Clair Brown, John Haltiwanger and Julia Lane have their doubts. On closer inspection, they note, job turnover and firm disappearance have positive effects, in the aggregate. A clerk's job at a retail warehouse is replaced by a computer, but the warehouse firm can use the savings to hire a better and better-paid office manager. As workers lose jobs in one niche or sector, they gain in another, moving on to better jobs and higher pay. In the software sector, new businesses are more productive, over a five-year period, than the firms they replace. This new-business productivity gain, the authors show, is true generally across sectors--generating efficiency, products and, most important, jobs. And new businesses tend to pay more.

In short, America is not becoming a nation of part-time Wal-Mart cashiers or burger flippers. In four of the five sectors studied by the authors--semiconductors, software, financial services, retail food and trucking--the growth rate for full-time jobs exceeds the growth rate for jobs in general. (Retail food is the exception.) Separate research, conducted by Ann Huff Stevens at the University of California, Davis, shows that the average tenure for employed U.S. male laborers has been broadly stable over the past 35 years....

The data in the book, based on a new U.S. Census program, is impeccable. Yet only in the final chapter do the authors move into the broader territory of public policy. They conclude that America's competition, deregulation and economic turbulence are largely desirable. By contrast, French labor policy, which tries to prevent firings and guarantee lifetime jobs, is counterproductive. Indeed job creation has largely stalled in Western Europe as older jobs are protected at the expense of the young and at the expense of women who wish to move into the work force more than their counterparts in earlier generations once did....

Arguably "volatility in the aggregate" was never the main concern in the first place but rather a shorthand for other worries, like comparative standard of living. In my view, the contemporary critics of labor markets are still more wrong than right. As Virginia Postrel has noted, Best Buy is full of people--few of them rich--buying flat-screen TVs. The obsession with measuring median wages misses a broader story about growing wealth, higher asset values, growing flexibility, growing buffers against risk, and growing opportunities for consumption.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

POLICE TO PROTECT MOSQUE AGAINST BIKINIS: "Police have been asked to protect Australia's largest mosque next weekend because of concerns that a bikini march staged to coincide with the anniversary of the Cronulla riots may get out of control. The caretaker of Lakemba Mosque, the Lebanese Muslim Association, says it is taking no risks, requesting at least 32 police officers to protect the place of worship on Saturday and Sunday. Association president Tom Zreik said he met police on several occasions to ensure there would be adequate numbers of officers present to defuse problems and arrest troublemakers. "We are treating this as something that is funny and hilarious but also taking precautions," Mr Zreika said of the bikini march. "Some people may see this as provocation and the last thing that we want is to see anyone being attacked." The organiser, Melbourne grandmother Christine Hawkins, has asked women nationally to dress in bikinis and colourful beachwear and rally outside large mosques to show their disgust at comments by leading Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, who likened women to "uncovered meat".

Illegal aliens kill more than the Iraq terrorists: "While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens - men, women and children - were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began. Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research. Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001. Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863"

Pro-Communist Swedish government TV: "Yet here in Sweden, the government television channel (who has the nerve to -in true Orwellian fashion- characterize itself as "free television") have a 4 hour special theme night to celebrate ( they themselves use the Swedish word "fira", which means celebrate) Fidel Castro and his long rule as dictator of Cuba. First they are going to have a re-run of an uncritical interview with Castro, more than an hour long, produced by Swedish government television 30 years ago. Then they will have a panel discussion about him from 3 well-known admirers of Castro. Then they will have a Oliver Stone "documentary" where Castro will again be able to present his views. Then they will finish with an interview of Castro's former mistress".

Muslims still killing Christians when they can: "The US-based human rights group International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned a mob of 300 Muslims killed six Christians in early October while 15 others were left seriously wounded by the attack during a midnight worship service in Beshasha, a town located in the Agaro province in Ethiopia. On 14 October, a group of three hundred Muslims, carrying guns and knives approached the church where the Orthodox Christians were holding a midnight worship service. When the locked doors prevented the mob from entering the church they forced the congregation out of the church by pouring gasoline around the building."

Taleban still barbaric: "The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy. The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over. He was partly disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes. The remains were put on display as a warning to others against defying Taleban orders to stop educating girls."

