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31 December, 2007

Examining surnames

This is probably the time of the year for a few lighter posts so let me mention an occasional recreation that I have: Observing what surnames tell us. For instance: Surnames ending in "uk" or "iuk" are usually Ukrainian, surnames ending in "u" are Sardinan or Romanian, surnames ending in "yan" or "ian" are Armenian, and a final "ee" sound is very common in Irish names (Murphy, Toohey, Fahey, Talty, Sheehy, Mahoney, Mulrooney etc). There is also a more minor tradition for Irish names to end in an "un" sound: Coughlin, Reagan, Rearden etc.

But Ashkenazi names are the most amusing of all. They were meant to be. In a combination that will blow current Leftist minds, militaristic Prussia (in Northeastern Germany) was for many years the most tolerant place in Europe and many Jews fled to Prussia from persecution elsewhere. So much of the surviving Jewish population today owes its existence to the refuge their ancestors found in Protestant Prussia: Germany giveth and Germany taketh away. The Prussian border guards could not be bothered with foreign names, however, so gave the incoming Jews ID papers with German names on them. And the German names were deliberately mocking. So a Jew who was renamed as "Kren" for instance, had to go around thenceforth introducing himself as "Mr Horseradish" -- which is what "Herr Kren" means in German.

A basic knowledge of German therefore makes Ashkenazi names amusing to this day. Goldberg is "Goldmountain", Rosenblum" is "Roseflower", Finkelstein is "SparklingStone" etc. Occasionally however the guards must have run out of imagination and gave names that were not too bad. "Wiesengrund" is an example. It means "Meadowland", which sounds rather pleasant to me. In one of those ironies with which life abounds, however, the most prominent bearer of that name for his entire professional life used the pen-name of "Adorno", which is Spanish for "ornament"! Words fail me!

And I find my own surname rather fun too. There may be more than one path that has led to the surname "Ray" but it seems to me that the important fact about it is that it is found throughout the British Isles in various spellings (Rae in Scotland, Reay in Ireland, Wray in England etc.). So I think that it is clear that it is an old Celtic name probably derived from the Gaelic "rath" -- meaning "red" (cf. "roth", also meaning "red", in German). The Rays were originally the redheads. And guess what? My father was a redhead! So it all fits in a rather surprising way.

And then there are patronymics -- still important from Iceland to Russia. In Ireland we have of course originally patronymic names like O'Brien and McSweeney and in Scotland Macdonald. And if ever you get an urge to write a letter to the present President of Russia, DON'T address him as "Dear Mr. Putin". That is crass. You address him as "Vladimir Vladimirovich" (Vladimir son of Vladimir"). Similarly you would address Mikhail Gorbachev as "Mikhail Sergeyevich" (Mikhail son of Sergei). Patronymics are polite in Russia. But it is in Iceland that patronymics reign supreme. The full name of a recent President of Iceland is, for instance, "Vigdis Finnbogadottir" (Vigdis, daughter of Finnboga). That's her below.



In Denmark too patronymics used to be dominant but they made a law around 100 years ago that said everybody had to adopt a surname. But the Danes just converted their patronymics into surnames -- which is why we have so many Andersens (son of Anders), Petersens, Olsens (son of Ole), Neilsens etc. Now isn't that all rather fun?

Update:

I feel slightly foolish for having omitted the name "Kelly" from my list of Irish names ending in an "ee" sound. My very own beloved grandmother was a Kelly!

And to the list of Irish names ending in an "un" sound one should of course add Ryan, Mahon and Geoghegan. You may need to be Irish to pronounce Geoghegan correctly. It's easier than it looks!

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ELSEWHERE

Don Surber's Colorado story of the week: "8 inches of global warming fell on Denver on Christmas Day, shattering a record that dated back to 1894. Thousands of children ran outside to make globalwarmingmen."

The Church that worships the environment instead of God is fading fast: "Last night, leading figures gave warning that the Church of England could become a minority faith and that the findings should act as a wake-up call. The statistics show that attendance at Anglican Sunday services has dropped by 20 per cent since 2000. A survey of 37,000 churches, to be published in the new year, shows the number of people going to Sunday Mass in England last year averaged 861,000, compared with 852,000 Anglicans -worshipping. [Out of a popoulation of 60 million]

Long gone neocons: "Maybe 2008 will be the year when we will finally be rid of that vacuous belief that 'the neocons' are in control of the Bush administration's foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. Habits are hard to break, particularly lazy ones, but if anyone bothered to look more closely, they would see that the United States has not really engaged in what we might call a neoconservative approach to the region since at least 2004, when the situation in Iraq took a sudden turn for the worse."

Old Etonian wants the commoners to pay more for their chicken: "The television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, known for his earthy approach to cooking and love of offal, is to launch a campaign for the middle classes to boycott cheap chicken in protest at the cruelty of battery farming. Fearnley-Whittingstall believes well-heeled consumers should be prepared to pay more for their chicken so that fewer birds are reared in overcrowded, unnatural conditions. Currently, less than 5% of chicken bought in Britain is organic or free-range, and critics believe shoppers place too much emphasis on simply finding the lowest prices. Organic chicken in the supermarket is about twice the price of intensively reared birds"

Romney is awake to the State Department!: "Romney agrees with Bolton on the State Department? He is looking better and better. Here is Romney on Hugh Hewitt's show while on the Iowa caucus campaign trail: HH: Governor Romney, one of the first tasks for a conservative in the White House will be to get control of the Department of State, and the Central Intelligence Agency, that keep turning out these NIE's and leaking things. Do you have the capacity to do that? MR: You know, there's nothing more political than corporate America. And you have to be able to rein in those individuals that are, if you will, doing things that harm our national interests. And I've watched with some concern over the past weeks, and years, frankly, it's going to be very difficult to turn around our State Department, and get it to respond to the position that the President would take. John Bolton's recent book, Surrender Is Not An Option, is a good inside look at how disruptive and counterproductive our efforts in the U.N., or our efforts at the State Department can be. But that is something which I'm up to, and I'm looking forward to.

Hillary frags Pakistan: "While the world holds its breath to see if Pakistan will explode, Senator Hillary Clinton tossed a fragmentation grenade into the fireworks factory yesterday. It may be the most irresponsible and selfish act by a presidential candidate in history: "I don't think the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all. They have disbanded an independent judiciary. They have oppressed a free press," she said. Naturally, she also said, "I don't think politics should be playing a role in how our country responds ... to the tragedy." Well, she just did exactly that by denouncing President Musharraf, who has been targeted by four assassination attempts himself, and is desperately trying to keep Pakistan from falling apart. He's the one who controls those nukes that we don't want Al Qaida to get. You don't have to like him to realize that weakening his position right now is wildly irresponsible. It plays right into the hands of those who want civil war".

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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30 December, 2007

Benazir

The mainstream press is tending to eulogize the tragically assassinated Benazir Bhutto but lots of conservative blogs are pointing out the reservations that should be borne in mind about her. She was the socialist heir to a socialist dynasty and would almost certainly have done more harm than good if she had regained power in Pakistan. Ralph Peters is, as usual, the most acerbic in his comments.

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Some good holiday reading

For those who still have some holiday time left, Jonah Goldberg's recent book ("Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning") sounds well worth a read. Sadly, I am betting that you won't pick it up at your local bookstore, however. Below is the Amazon synopsis of the book:

"Fascists," "Brownshirts," "jackbooted stormtroopers"-such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term "National socialism"). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities-where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today's liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a "friendlier," more liberal form. The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

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ELSEWHERE

Smearing Ron Paul: "I couldn't help but be struck by the vicious smear of Ron Paul by a Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times. ... Sure, politics is a nasty business but I just couldn't help but wonder why the New York Times would publish garbage like this. Here's the thrust of Heffernan's attack: that Ron Paul has received donations from neo-Nazi extremist groups and has spoken at events attended by right-wing extremist individuals. ... Is this ludicrous or what? What are Heffernan and the New York Times suggesting -- that Ron Paul, one of the most committed libertarians around, has instead been a closet Nazi the whole time he has been in Congress? Or maybe they're suggesting that this committed libertarian has, all of a sudden, decided to convert to Nazism. Or maybe they're saying that libertarians don't really advocate individual freedom, free markets, and limited government but instead advocate statism and government control over economic activity."

You can be too clever: "The nineteenth century English philosopher John Stuart Mill bequeathed to modern conservatism a lasting inferiority complex when he dismissed the conservatives of his day as "the stupid party." ... Yet the sting of Mill's insult remains today, and it explains, in part, the conspicuous braininess of contemporary conservatism. Conservative think-tanks abound in PhD's and experts in every field imaginable, whose intelligence, as measured by IQ tests and academic credentials, is certainly a match for those of their ideological opponents. But has the emergence of a conservative intelligentsia proven to be an unmixed blessing? Or is the very phrase "conservative intelligentsia" an oxymoron? Let's begin by noting that the eagerness to appear intelligent to others is a fairly recent development among conservatives. By and large, the English Tories whom Mill dubbed as the original stupid party did not share this desire in the least... Their stupidity, as many of them no doubt hazily realized, was their best defense against the inroads of clever madmen intent on turning their world upside down-men like John Stuart Mill, for example, to whom tradition meant nothing, and who was willing to throw out the solid heritage of the past in the pursuit of the latest fad, dubbed by him "experiments in living."

The Chicken or the Egg (on His Face)?: "Which came first: the Chicken or the Egg? I ask because Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, brought it up. You see, Hoyer has supported earmarks totaling $96 million, including a $450,000 grant to the California-based InTune Foundation Group, to supposedly provide music education. InTune officials say they aren't sure what they are going to do with the money. The group's director offered that, "It might be music camps. It might be lessons. It might be how to be a DJ. It might be how to create a television show." Last year, InTune got $500,000 and failed to report what they did with the money. Asked why he went to bat for this earmark, Hoyer replied, "I thought it was a program that would be a positive program." Some testimonial. Of course, it couldn't be the more than $30,000 that Hoyer's political action committee has received from folks connected to InTune."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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29 December, 2007

IS RON PAUL A RACIST?

By some Leftist definitions, Ron Paul IS a racist. But Leftists class as a racist anybody who mentions racial differences at all -- a definition which is to my mind just a form of abuse. Are medical scientists (e.g. here) who repeatedly find medically significant differences between blacks and whites racists too?

I mentioned yesterday Taranto's feeble attempt to brand Ron Paul as a racist but he has clearly retracted that claim today. I suspect that I was far from the only one who sent him links and emails that took him to task over his comments yesterday.

A much more serious claim that Ron Paul is a racist comes from black conservative Bob Parks. Bob Parks generally speaks a lot of sense but the refusal of Ron Paul to be politically correct has obviously alarmed him. Parks has a whole list of broadly realistic utterances from Ron Paul that would have any Leftist shrieking "racism". The prime example seems to be:

"We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."

If you left out the word "black", I think there could well be a majority of Americans who agreed with that. And, given his vocal condemnation of real racism (as now linked by Taranto), I suspect that Ron Paul himself would intend his remarks to apply to all gang members who otherwise fitted his description. So I am afraid that it is really Bob Parks who is the racist on this occasion. It is the addition of "black" that forms his opinion of Ron Paul. And who would deny that many of the gang members who fit Ron Paul's description are in fact black? Ron Paul has no difficulty in describing reality but Bob Parks does.

One of my Jewish correspondents emailed me with the thought that Taranto initially got a bit freaked over Ron Paul because Ron Paul frequently denounces "neocons" and in Leftist mouths "neocon" is often code for "Jew". That would be an understandable mistake. But it shows no awareness of the libertarian position on armies and war. There are probably no two libertarians anywhere who agree totally with one another but, as extreme individualists, libertarians tend to be very suspicious of ANYTHING that governments do -- and armies and war are very clearly large examples of the exercise of government power. Many libertarians in fact deny that armed forces are needed at all. To caricature a little, they believe that each man should have his own bazooka and that would be sufficient to deter any invader or attacker. I disagree with that but I am describing a common libertarian view.

So given that background, opposition to foreign military interventions (interventions which neocons favour) is fundamental for a libertarian like Ron Paul. And that makes him fundamentally opposed to the foreign wars that GWB has undertaken with neocon support. So Ron Paul's opposition to the neocons is entirely explicable on POLICY grounds, not racial grounds. And his view that it is Bush's advisers who are most responsible for the foreign wars rather than Bush himself is one shared with many Leftists. For Ron Paul, however, that opinion clearly serves the end of limiting criticism of an administration that is still popular in many conservative circles.

It has also been remarked that Ron Paul gets approval from a motley crew of political extremists, from Nazis to Communists. But that is again to be expected of a libertarian. Libertarians agree with conservatives on some things and Leftists on other things so a libertarian who forcefully expresses a view that is dear to the heart of an extremist will get some approval. And most extremists of all sorts are highly critical of Bush government policies (particularly in the middle East) so Ron Paul's vocal criticisms of those policies can be expected to be welcomed in extremist circles. To judge Ron Paul by those who praise him is very strange however. By that logic he is both a Communist and a Nazi!

I intend nothing that I have said above as support for Ron Paul. My preference remains strongly for Fred Thompson. I intend what I have said above as just my attempt to set the record straight in an area that is much prone to hysteria.

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ELSEWHERE

More political fakery: "How does the Republican frontrunner in Iowa further ingratiate himself with the locals with just a week to go before the first votes are cast in the 2008 presidential election? He gets a dog called Dude and goes out shooting with his buddies, of course. It doesn't matter that it's freezing cold and there's nobody to greet with a big Arkansas howdy. It's about creating that experienced outdoors man look, and reminding all those Iowan evangelicals how much you enjoy their kind of fun. And getting yourself photographed with a gun can only help shore up those all-important Second Amendment credentials. Luckily for Mike Huckabee, and anyone else within cooee, there was no sign of Vice-President Dick Cheney, who famously (and almost fatally) sprayed his 78-year-old pal Harry Whittington with birdshot during a similar hunting trip in Texas in February last year. Early in the campaign, Mr Romney played loose with the truth when he claimed to be a "lifelong hunter". He later had to admit he owned neither a gun nor a hunting licence. To many, it was a startling oversight for someone whose presidential campaign is heavily dependent on early success in states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, where recreational shooting is a way of life."

Militants slain in Gaza air strikes: "Israeli air strikes killed at least six militants in the Gaza Strip overnight, including a senior member of Islamic Jihad, the militant group said. It said the man killed was Mohammed Abu Murshud, head of Islamic Jihad's armed wing in the central Gaza Strip. An Israeli army spokesman confirmed there had been an air strike in the central Gaza Strip, but did not say who had been targeted in the attack. At least five other militants were killed earlier and nine were wounded in Israeli air and ground attacks in the central Gaza Strip and near the southern town of Khan Younis, medical staff in the Hamas-controlled territory said. An official for Islamic Jihad said that two of its members had been killed and another was wounded. Three bystanders were also wounded. The Israeli army spokesman said the strikes targeted a vehicle carrying explosives and militants travelling to "execute a terror attack", and a group of gunmen who had launched a rocket propelled grenade at a military vehicle."

Sowell on Edwards: "None of the candidates looks truly inspiring at this point. I wouldn't buy a used car from most of them, nor a brand new car from some of them. John Edwards is the easiest to peg. He looks just like the phony that he is. His talk about poor children going to bed hungry may rouse the far left in his party but in fact the lowest-income people are even more obese than the rest of us, not that the facts make the slightest difference to Senator Edwards. As an attorney, Edwards conned millions of dollars out of gullible juries, using junk science to create the impression that it was the fault of doctors when babies were born with birth defects."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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28 December, 2007

Taranto, Ron Paul and the North/South war

I rarely disagree with Taranto but his sensitivity to "racism" (He is Jewish) sometimes loosens his contact with reality. And he is too slippery with the facts by far in his comments on Ron Paul. He faults Ron Paul for pointing out what I and many others have pointed out: That America was the only country that needed a civil war to free the slaves -- leading to the view that the real motive was not to free the slaves but rather as Lincoln himself often said: To "preserve the union" -- in other words to centralize power in the Federal government and allow no dissent from it. The slaves were merely a pretext.

Taranto puts forward a very stretched interpretation of Ron Paul's words by saying that Paul favours official desegregation only at "a federal lunch counter" and not in the armed forces etc. He realizes however that such an interpretation is not sustainable and endeavours to bolster his position by saying that "Paul blames Lincoln for the Civil War rather than blaming the South for starting a war to preserve slavery".

But the accusation that the South started the war, although technically correct, is disingenuous. The South attacked Fort Sumpter only because it was already under heavy threat and needed to consolidate its position against the more numerous Northerners if it was to have any chance of defending itself. On Taranto's argument, Israel's six-day war was also wrong because it was Israel that fired first when it was heavily threatened by Egypt.

There's been a whole library of books written on the North/South war but some recent comments here and here may be of interest.

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ELSEWHERE

IAF interested in new US jet: "Fearing the possibility that airfields will be bombed and destroyed during a war, the Israel Air Force has expressed interest in purchasing a squadron of Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) with vertical take-off and landing capabilities. In September, the IDF announced its plans to purchase at least 25 F-35 jets, with the option to purchase up to dozens more. Delivery was initially scheduled for 2014, but The Jerusalem Post revealed in October that the Pentagon had in principle agreed to work to move up delivery of the fifth-generation and stealth-enabled aircraft to Israel by as early as 2012. The agreement was reached during Defense Minister Ehud Barak's visit to Washington. The IAF had initially planned to purchase the standard version of the aircraft, the F-35A, which takes off from runways. While Israel does not have aircraft carriers - traditionally used for short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft - the decision to consider the vertical airplane, called the F-35B, was made due to an understanding that at a time of war, Israeli bases and runways will be heavily targeted by enemy missiles."

The Soviet mentality is alive and well: "By the time she had realised her mistake - that as one of Germany's top communists she should probably not be seen eating lobster - it was too late. There was no time to switch from the 22 euro "rich man's dish" to a more modest platter of kippers, because Sahra Wagenknecht had already been caught on camera in the act of betraying her own political ideals. So the photogenic MEP for Germany's Left party set about trying to destroy the evidence of what happened that night in the Strasbourg restaurant Aux Armes in a manner that has sent ripples of scorn across Germany."

PLO a creation of the KGB: "As Ion Mihai Pacepa, onetime director of the Romanian espionage service (DIE), later explained, the PLO was conceived at a time when the KGB was creating "liberation front" organizations throughout the Third world. Others included the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created in 1964 with help from Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and the National Liberation Army of Colombia, created in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro. But the PLO was the KGB's most enduring achievement. In 1964, the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Soviet blueprint for a Palestinian National Charter-a document drafted in Moscow-and made Ahmad Shukairy, the KGB's agent of influence, the first PLO chairman. The Romanian intelligence service was given responsibility for providing the PLO with logistical support. Except for the arms, which were supplied by the KGB and the East German Stasi, everything, according to Ion Pacepa, "came from Bucharest. Even the PLO uniforms and the PLO stationery were manufactured in Romania free of charge"

McCain proposes new welfare program: "In his latest attack on the free market and what appears to be a calculated political move to appeal to Michigan voters, John McCain wants to create a new welfare program for manufacturing workers. According to the Detroit Free Press, Senator McCain announced yesterday a plan to use federal dollars to make up the salary difference for workers who lose manufacturing jobs and are forced to accept lower-paying jobs until they find new careers. This is exactly the kind of plan you expect to hear from the Democratic candidates, not an alleged economic conservative, The government should not be in the business of guaranteeing wages. In a dynamic economy, wage and employment changes are inevitable and part of the normal process of economic growth and technological innovation. In addition, McCain's welfare program has the potential to unleash a series of perverse incentives, the worst of which is the disincentive to learn new skills and assume challenging new career paths. Why make an effort to learn new skills and take on a challenge when John McCain will make taxpayers pay your former wage for even a minimum wage job?"

Senate meets for 9 seconds to block Bush appointment: "The House was quiet as a mouse the day after Christmas. But across the Capitol, the Senate was operating in an unusually efficient manner in its ongoing power struggle with President Bush. A nine-second session gaveled in and out by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., prevented Bush from appointing as an assistant attorney general a nominee roundly rejected by majority Democrats. Without the pro forma session, the Senate would be technically adjourned, allowing the president to install officials without Senate confirmation. Democrats wanted to block one such recess appointment in particular: Steven Bradbury, acting chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Counsel. Bush nominated Bradbury for the job and asked the Senate to remove the "acting" in his title. Democrats would have none of it, complaining Bradbury had signed two secret memos in 2005 saying it was OK for the CIA to use harsh interrogation techniques - some call it torture - on terrorism detainees".