Another media lie: "One of the most sensational news items over the Thanksgiving holiday came from the Associated Press, which reported on six Sunni civilians burned alive as they left Friday mosque services. The shocking dispatch received global coverage. The front cover of the Philadelphia Daily News blasted: "WORSHIPPERS BURNED ALIVE: Capping deadliest week of war, 6 Sunnis doused with kerosene, set afire as Iraqi soldiers reportedly stand idle." The Chicago Sun-Times blared: "Sunnis burned alive in revenge." The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia headlined: "Shiite militia burn Sunnis alive in revenge attacks." The Calcutta Telegraph in India echoed: "Shias burn Sunnis alive." .... Just a few small problems with the massively publicized story: "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein" is an unreliable, unauthorized spokesperson whom the military has warned the Associated Press about before. The incident cannot be verified. Readers of newspapers around the world that carried the story have not been informed of any of this by the Associated Press or any other mainstream media outlet. But those who follow the blogosphere have been unraveling the story over the past week at lightning pace"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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3 December, 2006

A GOOD MEMOIR FROM A FRIEND OF MILTON FRIEDMAN

I was probably the last person to go out to lunch with Milton. We met at his favorite restaurant in San Francisco, where I showed him a picture of him standing next to John Kenneth Galbraith, the premier Keynesian and welfare statist of the 20th century. Galbraith towered over the diminutive Friedman. Beneath the picture was a funny line by George Stigler: "All great economists are tall. There are two exceptions: John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman." Milton was so pleased with the photo and caption that he sent it to all his friends only two weeks before his passing.



(Left to Right above: George Stigler, Milton Friedman, John Kenneth Galbraith)

Source

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EVALUATING THE NEW FOUNTAIN OF WISDOM FOR AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

From what we know so far, the Baker Commission is going to recommend that we cut troop levels in Iraq, attempt to make nicey-nice with our determined enemies in Iran and Syria, and demand Israeli concessions to serve as the deus ex machina to bring about peace in our time. In a word, oy vey!

Coming from a commission headed by James Baker, the latter recommendation is especially jarring. During his tenure as Secretary of State, I believe his most famous quote regarding Israel and the Jews was (and pardon his French), "F*ck the Jews. They didn't vote for us anyway."

Whether or not Baker is an anti-Semite or merely a non-comprehending putz is a disputable but largely academic matter. A report from America's putative best minds that focuses on the six million Jews in the region rather than the one billion Muslims is fatally suspect. Of course, it's more politically expedient and just plain easier to focus on the Jews. Regardless of what idiocies the Baker Commission pukes out, our government won't have to put itself on alert for a gaggle of flying rabbis determined to terrify airliners.

More here

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JIHAD IN WEST AFRICA

Two centuries before the current American foreign policy, or before there was Zionism, or "Iraq" and "Palestine" to blame, long before "poverty" was pulled up as a root-cause, and the why-do-they-hate-us brigade not only did not exist, but would have been impossible to call into being, Muslims in West Africa were on the Jihad warpath. A Muslim cleric, or mallam, Usman dan Fodio, led a Jihad against local non-Muslim rulers from 1804 to 1810. This led to the establishment of the so-called Caliphate of Sokoto, and to the spread, enforced spread by military conquest, of Islam.

The results of that can be seen in West Africa. There one can find Christian neighborhoods that are well-tended, neat, prettified even with simple touches (a few flowers), and then the sullen, dirty, rundown areas of Muslims. The comparison is remarkable.

And everywhere Christians are under assault. They have been under assault, most famously, in Nigeria, where in 1967 the Christian Ibos, far more advanced and industrious than their Muslim overlords, rebelled and declared the independence of the State of Biafra. The proximate cause were the mass murders by Muslims of Christian Ibo all over northern Nigeria. But the Western world did nothing to help the Christian Ibo, while the Muslims -- including Egyptian pilots and planes that strafed Ibo villages, killing tens of thousands of helpless villagers -- did provide aid.