Democrat use of the filibuster (mainly against judicial nominees) comes back to haunt them: "GOP senators used vote-delaying filibusters this year to thwart House and Senate majorities on efforts to offset the $50 billion cut in projected revenue from the alternative minimum tax; allow the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices; impose new taxes on oil companies; require more use of renewable fuels in generating electricity; grant congressional representation to the District of Columbia; and require more rest time from troops deployed to Iraq."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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27 December, 2007

On the first day of Christmas...

A few lighter posts from the Unhinged Kingdom today: Post below lifted from Adam Smith blog. See the original for links

My true love sent to me: a partridge in a pear tree. In the original song it seems that 'my true love' is God, that the partridge symbolizes Christ, and the pear tree represents the Cross. Well, maybe.

But in Britain, until this year, if you wanted to deal in game - not just partridges but pheasants, hares, grouse, moor game, woodcock, deer, or rabbits, you needed a licence from the local authority under section 18 of the 1831 Game Act (plus an excise licence from the Post Office under section 14 of the 1860 Game Licences Act). The 1831 legislation laid down strict rules on when game could be sold - an attempt to ensure that breeding cycles were not disrupted. Freezing and refrigeration of course make a nonsense out of this, but our politicians seem to have overlooked this for the last half century. That is how laws are made.

The requirement for a licence to shoot game has been scrapped, but shooting on Sundays and Christmas Day is still banned, thanks to a campaign by the League Against Cruel Sports. (I guess it's not so cruel to shoot things Monday-Saturday.)

Critics also argued that Sunday shooting would disrupt people's lie-in, and could prove dangerous as people went for a Sunday stroll. Still, they told us that nobody wanted to shop on a Sunday too, and now (even though our rulers allow the shops to open only a few hours) Sunday is a hugely popular shopping day. We really should scrap all this regulation.

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Red Ken's bureaucracy defeats the Greenies!

Transport for London, run by far-Left Mayor "Red Ken" Livingstone, claims that pedicabs (a glorified bicycle) are the same as taxicabs. It has resorted to litigation against a company called Bugbugs - which operates pedicabs - in pursuit of the point. Post below lifted from The Croydonian. See the original for links and pics

"Bugbugs had sought to strike out, on the grounds of abuse of process, a claim made under CPR Part 8 by the respondent, Transport for London ("TfL"), for a declaration that a pedicab is a "hackney carriage" for the purposes of section 4 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869 ("the 1869 Act"). The Master dismissed Bugbugs' application to strike out TfL's claim. He gave permission to appeal".

And the appeal failed. I am not going to go off on a 'the law is an ass' rant since that would be a - dull and b- not entirely justified as this and previous litigation revolve around whether a pedicab is a hackney carriage or a stage carriage. What is more noteworthy is that TfL is behaving like a classic monopolist and attempting to destroy a competitor by loading it with an unsupportable regulatory burden. Apparently the old bale of hay law has been repealed, but the added weight of insurance and so like will inevitably wreck the ability of pedicab riders (that would appear to be the technical term) to make a living. And meanwhile, how many accidents have been caused by the riders, public nuisances etc etc? Few I imagine.

The company itself appears to be achingly right on - "It is a not-for-profit organisation, limited by guarantee and run by a board of trustees. It was founded in 1998 and its aims include the provision of a sustainable emission-free integrated form of passenger transport and the creation of work and training opportunities for people from all backgrounds and nationalities". Doubtless regular users are Guardianistas to a wo/man, and occasional users tourists. I went for a ride in one in Edinburgh in the summer and it was rather fun.

So well done TfL. What a great day's work - an almighty spoke has been rammed into the wheel of both a harmless diversion for denizens of the metropolis and the ability of folk to make a living.

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The super-efficient British cops will get their man!

Unless there is a serious problem, of course. Post below lifted from Adam Smith blog. See the original for links

Alain Roberts climbed Portland House the other day - a tall building (mainly full of quangos) near London's Victoria Station. He did it all with his hands and feet - he used no ropes, pitons or other kit. At the top he was promptly arrested. The charge? Wasting police time.

Now I don't know what makes the police think their time is so valuable that the antics of this harmless eccentric amount to a waste of it. Presumably they reckon that while they were taking tea on the roof and waiting for 'Spiderman' Roberts to arrive, they could have been out booking motorists for doing 36mph, or harrassing middle class citizens for trying to stop thugs breaking into their homes.

The police didn't have to be there. Their action reminds me of the supposed lawyer's bill: To crossing the road to update you on your case, 100 pounds . To crossing back after realizing it wasn't you 100 pounds. We seem to live in a society where we invent crimes for no good reason. Why punish people for smoking weed (or tobacco for that matter) when the only person caused any harm is themselves? I'd really prefer it if the police sat at home rather than having to think up new reasons to arrest folk.

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ELSEWHERE

Oldsters for an old lady: "When Hillary Clinton's volunteers and staffers stand at the back of their candidate's events, they sometimes play a game one observer called "count the oxygen tanks and wheelchairs." Barack Obama's Iowa troops have their own rituals in the days leading up to the crucial Jan. 3 caucus - one of them is making sure that the high school kids who swarm Obama's appearances turn 18 in time to vote. If the Clinton-Obama confrontation figured to be a clash of gender and racial pathfinders, it has turned out in large measure to be a generational battle. Obama is gunning for 80 percent of the under-21 vote, his advisers say, while Clinton is banking on a bedrock of middle-age and elderly voters who make up the majority of caucus-goers."

What Mark Steyn is up against in Soviet Canada: "Well, the Human Rights Commission up there is, you know, almost the textbook definition of a kangaroo court, in the sense that of the complaints that have been brought under this section, since it was introduced almost thirty years ago now, no defendant has ever won .... think of the most politically correct professors at Berkeley, put them on a commission. The plaintiff, the guys who make the complaints, their legal expenses are paid for by the Canadian taxpayer. The defense has to fund his or her own. Essentially, there's no rules of due process or evidence"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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26 December, 2007

Does black IQ matter?

There is a post on the libertarian Rockwell site which quite rightly points out that it is absurd to judge a person by his race or by any other group membership he may have where there is variety within that group. So why do I, as a libertarian conservative, continue to expound the science of the matter? There are two reasons: Because we do not live in a libertarian world and because it is my own scientific discipline that is involved and I feel a committment to publicize the truth of the matter.

The second reason I will not expand on as it is simply a personal committment that I feel. The first reason is the important one: Vast errors in public policy are made because of the general refusal to accept the truth of the matter. Race is a most vexed topic in all countries where there is a substantial African minority and the problem is made much worse by the utter failure of many attempts to deal with it. The clearest example is in education.

Because the lesser ability of blacks is not accepted in education circles, every failure of blacks to do well at educational tasks is always attributed to "the system" or "racism". A perfectly normal and natural occurrence is treated as an emergency which must be remedied by hook or by crook. And because the real nature of the problem is not admitted, all the "solutions" that are tried are based on wrong theories so not only fail but normally make the problem worse -- generating much anger and feelings of victimization among blacks at the same time.

One "solution", for instance, is "dumbing down". The requirements for (say) a diploma are watered down so that EVERYBODY (or most anyway) passes. In the course of that, however, the educational requirements for whites have to be lowered too (it would be "racism" otherwise) so that white kids in the same educational institutions are taught and evaluated at a "black" level and consequently receive a much degraded education -- which is a tragedy, however you look at it. For instance, around half of High School graduates trying to entering Florida's public colleges and universities are found to lack the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic -- skills which in more "racist" times were acquired in grade school.

I could go on to multiply examples of how refusals to cope with black realities degrade life for everybody but I think I have said enough to make my point clear. I cover the matter in more detail here. For the record, what I would advocate as regards black educational failure is simply for the authorities to be race blind. Let children be judged not by the colour of their skin but by their individual characteristics. Kids who are not doing well should get extra tuition whether they are black, white or brindle and after that let the chips fall where they may. That would be the least destructive policy.

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A good year in Congress

Hellbent on driving its approval rating into single digits, Congress adjourned after passing an omnibus spending bill larded with at least 8,993 earmarks costing at least $7.4 billion. The gusher of earmarks was a triumph of bipartisanship, which often is a synonym for kleptocracy.

This was the first year since 1994 that Democrats controlled both houses. Consider Congress' agreeably meager record: It raised the hourly minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85 - less than the $7 entry wage at McDonald's - thereby increasing the wages of less than 0.5 percent of the work force.

Rebuffing President Bush, who advocates halting farm subsidies to those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $200,000, the Senate also rejected a cap at $750,000. This, in spite of the fact that farm income has soared, partly because Congress shares the president's loopy enthusiasm for ethanol and wants more corn and other agricultural matter turned into fuel.

Although Congress trembles for the future of the planet, it was unwilling to eliminate the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol. But our polymath Congress continued designing automobiles to make them less safe (smaller) and more expensive. It did this by mandating new fuel efficiency - a 35 mpg fleet average by 2020. And Congress mandated a 12-year phaseout of incandescent light bulbs.

Bruce Raynor, president of the union Unite Here, expressed organized labor's compassionate liberalism when he urged sparing workers the burden of democracy: "There's no reason to subject workers to an election." The House agreed, voting for "card check" organizing that strips workers of their right to a secret ballot when deciding for or against unionization of their workplace. Senate Republicans blocked this, but the Senate Democrats voted to cripple the Department of Labor agency that requires union bosses to explain how they spend their members' money.

To improve Americans' health, Congress hopes that by 2017, 22 million more people will begin smoking, enough to pay the increased cigarette taxes that purportedly would finance an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. SCHIP, supposedly for low-income children, would have been expanded to cover many children - and adults - from households with incomes far above the nation's median income. The president vetoed the expansion.

Having vowed to end the war in Iraq, House liberals passed a bill containing money for the war in Afghanistan, but not for the one in Iraq. The Senate added money for Iraq. House Democrats then voted 141-78 against final passage, but House Republicans and moderate Democrats passed it and liberals headed home to brag about having voted against funding the war.

In January, with much preening, House Democrats embraced "paygo," the pay-as-you-go rule that any tax cut must be "paid for" by compensatory tax increases or spending cuts. In December, Democrats abandoned it because of the alternative minimum tax.

The AMT was enacted in 1969 as an indignation gesture aimed at fewer than 200 rich people who managed, legally, to owe no taxes. But the enactors neglected to index the AMT against inflation, so this year it would have been a $50 billion bite out of 23 million taxpayers. The House voted to repeal it and pay for repeal with a $50 billion tax increase. Senate Republicans argued that no Congress ever intended the AMT to collect such large sums. Therefore, paygo would siphon $50 billion to compensate for a fictitious $50 billion. The Senate voted 88-5 not to collect the AMT this year, the House acquiesced.

Rep. John Campbell, a California Republican, notes that this year the House took many more votes (1,186) than ever, but only 146 bills became laws. Congress, and especially the Democratic majority, should be congratulated for this because a decrease in the quantity of legislation generally means an increase in the quality of life.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

The psychopathic thinking of Leftists again: "Here we have it. The defining moment in leftarded Jewicidal thinking. A leading Israeli university has conducted a study to determine why Jewish soldiers don't rape Pali Arab women, you know - spoils of war. As far as the left is concerned, Islamic barbarism has effectively become the norm so when decent, honorable (Jewish) men do not behave according to savage norms, there must be an ulterior motive. Seriously. Perhaps Jewish men don't rape the women because they are good, kind and decent moral men. Not possible? For this they did a study? A study? This is why Israel is in such trouble. Leftarded Jews hold sway in their media, universities and government. I think the leftarded Jews ought to convert to Islam and move to the Muslim countries whose outrageous crimes against humanity they sanction"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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25 December, 2007

MERRY CHRISTMAS! ON CHRISTMAS DAY IN AUSTRALIA

Australia is up to 18 hours ahead of the USA in time zones so for American readers this greeting will probably seem a day early



The image above is by talented Australian conservative cartoonist Zeg



A friendly Koala above

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Magi Mythbusting

Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links

The Washington Post has an interesting little article about the myths that have grown up about three kings visiting the Christ child. Not only is there no mention of kings in the scriptures, there isn't even a head count. The scene ingrained in the public imagination - a stately procession of three kings in turbans, crowns, elaborate capes and fancy slippers, with an entourage of servants and camels trailing behind - is a common image in books and films, but it isn't from Scripture.

In fact, there's no evidence in the Gospels that the Magi were kings, or even that there were three, much less that they sidled up to a manger on dromedaries exactly 12 days after Jesus's birth.

"Legends pop up when people begin to look closely at historical events," said Christopher Bellitto, assistant professor of history at New Jersey's Kean University. "They want to fill in the blanks."

Only the Gospel of Matthew mentions "wise men from the East" who follow a star to Bethlehem. In the original Greek, they were called magoi (in Latin, magi), from the same root that gives us the word magic. It's been posited that they were astrologers or members of a Persian priestly caste.

The myths sprang up and were fleshed out many years after the events actually mentioned in Matthew. The third century Christian writer Tertullian called them 'almost kings'. In the sixth century, they acquired names, Gaspar (or Caspar), Melchior and Balthazar and they - whoever or however many of them there were - became important figures. (By the way, none of this is new information, I actually found a sermon plan online discussing these points and others.) It is interesting tracing the way these kinds of embellishments develop over time, though.

None of which changes the fact that We Three Kings is still one of best known and best-loved Christmas carols. It's one of my favorites.

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ELSEWHERE

G.M. Roper has a great Christmas story.

As al-Qaeda's grip eases, Christians flock home: "IRAQI Christians who fled a district of Baghdad that declared itself an al-Qaeda caliphate have returned home to celebrate their first Christmas in two years. Known as the "Vatican of Iraq", the small but long-established Christian enclave in the mainly Sunni district of Doura suffered constant terror at the hands of al-Qaeda gunmen who tried to impose a Taliban-style rule. Churches were car-bombed, women were threatened for not wearing Islamic headscarves, and families had to pay off local mosques to keep them safe from kidnap gangs. But now al-Qaeda has been rooted out of Doura and the hundreds of Christian families who left the area are returning. On Christmas Day they will congregate in the battle-scarred St Mary's Church, where part of the crucifix on its tower is still missing after being shot at. "We closed the church two years ago because of all the trouble," said the priest, Father Younadim Shamoon, 45, who has decorated its bullet-cratered walls with modest fairy lights. "But many people are coming back after word got around that the local Muslim people were welcoming us again. We thank God and hope that we can live together again as brothers." Overlooking the River Tigris on Baghdad's southern outskirts, Doura was home to 4000 followers of the Chaldean Catholic and Assyrian Orthodox churches. The neighbourhood has churches, monasteries and convents, and the Christian residents' homes stand out because of their neat gardens."

How absurd: "A growing number of young people now identify themselves as non-believers, and some colleges have responded by adding so-called "atheist chaplains" to their staff. Harvard now has an atheist chaplain, who helps students celebrate the holidays without violating their core (non)-beliefs."

Rejection of Christmas can be Christian: "During the English Civil War, the victorious Puritans under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell had suppressed traditional Christmas festivities on the grounds that they were merely pagan rituals that had been given a thin veneer of Christian respectability. The Puritans who came to America brought their righteous horror of Christmas with them, and it may even be reasonable to speculate that they hit upon the feast of Thanksgiving as an ersatz Christmas that could help them get through the bleak coming of winter without endangering their souls by adopting heathenish customs. Yet in the end, most Protestant congregations in North America found themselves irresistibly drawn to the old pagan rites, so that today the few hold outs, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, strike us as distinctly odd."

Australia to stay in Afghanistan: "The Prime Minister has given an open-ended commitment for Australian troops to remain in Afghanistan as he revealed he fears more fatalities. Kevin Rudd met Australian troops at Tarin Kowt in Oruzgan province before flying to Kabul, where he held a press conference with the President, Hamid Karzai. It was the latest stop in Mr Rudd's tour of the Middle East with his Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, and the Chief of Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, to thank military personnel and meet political and military leaders. Mr Rudd said it had been a difficult end to the year and worse could be to come. "I fear what the new year might bring," he told soldiers in central headquarters at Kabul air base on Saturday. "But our advice and our conviction is that this is a job worth doing."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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24 December, 2007

NEW IQ DATA SHOW THAT THE FLYNN EFFECT IS NOW DEAD

East German psychologist and geneticist Volkmar Weiss has some fascinating results here about IQ scores. He shows that the PISA tests -- annual comparisons between countries of educational achievement -- are little more than IQ tests. He uses this to convert PISA scores into IQ scores and shows that the PISA results correspond very closely to the IQ averages for different countries that are reported by Lynn & Vanhanen -- With Japan very high-scoring and African countries very low-scoring (for instance). Volkmar thinks that once the PISA people realize what they are testing, they will stop doing it! Because the PISA tests are very carefully conducted and use good sampling, however, the PISA data are at the moment a very robust body of information about IQ. And the fact that the tests are conducted annually allows trends over time to be tracked very closely -- a huge improvement over existing IQ data.

Using both the IQ test and PISA data, Volkmar shows that the simple upward trend in IQ scores shown in 20th century data by Flynn has now been shot to ribbons. Some countries are showing declining IQ scores, some are holding steady and some are rising. Volkmar relates this to the percentage of poor people in the country. Countries with lots of poor people are getting dumber overall and countries with few poor people are getting brighter. It is not clear why that is. It may well however be due to immigration. As genetically less able people from (say) Africa move into (say) Britain, they drag down the average of both IQ scores and income.

By and large however, Volkmar presents raw data so what you make of it is to some degree a function of how closely you study it. I hope someone who is really on top of the subject takes Volkmar's data and puts it into better order than I have done in my few remarks above. Both Lynn and Rushton are aware of the data so I am hopeful of comments from them soon.

If we have to wait for their comments to come out in the academic journals, however, "soon" may be two years away. The last academic journal article that I had published took two years to come out even AFTER being accepted for publication! Fooey to that! Anything academic that I do these days I just put straight on the net and that is that.

One point I have not heard anybody make is that the Flynn findings are actually among the stronger proofs that the black IQ handicap is genetic. The rise in IQ scores for most of the 20th century has to be an environmental effect as the time period was much too short for genetic change. But the black/white gap remained roughly the same throughout the period. So if cancelling out environmental factors left the gap unchanged the remaining influence on the gap must be genetic! IN THEORY, there could still be environmental influences on IQ scores that could be improved but the fact that the improvement has now flattened out shows that environmental factors have now IN FACT done about all they can do for the IQ scores of the populations concerned. And yet the gap remains. Eppur si muove.

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ELSEWHERE



Above pic via Peg Kaplan

Google has got better: I have had a few grouches in the past about various writings of mine on the net being invisible to Google. But there is no doubt that they are very good about archiving blog posts. They seem to treat us bloggers as some sort of net aristocracy -- if that is not getting too imaginative. I have been very pleased about how rapidly they archive posts on my new Telstra/Bigpond blog. I have just found that they have posts I put up there in their archive within a matter of hours. Nice that somebody is efficient and nice for a very new blog.

Quite a few bloggers have expressed disgust that Time magazine has put Russia's Vlad Putin on their cover and named him as man of the year. Publius Pundit is one of many who have pointed out that Time also put Hitler on its cover in 1938. Nobody seems to have mentioned, however, that Time had Hitler on their cover as recently as 1995. There is no doubt that Time finds socialists fascinating. Do we get a "woman of the year"? Hillary, no doubt.

KBJ has up another evisceration up of Brian Leiter, the mini-Chomsky and law-school thug: Another lovely Leftist with slippery ethics.

The rogue CIA again: "The CIA obstructed an official US commission investigating the September 11 attacks by withholding tapes of interrogations of Al-Qaeda operatives, according to former panel members quoted in a report on Saturday. A review of documents by former members of the 9/11 commission revealed the panel made repeated, detailed requests to the spy agency in 2003 and 2004 for information about the interrogation of members of the extremist network but were never notified of the tapes, the New York Times reported. The review of the commission's correspondence with the Central Intelligence Agency came after the agency earlier this month revealed it had destroyed videotapes in 2005 that showed harsh interrogations of two Al-Qaeda members. The review, written up in a memo prepared by Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the 9/11 commission, said that "further investigation is needed" to resolve whether the CIA's failure to hand over the tapes violated federal law."

Fred Thompson wants to cut agricultural subsidies: "Farmers are not looking for a president to hand them something. Farmers want fair treatment and a chance to prosper in a free economy and that's what I would help ensure. There's a lot of programs we've got out there, some of which are good programs, some of which are not. And I think that we need to work our way through that and make sure we're doing what's good for the country, not just the farmers, not just the people of Iowa, not just the people of Tennessee. But good for the country. A sound policy that makes sense. I think there's a lot more that we could do for the working farmer in terms of ecological programs and environmental programs - land conservation, soil conservation - that would be fair and it would be beneficial to the nation and to Iowa and to our country. We're going to have to phase out the corporate welfare system we've got, however. There are extremely rich people living in skyscrapers in Manhattan that are receiving subsidy payments. I think that's wrong"

A very queer priest: "The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has informed LifeSiteNews.com that after a meeting with Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, Father Leo Tibesar, of Saint Frances Cabrini Parish in Minneapolis has agreed to remove from the parish website "any language from the St. Frances Cabrini parish website that is in opposition to Roman Catholic Church doctrine." Removed from the parish website was a page titled a "Statement of Reconciliation" which bemoaned Church teaching on sexual purity and married chastity and misrepresentied these teachings as a form of "oppression." The statement said the parish is committed to "Publicly bless the relationships of a same sex couple after the couple completes a process of discernment similar to that completed by heterosexual couples before marriage."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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23 December, 2007

Genes for the higher Asian IQ

Human evolution has speeded up over the past 80,000 years. Dr Moyzis's paper suggests that HOMO SAPIENS is continuing to undergo local evolution. He and his colleagues reckon they can both estimate the rate of evolution and identify many of the evolving genes, by using a trick with the clumsy name of linkage disequilibrium.... In acknowledgment of these diverse circumstances, the researchers looked in detail at the DNA of four groups of people from around the planet: Yoruba from Africa, Han Chinese and Japanese from Asia, and Europeans.

The finding that may cause most controversy, however, is that in the Asian groups there has been strong selection for one variant of a gene that, in a different form, is responsible for Gaucher's disease. A few years ago two of the paper's other authors, Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, suggested that the Gaucher's form of the gene might be connected with the higher than average intelligence notable among Ashkenazi Jews. The unstated inference is that something similar might be true in Asians, too.

The Ashkenazim paper caused quite a stir at the time. It was merely a hypothesis, but it did suggest a programme of research that could be conducted to test the hypothesis. So far, no one--daring or foolish--has tried. Eventually, however, such questions will have to be faced. The paper Dr Moyzis and his colleagues have just published is a ranging shot, but the amount of recent human evolution it has exposed is surprising. Others will no doubt follow, and the genetic meaning of the term "race", if it has one, will be exposed for all to see.

More here

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Brookes News Update

The US economy causing confusion: America's currency problems are due to bad economics. So long as central bankers refuse to jettison their faulty theories about the nature of money, interest rates and capital America and the rest of the world will be plagued by recessions and international monetary crises
The Australian economy is heading into stormy seas: The Treasurer Wayne Swan believes that the solution to the current account deficit deficit lies in expanding the country's productive capacity. Swan has committed the glaring error of thinking that the deficit and bottlenecks are structural and can be overcome by increased investment. Like everyone of his predecessors and their advisors he is completely ignorant of monetary and capital theory
Inflation: the pestilence that threatens prosperity, part 2: The real danger inherent in housing is the one which is now unfolding - namely, a vast hemispheric storm system of horribly malinvested capital and negligently granted credit that has quietly been brewing over an ocean of inflation is making its presence felt
A doctor pleads for green totalitarian controls over the birth rate: Greens have revealed their insane totalitarian vision where those who have children will be heavily fined. Those who try to have 'excess' children will be severely punished and will be forced by the state to have their children aborted. What a lovely bunch of people
Dishonest plitical tampering with the science on global warming: The IPCC's so-called 'scientific findings' on global warming have been exposed as fraudulent. Its phony predictions of an impending disaster brought on by excess Co2 are just that - phony. So why are politicians and journalists still lying to us?
US strategic oil fields that Go undrilled: While Cuba and Brazil are opening up oil fields the Democrats - with the support of a corrupt media - refuse to drilling for oil in the US, Energy Information Administration estimates that ANWR, which is only one oil field, contains 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil. So why are the Democrats trying to strangle energy production?

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UN Moving to Derail Fraud Investigation of itself: "The UN bureaucracy has once again acted to insulate itself from punishment for engaging in fraud that has cost the UN (and America, since America by far is the largest contributor to the United Nations) hundreds of millions of dollars. The General Assembly is preparing to put an early end to an in-house panel that has exposed more than $600 million in tainted United Nations contracts and is currently investigating an additional $1 billion in suspect agreements. A budget committee of the General Assembly is scheduled to vote as early as Friday on a resolution that would force the panel to close down its operations in six months."

Official land thieves told to pay up: "A Superior Court jury has awarded $26.5 million to a family whose Otay Mesa land was targeted for condemnation by the state Department of Transportation so it could build a freeway. At issue was the value of a piece of land that the Andersons controlled off Otay Mesa Road east of Interstate 805 and south of Brown Field. Caltrans had used eminent domain to take a 2.8-acre sliver of a 58-acre parcel, said Vincent Bartolotta, Jr. the Andersons' lawyer. But by doing that, the family claimed the majority of the parcel was cut off and landlocked - with no viable access in or out. The agency contended it did not have to pay damages for the balance of the land and offered $172,410 for the 2.8 acres, Bartolotta said. The agency argued that the land was slated to be used for open space anyway and could not be developed. But the Andersons rejected the offer, setting the stage for the trial. The jury ruled unanimously in favor of the landholders. The panel concluded the value of the 2.8-acre parcel was $1.3 million. Additionally, it set damages for the lost use of the landlocked property at $20.1 million.

The American dream is alive and well: "America continues to be a society of upward income mobility. Over the past decade, millions of Americans have joined the once highly exclusive club of six- and seven-figure earners. Some 304,000 Americans earned $1 million or more in annual income in 2005, compared to 110,000 in 1996 and 176,000 in 2000. Because there is no cap on the top income share, this increase in millionaires pushes the top income (and taxes paid) share higher. The number of millionaire households in net worth also increased to nine million in 2006, up from six million in 2001, according to TNS, a global market research firm. Liberals decry this as proof of a new "gilded age." But we'd say these gains are a sign that more Americans are joining the ranks of the truly affluent. More than 13 million American households, or about one in 10, had an income of more than $100,000 a year in 2005. This is the kind of upward mobility that a dynamic society should want because it means that incomes aren't stagnant and opportunity continues to exist."

McGonagall lives! There is a poem here about the "Alternative Minimum Tax" that is almost worthy of him.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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22 December, 2007

More on FDR and his "New Deal"

A few Excerpts

When accepting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1932, Roosevelt proclaimed "a new deal" for the American people. Once in office, he began radically transforming the federal government while seeking to ameliorate the nation's woes. He pushed subsidies for farmers, changed the banking system, and created the National Recovery Administration, which regulated many aspects of business until it was declared unconstitutional in 1935. Through the creation of the Social Security system and related programs, Roosevelt vastly expanded the scope and size of the federal government and created the political world in which we live. The shift was so complete that even as vocal a foe of big government as Ronald Reagan, who started his political career as a New Deal Democrat, approvingly wrote to Congress in the early 1980s of the "nation's ironclad commitment to Social Security" and praised FDR's visionary leadership in creating the program.

In her meticulously researched new history of the Depression, The Forgotten Man (HarperCollins), journalist Amity Shlaes describes the received catechism of the era: "Roosevelt made things better by taking charge. His New Deal inspired and tided the country over. In this way, the country fended off revolution of the sort bringing down Europe. Without the New Deal, we would all have been lost..The attitude is that the New Deal is the best model we have for what government must do for weak members of society, in both times of crises and times of stability." But that conventional account, she writes, fails to capture "the realities of the period." Shlaes shows how both Hoover and Roosevelt "overestimated the value of government planning" and intensified and prolonged the very problems they were seeking to fix.

One of the important things about the existing argument is that it's all about Keynesianism, about whether government spending can cure the economy when it's ill. Scholars have overlooked the cost of uncertainty in an economy, what we would now call the "unknown unknowns." Both the Hoover and Roo-sevelt administrations (but especially the Roosevelt administration) were so unpredictable. That hurt the economy very much, and when I went back and saw the extent I was astounded. Uncertainty is a factor that I thought needed to be explored. There were lots of people who said, "I will not invest 'til I know what's going to happen." ...

Roosevelt's advisers didn't know Stalin was a monster, or at least not so much, and very naively they copied him. In the book I trace how some of the characters go to the Soviet Union in 1927 and are bowled over by Stalin. They get six hours with him and they come back and you see them, especially [former Columbia University professor] Rex Tugwell, implementing things they learned from fascist Italy or from the world of Stalin. The influence of these European entities from Russia to Italy was not parenthetical. These people were not working for Moscow, but they were influenced by Moscow.

One of the members of the junket was a very well-known writer named Stuart Chase, an accountant who wrote about economics. He wrote a book called The New Deal, and it appeared in 1932, and that's where Roosevelt got the phrase. The last sentence of Chase's book is, "Why should Russians have all the fun remaking a world?" So you see the continuity.

There was a romance with the economy of scale, and not just in America. FDR's advisers said that having so many different states and so many different ways of doing things was inefficient. If you had 50 flowers blooming, as federalists would have, they bloom differently and it makes for a messy garden. There was this sense that the economy couldn't grow further unless there was rationalization, standardization. Even now you'll see businessmen fighting for standardization: "Just make the rule!" they say.

The most important thing for our generation is that the New Deal will come back to bite our children when they pay yet higher payroll taxes because we did not dare to reform Social Security and other entitlements. There are not enough people to pay for Social Security, and Social Security is set up so that you can't fix it just by growing the economy.

This is a moment of choice for us, our generation and the younger people. We have to look again at Roosevelt. Roosevelt was inspiring. He was right on World War II, but we do not have to have false nostalgia for his wrongheaded policies in the '30s. We should warn our children and help to change Social Security, but you don't see that in the presidential candidates. You don't see daring on Social Security.

More here

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Holiday cheer -- How to

To Democrat friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To Republican friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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ELSEWHERE

Nice to see that James Taranto of Opinion Journal -- who is Jewish -- has wished his readers "Merry Christmas". Civility is only difficult for Leftists.

FCC overturns media ownership rule: "The Federal Communications Commission in a party-line, 3-2 vote, agreed today to overturn a 32-year-old ban and allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was joined by his two Republican colleagues in favor of the proposal, while the commission's two Democrats voted against it. Martin pushed the vote through despite intense pressure from House and Senate members on Capitol Hill to delay it. The chairman, however, has the support of the White House, which has pledged to turn back any congressional action that seeks to undo the agency vote."

The Real Race card: "The Clinton campaign's discussion of Barack Obama's admitted drug use is having an effect, all right. An effect on the black community's acceptance of Hillary Clinton."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race and IQ.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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21 December, 2007

Human evolution speeding up

Research shows that different human groups are becoming LESS alike -- and that it has been happening in relatively recent times

The world may feel more and more like a global village, but its residents are increasingly genetically diverse thanks to the rapidly accelerating pace of human evolution, a study said Monday. Geneticists say the huge explosion in our numbers in the past 40,000 years, since Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa to other continents, has resulted in a much faster pace of evolution compared to the previous six million years.

The pace of change has increased 100-fold in modern times compared to our distant past, and most notably since the Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, and has led to increasing diversification between the races. "We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals," said John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who collaborated on the study.

The findings are based on analysis of data from an international genomics project. A team of scientists examined DNA from 270 individuals in four ethnically different populations to see how genetic variations or SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) evolved over time. Contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds that human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, the researchers' analysis suggested that the process of natural selection has sped up. "Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities for adaptation," the authors wrote in the paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease."

Human migrations into new European and Asian environments created selective pressures favoring less skin pigmentation (so more sunlight could be absorbed through the skin to make Vitamin D), adaptation to cold weather and dietary changes.

One example of a genetic adaptation to human culture involves the gene that makes the milk-digesting enzyme lactase. The gene normally stops activity about the time a person becomes a teenager, but northern Europeans developed a variation of the gene that allowed them to drink milk their whole lives -- a relatively new adaptation that is directly tied to the introduction of domestic farming and use of milk as an agricultural product.

"Human races are evolving away from each other," said Henry Harpending, an anthropology professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin. We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity." He said that is happening because humans dispersed from Africa to other regions 40,000 years ago and "there has not been much flow of genes between the regions since then."

Source

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California hands a huge debt to its children: "The state of California is not funding a mountainous $48 billion tab for medical benefits promised to future government retirees, a bill that ranked as the second largest in the nation last year. The escalating liability, which accounting rules now require listing on the balance sheet, would hurt the state's debt rating and consequently raise the cost of borrowing if it goes unaddressed. Equally as important, since tax revenues are not expected to cover it, taxpayers will be forced to sacrifice services or sell bonds at ever-higher interest rates to accommodate the obligation. "That $48 billion is quite a lot. The substantial annual increases (to fund the benefits) the states are facing . is really stunning," said Katherine Barrett, co-author of a ground-breaking report, released Tuesday, from the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts' Center on the States."

S. Korean conservative's landslide win: "Conservative Lee Myung-bak, offering South Koreans a CEO-style presidency after a decade of Left-liberal occupation of the Blue House, scored a landslide victory in yesterday's presidential election. With 40 per cent of the vote counted last night, Mr Lee, representing the Grand National Party, had almost 47 per cent, while his main opponent Chung Dong-young, aligned with the current left-wing administration, had 28per cent. Exit polls had suggested Mr Lee, who turned 66 yesterday, could become the first winner to secure an endorsement of more than 50 per cent since direct presidential election was adopted 20 years ago. Mr Lee claimed victory in a nationally televised news conference, after Mr Chung, formerly unification minister under the outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun, conceded defeat. "Today, the people gave me absolute support," Mr Lee said. "I'm well aware of the people's wishes. I will serve the people in a very humble way. According to the people's wishes, I will save the nation's economy that faces a crisis." A spokesman for Mr Roh acknowledged the victory late last night and said the election had been fairly conducted."

Even They Can't Cover Up The Fraud: "How ragingly bad must the fraud be if even the United Nations can't hide it from an internal investigation? A UN group has determined that there is widespread, pervasive fraud in the UN's peacekeeping operations. The fraud they admit to runs into hundreds of millions of dollars (and heading north rapidly) and 10 UN procurement officials have been charged with offenses so far. And they are not even finished investigating yet."

Hamas Seeks Truce Talks With Israel: "Gaza's embattled Hamas leaders are seeking a cease-fire after months of Israeli attacks and sanctions, going so far as to make an unprecedented appeal through the Israeli media, a Hamas official confirmed Wednesday. The overture, which the Hamas leader made Tuesday through an Israeli reporter, followed an especially bloody day in which the Israeli air force killed 12 militants, including a top commander. Despite calls for a cease-fire within his Cabinet, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to continue targeting the leaders of militant groups who fire rockets into southern Israel almost daily."

Rich Pay More Taxes Since Bush Elected Contrary to Media Meme: "You know all that nonsense the media have been spewing that the Bush tax cuts caused the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer? Well, the Internal Revenue Service and the Congressional Budget Office have published tax and income numbers for 2005, and the press couldn't be any more wrong. In fact, it's almost as if the media get their data from Democrat presidential candidates, and disseminate it without the slightest effort whatsover to vet or verify its veracity.... part of the news is that the richest 1% paid about 39% of all income taxes that year. The richest 5% paid a tad less than 60%, and the richest 10% paid 70%. These tax shares are all up substantially since 1990, and even somewhat since 2000. Meanwhile, Americans with an income below the median -- half of all households -- paid a mere 3% of all income taxes in 2005."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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20 December, 2007

The usual Democrat concern for the truth

In his town-hall meeting last Wednesday night, Edwards sang the refrain he has made the core of his big-government populist campaign: Big-business controls Washington and blocks crucial regulations and welfare programs, and John Edwards is the only man who can take it on. And the crowd loved it.

For all the free passes Barack Obama has received from the media, he's never gotten away with being as demonstrably wrong on the facts as John Edwards is nearly every time he sounds this theme. The truth of the matter is an awkward one for Edwards and his fans: the very big businesses they vilify support the very big-government policies they advocate.

In Thursday's debates, when asked about federal curbs on greenhouse gases to battle global warming, Edwards said: "first of all, we need to recognize what the obstacles are to the change that everyone believes is necessary. And the obstacles are oil companies, power companies, all those entrenched interests that stand between America and the change that it needs."

Democrats in the crowd nodded their heads at this, and reporters in the press room didn't bat an eye. That sounds natural to them: big oil and big energy oppose regulation of fuel and power, right?

Well, not Duke Energy whose CEO, Paul Anderson, has been calling for a tax on carbon dioxide for nearly three years.

Is there any more "entrenched interest" than General Electric, which every year since 1998 has spent more on lobbying than any other company in America? Hardly an "obstacle" to Edwards's favored policies, GE's Jeff Immelt on January 22, 2007, joined CEOs from Alcoa, DuPont, and other corporate titans to call for federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

And oh yeah, one former big power company (the biggest in the world, at the time), lobbied two White Houses for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, pointing out in one e-mail, "This agreement will be good for Enron stock!" I could go on, but you get the point.

The same is true of health care. Edwards said Thursday that "corporate power and greed have literally taken over the government, and we need a president who's willing to take these powers on. It is the only way we're going to . have universal health care." Well, you could take them on, but that hardly seems necessary considering that many of the biggest corporations are firmly behind the big government health care plans that Edwards and the Democrats are offering.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

A takedown of Lefty blogger David Niewert (aka "Orcinus") here. I had some fun with him a few years ago. Also here.



Fred Thompson well-received in Iowa: "Haus was understandably upbeat, especially considering David Yepsen's column about Thompson today. Haus tells me Thompson has been received quite well: “I think, just based on the reception we’ve seen in the last 24 hours, it’s been nothing short of spectacular." “... It’s hoots and hollers and 'hell yeas' from the back of the room. It’s almost Revivalesque. It’s stuff we’re not used to in Iowa," says Haus. He also tells me he's also surprised by the number of folks who are undecided, and the number of folks who are unhappy with the candidates they are currently supporting.

A Brigadier and a soldier: "The British Forces commander in Afghanistan played a personal role in the recapture of Musa Qala, the Taleban-controlled town in the north of Helmand province. Brigadier Andrew Mackay, who commands 6,000 troops of 52 Brigade, walked for nearly a mile across no man's land to reach the town as the battle raged. He then took up position on Roshan Hill, which overlooks Musa Qala. The Taleban were driven from the town by a combination of American, British and Afghan troops, using a plan devised by Brigadier Mackay and his staff, called Operation Ma, which means "snake" in Pashtun. The 50-year-old brigadier, who would normally have been expected to stay well clear of the frontline action, flew by helicopter to the area around Musa Qala and walked the last stage. He spent ten days supervising the attack on Musa Qala from his headquarters, "just a hole in the ground", on Roshan Hill, about 700 yards from the fighting."

A myth about consumer spending: "Every year, and especially during holiday-shopping season, we hear the familiar refrain: 'What the consumer does is the most important thing.' ... 'If shoppers stop spending, we're in big trouble.' ... 'Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the economy.' ... These Keynesian principles have become ingrained conventional myths. But they're not true. Many factors are far more significant than consumer spending in stimulating the economy: business spending on capital goods, tax cuts, lower interest rates, and productivity."

Handling the specter of victory in Iraq: "A specter is haunting the Democratic Party. The long-awaited defeat of American forces in Iraq, on which so many critics of this administration have built their fondest hopes, seems to have been delayed again and - unsettling thought - may not even materialize. Even the dreaded word, Victory, is being whispered. Who would have thought it? Besides, of course, that dwindling minority of Americans who never gave up on the valor of America's armed forces - and the flexibility of their commanders, including their much-despised commander-in-chief."