More here

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DEMOCRAT HATRED OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION ON SHOW

Democrats

-- have tried to prevent us from listening on terrorists' phone calls
-- have sought to stop us from properly interrogating captured terrorists
-- have tried to stop us from monitoring terrorists' financial transactions
-- have revealed the existence of secret national security programs
-- have opposed vital components of the Patriot Act
-- have sought to confer unmerited legal rights on terrorists
-- have opposed profiling to identify the terrorists in our midst
-- have impugned and demeaned our military
-- have insinuated that the president is a war criminal
-- have forced the resignation of a committed defense secretary
-- have repeatedly tried to delegitimize our war effort
-- want to quit the battlefield in the midst of war.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

An arrogant Leftist priest: "Last week, Andrew M. Greeley, the well-known liberal priest and sociologist of all things Catholic, gave a celebrity interview to his fans. Though his main interlocutor was Robert Orsi, the chairman of the religion department at Harvard, Father Greeley also took some questions from the audience.... a middle-aged woman in the back of the room asked Father Greeley about the changing face of the Catholic Church. The greatest growth in the world-wide Catholic population, she noted, has been coming for some years from new believers in South America and Africa, and the trend shows no signs of abating. What effect would this have on the church? "We will depend on them for vitality," Father Greeley predicted. "But they will continue to depend on us for the ideas." To judge by a murmuring restlessness in the crowd, more than a few audience members were surprised such a remark. It seemed--how to put it?--patronizing. Do people in the Global South have no ideas of their own? Is theirs a faith of pure emotion?"

Bush supports Georgia bid to join NATO: "President George W Bush vowed on Tuesday to maintain U.S. support for Georgia's aspiration to join the NATO alliance despite strong Russian opposition that has sparked tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi, Reuters news agency reports. Speaking just before the first NATO summit on former Soviet soil, Bush said in a speech at the University of Latvia that the alliance would keep its door open to new members and hoped to issue additional invitations at its next summit in 2008."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************



2 December, 2006

HOW THE DEMOCRAT CONGRESS WILL (NOT) WORK

In the Senate, there is no such thing as a majority. Ever since the elder Bush's administration, the filibuster has become routine. No longer reserved for civil-rights issues or for egregious legislation, it now is used to counter even motions for recess and adjournment. Members of the Senate are no longer subjected to the indignity of standing on their feet and reading a telephone book. Rather, the gentlemen's filibuster applies. The majority leader phones the minority leader and asks if a filibuster is in effect. With his feet up on his desk, the Republican replies that it is and the Democrat, despite his majority, does not even think about bringing up his bill for consideration unless he has a good shot at the 60 votes required to shut off debate. In the Senate, 51 votes determine who gets the corner office, but to pass legislation, one needs 60.

In the House of Representatives, with its 435 members, the Republican Party needed a simple majority - 218 - to rule. The Democrats need considerably more. The normal rules of a mathematical majority do not take into account the fractious nature of the Democratic Party. Where the Republican majority best resembled the Prussian Army - disciplined, unified and determined - the Democratic majority in the upcoming Congress is disunited, dispersed and divided into myriad caucuses and special interest groups. One could purchase the Republican majority wholesale by making a deal with the speaker and the majority leader. But to get the Democratic majority in line, one has to buy it retail -- caucus by caucus.

First, one has to go to check with the Black Caucus -- hat in hand -- to see if one's bill has enough liberal giveaways to round up its forty or so votes. Thence to the Hispanic Caucus for a similar screening. Then, with one's legislation weighted down with liberal provisions added by these two groups, one has to sell it to the Democratic Leadership Council moderates and, even worse, to the Blue Dog Democrats -- the out and out conservatives. If you are fortunate enough to pass these contradictory litmus tests, you then have to go to the environmentalists, the labor people, and even the gays to see that your bill passes muster. Only then can you begin to hope for House passage.