A happy day: "Border checks between the former communist states of eastern Europe and their Western neighbours will end on Friday, a move potent with symbolism for those who lived behind the Iron Curtain and were then made to feel like "second-class citizens" in a united Europe. "We have been dismantling our own Berlin Wall stage by stage. The first stage was in 1989, and the second will be in December," proclaimed Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek during a recent visit to Dresden to prepare for his country's entry into the Schengen zone. The Czech Republic, along with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the three Baltic states and Slovenia, as well as Malta, will this week join the 15 countries in the zone where passport checks have disappeared."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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19 December, 2007

My telecommunications woes: Update

Some readers may vaguely recall that I have been having something of a "war" with Telstra/Bigpond (Australia's largest provider of telecommunication services) over the execrable services that they provide. As part of trying to get some sort of civilized and intelligent response fom them, I have been using their own "Bigblog" blogging facility to post criticisms of them. BigBlog was always a primitive affair but I have just found out that it is even more primitive than anyone could have imagined. They turn it off at night! That's right: It is only available during Australian daylight hours! Amazing that Australia's largest provider of internet services cannot keep its own blogs up and running 24 hours a day -- but that is the reality, folks. I did not of course expect such bloody-mindedness but repeated attempts by me to log on late at night were met with failure so I now know from experience what the reality is.

Now that I have discovered that, I have of course moved camp and am now blogging about Telstra/Bigpond on blogspot. See here from now on. I have transferred to there the more recent posts on the BigBlog site.

And in this case competition does not seem to be much of an answer to problems. When I encountered difficulties with my Telstra cellphone I thought that buying a second cellphone connected to Optus (Australia's second-largest telecommunications firm) might be a partial solution. But you can see how well that worked out here.

The only thing that really moves these oligopolists is publicity so if anyone reading this is inclined to link on their own site to the two sites I have mentioned above, I would be obliged. The more links the sites get the further they will move up the Google page-rankings and the more they will embarrass the behemoths concerned.

Australia does have an official telecommunications watchdog, the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman) and they do sometimes help with problems but they are bureaucrats so they give up easily and do their best to wash their hands of matters. The main aim of all bureaucracies is to maximize their funding and minimize their workload and the TIO seems to be no exception to that.

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Why are civilized countries still supporting the UN and its corruption?

The UNICEF Photo of the Year has been announced, and I couldn't possibly think of something more appropriate. Recall that the agency has tasked itself with-and is held responsible for-the well-being of children around the world. Check out how UNICEF decides to illustrate this calling:



The photograph shot by U.S. freelance photographer Stephanie Sinclair shows a wedding couple in Afghanistan who could not be more opposite. The groom, Mohammed, looks much older than his 40 years. The bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she just turned 11. Stephanie Sinclair works as a freelance photographer based in Beirut, Lebanon

What better way to care for the well-being of children than by celebrating the forced marriage of an 11-year-old girl to a man over 30 years her senior, right?

Source

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ELSEWHERE

The British government data bungles multiply: "The British Government has suffered new embarrassment over missing data after it revealed one of its contractors had lost the details of 3 million learner drivers. The mistake came just weeks after Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Government admitted it had lost computer discs containing the names and bank account details of 25 million people, exposing nearly half the population to possible fraud and identity theft. The opposition Conservatives accused the Government of incompetence over the data loss, the latest in a series of mishaps that have caused the popularity of Mr Brown's six-month-old team to plunge. Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly told Parliament a private contractor reported in May that a hard disc drive had gone missing from a facility in Iowa in the US. It contained the names, addresses and other details of more than three million candidates for a theory test taken by learner drivers in Britain. The disc drive did not contain any bank account or credit card details, Ms Kelly said. She also revealed that two discs containing the details of 7500 vehicles and the names and addresses of their owners had been lost in transit." [It is events like this that make many people oppose national ID cards]

Publicity works: "Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned a teenage girl sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes after being gang raped, Al Jazirah newspaper reported. The ruling against the 19-year-old girl in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom had attracted widespread international condemnation, including from human rights groups and the White House. The Arabic language daily said it had been informed of the royal pardon from its own unidentified sources. The girl, who was 18 at the time she was raped, was attacked at knifepoint by seven men after she was found in a car with a male companion who was not a relative, in breach of strict Saudi law. In October 2006, a judge sentenced her to 90 lashes for being with the man -- a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes segregation of the sexes. She appealed against the sentence but despite her ordeal the court ruled that her punishment should be increased to 200 lashes and a six-month jail term."

French police finally do something other than run away: "An attempt to build a Christmas encampment for the homeless on the banks of the river Seine was swept away by police before the startled eyes of tourists at the weekend. A homelessness action group, which generated worldwide attention a year ago by pitching an encampment of red tents in the centre of Paris, attempted an even more spectacular coup on Saturday morning. Scores of red, 'two second,' all-terrain tents were erected along the quays of the left bank of the Seine opposite the Notre Dame cathedral. As tourists looked on, police moved in en masse -- using tear gas at one stage -- to sweep away the homeless people and their supporters."

The "Toxic Texan": "In the past third of a century, the American economy has swollen by 150 per cent, automobile traffic has increased by 143 per cent, and energy consumption has grown 45 per cent. During this same period, air pollutants have declined by 29 per cent, toxic emissions by 48.5 per cent, sulphur dioxide levels by 65.3 per cent, and airborne lead by 97.3 per cent. Despite signing on to Kyoto, European greenhouse gas emissions have increased since 2001, whereas America's emissions have fallen by nearly one per cent, despite the Toxic Texan's best efforts to destroy the planet."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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18 December, 2007

Father Coughlin was a Leftist

A little bit of American history you won't read in your history textbooks

As the Great Depression dragged toward the end of its first decade in 1938, Father Charles Coughlin released the latest issue of his newspaper Social Justice. It reprinted that most notorious and persistent of anti-Semitic tracts, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

Coughlin's decision to disseminate the spurious conspiracy tale to his millions of followers was not just the same old Jew-hatred, even if part of his financing came from Henry Ford. It marked Coughlin's transformation from an ardent New Dealer, who had coined the phrase "Roosevelt or Ruin," to a divisive demagogue.

The through-line from Coughlin the social democrat to Coughlin the biased provocateur was populism. The same ideology that had led him earlier in his public career to attack corporate power and unmediated capitalism, to champion labor unions and activist government, also enabled him to search for a scapegoat.

Source

The above was written by a modern-day Leftist and so pretends that antisemitism was a departure from the Leftist "New Deal" ideas of FDR but we see quite to the contrary here.

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Readers of EDUCATION WATCH should get a pleasant surprise now that Mike Pechar is also posting there. His style is notably lighter than mine.

Astounding: A major Australian bank is offering university scholarships to students who want to study "the development of Shariah compliant financial products and services". The scholarship is called the "Sheikh Fehmi El-Imam Scholarship". Sharia law of course forbids the charging of interest. I would like to see how long the bank lasts if it adopts that principle!

The thug behind Kwanzaa: "Each year, with the onset of Christmas, we are treated to another gauzy, fluff piece about how great Kwanzaa is by yet another PC spewing newspaper columnist. This year, among many others, the Houston Chronicle gets in the act with a piece by Leslie Casimir titled "Learning about Kwanzaa from the holiday's creator." This one, though, is a bit off the usual track of the how-great-Kwanzaa-is theme because this particular piece celebrates the inventor of the faux holiday, Maulana Karenga, himself. So, we've gone from merely celebrating this manufactured holiday to making a hero of the rapist, race monger and a violent thug who created it! Karenga, as it happens, has a long criminal record, indeed. In 1971 Everett served time in jail for assault. By then Everett had changed his name to Maulana Ron Karenga and began to affect a pseudo African costume and act the part of a native African. It wasn't mere assault he was convicted of, either. It was sexual assault and torture perpetrated against some of his female followers. The L.A. Times then reported that he placed a hot soldering iron in one woman's mouth and used a vise to crush another's toe.... Happy Kwanzaa, indeed!

Arrogant labor unions lose: "After nearly a four-year delay, a Florida worker has prompted an administrative law judge of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to strike down a nationwide policy of a major international union that requires employees to object annually to prevent union officials from spending their compulsory union dues for political activities. The policy is a pervasive tactic used by union officials to prevent dissenting employees from reclaiming forced union dues used to promote political causes they oppose."

`Political art' that treats the public like mugs: "An art installation in New York featuring fake criminal mugshots of Bush and Cheney is meant to be cutting edge. In fact it is cynically conformist.... The supposedly controversial, polemical and outrageous Line Up exhibit has been branded `political attack art'. Yet what is striking is just how ordinary and simple the prints are. The New York Public Library describes Multiple Interpretations as showcasing prints by `some of the most intriguing and compelling artists active today'. Yet as David Durant points out on his `Heretical Librarian' blog: `Wow, if this kind of infantile, dishonest agitprop is what "the most intriguing and compelling artists active today" are doing, then I'd really hate to see what the crappy and unimaginative artists are up to.'"

Olmert government stupidity: "Palestinian militants, freed in past prisoner releases by Israel, were responsible for at least 30 terror attacks which claimed the ives of 177 Israelis, according to a study published yesterday by Almagor, an organization representing the victims of Palestinian terrorism. The report's publication came in response to yesterday's release of 429 Palestinians jailed in Israeli prisons. According to the report, 6,912 militants were released between the years 1993 and 1999, and nearly 80 percent of them returned to terrorist activity."

On Wal-Mart et al. in the recent Northwestern deluge: "In cases of extreme weather and natural disasters, some of the nation's largest retailers now behave like municipalities -- sometimes better. Retailers have created specialized divisions -- or hired outside firms -- to gird for emergencies. The goal: to speed recovery for customers, employees and ultimately sales. No one is clear how many retailers operate internal emergency units, but the practice is now standard among the biggest players, including Target Corp. and Lowe's Cos. Inc. This past week, Wal-Mart donated a 40-foot tanker of potable water to Vernonia, [Oregon,] while up north Home Depot opened its still-waterlogged Chehalis store for the town's Chamber of Commerce to pick up face masks and cleaning supplies free of charge. Such coordination became clear during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when local governments praised initial responses from retailers as more expedient than those of the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

What would Adam Smith say? "The role of government in the United States and other western democracies has expanded dramatically over the last century. Compared to its pre-twentieth century functions, government has taken on new and vast roles, including old-age pensions, government-provided health care, and a host of other programs that typically comprise a modern welfare state. What would Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century Scottish moral philosopher, say about the expanded role of our modern government? For Smith, the ideal functions of government were few and well defined."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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17 December, 2007

JAG Needs Refocus

The military's judge advocate general corps of lawyers' primary job is to interpret and help enforce the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The UCMJ is the military's parallel but carefully customized legal code, meant to provide the disciplinary basis necessary to meet military missions while being true to the U.S.'s civilian laws....

JAG officers, especially without combat experience, are often at heart civilian lawyers in uniform. The often antagonistic attitudes toward U.S. and military policies that pervade our campuses and law schools affect their judgments, and frequently prevail. Instead of seeing themselves as enablers of the nation's and military's mission, JAG's often try to undermine them. That said, the Boston Globe reports:

The administration has proposed a regulation requiring "coordination" with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps - the military's 4,000-member uniformed legal force - can be promoted.

The tone of the Boston Globe's report, and the sources it chooses to present, is that,

The former JAG officers say the regulation would end the uniformed lawyers' role as a check-and-balance on presidential power.

Flash to Boston Globe and to the liberal former JAG officers quoted: JAG does not exist to be "a check-and-balance on presidential power." JAG exists to carry out and enable the military's missions and discipline. The president is the civilian authority over the military, as well as Commander in Chief. It's not until the end of the Globe article that we get to the meat of the matter. JAG officers are there to offer legal opinions, but not to contradict or seek to override their constitutional civilian superiors.

Responding to the conflicts, in 2004 Congress enacted a law forbidding Defense Department employees from interfering with the ability of JAGs to "give independent legal advice" directly to military leaders. But when President Bush signed the law, he issued a signing statement decreeing that the legal opinions of his political appointees would still "bind" the JAGs.

I'm not sure whether this proposal is best, or will fly. But, it's still an important shot across the bow of runamock JAG's.

More here

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There is an interesting catalog here of the bogus disaster stories that the media have been using to drown out the good news from Iraq. And there is a list of the top 10 media myths about the economy here

US, British & Germans Don't Trust Their MSM: "In the United States, Britain and Germany, only around 29% of those interviewed thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately. This reflects favorably on the strong attachment to truth of Americans, the British and Germans, and most West Europeans. But, at the same time, reflects the extent to which skepticism and cynicism and outright disdain of the reliability of MSM, across the political spectrum, has permeated Western publics. The narrow incestuous worldview of media elites, coupled with repeated evidenced instances of absurdly unprofessional conduct, is widely recognized, and, as witnessed by the steady drain away of their audiences, is an unsustainable business practice."

Dept. of State is a lying Leftist organization: "The State Department's intention to remove North Korea from a list of countries that support terrorism is criticized in a newly released nonpartisan congressional report that cited "reputable" sources saying the communist regime of Kim Jong Il has supported Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, both of which have long been on America's list of terror groups. Didn't Israel just take out a nuclear bomb making factory that North Korea helped build..."

Democrat-led Michigan's economy offers fewer jobs than Iraq's: The headline in the Detroit News today was startling: "Hundreds line up for shot at Iraq jobs." But then again, Michigan's unemployment rate is startling: 7.7%. That's the highest in the land and considerably higher than the rate of the next-highest state, Mississippi, at 6.1%. "I wouldn't say it's a last resort, but it's looking very attractive. If we don't make some serious decisions, we're going to lose our house," said Tony Woodward, 38, of Port Huron. "There are no jobs in Michigan. I just don't see how there's a future here in Michigan." The jobs are dangerous. So far, 800 civilians working for the U.S. military died in Iraq. Marceilos Davis, 27, of Detroit said, "That's a no-brainer. From the neighborhood I live in, it's no different than Iraq. I'm not scared." She has a point. And while there is only so much a government can do for the economy, Jennifer Granholm has not delivered on the promise of jobs that got her elected governor five years ago."

Author of NIE report believes CIA's Priority should be 'Diversity': "The Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, who was integral to the findings of that report and its publication last week addressed the need to reform our intelligence agencies: "The 500-day plan enters almost immediately into a discussion of the vital importance of "Equal Opportunity and Diversity." It offers high praise for the intelligence community's Diversity Strategy Implementation Workshop" Perhaps Mr. Kerr is ignorant of the case of Nada Prouty , a 37-year old illegal alien from Lebanon who was hired by the FBI from her waitress job at a restaurant owned by her brother-in-law who is now on the lam for financially supporting Hezbollah. Prouty was hired under such a "diversity plan". She was later transferred and promoted to the CIA, despite no previous espionage experience, where she was discovered to have illegally accessed CIA files in a bid to discover what information the CIA possessed about Hezbollah. Donald Kerr is seemingly oblivious to the absurdity of his touting diversity when the CIA was just penetrated by a "diversity" hire."

Toyota expands while GM contracts: "Japanese car giant Toyota Motor Corp. plans to raise its global output to near 10 million units next year, out-distancing its rival General Motors Corp. of the United States, a news report said Sunday. Toyota now expects its group's global production to expand to some 9.9 million vehicles in 2008, about 500,000 units more than the projection for the current year, the Nikkei newspaper said. Toyota projects its global output for this year will climb by four percent year on year to 9.42 million cars, while General Motors earlier this month announced a production forecast of a one percent gain to 9.26 million units. While Toyota is expanding its overseas production facilities, GM has been laying off workers and shuttering factories to try to reverse losses that hit two billion US dollars last year." [Toyota cars are brilliant. I drive one myself]

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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16 December, 2007

THE GERMAN VERSUS THE U.S. REACTION TO THE DEPRESSION

Further to my post yesterday, a reader writes:

Your article leaves out one very salient fact: Due to the French insistence on outlandish reparations after WWI, the Germans were saddled with unpayable debt which resulted in a huge inflation during the 20's and an economic downturn. The US prospered in the 20's (as did most of the rest of the western world) and therefore entered the 30's prosperous and contented.

Germany therefore had really two decades of economic depression versus the one suffered by the rest of the world. The German people, after losing a war were turned from being economically well off to being ravaged by lousy economic conditions for two decades. Even the best of men may turn the wrong way under those circumstances.

I have always felt that France was the most responsible nation for the German onslaught in Europe. Before Napoleon, Germany was a mix of different states which generally got along with their neighbors. When Napoleon went on his rampages he generally had to cross German territory to reach his goal. In those days most armies lived a great deal off the land and this was German land.

My parents immigrated from Germany in the 20's and I can honestly state that I never heard a harsh world about Jews from them or their German born friends. But to a person, they basically hated the French. When I grew up and learned the history of the two nations I began to understand why.

The above certainly reminds us of one important factor in explaining the rise of German Nazism. There were of course various factors involved -- including the personal political genius of Hitler himself. My purpose yesterday was simply to point out how a basic theme in conservative thinking was an important part of the total explanation.

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Further to my comments on the misleading account of black IQ by Malcolm Gladwell, it seems that Jonah Goldberg has taken an interest in the matter too. It seems that someone has even got Gladwell to do a grudging retraction of one of his slurs. See here

The WSJ is now a great Australian newspaper: "News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has finally achieved his long-held ambition of owning The Wall Street Journal, one of the world's great newspapers, and ending more than 100 years of ownership by the Bancroft family. Confirmation of Mr Murdoch's successful $US5.2 billion takeover of the Journal's owner, Dow Jones & Co, came after an historic, 30-minute shareholder meeting and vote at New York's Marriott Hotel, which is appropriately located just near Wall Street on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Just under 60.3 per cent of Dow Jones investors approved the merger, with 78 per cent of common shares and 54 per cent of super-voting shares - mostly held by the divided Bancroft family - allocated in favour of the deal. Later, standing on a makeshift stage made out of four boxes of copying paper at Dow Jones's head office, Mr Murdoch - flanked by two trusted Australian lieutenants, new Dow Jones chief executive Les Hinton and new WSJ publisher Robert Thomson - reassured journalists about the company's future."

Bible realistic: "The ten Plagues of Egypt recounted in the Bible and which caused Pharaoh to let the Israelite slaves go free were nothing more than natural "population imbalances" caused by environmental factors, a leading scientist has claimed.... The "rivers of blood" could have been caused by heavy rainfall on baked soil, leading to sediment-rich water flowing into the Nile from tributaries where the underlying soil and rocks are red. Egyptians often spoke of the "red lands" surrounding the fertile, "black lands" they occupied. The sediments would also have killed the fish, as described in the Bible, he says. The plague of frogs could have been migrating frogs, or the sudden appearance of the froglike Spadefoot toads from hiding places in damp undersoil after a sudden rainfall. Similarly, the plague of lice could have been merely the sudden hatching of lice throughout Egypt after rain that followed unusually hot and dry weather. The description of swarms of flies match the behaviour of dancing midges, which can sometimes be so dense that livestock have to be taken indoors to avoid asphyxiation, he says. Again, unusual weather conditions could have led them to the Nile. An abundance of biting insects would also have led to the "pestilence" that caused the death of the country's cattle. Similarly, the boils on the human population could have been caused by insect bites. The "fiery hail" could have been the large hailstones accompanied by ball lightning that sometimes appears during severe, dramatic storms. The locust swarms would also have been caused by severe environmental conditions, and a dense storm could also have produced the darkening of the skies described in the Bible."

Britain: Muslim car thieves: "Five members of a multimillion-pound "car-ringing" gang, who stole luxury cars after trawling expensive areas of London were sentenced yesterday . The 34 stolen vehicles included Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs, Range Rovers, Toyota Land Cruisers and an Aston Martin. Southwark Crown Court was told that the thieves videoed themselves at the wheel of high-powered cars on their mobile phones. One clip showed 21-year-old Yusef Kaduji behind the wheel of a Mercedes McLaren worth 300,000 pounds. Imran Ganchi, a father-of-two from Ilford, who masterminded the operation, was jailed for six years; Kaduji, from East London, got two years; Hameed Nawaz, 31, of Luton, received three years; and Shazad Hussain, 31, of Mosely, Birmingham, four years.Shakeel Shoukat, 21, also of Forest Gate, was given a 12-month sentence suspended for two years."

Israel getting worried: "A senior Israeli official has fiercely criticized U.S. President George Bush's administration for the way it has dealt with the Iranian nuclear issue. The official said that the administration was not doing what was required of it to create an international coalition and wide agreement to pressure Iran over its nuclear program. Criticism from senior members of Israel's political echelon with regard to U.S. policy on the matter is rare. The official mainly spoke out against Bush's failure to enlist support from China, Russia and, to a certain extent, India, for increasing pressure on Iran and North Korea. According to the official, the Bush administration has insisted on stressing matters such as human rights in China and its policy on Taiwan, and as a result, has neglected to gain its support in the struggle against Iran."