Source

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Brookes News Update

Is the US economy facing an imminent recession?: I think it's fair to draw the conclusion that it is the current monetary squeeze that's exerting a downward pressure on prices and imports and not increasing competition. Unfortunately America's thoroughly corrupt media would see this as an opportunity to destroy the Bush administration
Greenspan's price rule caused the US recession - and it's going to happen: The problem today, as always, is that nothing has been learnt from history. Monetary policy has been loose and the destructive price rule still rules
Steve Bracks' green stupidity and economic illiteracy: When it comes to economic reasoning and genuine conservation the obtuse Steve Bracks and his equally slow-witted colleagues are at a complete loss. Unfortunately the Liberal Party of Victoria isn't any better than Bracks' ignorant and destructive team
Labor thrashes the Liberal Party on wages and deregulated labour markets: For some weird reason many Liberal politicians seem to believe they are qualified to discuss economic policies despite the fact that they could not tell the difference between an isoquant and an icicle
The American Truth Forum exposes Islamic penetration of the universities: Many professors are no longer American their aim is teach children to hate America. Moreover, The number of imams at major universities is growing at a rapid rate. It does not seem to matter whether there is a substantial Muslim society at the school or not. What is the need for imams?
Is moderate inflation good for an economy?: The only ideal monetary setup is the one that eradicates inflation. This means, however, that the central bank must stop its monetary pumping. Better still, abolish the central bank
Are cut-and-run Democrats changing their tune?: Why did the media wait? Those "experts" now exposing the Democrats' exit strategy as a deadly fantasy were available to reporters before the election and yet they were ignored until the Democrats won both houses. Is this more evidence that the media runs interference for the Democrats?
Thanksgiving: Blessings and Challenges: Youngsters need to see that just because their lives are not heaven on earth, that doesn't mean they don't have a reason to rejoice. For they live in a country where anything is possible - where a poor child can grow up to become leader of the free world

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ELSEWHERE

Raising the Federal Minimum Wage should show how stupid that is: "Controversy remains in the United States (and elsewhere) over the effects of the minimum wage mainly because past changes in the U.S. minimum wage have usually been too small to have large and easily detectable general effects on employment and unemployment. The effects of an increase to $7.25 per hour in the federal minimum wage that many Democrats in Congress are proposing would be large enough to be easily seen in the data. It would be a nice experiment from a strictly scientific point of view, for it would help resolve the controversy over whether the effects of large increases in the minimum wage would be clearly visible in data on employment, training, and some prices.... The effects of the French minimum have been carefully studied by two excellent economists, Guy Laroque and Bernard Salanie, in a series of articles, such as " Labor Market Institutions and Employment in France," Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2002. They find that the relatively high minimum in France explains a significant part of the low employment rate of married women in France. Salanie has also argued that the high French minimum wage is important in explaining the dismal employment prospects of young persons in France, and the huge unemployment rate of Muslim youths there, estimated to be about 40 per cent.

EU strongarms little Switzerland: "But the EU, knowing that little Switzerland depends far more on them than vice versa, told the Swiss that they cannot just cherry pick the advantages of the EU, while completely opting out of paying money to the EU budget. So the EU told the Swiss: pay us a billion swiss franc per year, or we'll institute trade barriers that would harm the Swiss economy even more. Pure blackmail, in other words. The EU will thus get to enjoy the benefits of free trade with Switzerland and cherry pick another billion swiss francs, while the Swiss will have to pay up a billion swiss francs in "protection money" to the Don Corleones of Brussells." [Imagine the shrieks of "American imperialism" if Washington tried this]

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************



1 December, 2006

A MOST UNUSUAL BOOK

I rarely read a book that changes my opinion of anything. I learn new facts every day but those facts usually confirm conclusions I have come to long ago. The book The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature by Elizabeth Kantor has however changed my mind about something that I thought I had long ago decided.

I am a very literary person. I am known for reciting on some social occasions large slabs of the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer -- in the original Middle English, of course. And I even know by heart a bit of "Beowulf" in the original Anglo-Saxon. And every year I celebrate with some ceremony the birth of the world's greatest lyric poet -- Robert Burns.

So I have always been secure in my belief that literature is NOT important. The great poems of the past and classical literature generally have always seemed to me to be something that are simply to be enjoyed. If you don't happen to enjoy that sort of thing, go and read "The Phantom" and good luck to you.

So when I discovered that my son had learnt almost nothing about the great literature of the past during his High School years, I started to read him some of the wonderful poems of the past, not because I thought it would be good for him but because I thought he had been deprived of a great enjoyment. And, fortunately, he does enjoy hearing bits from our vast literary heritage that modern Leftist education had hidden from him.

Dr Kantor in her book has however made clear something that I had not taken much account of: The literature of the past introduces us to different worlds from the one we live in now. I had always known that but had taken it for granted that everyone would somehow have visited different mental worlds in some way. Dr. Kantor, however, has pointed out what really goes on in so-called "Literature" courses these days -- an attack on literature rather than an introduction to it and an appreciation of it. So the many different environments and value-sets we encounter in literature are NOT any more available to most of the young. Young people these days have been deprived of the perspective on human values and human arrangements generally that the literature of the past can give.

And that deprivation is vital to the Left. There is nothing more destructive of Leftist nonsense than a knowledge of history -- which is why they regularly distort history if they have to mention it at all. They even tell us that the socialist Hitler was a Rightist! But the Left cannot well distort something that was in fact written in the past. The Medieval England that Chaucer describes was not written ABOUT the past but rather IN the past. It is eyewitness testimony to what people were like then and what arrangements they had between themselves and what values moved them. And it is certainly clear from Chaucer that people have remained basically the same under the skin over the last 600 years. What differs is their values and social arrangements.

So the past is a natural experiment that tells us how various policies and arrangements work out long-term and, given the evils of the French revolution and Communist Russia, one can understand why Leftists hate people to know about the past. Those who know the past should readily be able to see the follies and shallowness of Leftist ideas and there is nothing like the imaginative literature of the past to bring the past alive in our minds.

The book does what all literature courses once did: Introduces you to the main works of the past and explains words and allusions that are not familiar today so that you can understand them readily. Parents should buy this book for their kids at least. Anybody who reads it and absorbs it will end up knowing more about the great literature of English than most professors of English these days do. And they will certainly have a very different perspective on what is important.

There is a slogan on the cover of the book that I rather like: "Dead white males rock!"

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ELSEWHERE



A Leftist "intellectual" above -- courtesy of Zombietime

People deserting Taxachusetts: "Massachusetts single-family home sales dropped 14.9 percent on a volume basis in October, and the October median sale price of a single-family home in the Bay State fell 6.9 percent, to $312,000 from $335,000, when compared to the same month last year, a real-estate data firm said today. The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, said the October home price decrease was the sixth straight monthly drop when compared to the same months last year. The number of single-family home sales in October fell to 4,313 from 5,068, the Warren Group said".

Salvation Army banned at Target but welcome at Wal-Mart again: "Associates at more than 3,900 Wal-Mart stores, Sam's Clubs and Neighborhood Markets across the country today staffed the Red Kettles to celebrate the company's 20-plus year tradition of rolling out the red carpet for The Salvation Army's bell ringers. Wal-Mart Stores chief executive officer Lee Scott led the kick-off of the "Bells Ringing Across America" celebration with a $1 million donation from the Wal-Mart and Sam's Club Foundation."

A Democrat with a brain: "Sen. Joe Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's incoming chairman, wants to get tough with Mexico, calling it an 'erstwhile democracy' with a 'corrupt system' responsible for illegal immigration and drug problems in the U.S. Biden, D-Del., was in Columbia on Monday in his first postelection trip to this first-in-the-South presidential primary state as he continues to line up support for his presidential bid."

Tax issue presents dilemma for Dems: "After six years of railing against Republican tax cuts for the rich and fiscal irresponsibility, Democrats will find themselves come January under enormous pressure to pass a hugely expensive tax cut -- without any way to make up the revenue. The alternative minimum tax, which slaps an extra income tax on many higher-income people, has become a political monster for Democrats, threatening to clobber prosperous professionals in such Democratic strongholds as California and New York."

Repeal the Internet Poker Ban: "Recently, Congress took a radical step to protect our nation. Under the guise of protecting our country from terrorists trying to attack our harbors, it passed a ban on Internet poker games. Of course, it may be the case that someplace, somewhere, someone actually believes that Internet poker players are third-world terrorists out to destroy our way of life. Unfortunately, one of these people is a United States Senator."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************