Yes Minister: British bureaucrats help PRESERVE freedom of information: "At the turn of the year, Government forces, led by Lord Falconer of Thoroton, then Lord Chancellor, appeared determined to press ahead with new rules that would stop the media and campaign groups from making costly and embarrassing requests for information. New documents released under the Freedom of Information Act now provide a clearer understanding of why the Government got cold feet. Responses to its own consultation paper published last year include submissions from FOI officers who show themselves to be less than enthusiastic about the idea of “blanket aggregation”, whereby a financial cap would be put on the amount of money that could be spent on complying with FOI requests made by individuals from within the same organisation. Government agencies were even less enthusiastic. In its detailed response, Transport for London noted that the consultation paper did not present any evidence that “burdensome FOI requests are a significant or extensive problem outside of central government”. [Embarrassing political info is no skin off the bureaucrats' nose but processing requests does provide jobs for them]

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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15 December, 2007

"Perhaps the hardest question of twentieth-century history"?

I owe the following quotation from Harvard historian Niall Ferguson to Tiger Hawk

The contrast between the American and German responses to the Depression illuminates the central difficulty facing the historian who writes about the 1930s. These were the two industrial economies most severely affected by the economic crisis. Both entered the Depression as democracies; indeed, their constitutions had much in common -- both republics, both federations, both with a directly elected presidency, both with universal suffrage, both with a bicameral legislature, both with a supreme court. Yet one navigated the treacherous interwar waters without significant change to its political institutions and its citizens' freedoms; the other produced the most abominable regime ever to emerge from a modern democracy. To attempt to explain why is to address perhaps the hardest question of twentieth-century history.

Niall Ferguson sometimes says things congenial to conservatives but I think that the above quote shows very well that he is far from being a conservative. He seems blissfully unaware of one of the most frequent themes of conservative thinking: The importance of cultural continuity and the value of tradition. From Burke onward, conservatives have argued that the slow accumulation of "what has worked" in a given society is a valuable legacy that can only be lost or discarded at considerable peril. Yet that is exactly where Germany and the USA of the 1920s and 30s diverged.

Germany lost WWI and the USA won it. That did kinda make a difference. And the difference it made in Germany's case was great. Prior to 1918 Germany had been a constitutional monarchy where the legal powers of the monarch were not much different from the powers of the British monarch. But the traditions were very different. Where the British monarch conspicuously stayed out of politics, the Kaiser was very much a political voice. He made up for a lack of legal powers by using the great prestige of his office to persuade the politicians to do what he thought best for Germany. He saw his role as a check on the politicians and a voice on behalf of the ordinary people of Germany. He was, in short, an important father-figure and the embodiment of the Prussian traditions that were so influential and respected in most of Germany.

But after 1918 that was all thrown away. Not only did the Kaiser go into exile but many of Germany's previous constitutional arrangements were torn up and a substantially new system of government was invented largely out of thin air. All of the systems that had led to Germany's defeat were discredited and new systems had to be adopted wherever possible. Any conservative could have predicted where that would lead. And it did.

The USA, by contrast, came out of the war with flying colours, retained its traditional arrangements and remained stable -- despite the huge economic disruptions caused by its meddlesome Democrat President. The knowall FDR managed to convert a normal cyclic depression into the Great Depression by attacking business at exactly the time when business most needed support rather than hostility. (See also here and here)

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ELSEWHERE

Jonathan Wilde has a reasonable article on black IQ which makes a point that I have been making for decades: That those who do not want to believe in the evidence simply set ever higher standards of proof -- so much so that you would never prove anything about anything if you consistently did that. They use the fact that all science is essentially probabilistic as a dishonest way of avoiding conclusions they do not like. One point that Wilde seems to miss is that blacks are the same species as whites. So if IQ has a strong genetic basis in whites (which is generally agreed on among scientists) to say that it is not genetically transmitted in blacks is really quite amazing racism.

Brits admit Iranian bungle: "The capture of 15 Royal Navy personnel by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard during an operation in the Gulf in March was an embarrassment to the country, a report by the Commons Defence Committee said yesterday. Royal Navy commanders involved in the mission that led to the seizure of eight sailors and seven Royal Marines were also castigated for a "lapse in operational focus" and a "widespread failure of situational awareness". The MPs on the Defence Committee said that although no one had been court-martialled, "formal administrative action" had been taken against a number of Service personnel "across a wide spectrum of ranks". Administrative action can mean a letter of reprimand, but in some cases it can lead to an ending of promotion prospects and even discharge. The committee's report said that there had been "weaknesses in intelligence, in communications, in doctrine and in training".

Senate versus the Reps: "Democrats in each chamber are now blaming their colleagues in the other for the mess in which they find themselves. The predicament caused the majority party yesterday surrender to President Bush on domestic spending levels, drop a cherished renewable-energy mandate and move toward leaving a raft of high-profile legislation, from addressing the mortgage crisis to providing middle-class tax relief, undone or incomplete."

Pelosi's loss of reality contact: "With plummeting approval ratings and no legislative accomplishments to point to, Nancy Pelosi is melting down in the final days of the first session of the 110th Congress. Military success on the ground in Iraq also seems to be agitating the San Francisco Speaker who appears to be despondent over the fact that General Petraeus' surge is working.... Pelosi's desperation continues to grow as the clock appears to be running out on the Democrats. Their failure to address the nation's problems like rising prices, the seemingly inevitable return of the alternative minimum tax, and their gross abdication of their responsibility to our troops in the field have left the Americans restless and angry at their incompetence.... Instead of doing real Congressional business she will push forth bills that her and her cohorts understand have no chance....NO CHANCE of becoming law. Instead of working with those on the other side of the aisle she has allowed bills to languish or go down to defeat all to send a message. A message of complete and utter failure."

Dissecting the bailout plan: "It is not quite right to describe the new White House plan as a bailout of subprime mortgage borrowers. Actually, it is a bailout for a tiny fraction of those with adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), not subprime loans per se. Nearly half of all subprime mortgage rates are fixed-rate loans, and only 32% of ARMs are subprime. With all the misplaced political anxiety about rates being reset, you might imagine that all those victims who signed-up for these mortgages had no idea their rates might actually be adjusted. The Bush administration claims the plan will help 'up to' 1.2 million people. Most of that promised help consists of nothing more than another phone number to call for counseling about refinancing -- a redundant service unlikely to prove wildly popular. Refinancing has been soaring anyway, thanks to 30-year mortgage rates dipping below 6%."

Your income and your house: "In my opinion, the number one priority in resolving today's mortgage crisis is to bring the housing market back to equilibrium. Equilibrium means prices that are in line with incomes, with supply and demand in balance. With equilibrium prices, houses could be readily bought and sold. When houses can be readily bought and sold, mortgage loans are backed by valid collateral. When mortgage loans are backed by valid collateral, investors will once again be able to trust securities backed by pools of mortgages. Only when we reach that point will the 'subprime crisis' be behind us. The alternative to bringing the housing market back to equilibrium as soon as possible is to kick the problem down the road by keeping people in homes that they cannot afford. Keeping people in their homes at artificially low interest rates will only serve to perpetuate a distorted structure of home prices, ensuring that the crisis stays with us for years."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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14 December, 2007

All the news that it is fit to distort

Post below excerpted from Taranto. See the original for links. The sheer ignorance of the NYT writers is amazing.

We had missed last Friday's New York Times editorial on Mitt Romney's religion speech until a reader called it to our attention last night, but it's such a shoddy piece of work that we thought it worth some attention even at this late date:

Mr. Romney filled his speech with the first myth -- that the nation's founders, rather than seeking to protect all faiths, sought to imbue the United States with Christian orthodoxy. He cited the Declaration of Independence's reference to "the creator" endowing all men with unalienable rights and the founders' proclaiming not just their belief in God, but their belief that God's hand guided the American revolutionaries.

Mr. Romney dragged out the old chestnuts about "In God We Trust" on the nation's currency, and the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance--conveniently omitting that those weren't the founders' handiwork, but were adopted in the 1950s at the height of McCarthyism. . . .

The other myth permeating the debate over religion is that it is a dispute between those who believe religion has a place in public life and those who advocate, as Mr. Romney put it, "the elimination of religion from the public square." That same nonsense is trotted out every time a court rules that the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in a government building.

We believe democracy cannot exist without separation of church and state, not that public displays of faith are anathema. We believe, as did the founding fathers, that no specific religion should be elevated above all others by the government.

Let's start with the historical inaccuracies. As the U.S. Treasury Web site notes, "In God we trust" first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864, not in the 1950s. It is true that the motto's first appearance on paper money was not until the 1950s, but it was in 1957, the year Joseph McCarthy died, not at "the height of McCarthyism."



Similarly, while "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, this too was after McCarthyism's height. President Eisenhower signed the legislation changing the pledge on June 14 of that year; five days earlier, during the Army-McCarthy hearings, Joseph Welch famously confronted the senator from Wisconsin. Less than six months later the Senate censured McCarthy.

The Times Web site itself has the text of Romney's speech, and it makes clear that the paper's editorialists grievously misrepresent what the candidate actually said. His references to the Declaration of Independence's acknowledgment of the Creator are not in the context of calling for official "Christian orthodoxy"--quite the opposite:

The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation "Under God" and in God, we do indeed trust. We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders--in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. . . .

It was in Philadelphia that our founding fathers defined a revolutionary vision of liberty, grounded on self evident truths about the equality of all, and the inalienable rights with which each is endowed by his Creator. We cherish these sacred rights, and secure them in our Constitutional order. Foremost do we protect religious liberty, not as a matter of policy but as a matter of right. There will be no established church, and we are guaranteed the free exercise of our religion.

Finally, let's ponder the Times's statement that "we believe democracy cannot exist without separation of church and state." What an utterly mindless statement. Yes, separation of church and state is central to the American constitutional order. But to believe that democracy cannot exist without it is to believe that Britain is not a democracy

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What a difference a year makes

The world looks safer, friendlier, more hopeful than it did as we approached Christmastime last year. Then, we were on the defensive, perhaps on the verge of defeat, in Iraq. The Europeans' attempts to persuade Iran to renounce nuclear weapons seemed to have failed. Hugo Chavez was using his near-dictatorial powers and the oil wealth of Venezuela to secure the election of opponents of the American "empire" in Latin America.

Today, things look different. And they suggest, to me at least, that the policies of the Bush administration, pilloried as bankrupt by the Democrats after their victory in congressional elections in November, have served American interests better than most Americans then thought.

Start with Iraq. The surge strategy, opposed by almost all Democrats in Congress and the party's presidential candidates, has clearly worked. Violence has sharply decreased; Iraqi Sunnis have turned against al-Qaida and toward the Shiite-dominated government; bottom-up reconciliation has gone forward in apparently all areas of the country. Polls show that despite minimal coverage in the mainstream media for many months, most Americans are coming to understand that the surge is working.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



A chicken Democrat above

There were some VERY favourable responses to Fred Thompson's performance in the Iowa Republican debates the other night. See here for a summary.

Quote of the Day: "Mohammad Elmasry, President of the Canadian Islamic Congress (the same group trying to get Mark Steyn censored for "Islamophobia") sets us straight about the Islamist father who strangled his daughter for refusing to wear a head scarf: "I don't want the public to think that this is really an Islamic issue or an immigrant issue, It is a teenager issue.". Note that even if he were to deflect the blame away from Islam's barbarous ideas about men owning women, he could at least say this is a "psychopath issue," at least fixing the blame on the murderous father. He doesn't. He says "This is a teenager issue" as if teenagers are the ones we have the problem with"

Economists choose the GOP: "Asked which presidential candidate would be best for the economy, only half responded but most threw their support behind Republicans. Thirty-five percent said Rudy Giuliani would be best, while 19% chose John McCain and 15% picked Mitt Romney. Hillary Clinton got the support of 8%, while John Edwards was the only other Democrat to register with 4% of the vote."

More British bureaucratic brilliance: ""More than 8,200 homes rented by the Ministry of Defence for use by military families in England and Wales are unoccupied, the BBC has learned. Figures show 20% of married quarters are empty, but cost taxpayers 28.78 million pounds a year in rent paid to a housing company."

Flip burgers proudly: "Our economy has evolved, yes. Sometimes painfully. But Americans are still very well off, still enjoy many opportunities. And plenty of cheap hamburgers. Who flips them? Sometimes retirees looking to supplement income. Usually kids. I go to McDonald's, I see kids behind the counter. Is this a bad thing? That they're starting out behind a counter instead of as CEO of General Motors? You can bring diligence, honesty, pride in your work to any job."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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13 December, 2007

The Wages of Appeasement

For conservatives the story of the recent National Intelligence Estimate is unbelievable. What would possess the analysts in the federal intelligence bureaucracy to issue a finding that Iran has abandoned its military nuclear weapons program? Given the secrecy that surrounds all government ventures into nuclear weaponry we wonder how anyone can presume to know with "high confidence" whether Iran or any other nation has or has not a nuclear weapons program. And why would anyone so blatantly try to appease a revolutionary regime like the Islamic Republic of Iran?

The answer is simpler than you might think. In the view of the western educated middle class, appeasement works every time it is tried. There is more. The policy of appeasement, consistently applied by the educated middle class throughout the past century, has proved to be the royal road to political power and influence -- for the educated middle class.

First they appeased the struggling working man, arguing that "people have needs." They built a welfare state and put themselves in charge. Then they moved American blacks, condemned to second-class citizenship by discrimination and racism, from the Southern plantation to the liberal plantation. Then it was traditionally marginalized women and gays. All the while establishing bureaucracies and programs administered by guess who? So it is not surprising that the western educated middle class believes that the way to deal with Muslims in general and Iran in particular is through appeasement.

It's easy to assume that all this NIE nonsense and literary name-calling is pure cynicism. But we should give our liberal friends the benefit of the doubt and allow that they actually believe that their policy of appeasing the enemies of the West is moral and just. There are people who really think that the problem is a deep "hostility to Islam and intolerance of otherness." (What about liberals, their deep hostility to Christianity and their intolerance of Christian otherness?)

But wait, you say! Islam is different. Its doctrine of jihad is completely different from the militant working class of 1845 or the African American rioters of 1965. These people want to take over the world! Maybe so. But you cannot expect your average progressive to abandon a political tactic that has worked so well for over a century on the say-so of a bunch of neocon theocrat bigots. Our liberal friends want a world free from injustice and otherness; they believe that the right and just thing to do is always to appease the latest group that declares itself a victim...

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Not so free speech in the Netherlands: "Threats of murder. Fears of riots and religious violence. Demands for censorship. Politicians in hiding, fearing for their lives. A government preparing for the worst. It's happening right now in a most unlikely place ... the Netherlands, once regarded as Europe's quietest and most stable nation. And it's all happening because of a 10-minute movie that hasn't even been made yet. It's the work of Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who calls his movie "a call to shake off the creeping tyranny of Islamicization." Wilders plans to present it to his country on television sometime next month. "People who watch the movie will see that the Koran is very much alive today, leading to the destruction of everything we in the Western world stand for, which is respect and tolerance," Wilders, the 41-year-old leader of the right-wing Party for Freedom, said in a telephone interview."

Leftist fear of Muslims unmasked: "Larry O'Donnell went on a tirade about Mitt Romney, Mormons and Joseph Smith on this past weekend's McLaughlin Group. So I had him on yesterday to discuss his Mormon problem: HH: Would you say the same things about Mohammed as you just said about Joseph Smith? LO'D: Oh, well, I'm afraid of what the.that's where I'm really afraid. I would like to criticize Islam much more than I do publicly, but I'm afraid for my life if I do. HH: Well, that's candid. LO'D: Mormons are the nicest people in the world. They're not going to ever. HH: So you can be bigoted towards Mormons, because they'll just send you a strudel. LO'D: They'll never take a shot at me. Those other people, I'm not going to say a word about them".

British PM to "negotiate" with Taliban: Gordon Brown will announce today that he intends to talk to the Taliban in a bid to end the war in Afghanistan. In a major shift in UK foreign policy the Prime Minister is expected to tell the Commons today that negotiation is the only way to bring peace to the war torn country. This year has been the deadliest in Afghanistan since the U.S. led invasion of 2001. Since January more than 6,200 people have been killed including 40 British soldiers. In all, 86 British soldiers have died during the campaign which was launched to crush Al Qaeda and the Taliban following the September 11 outrage in America." [Comment here]

Another hopeless British computer system: "Taxpayers face new fines from the European Commission over continued failings in the system to make "green" payments to English farmers. The National Audit Office reveals today that 292 million pounds has already been set aside by the Government to pay for cash penalties for late payments for the farm hand outs in 2005 and 2006. It calls for an updating of the Rural Payments Agency's computer systems.

Military Commanders Running Iran's "Civilian" Nuclear Program: "The idiocy of the NIE continues to reverberate through the media and blogs. Major points about the NIE include the fact it was not a consensus of the intel community and there are dissenters in the career analyst corps who disagree with the key finding of moderate confidence - like the conclusion Iran continues to suspend its weapon design program. It also attempts to play the same shell game all rogue states play by assuming any program labeled `civilian' cannot possibly be a cover for an illegals weapons program. Nah, how could that be? Apparently the Three Amigos Of State who pushed this propaganda act through did not have the intelligence (pun intended - most definitely) to know that the men running Iran's `civilian' nuclear program are all Commanders and leaders from Iran's military units"

The Collapse Of The FEC?: "The Washington Post is alarmed, George Will is ecstatic. Three recess appointments to the six member Federal Elections Commission board will expire when Congress adjourns. Senate Democrats placed a hold on the Republican (the other two are Democrats). The Republicans have responded by saying it is all three or none for confirmation. Will surveys the turmoil and pronounces it a good thing.... If this standoff persists until Congress adjourns, the three recess appointments will expire and the FEC will have just two members - a Republican vacancy has existed since April. If so, the commission will be prohibited from official actions, including the disbursement of funds for presidential candidates seeking taxpayer financing."

A History Of Lies: "Stuart Taylor Jr. from The National Journal has a handy-dandy history of the lies, distortions, misrepresentations and dissembling of Hillary Clinton throughout her White House years. Put together this way, it is extraordinary - and highlights the insanity of the Clinton Campaign trying to attack the integrity of other candidates."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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12 December, 2007

Are All Brains the Same Color ?

Psychologist Richard Nisbett has an article in the NYT under the rather silly heading "All Brains Are the Same Color". It is the usual misleading account of the evidence about black IQ. I am a bit tired of demolishing these pieces of nonsense so I reproduce below a fisking of the article by Bob Williams. There is much more that could be said but Bob does a pretty good job nonetheless:

Nisbett says:

The first notable public airing of the scientific question came in a 1969 article in The Harvard Educational Review by Arthur Jensen, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Jensen maintained that a 15-point difference in I.Q. between blacks and whites was mostly due to a genetic difference between the races that could never be erased. But his argument gave a misleading account of the evidence.

This is not true. There was nothing misleading, nor incorrect. After 37 years, Jensen's observations have been clearly established as correct.

In fact, the evidence heavily favors the view that race differences in I.Q. are environmental in origin, not genetic.

False. Anyone who does not understand this may wish to read Rushton, J.P. and Jensen, A.R. (2005). Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2, 235-294 and this

The hereditarians begin with the assertion that 60 percent to 80 percent of variation in I.Q. is genetically determined. However, most estimates of heritability have been based almost exclusively on studies of middle-class groups.

The B-W IQ gap is larger at the highest level of SES than at the lowest. The above comment is inane. There have been literally hundreds of IQ studies of various racial groups from many different countries and they show the same outcome:

Highest IQ: Ashkenazi Jews
Next highest: East Asians (Mongoloids)
Next highest: Whites of European ancestry
Lower: American Indians and Latinos
Lower still: American and European Blacks
Very low: sub-Saharan Blacks
Lowest: Bushmen and Pygmies

For the poor, a group that includes a substantial proportion of minorities, heritability of I.Q. is very low, in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent, according to recent research by Eric Turkheimer at the University of Virginia.

Turkheimer reached this conclusion by studying children who were age 7 and less. This is long before the shared environmental component vanishes. [See also here and here]

This means that for the poor, improvements in environment have great potential to bring about increases in I.Q.

For children only. The shared environmental component equals ZERO for adults.

Nearly all the evidence suggesting a genetic basis for the I.Q. differential is indirect.

Not true. You have to wonder why this person makes such obviously false assertions. Perhaps he thinks his readers are not familiar with the research. A good bit of the evidence is so specific that it cannot be associated with environmental causes by any means. See either of the two references I previously gave.

There is, for example, the evidence that brain size is correlated with intelligence, and that blacks have smaller brains than whites. But the brain size difference between men and women is substantially greater than that between blacks and whites, yet men and women score the same, on average, on I.Q. tests.

The brain size difference between the sexes is a virtually perfect predictor of the IQ difference between the sexes. The claim that the sexes have identical IQs is at odds with numerous independent findings, although the subject is still being debated.

Likewise, a group of people in a community in Ecuador have a genetic anomaly that produces extremely small head sizes - and hence brain sizes. Yet their intelligence is as high as that of their unaffected relatives.

This person does not understand correlations. Even large numbers of exceptions do not invalidate correlations. One or two points will have little significance, other than to move the correlation coefficient by a tiny amount.

About 25 percent of the genes in the American black population are European, meaning that the genes of any individual can range from 100 percent African to mostly European. If European intelligence genes are superior, then blacks who have relatively more European genes ought to have higher I.Q.'s than those who have more African genes. But it turns out that skin color and "negroidness" of features - both measures of the degree of a black person's European ancestry - are only weakly associated with I.Q. (even though we might well expect a moderately high association due to the social advantages of such features).

The Black admixture formula (from Lynn) is: IQ = 80 + (admixture % x 0.2) [see Lynn, Richard (2006). "Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis", Washington Summit Publishers, Georgia.] This formula predicts the regional and mean IQs of Blacks in the US and Europe.

During World War II, both black and white American soldiers fathered children with German women. Thus some of these children had 100 percent European heritage and some had substantial African heritage. Tested in later childhood, the German children of the white fathers were found to have an average I.Q. of 97, and those of the black fathers had an average of 96.5, a trivial difference.

This citation is known as the Eyferth study. Environmental proponents always cite it because they have not found any other evidence to cite. But their claim is incredibly lame:

* The "study" consisted of a very small N. Some citations claim 98 and some 69.

* Although the children's IQ was measured, the parents' IQ was not measured (neither was the rank of the US military father measured). So it is not known whether the children inherited the parental IQ.

* About 30 percent of US blacks failed pre-induction mental tests for the military, compared with 3 percent of white. So US black soldiers were a more IQ-selected and less-representative sample of their population than were white soldiers.

* Children were tested prior to the age at which the genotypic aspect of intelligence has become fully manifested. [See also here]

* 20% to 25% of the "Black" fathers were not African Americans but French North Africans (i.e., largely Caucasian or "Whites" as we have defined the terms here).

But it turns out that skin color and "negroidness" of features - both measures of the degree of a black person's European ancestry - are only weakly associated with I.Q. (even though we might well expect a moderately high association due to the social advantages of such features).

There is no presently available study (to the best of my knowledge) of within group IQ variation as a function of skin color. But there is a between group study, as cited in my previously referenced article:

Templer and Arikawa (2006):

skin color to winter high temperature r = .85 (p < 0.001)

IQ to skin color r = - .92 (p < 0.001 )

The correlation shown above is not even close to "weakly associated." It is very strong. Nisbett did not offer any numbers or references to support his assertion.

The closest thing to direct evidence that the hereditarians have is a study from the 1970s showing that black children who had been adopted by white parents had lower I.Q.'s than those of mixed-race children adopted by white parents. But, as the researchers acknowledged, the study had many flaws; for instance, the black children had been adopted at a substantially later age than the mixed-race children, and later age at adoption is associated with lower I.Q.

All adopted children reached adult IQs that were equal to their biological peers and which had no correlation with their adoptive families. Transracial studies were not limited to Blacks adopted by Whites but included Asians adopted by Whites. The Blacks ended up with lower IQs than their adoptive families and the Asians ended up with IQs higher than their adoptive families.

That environment can markedly influence I.Q. is demonstrated by the so-called Flynn Effect.

No, it is not.

James Flynn, a philosopher and I.Q. researcher in New Zealand, has established that in the Western world as a whole, I.Q. increased markedly from 1947 to 2002.

Not true. What he found was an increase in raw scores. At the same time scholastic-component raw scores (within the same tests) declined.

In the United States alone, it went up by 18 points. Our genes could not have changed enough over such a brief period to account for the shift;

He got one right.

it must have been the result of powerful social factors.

No. There is absolutely no evidence that any social factors were at work. It appears that most or all of the gains were specific and not g loaded and are apparently due to multiple factors such as nutrition, family size, and environmental conditions that exist in very early life, since the secular rise is observable in toddlers.

Most important, we know that interventions at every age from infancy to college can reduce racial gaps in both I.Q. and academic achievement, sometimes by substantial amounts in surprisingly little time.

The IQ boosts that have been reported were temporary (very short lived) and were believed to be largely the result of teaching to the test. That means that the gains were in s loading and not in g loading. No g loading gains have been demonstrated.

This mutability is further evidence that the I.Q. difference has environmental, not genetic, causes.

No, it is not. Nisbett needs to read (or read again) Rushton, J.P. and Jensen, A.R. (2005). Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2, 235-294.

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Brookes News Update

The US economy: we've got the boom but what about the bust?: It is unlikely that we will see the US economy fall into recession before next June. In fact, if the current indicators remain as they are we might see the boom carry on into 2009. But sooner or later real factors will make an imminent recession unavoidable
Will the US economy suffer a downturn?: The likely economic downturn in the US economy in the months ahead is not going to be on account of sub-prime mortgages meltdown and the likely weakening in consumer outlays but on account of the boom-bust policies of the Fed
Why the union-sponsored Australia at Work study is worthless: The Buchanan and Woonay study is worthless union propaganda. It assumed as true that which it was supposed to prove. To do this it denied the very existence of economic laws. So much for economic reason and informed debate
Inflation: the pestilence that threatens prosperity, part 1: Golden Age of corporate profitability may be coming to a juddering end. Many already-booked 'profits' will prove to have been utterly insubstantial. If that happens, the Bull's mantra that the market is 'cheap' enough to support present prices might ring very hollow indeed
The Annapolis plan: How can Israel be so stupid?: Fatah demands a two-state solution while in Arabic it promise death to the Jews and the extermination of Israel. Given this fact why do so many in the West back a policy that amounts to the implementation of Hitler's Final Solution?
Brazil's leftist government is promoting race hatred: Race-baiting Marxists are doing the best to provoke a race war in Brazil. This is more evidence that Marxists are a bunch of political thugs motivated by hatred and a desire to do evil
The key question about the NIE's key judgment: Here's the key question about the Key Judgment of the National Intelligence Council's new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear intentions and capabilities: Is this judgment supported by the evidence?

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ELSEWHERE

Fred Thompson on the move: Beginning Monday, December 17, Thompson will launch a bus tour that will take him throughout the state. From the beginning of that trip through caucus night, Thompson will essentially live in Iowa, taking only a one-day trip out of the state to celebrate Christmas at his home in Virginia. ... Thompson has said publicly that he needs to finish in the top three in Iowa. Campaign officials say that a strong third place finish -- presumably behind new frontrunner Mike Huckabee and former frontrunner Mitt Romney -- would likely give them enough momentum to survive New Hampshire and compete in South Carolina and beyond. A second place finish would be a victory."

Chavez the crook: "Most of Latin America's leaders breathed a sigh of relief earlier this week, after Venezuelan voters rejected President Hugo Chavez's constitutional amendment referendum. In private they were undoubtedly relieved that Chavez lost, and in public they expressed delight that he accepted defeat and did not steal the election. But by midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Chavez did, in fact, try to overturn the results. As reported in El Nacional, and confirmed to me by an intelligence source, the Venezuelan military high command virtually threatened him with a coup d'etat if he insisted on doing so"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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11 December, 2007

IQ: Here we go again

Quite aside from the strangely-dressed gent who appears to constitute their their logo, The New Yorker is a rather strange publication. They email to privileged people like me (why I am so privileged I have no idea) copies of articles that have not yet appeared in their magazine. One such is a part of the small rush of articles that have been sparked by James Watson's perfectly factual observations about black IQ. The New Yorker's contribution appears under the heading "None of the above" and is by Malcolm Gladwell, a historian who takes an interest in the social sciences. Gladwell is of course among the "saints" who think IQ is all nonsense.

I must say that I had to laugh. Gladwell mentions, for instance, the old Eyferth study (without naming it) as if it proved something when all it proves (to be blunt) is that German women don't go to bed with dumb blacks.

All Gladwell does, basically, is rehash the usual points made by Flynn -- so any critique of Flynn (e.g. here) should be an adequate reply to Gladwell. I will however mention a few points here. Another point Gladwell raises is that the black/white gap rises from a small gap in infancy to a much larger gap in later life. Gladwell thinks that shows an effect of black culture but the real explanation is again rather blunt so I will simply refer readers to an extended comment I made on that matter recently.

But Gladwell's basic blindness is to fail to distinguish between phenotypic IQ (scores on IQ tests) and genotypic IQ (that part of IQ test scores which is genetically determined). Nobody has ever denied that IQ test scores are influenced by environmental factors -- about a third of IQ is usually found to be environmentally determined -- so the rise in the IQ scores of most populations over the 20th century (as described by Flynn) was to be expected from all the many advantages that modernization brings -- better nutrition, greater stimulation via TV, more time in the educational system, better perinatal medical care etc. But if genetics set a limit, the improvement to IQ scores that flow from an improved environment should peak as the environment reaches the optimum for IQ development. And precisely that has now happened in several affluent countries.

So Flynn's findings don't let you escape those pesky genes! It is in fact rather amusing to hear an attack on genetic influences in this day and age. We now hear almost daily (in the medical and psychological literature) of new findings about genetic influences on human behaviour -- so much so that it would be amazing if there was NOT a large genetic influence on IQ.

See my recent post about Metcalf for more on the points raised by Gladwell. It would be nice if The New Yorker opened its pages to an article on IQ by someone who really knows the subject -- such as Gottfedson or Rushton -- but I don't expect to see it in my lifetime. Complex truths always have a difficult struggle against simplistic lies. The Gladwell article is apparently set for publication in the Dec 17 issue of The New Yorker.

I will leave readers with an interesting histogram from the U.S. Government's National Science Foundation. SAT scores are, of course, highly correlated with IQ:



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EDUBLOGGER WANTED

There are quite a lot of education bloggers around so I am pleased to say that my EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL blog survives the competition well enough to get around 150 hits per day. That may not seem much but it is better than 99% of all blogs.

What I put up on it is basically whatever I come across in my days's reading that interests me both from a libertarian/conservative point of view and from my point of view as a former teacher at both the High School and University levels.

Education is however a huge field and I am acutely aware that I cover only a small fraction of what I could cover. And I think that a wider coverage would lead to more readers. So I would be very pleased if I could get a co-blogger who would help expand what the blog covers. Getting access to an established blog is a lot easier than starting a new blog so I hope someone will contact me about this.

Their general orientation would of course have to be libertarian/conservative but I think that any regular reader of this blog would fill the bill. The most consistent message of the blog so far has been that there should be much more privatization of schooling. I write from a country where over 40% of High School students already go to private schools so that is not totally blue-sky.

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ELSEWHERE

Iran 'hoodwinked' CIA over nuclear plans: "British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran. Analysts believe that Iranian staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time. A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons."

Males less biased: "A new study published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences finds that the attractiveness of interviewees can significantly bias outcome in hiring practices, showing a clear distinction between the attractive and average looking interviewees in terms of high and low status job packages offered. The study explored the influence of the halo effect in a mock job negotiation scenario where male and female interviewers were shown pictures of attractive or average looking male and female job applicants. Female interviewers were found to allocate attractive looking male interviewees more high status job packages than the average looking men. Female interviewers also gave more high status job packages to attractive men than to attractive women. Average looking men also received more low status job packages than average looking women. Male interviewers did not differ in the number of high or low status job packages that were given to attractive looking interviewees of either sex, though the male interviewers gave out more low status job packages overall, irrespective of the sex of the interviewee."

Is this the Leftist brain we are talking about? "Human experience is based on learning that our actions affect subsequent positive or negative outcomes. Rewards strengthen associations between contextual stimuli and actions thereby reinforcing and maintaining successful behavior; whereas punishments induce avoidance of erroneous actions. While we usually learn from both positive and negative reinforcement, the relative amount of learning from success or errors varies between individuals. Klein et al. investigated a human genetic polymorphism associated with the density of brain dopamine D2 receptor. Reduced D2 receptor density was associated with less efficient learning from errors. In people with lower D2 receptor density, the reduced capacity to learn from errors was accompanied by reduced feedback-related activity in the posterior medial frontal cortex, an area known to monitor for negative action outcomes". [More here]

Offended Muslim Syndrome: "Following the misery inflicted on Islam by a toy bear that ended up with calls for the execution of an English woman, more Muslims are stepping forward with stories of long-suppressed emotional trauma imposed on them by so-called reality. This has led to the creation of support groups and social networks that help followers of the Prophet Mohammed cope with the agony of learning about life outside of their immediate environment, offering assistance with technical resources, practical guidance, and strategies for early intervention and punishment of those who offend Islam." [Satire]

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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10 December, 2007

The Anglican split widens

An Episcopal diocese in central California voted Saturday to split with the national denomination over disagreements about the role of gays and lesbians in the church. Clergy and lay members of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin voted 173-22 at their annual convention to remove all references to the national church from the diocese's constitution, according to spokeswoman Joan Gladstone.

The Fresno-based congregation is the first full diocese to secede because of a conservative-liberal rift that began decades ago and is now focused on whether the Bible condemns gay relationships. The diocese, in a later vote, accepted an invitation to join a conservative South American congregation of the Worldwide Anglican Communion [the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America]. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. member of the global Anglican Communion.

The decision is almost certain to spark a court fight over control of the diocese's multimillion-dollar real estate holdings and other assets. The head of the U.S. denomination had warned Bishop John-David Schofield of the Fresno-based diocese against secession. "I do not intend to threaten you, only to urge you to reconsider and draw back from this trajectory," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, head of the U.S. denomination, wrote in a letter to Schofield earlier this week.

Schofield responded that the Episcopal Church "has isolated itself from the overwhelming majority of Christendom and more specifically from the Anglican Communion by denying Biblical truth and walking apart from the historic Faith and Order." The Fresno diocese has explored breaking ties with the American church since 2003, when Episcopalians consecrated the church's first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. The resulting uproar throughout the world Anglican fellowship has moved the 77 million-member communion toward the brink of schism.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Dems cave on Iraq funding: "A 3-way deal among the House Democrats, Senate Democrats and Republicans was cut. Democrats will throw in the towel this weekend on their silly refusal to fund a war that we’re winning. That is huge. Democrats have bet their farm on failure in Iraq. President Bush is about to collect that farm. The No. 2 Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer, broke the news to the editorial board of the Washington Post. Hoyer said: “The way you pass appropriations bills is you get agreement among all the relevant players, among which the president with his veto pen is a very relevant player. Everybody knows he has no intention of signing anything without money for Iraq, unfettered, without constraints. I think that’s ultimately going to be the result.”

The Jihadi spy in the FBI betrayed FBI informants: "An illegal immigrant who parlayed a sham marriage into citizenship and key jobs at the FBI and CIA made five unauthorized inquiries into an FBI computer system to find out about investigations of Hizballah, a federal prosecutor said in court papers filed Wednesday in Detroit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell didn't indicate why Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese immigrant who once lived in Taylor, wanted the information or what she did with it. But he said four of the inquiries involved files containing the names of confidential FBI informants."

More Iranian weapons found in Iraq: "A cache of Iranian manufactured rockets was turned over to Coalition forces based at Forward Operating Base Delta, Dec. 4. Iraqi civil defense personnel delivered 14 107 mm Iranian rockets and fuses to the Kazakhstani Soldiers, said 1st Lt. Almaz Mukashev, the Kazakhstani liaison officer. The rockets were manufactured in 2006. The Iraqi civil defense personnel have turned over munitions to Coalition forces before, but this was the first delivery of Iranian weapons to Coalition forces, said Col. Peter Baker, the 214th Fires Brigade commander".

Barbara Walters: Chavez Still Fascinating: "The recent setback in Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's efforts to proclaim himself ruler for life were stunning to ABC News woman Barbara Walters. "I was amazed that he, that he didn't get to be president for life." Perhaps Barbara was shocked that the people would rise up against this charismatic man she'd already wrapped into her special on the Ten Most Fascinating People of 2007. When asked if Hugo's setback made him less fascinating, Walters said no, that "we try to have people that do positive things." But her actual profile of Chavez (recycling a March interview) turned a bit dreary. Her enthusiasm cooled enough that she actually edited more emotional quotes (both from Walters and Chavez) out of the brief profile."

Cash shortage to keep British navy in port: "Most of the Royal Navy will be tied up in dock next year, frozen by a 15 billion pound "black hole" in the Ministry of Defence budget over the next decade. As the MoD fights proposals for 12 billion of defence cuts over the same period, only ships supporting operations in the Gulf will leave port. The soaring cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the increasing reluctance of the Treasury to fund them is adding to the pressure. "The navy is looking at what options they have because the amount of funding is just not there," one source said. "The overheating of the equipment budget is putting pressure on everyone." The only major exercise expected to go ahead is Orion 08, in which the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, the destroyer Edinburgh and the frigate Westminster will head for the Gulf, defence sources said. The navy is now resigned to losing five frigates, four Type22s and one Type23, taking it down to a record low of just 20 destroyers and frigates - insufficient to mount a major taskforce without coalition help."

London car tax fails: "It was intended to get London moving, but after five years of Ken Livingstone's congestion charge, and more than 800 million pounds of tolls and fines, traffic jams are almost as bad as they were to start off with. As a new cadre of charge bureaucrats prospers, overheads are now so high that they burn up the equivalent of almost 4 pounds of a standard 8 pound charge. Money raised to improve public transport has been cut by 10% in the past year. Spending on the administration of the charge rose to more than 160m in the past year, leaving 10m less for buses and schemes to improve traffic flow. Traffic has slowed to below 10mph. Livingstone will further polarise opinion next year with a 25 pound daily charge on cars with high carbon emissions - including 4X4s such as the Toyota Land Cruiser but also the 2.5 litre Ford Mondeo, Vauxhall Vectra 2.8L and Renault Espace 2.0."

BBC deception again: "Get a load of this. US job creation slows in November. US employers added 94,000 jobs in November, with the rate of hiring slowing from the previous month, the Labor Department has reported. Sounds like things are going into the tank, right? Then comes the rest of the story. The total came in slightly ahead of forecasts by Wall Street economists for 90,000 jobs, bolstering the dollar. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.7 percent, the department said. So, the employment numbers were better than expected and unemployment held steady. But the BBC run a headline claiming that employment slowed."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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9 December, 2007

Leftist projection about political bias

Projection is so rife among Leftists that seeing what they say about conservatives is a handy guide to what is true about them. And nowhere is that more evident than in the various discussions about IQ. Quite plainly, what Leftists say about the subject is guided by their "all men are equal" ideology rather than by the facts. Their stance has everything to do with ideological bias and has only an incidental concern with the facts.

So what do they do when non-Leftists confront them with the facts? They accuse their opponents of ideological bias! -- as we saw in Metcalf's recent attack on Saletan. Saletan himself could not readily be accused of much but someone he quoted (Rushton) has some association with people who believe that racial differences are widespread (which makes them "racists" in Leftist parlance) so that was enough to throw all Saletan's pesky facts onto the trashheap. Logicians call such reasoning an ad hominem fallacy. A popular description of it is "playing the man and not the ball".

So the Leftist argument is that pro-racist bias completely discredits any facts you put forward but anti-racist bias makes whatever you say virtuous. Logically, however, if ideological convictions in a writer make anything he says of no worth then it is writers like Metcalf and Flynn who should be dismissed from consideration.

The underlying argument of course is that Leftists are immune from blame because of their "good" intentions but it would be naive indeed to accept their own claims of that sort about themselves. Judging by their results across history worldwide their intentions are in fact destructive. "By their fruits shall ye know them". What Leftists pine for is revolution, and, as Friedrich Engels said: "Revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon"

Be that as it may, however, the logic remains that judgements based on the facts are going to be much more reliable than judgments based on the apparent good or bad character of the arguer. The world would be a con-man's paradise if all that mattered was the apparent good character of someone! And following Leftist logic, bad character would equally be a foolish guide. Hitler liked dogs so liking dogs would be disgraceful! Maybe even dogs would be condemned!

I notice that Saletan does not seem to have been up to making the ancient points I have put up immediately above. His response to Metcalf's attack on Rushton was to apologize for not mentioning Rushton's associations! What he should have said to Metcalf is: "I don't see any problem in referring to someone with opposite biases to yours. The truth is probably best ascertained by hearing from both sides".

At least Saletan did not back down completely. He merely apologized for not including mention of Rushton's associations rather than condemning Rushton's work outright. I myself know very little about Rushton beyond what I read of his work in the academic journals. And to get that work published it has to pass peer review -- i.e. Rushton's work has to be passed as properly reasoned and accurately analysed by experts in the field. Rushton could of course still be making things up but most of the data he uses is publicly available -- so it is not amenable to that. And I have heard no claim that any of his findings are unreplicable. Rushton's work is in fact high-quality orthodox science and Saletan was right to refer to it.

For all I know Rushton f*cks bicycles in his bedroom every night. That has nothing to do with the quality of his published academic journal articles. His articles must be judged in their own right. John Nash (of "Nash equilibrium" fame) was as mad as a hatter but he still got a Nobel for the brilliance of his economic reasoning.

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ELSEWHERE

Skepticism in Israel: "The US intelligence assessment that the Iranians have abandoned, for the moment at least, their nuclear weapons program has burst like a clap of biblical thunder over troubled Israeli skies. Frankly, there is hardly a senior Israeli who believes the US. One sceptic is Shabtai Shavit. He was for seven years the head of Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad. Now in his late 60s, he has a range of commercial affiliations but just recently has been called back by Israel's security ministry to advise the Government on Iran. He was frankly shocked at the American assessment, which he does not believe is correct, and at its public release. The new US view, that Iran is acquiring the nuclear technology that could produce weapons but has given up its specific weapons program, and in any event probably could not produce a weapon until 2015, is the opposite of the Israeli assessment. Jerusalem believes Iran will have enough nuclear fuel for a weapon by 2010 at the latest. Says Shavit: "I believe we should be very hesitant in accepting this (US assessment). First, intelligence exists to err. Second, American intelligence time and again has made mistakes in the past. Three, we shouldn't rule out the possibility that often intelligence is being used for political purposes and hidden agendas." This is a perfect circle of irony and history. The international Left believes the Bush administration misused intelligence to justify striking Iraq. Now Israelis suspect the Bush administration may be misusing intelligence because it doesn't want to strike Iran. Other Israeli sources tell Inquirer the new US assessment contradicts not only Israel's intelligence judgments but also those of the Germans, the French and the Dutch."

51st Consecutive Month of Job Growth: "The Department of Labor has released its preliminary report on November's employment summary, estimating an increase in payroll employment of 94,000 during the month. That was less than the private ADP report suggested, but above the recently upgraded estimate of 70,000. The unemployment rate stood pat at 4.7%, lower than the 4.8% the market was expecting. Based on the preliminary report, November was the 51st consecutive month of positive job growth, further extending the Bush economy's record-setting streak that dates back to the summer of 2003, shortly after the enactment of the investment income tax cuts."

Britain: More mental illness in minority groups: "Some ethnic minority groups are three times more likely to be admitted to hospital for mental health problems than the rest of the population. The Count Me In Census 2007 revealed that 22 per cent of people on mental health wards were from minority ethnic groups, a slight rise on previous years. The census is part of the Government's five-year action plan Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care. Anna Walker, from the Healthcare Commission, said that they wanted to "bring together local agencies to tackle the issues that cause some black and minority ethnic groups to have higher rates of mental illness". [Mostly among blacks -- all due to "racism", of course]

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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8 December, 2007

Differences in female abilities

Post below lifted from Taranto. See the original for links

From the New York Times:

Girls won top honors for the first time in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, one of the nation's most coveted student science awards, which were announced yesterday at New York University.

Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, both 17 and seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School on Long Island, split the first prize--a $100,000 scholarship--in the team category for creating a molecule that helps block the reproduction of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria.

Isha Himani Jain, 16, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pa., placed first in the individual category for her studies of bone growth in zebra fish, whose tail fins grow in spurts, similar to the way children's bones do. She will get a $100,000 scholarship.

The three girls' victories is "wonderful news, but I can't honestly say it's shocking," said Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Hopkins helped start a national discussion about girls and science two years ago when she walked out of a talk by Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, after he suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason that fewer women than men succeed in math and science careers. Dr. Summers apologized during the ensuing furor; he announced his resignation as Harvard's president 13 months later.

How pathetic is it that the Times can't report on these young ladies' accomplishments without using it as an opportunity to take potshots at Larry Summers for failing to adhere to feminist orthodoxy? But since they brought it up, we feel obliged to point out that this in no way disproves anything Summers said. He did not claim that no women succeed in math and science, only that fewer women than men do. That it is newsworthy when girls win a science contest only serves to underscore Summers's point.

Moreover, as intelligence expert Charles Murray noted in a 2005 Commentary essay, the differences between men and women are more pronounced in more abstract fields such as mathematics and theoretical physics than in less abstract ones like biology and medicine, the areas in which the girls won the prize:

In the humanities, the most abstract field is philosophy--and no woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world's great philosophical traditions. In the sciences, the most abstract field is mathematics, where the number of great female mathematicians is approximately two (Emmy Noether definitely, Sonya Kovalevskaya maybe). In the other hard sciences, the contributions of great women have usually been empirical rather than theoretical, with leading cases in point being Henrietta Leavitt, Dorothy Hodgkin, Lise Meitner, IrSne Joliot-Curie and Marie Curie.

None of this is to disparage the accomplishments of the Siemens Competition winners. They have already accomplished more in science than any but a handful of women or men ever will, and we wish them all the success in the world if they choose a career in science (or, for that matter, if they don't). But is it really necessary for Hopkins and the Times to superimpose upon these young people's achievement a political agenda based on assumptions that cannot withstand honest scrutiny?

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ELSEWHERE

Was Key Intel for NIE Planted by Iran? "Given that the Iranians knew we were trying to uncover as much information as we could regarding their nuclear program, is it to be believed that they were incapable of planting written notes and engaging in over the air conversations that would mislead America? Recall, that before the Iraq War, Colin Powell played a tape of Iraqis discussing what was believed to be WMD. Surely, the Iranians knew we were eavesdropping. Just as Saddam Hussein misled observers regarding his nuclear program to scare off his foes, the Iranians could very well be doing the reverse-creating a false picture to disarm its opponents. An Iranian source was also credited with bringing documents to the attention of Western authorities. The possibility of a double agent is explored here. A similar human source, Curveball, gave us false information regarding Iraq and WMD. Has history repeated itself?"

No Journo Wants a Million Dollars?: "As you may recall, at the American Spectator dinner, T. Boone Pickens offered a million dollars to anyone who could prove anything the Swift Veterans said was wrong. John F . Kerry offered to take him up on that but has remained silent when Pickens asked him to put up the proof. Other Tom, an online friend, has asked a useful question at Just One Minute: "I continue to wonder: inasmuch as Boone Pickens's offer of a million bucks was made to "anyone"--not just John Kerry--who could prove any SwiftVet allegation false, why have none of the journalists who routinely describe those allegations as "discredited" come forward to claim the prize? Do they simply not like money?"

Highly informative news item: "Sacramento police are looking for a man who robbed a person at gunpoint in the south Sacramento area Thursday morning. The armed robbery occurred around 7:42 a.m. in the 6600 block of Valley Hi Drive, a police dispatcher said. It does not appear that the victim was injured. Further details about the incident are not yet known." [Political correctness blocks details and impedes crime-solving. A wonder that "man" was mentioned]

A Word of Caution on the Bush Mortgage Plan: "At the very least, if the Bush Administration plan is truly voluntary, it's unnecessary. Loan holders and servicers have plenty of incentive to do that themselves. No one sitting in a central office can hope to set the right mortgage terms for millions of borrowers, lenders, and investors. Like all so-called five-year plans, the five-year interest rate freeze by its design would pretty much have only negative effects and worsen the credit slowdown. While apparently no taxpayer dollars are directly involved (at least not yet), by pressuring the rewrite of millions of mortgage contracts, the Paulson plan could have even greater costs on the economy as well as future aspiring homeowners than even a direct taxpayer bailout. The credit market depends on the sanctity of contracts for everything from the financing of mortgages to new small businesses. But if regulators can negate contracts anytime there is a problem, much of this credit could dry up." [For more details of the Bush plan, see here]

Fox Derangement Syndrome at the New York Times : "The folks in the bubble over at the New York Times are whining that the Fox News Channel won't show an absurd ad from far-left actor Danny Glover and the even further left Center for Constitutional Rights, run by Marxist Columbia professor and Hillary Clinton donor Michael Ratner."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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



7 December, 2007

A real father. Is this the evil Fascist the Left obsess about?

Unlike Hillary's interviews, this did not have to be scripted



US first daughter Jenna Bush appeared nervous when Ellen DeGeneres asked her to call her parents during a taping of DeGeneres's talk show on Tuesday. The show aired on Wednesday. "They're going to kill me," the 26-year-old daughter of President George Bush told DeGeneres. "I'm going to be in so much trouble."

All was well, though, when she reached her parents on speakerphone. "I'm just sitting here with daddy," Laura Bush told her daughter, to which DeGeneres chimed in: "Oh hey! It's Ellen. I wanted to say hi to daddy." So the president got on the line: "How's my little girl doing?"

"Oh, she's great. She's scared she's going to get in trouble because I just said, 'Is it easy to just pick up the phone and call your dad anytime'?" DeGeneres said. "And now she's scared she's not going to get any Christmas presents."

Bush said he was not angry. "I do want to say Merry Christmas to your audience and I want to tell my little girl I love her," the president said. "I love you too, Dad," Jenna responded.

Source

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Meet the neo-cons' neo-con

Occasionally you recognise that you are in the presence of human greatness. I had that experience this week in Jerusalem when I went to interview Natan Sharansky. Sharansky was one of the most famous dissidents and refuseniks of the Soviet Union. Refuseniks were Russian Jews who wanted to live as Jews and migrate to Israel. They were prevented from doing either of these things by the harsh, totalitarian Soviet system.

Sharansky spent nearly 10 years in Soviet prisons and labour camps, frequently on hunger strike, always defiant, insanely brave. Many people across the world campaigned for the refuseniks' freedom and, of course, Americans were critical. But Australians also played a distinguished role in this campaign, especially Bob Hawke and Jewish leader Isi Leibler. Then, on one incredible day in 1986, Sharansky went from a KGB prison in the morning to a plane to Germany in the afternoon, then on another plane to Jerusalem in the evening. "I went straight from hell to paradise," he recalls. "The rulers of Iran can only imagine such a journey. I went from hatred to love, from the darkness of prison to the bright sun. Of course, if you go straight to heaven, you can only go down from there. I still live in paradise, but paradise needs a few repairs."

He seems a man very much at ease in his own skin. He smiles frequently. A satirical cartoon of himself adorns one wall, across from a picture of another great Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov. I seek enlightenment from Sharansky on two questions: why does Israel get such a bad press in the West, far worse than it deserves, and can democracy work in Arab societies? Sharansky agrees that Israel consistently gets a far worse press than it deserves. He accepts that there are many reasons for this, from the power, money and influence that flow from Arab oil to the recrudescent anti-Semitism of recent years.

But he also nominates, especially in the case of European hostility to Israel, a particular ideological factor. He says: "Israel is at the centre of the struggle between the totalitarian and the ideological, between the fundamentalist and the unfaithful. It is an assertive nation-state at a time when the leading ideology in Europe is post-nationalism and multiculturalism, especially in respect of the EU, and building post-state institutions. So the Europeans see Israel as nationalist and the last outpost of colonialism.

"But Europe now is in a much more difficult situation ideologically than Israel. They tried to build their new society only on human rights. They believe the nation-state has human rights but no commitment to identity. They find a minority (part of the Muslim population) which has a strong identity and no commitment to human rights. "Europeans find themselves helpless in the face of this and I believe that Europe will have to go back to national identity. "Democracy must have a connection with identity. There must be a national, democratic state. Israel can only survive in this region as a democratic, Jewish state. This is anathema to Europe."

The same syndrome of disdain for religion and civic-national identity informs much European hostility to the US as well, Sharansky believes. Because the French Revolution was against religion, Europeans have mistakenly come to the view that religion is the enemy of democracy. But the US and Israel were both founded with strong religious identities and have become thriving democracies. "America is a country tolerant to both faith and identity," Sharansky says. "Muslims come to America and accept the rules of democracy. They come to Europe and don't accept the rules of democracy because it was never demanded of them."

More here

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Unrealistic "realists": "Washington pundits have an odd way of ridiculing the Bush administration's grandiose plans for remaking Iraq, while at the same time embracing ambitious designs for bringing peace to the Holy Land. Hence many Middle East hands urge the United States to take a cautiously realistic approach to achieving ethnic and religious reconciliation in Mesopotamia. But these same Realpoliticos become born-again idealists in insisting that American leaders could and should help resolve the conflict between Arabs and Jews. As in Iraq, these peoples have been fighting since the British invaded in World War I. But, hey, Americans needs to show some faith to get the peace process moving ahead, right?"

A religious country: "An overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God and signicant numbers also think that UFOs, the devil and ghosts exist, a new poll shows. The survey by Harris Online showed 82 per cent of adult Americans believed in God and a slightly smaller percentage - 79 per cent - believed in miracles. More than 70 per cent of the 2455 adults surveyed between November 7 and 13 said they believed in heaven and angels, while more than six in 10 said they believed in hell and the devil."

MPs say BBC should be more accountable: "The BBC is not properly accountable and should be open to investigation by the Auditor General, an investigation by the Commons Public Accounts Committee has concluded. The successor to Sir John Bourn, guardian of the public purse at the National Audit Office, who leaves his post next month, should be given access to the BBC’s accounts, MPs said. The report into the BBC’s risk management concluded: “There is still no satisfactory regime under which the BBC is accountable to Parliament for its value for money.” It should also do more to protect employees working in hostile environments, the report said, citing the Gaza abduction of its correspondent Alan Johnston. A survey of BBC staff with risk management responsibilities found that 29 per cent had never looked at the BBC’s guidance."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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6 December, 2007

Metcalf on Saletan and black IQ

Vitriolic and anti-conservative cultural commentator Stephen Metcalf has apparently put a bit of work into his recent article in Slate in which he attempts to rebut Saletan's article on IQ research. Metcalf actually appears to have read stuff on the subject! Predictably for a Leftist, though, most of what he says is ad hominem -- attempted character assassination of those with whom he disagrees. Vdare has however highlighted the shallowness of Metcalf's claims in that department rather well so I will just focus on a few of the substantive points that Metcalf raises.

I should perhaps point out initially, however, that I have never received one cent from the Pioneer Fund nor do I know anything about it. For all I know it is just a Leftist boogeyman. They certainly seem to treat it that way. They claim that any association with the Pioneer Fund renders anyone outside the pale of discourse. But putting those they disagree with outside the pale of discourse is a common Leftist strategy, of course. It sure beats having to deal with inconvenient facts and arguments! My interest in this debate springs from the fact that I am a psychometrician (specialist in the measurement of psychological variables) by trade. See here.

I think it is about time that I pointed out the obvious about the "seed" analogy to black/white IQ differences. Metcalf puts it as follows:

Imagine two wheat fields. Now imagine two genetically identical sets of seeds. (The analogy was first made famous by the Harvard evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin.) Now imagine each field is planted with these two identical seed stocks. Field No. 1 is given the best possible inputs: sunshine intensity, rain, soil nitrates, etc. Field No. 2 is given much less of all of the above. Within each field, inputs are kept uniform. Inevitably, the first field grows a healthier supply of grain than the second. But here is the rub: Within each field, the variation in outcomes is entirely hereditary. Between the two fields, the variation in outcomes in entirely environmental.

The argument simply assumes what it has to prove. It assumes that the two lots of seeds (genetic inheritance) are identical to start with. So the argument comes back immediately to the problem of sorting out whether black and white IQ is genetically different. And it is precisely that question which has been the subject of decades of research. Environmental differences do have SOME effect on IQ so it is perfectly possible that the UNDERLYING differences between blacks and whites are nil. But there is NOTHING that has ever been found which suggests that -- only a lot of wishful thinking. I am not for a minute going to try to summarize the research concerned but Gottfredson and Malloy are good starting points for those who want to delve further.

Much of the research, however, has focused on examining alternative explanations for the perennial black disadvantage. Is it due to poor nutrition or biased tests, for instance? But no matter what you allow for, a substantial gap remains.

One might also note that if the environment were the cause of racial differences in IQ then we would expect impoverished and poorly nourished Chinese living in hovels to score lower on IQ tests than blacks. The reverse is of course true. The Chinese score about the same as whites, in fact. Also: East Asian immigrants to America labour under much greater disadvantages than do blacks -- not speaking English well, for a start -- but they do well generally and their children fill the universities (over 40% of students at the University of California are Asian). Environment doesn't seem to hold Asians back. How come blacks do not make such a huge leap when given the opportunity? Simple answer: Blacks don't have the genetic endowment but the Chinese do. Even if we argue that America's Chinese immigrants have a better genetic endowment than other Chinese, the argument still is in terms of the genetic given rather than in terms of the environment.

And the "No child left behind" initiative has put huge pressure on schools to lift black educational attainment -- with effectively zero results. We read in fact, "The disparity between blacks' and whites' SAT scores is larger now than it was 10 years ago". NOTHING can bring average black scores up to average white scores. If Metcalf knows a way he will make a fortune. The Chinese advantage is sometimes attributed to a superior Chinese culture. Maybe Metcalf can tell us how to give blacks a Chinese-style culture! It's quite inconceivable, isn't it? Chinese culture reflects what Chinese are to begin with (See Kagan's research) and the same is true for black culture. Why else would blacks in all environments worldwide be the same high-violence, high-criminality, low achieving group that they are in America?

That leads me to two of Metcalf's assertions: "Since the late '60s-i.e., since the heyday of civil rights and the inception of such "compensatory education" programs as Head Start-blacks have made huge gains vis-.-vis whites on a wide range of standardized tests. Evidence? Metcalf gives none. I think that must be one bit that he did not look up. He is just winging it on the basis of what they say in his own little social bubble. Head Start has in fact made just about no discernible difference to anything. See also here. That Congress continues to fund Head Start rather proves what Ronald Reagan said -- that a government program is the nearest thing to everlasting life. It may be worth noting that a similar program in Britain has also failed to achieve anything.

Metcalf also says: "Absent a national random sample for IQ data and race, researchers have looked at a range of tests that highly correlate with IQ, and extrapolated from them that the black-white IQ gap has likely been cut by a third." References? Metcalf gives none. Charles Murray, however, has noted that the black/white IQ score gap did close somewhat during the 20th century, but that the data show that the narrowing stalled sometime in the 1970s.

Finally Metcalf points to the big study of black/white IQ by the corporate body of America's psychologists, the American Psychological Association. The report of course acknowledges the 15 point IQ disadvadvantage usually found for blacks but goes on to say that the question is still not settled. In a way reminiscent of the way Greenies rely on the heavily politicised IPCC as authority for their belief in global warming, Metcalf uses the APA conclusion as authority for his belief that the question is not settled. But the APA is as politicized as the IPCC. It is heavily Left-leaning. So it is their evidence you have to look at, not their opinions, and the evidence is very consistent in showing a black white IQ gap no matter what.

And the APA report is not even a comprehensive survey of the literature. You will find no mention of him in the APA bibliography but Tanser (1939), for instance, found a large black/white IQ gap even though the children in his study had attended the same schools since 1890! It is particularly regrettable that the APA slighted older studies in its report as the great black cultural and family breakdown since the 60s does superficially look like a reasonable cause for black intellectual failure. Studies prior to the 60s, however, show much the same result as more recent studies. Whether the environment is permissive or vigilant, or anything else, that IQ gap never budges significantly. It is hard-wired.

The refusal of the APA to draw conclusions in their report on the grounds that the evidence is not yet good enough is a good example of what is called "intellectual dishonesty" -- judging a matter not on the balance of the evidence for and against it but rather on whether or not the conclusions suit the speaker. If the conclusions don't suit, NO evidence will ever be good enough, of course. I commented on that dishonesty in discussions about IQ long ago

I could go on and if no-one else takes up the cudgels maybe I will. There is, for a start, a lot more fun to be had from the Eyferth study. In his comments on both the Eyferth study and the Minnesota adoption study, Metcalf seems to assume what he is trying to disprove!

References:
Eyferth, K. (1961). Leistungenverchiedener Gruppen von Besatzungskindern im Hamburg Wechsler Intelligenztest fuer Kinder (HAWIK). Archiv fuer die gesamte Psychologie, 1 13, 222 241.
Tanser, H. A. 1939. The Settlement of Negroes in Kent County, Ontario. Chatham, Ontario: Shephard Publishing Co.

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The CIA's flip-flop on Iran is hardly reassuring: "In his press conference yesterday, President Bush went out of his way to praise the "good work" of the intelligence community, whose latest National Intelligence Estimate claims the mullahs of Iran abandoned their nuclear weapons program in 2003. "This is heartening news," Mr. Bush said. "To me, it's a way for us to rally our partners." We wish we could be as sanguine, both about the quality of U.S. intelligence and its implications for U.S. diplomacy. For years, senior Administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, have stressed to us how little the government knows about what goes on inside Iran. In 2005, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report underscored that "Across the board, the Intelligence Community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors." And as our liberal friends used to remind us, you can never trust the CIA. (Only later did they figure out the agency was usually on their side.)" [VDH also has an interesting comment on the alleged Iranian non-bomb]

Israel's defense minister disputes U.S. assessment on Iran: "Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to develop a nuclear weapon, Israel's defense minister said Tuesday, disputing a U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran has halted its program. "It's apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program for a time. But in our opinion, since then it has apparently continued that program," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio".

Expensive to get the BBC to stop lying: "Training to remind staff about the importance of telling viewers the truth will cost the BBC more than œ1 million in staff time and expenses. About 17,000 BBC staff have to attend a two-hour course, in which employees are invited to discuss where the line should be drawn between artifice and deception in the wake of a series of scandals. Vin Ray, the director of the BBC's college of journalism, said that the direct cost of the course would be "a maximum of 500,000 pounds", but the cost of taking each employee out for a half day more than doubled that figure."

Democrat candidates asked "Why do Muslims hate us?" "The Democrats debated on NPR today, and were asked "Why do Muslims hate us?" If there's a more tiresome question that has arisen from the ashes of 9-11, I'm not aware of it. "Where's my aircraft carrier?" was, essentially, the vast majority of Americans' reaction after 9-11, liberal and conservative alike, but the rubber band has snapped the 9-10 left back to its former, pacifist, blame-America-first self. That NPR question arises from that attitude that all the hate directed at us must somehow be all our fault, and not motivated by anything other than our own actions. The word you may be looking for to describe that attitude is "narcissism." Liberals corner the market on that stuff. And several of the Democrat candidates betrayed their worst, most liberal, knee-jerk blame America first instincts."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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5 December, 2007

An ungrateful grumble

Ever since Google started including blogs in its image searches it has become quite hard to figure out how many people are actually reading a blog. Image searches show up as hits but the chance of someone stopping to read a blog when they are only looking for pictures would have to be low. But, still, as they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity. One thing that quite amuses me is the most looked-at picture from this blog. It is from a Christmas day post. See below:



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Are Lefties more mentally ill? They claim to be...

Post below excerpted from Dr. Joy Bliss. See the original for links

What are we to make of this report from Gallup?

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

Although I have no idea about whether a self-report of "mental health" has any validity at all, I would speculate that Republicans, statistically, with the Conservative and Libertarian flavorings of many Republicans, may tend to be more optimistic, hopeful, self-reliant, and to feel less needy and to feel less deprived. In other words, happier and probably better-adjusted people. That is pure speculation, but it matches my personal experience that Lefies tend to be more bitter and dissatisfied - also with no relationship to income, education, church-going or age.

Also, as I have mentioned in the past, I see a difference in the "transference" towards government between Conservatives and others. I think that those who are more prone to unconscious parental transferences are more likely to turn to, rely upon, and to trust or hope to trust, the State. Am eagerness for childlike transferences in adulthood is not a predictor of emotional well-being.

Conservative-Libertarian types like me, I think, tend to view the people involved in politics and the State as being at least if not more venal, self-serving, corrupt, egotistical, foolish and ineffective as other areas of human endeavor like business, academia, non-profits, etc. I like to think that this view has been arrived at through a lifetime of experience, a lifetime's interest in history and public affairs, and repeated (very educational) disappointments and disillusionments during my foolishly naive, idealistic, Liberal youth. Experience and psychoanalytic training powerfully introduced me to the dark side of human nature - against my will.

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ELSEWHERE

Some fresh updates here in my never-ending "war" with the vastly incompetent Telstra, Australia's major telecommunications provider. It's hard to believe but I do now have yet another blog -- one solely devoted to Telstra and Bigpond, their internet provider. A big pond with a small mind would be an accurate description.

A small meditation on the Anglosphere: The Anglosphere has not one but two heavily influential members, the USA and the UK, though the influence of the UK is not what it used to be. Something that is easily overlooked however is that there is a third important Anglospheric aggregation. If one were to combine the populations of Australia and Canada, one would come up with 53 million people -- which is pretty comparable to the population of the major nations of Europe: France, Spain, England, Italy, Poland etc. That is not of course remotely to say that Australians and Canadians are the same. Australia is as conservative as Canada is "liberal". But there is great diversity within the nations of Europe too. It is even possible that Canadians and Australians are more homogeneous than are Germans, Spaniards and the French. And I won't say a word about the North/South hatred in Italy. My own trips to Canada were certainly most congenial.

Brits buy Boeing: "Another giant C17 Globemaster air transport has been bought by the Ministry of Defence from Boeing for 130 million pounds, increasing the fleet of C17s to six at a cost of 780 million. The A400M transport aircraft being built by Airbus for the RAF has suffered delays, and the first deliveries are not due until 2010."

Leftists get it right for once: "Liberal activists plan to begin airing a television ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa this week, the first non-Republican negative ad aimed at a Democratic presidential candidate. The group, Democratic Courage, has accused Clinton of making policy decisions on the basis of polls, not convictions."

Beijing backs new sanctions against Iran: "China has for the first time indicated clear support for a new package of United Nations sanctions against Iran, breaking months of deadlock inside the UN security council over how to respond to Tehran's nuclear programme. In a move that will boost expectations in western capitals that a new UN sanctions resolution could be agreed within weeks, Beijing signalled over the weekend that it was prepared to back measures that will hit Iran's banking and business sector, while also prohibiting more senior Iranians from travelling abroad."

The source of Leftist hate: "Leftists today hate freedom and democracy because those ideas have created the environment for success. Assistant Village Idiot recently noted in a comment that Arabs don't hate us because we have succeeded, but rather, because they have failed. The same is true for the leftists- their burning hatred of democracy stems from their failure to create a single instance of a functioning society that isn't a least a generation behind our own. Not even the redistribution of wealth can make up for the values and freedom that create an environment that allows for the creation of wealth."

Leftist hate is psychopathic: "This leads us to an important quesion: what does the psychopath REALLY get from their victims? It's easy to see what they are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what the psychopath is after. Without wandering too far afield into spiritual speculations - a problem Cleckley also faced - we can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath ENJOYS making others suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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4 December, 2007

Sick France

Yesterday evening, three young people died in the suburbs to the north of Paris. Mouhsin (15) and Lakamy (16), two immigrant youths, were killed in Villiers-le-Bel when their motorcycle, which is said to have been stolen, collided at high speed with a police vehicle. The two youths, who were not wearing compulsory crash helmets, died on the spot. A few hours later, Anne-Lorraine (23), a young journalist, was stabbed to death on a suburban train near Creil, whilst resisting a man who was trying to rape her. The man had already been convicted for violent sexual assault in 1996. The news of the deaths of Mouhsin and Lakamy became world news, dominating today's media in France and abroad. Anne-Lorraine's death is a mere footnote, a "faits divers" in France, a non-event abroad.

After Mouhsin's and Lakamy's deaths their friends and relatives went on a rampage. They destroyed two police stations and a petrol station, torched a few dozen cars, looted stores and injured at least 25 police officers (two of them seriously) and one fireman. A spokesman of the French police union said today that the officers had been shot at by youths with firearms. According to Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the two dead youths, the eruption of violence was not what it seemed. "This is not violence," Omar told the French press agency AFP, "but just anger that needs to be expressed".

The French authorities fear that the immigrant youths in the Paris suburbs will feel a need to express another round of anger tonight. The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, is currently in China. His Interior Minister, MichŠle Alliot-Marie is in charge. She has "urged all sides to act responsibly" and has promised a full inquiry. The "all sides" refers to the angry youths on the one hand and the police on the other hand. The French judicial authorities are conducting a manslaughter investigation against the officers in the police car. According to the friends and relatives of Mouhsin and Lakamy, the officers fled from the scene of the accident, without caring for the two dead boys and without waiting for the friends and relatives to show up.

A police chief who arrived on the scene was, however, beaten up and suffered serious facial trauma. Four police cars that arrived shortly afterwards, also fled when they were attacked, leaving the entire neighbourhood under the control of the youth gangs.

More here

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Saletan's recent article in Slate summarizing the evidence for the reality and heritability of IQ was something of a dambusting event in the mainstream media. The general public previously had had few opportunities to hear what the evidence was. In the name of political correctness, IQ is one of the most lied-about phenomena of the age. The last thing anyone hears is the evidence. Saletan did of course come under heavy attack for his "immoral" article and I have commented myself on some of that criticism (e.g. here) but for a really comprehensive reply to the critics, see an article by Linda Gottfredson. Although Gottfredson and I are both psychometricians, she specializes in ability measurement while I do not. So you get a very throrough and detailed -- but still readable -- account of the matter from her. Curious how Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" but suddenly decide that an argument is "immoral" when the facts of the matter don't suit them.

Chavez defeated over reform vote: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has narrowly lost a referendum on controversial constitutional changes. Voters rejected the raft of reforms by a margin of 51% to 49%, the chief of the National Electoral Council said. Mr Chavez described the defeat as a "photo finish", and urged followers not to turn it into a point of conflict. Correspondents say the opposition could barely hide their delight and that the victory will put a brake on Mr Chavez's self-styled "Socialist revolution". Celebrations by the opposition began almost immediately in the capital, Caracas, with activists cheering, beeping car horns and waving flags."

Status symbol politics: "A pair of intellectuals, Joel Kotkin and Fred Siegel, came up with a phrase that is more fits for today's malaise on the left than limousine liberals. Writing in the Los Angeles Times today, the wrote of "gentry liberalism." Politics as a status symbol. They don't share the old concerns about the working man. "Rather, gentry liberalism reflects the interests and values of the affluent winners in the era of globalization and the beneficiaries of the `financialization' of the economy. Its strongholds are the tony neighborhoods and luxurious suburbs in and around New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and West Los Angeles," Kotkin and Siegel noted. They point out that for example the poorest 2 congressional districts in Iowa are safe Republican seats; the three richest, Democratic."

More Democrat elitism: "So, the Democratic Party - the party of the working class - is broadcasting tonight's debate from an elitist network run by billionaire Mark Cuban that requires expensive equipment and high monthly charges to access. What's up with that? Is this a signal that despite the egalitarian rhetoric, that they're actually the party of the rich and famous? Imagine the outcry if the GOP broadcast its debate from fancy network that ordinary people couldn't access. There'd be cries that the Republicans were in a "gated community." Well I'd say this is a RATHER gated community! And I'm feeling locked out by their lack of inclusiveness."

America Cheap on `Humanitarian Aid'?: "So, we are the "ugly American," we're always told. But to whom do they come running when they need help? Italy, France, maybe? Hardly. Still, they love to beat up on the US, and unfortunately our MSM is only too happy to act the echo chamber for anti-Americanism. This time it is Time Magazine that gleefully adds to the din of opprobrium at America with theirs titled, "US Ranked Low in Humanitarian Aid," wherein, crook and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has decided that we are cheapskates where it concerns so-called "humanitarian aid" to foreign countries. Yes, after all we've done, after all we do around the world in their time of need, Annan and his UN cronies have the gall to call us cheap"

Nasty EU: "People who rely on motorised scooters to help to cope with disabilities are to be hit with a 300 pound tax, after an EU ruling that they should be categorised along with "leisure vehicles". The electric power-driven wheelchairs with flexible handlebars are used by people with severe mobility difficulties, such as disabled ex-servicemen. They are now taxed in the same class as snowmobiles, jet skis and racing cars. A personal appeal has been made to Gordon Brown to intervene, but there has been no response from Downing Street, according to Jim Dooley, who runs the Mobility Bureau that provides motorised wheelchairs and scooters for hundreds of Service veterans. Under the EU ruling the scooters are now subject to a 300 pound import tax on top of their 2,000 pound cost. The decision by the EU was made in 2001 but it was not properly implemented by Revenue & Customs until this year, after a complaint from Belgium that the required 10 per cent import tax was not being enforced by Britain."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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3 December, 2007

More Google gaggle

I recently got an email from Google saying that their automatic spam detectors had detected my Marx blog as a spam blog and had blocked it from further postings. They also said that they intended to delete the blog within 20 days if I did not click a certain link. I clicked the link twice and twice I got a "task failure" response. A bit pesky! Anyway, I knew enough about the system to go to the blog itself and attempt to post something. I then got a link which enabled me to request removal of the block and the block was in fact removed a couple of days after that.

The thing that gets me, though, is why their software suddenly detected my blog after it had been up since 2004. And I had posted nothing on it since July so it was not fresh posts that they were monitoring. And it cannot have been the content of the blog that attracted automatic attention. The blog consists almost wholly of quotes from old Karl. Any algorithm that flagged that sort of content would have flagged half the Leftist blogs in the blogosphere!

The quotes from old Karl on the blog are however ones that Leftists would generally hate you to know about (showing what a racist he was, for instance). So I can only conclude that there was no automatic detection at all. It seems to me that the detection was by a Google employee who hoped to close down anything anti-Leftist. That's not at all unexpected from Google. Sites that quote the bad bits in the Koran get a hard time from Google on occasions. Google can be quite evil sometimes.

And another odd thing is that a REAL spam blog -- such as this one -- Google will not touch, despite repeated requests from me to blogger.com that they delete it. It uses one of my old addresses.

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Recently up on ICJS

The fear Factor
Anti-Semitism and the Left that Doesn't Learn
Shame on `Ha-Aretz'
LETTER TO THE WORLD
Academia, the Left, and Islamo-Fascism
We came so close to World War Three that day

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ELSEWHERE

Did you remain calm too?: "An absurd "news" story in the AP suggests that that organization wants to be numbered among the good dogs, not the bad dogs: "Clinton calm in hostage crisis. When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis. The image, broadcast just as the network news began, conveyed the message a thousand town hall meetings and campaign commercials strive for - namely, that the Democratic presidential contender can face disorder in a most orderly manner". We don't know about you, but, difficult as it is, we always try to remain calm when drunks tape highway flares to their shirts five hundred miles from our house."

Even the L.A. Times calls CNN "The Corrupt News Network": "The United States is at war in the Middle East and Central Asia, the economy is writhing like a snake with a broken back, oil prices are relentlessly climbing toward $100 a barrel and an increasing number of Americans just can't afford to be sick with anything that won't be treated with aspirin and bed rest. So, when CNN brought the Republican presidential candidates together this week for what is loosely termed a "debate," what did the country get but a discussion of immigration, Biblical inerrancy and the propriety of flying the Confederate flag? In fact, this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate raises serious questions about whether CNN is ethically or professionally suitable to play the political role the Democratic and Republican parties recently have conceded it. When one considers CNN's performance, however, the adjectives that leap to mind are corrupt and incompetent."



What a pathetic admission of fraud: "The New Republic has, at last, retracted the Scott Thomas Beauchamp stories. It takes Franklin Foer fourteen long pages to do so, waffling and tapdancing the whole time: "When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories." He blames a lot of people, including Beauchamp's wife (does she still work there, one wonders). But in the end he has tried to shuffle blame away to no avail. How long until Foer "leaves to pursue other opportunities?"

Democrats: New Party of the Rich?: "Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts. In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats. He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats. "If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions," Mr. Franc said... Mr. Franc's study also showed that contrary to the Democrats' tendency to define Republicans as the party of the rich, "the vast majoritiy of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-class districts."

British navy 'would struggle to fight a war': "BRITAIN'S Royal Navy would struggle to fight a major war because of years of under-funding and cut-backs, according to a defence ministry study leaked to a newspaper. The Sunday Telegraph said the report was ordered by Defence Secretary Des Browne to counter claims from opposition political parties and the media about a lack of resources in Britain's military. But the study concluded: "The current material state of the fleet is not good: the Royal Navy would be challenged to mount a medium-scale operation in accordance with current policy against a technologically capable adversary." A "medium-scale operation" is similar to Britain's naval involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the newspaper said. The document comes at a time of concern about the capabilities of Britain's armed forces due to a perceived lack of adequate funding for equipment and so-called "overstretch" because of commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Five of the country's former top military commanders last month criticised Prime Minister Gordon Brown for failing to fund adequately the armed forces during his 10 years as finance minister under Tony Blair."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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2 December, 2007

The latest IQ debate

Apparently James Flynn and Charles Murray have had another public debate about black/white IQ. Flynn is the only Leftist who is capable of sustaining an informed debate on the matter (people like Gardner and Sternberg are off with the fairies). There was another debate between Flynn and Murray a year ago. The report of the latest debate is by John Derbyshire, who is as cautious and polite as ever.

It is really sad to hear that Flynn is still leaning heavily on the old Eyferth study. Flynn himself knows the problems of generalizing from that study and I point them out with my usual brutal frankness here. Flynn is a perfectly competent IQ researcher so why he clings to something so unhelpful to his case is quite a mystery. It must just be that curious Leftist inability to cope with the world as it is. In Flynn's case it is denial on a pathological scale.

If anything, the Eyferth study shows the central role of genetics in IQ. The study found that the children of black American GIs and white women had similar IQs to whites. But blacks at the time had to pass the same IQ test as whites to get into the army. So what the study shows is that what IQ tests test for is genetically transmitted! And it shows that it was genetically transmitted AMONG BLACKS! Nasty! Putting it another way, it shows that only a subset of blacks especially selected by IQ tests will get results similar to whites. Why Flynn thinks that study helps his case is rather a mystery. It does make him look like some sort of mental case. It might be worth noting that Leftists themselves are much less confident of their mental health than are conservatives.

The other study mentioned by Derb is the Ogbu ("Shaker Heights") study. Black researcher Ogbu found that the children of middle class blacks did not do as well at school as the children of middle class whites. Ogbu himself attributed that to an anti-intellectual culture among blacks and there is no doubt that such a culture exists. A more straightforward explanation of his findings, however, is that affirmative action makes it easy for blacks of only average ability to rise into the middle class whereas whites have to be above-average to get there. So the children simply reflect the genetic endowment of their parents.

There is also a statistical effect known as regression to the mean that could be at work in the Ogbu study. The effect says that parents who are exceptional within their group will IN GENERAL have less exceptional children. That regression to the mean effect has always been a bit of a teeth-grinder for me, in fact. It has always had me wondering about how bright my son would turn out to be. His recent achievements in mathematics have allayed such doubts rather convincingly, however.

Reference:
Eyferth, K. (1961). Leistungenverchiedener Gruppen von Besatzungskindern im Hamburg Wechsler Intelligenztest fuer Kinder (HAWIK). Archiv fuer die gesamte Psychologie, 1 13, 222 241.

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Bloodthirsty Muslims

Post below lifted from Taranto. See the original for links

The behavior the Associated Press describes in this report from Khartoum, Sudan, does not strike us as completely normal:

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad." In response to the demonstration, teacher Gillian Gibbons was moved from the women's prison near Khartoum to a secret location for her safety, her lawyer said. The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes. . . .

Meanwhile, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have had the following to say about Gibbons's plight: . It's a statement that is all the more powerful for its brevity.

Note that, courtesy of the wicked Bob McCarty, you can now buy "Mohammed the Bear" -- as below:



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ELSEWHERE

Pure bias at CNN: "Eason Jordan famously sullied the reputation of CNN by trading journalistic integrity for access in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. That wasn't his only transgression of course - things of this sort are rarely, if ever, single events. We should have remembered that lesson when it came out the other day that the CNN audience for the Democratic presidential debate was full of plants - Democratic Party activists and campaign workers. If we had remembered the lesson, we wouldn't have been surprised at the news that the CNN Republican presidential debate was also full of plants - and that these too were Democratic Party activists and campaign workers. This is shocking behavior on the part of a company that calls itself a "news" network. That this behavior is partisan is not really the point - the shocking part is that CNN has utterly dispensed with any pretense of journalistic integrity"

Arab apartheid at work: "This week the Bush Administration legitimized Arab anti-Semitism. In an effort to please the Saudis and their Arab brothers, the Bush administration agreed to physically separate the Jews from the Arabs at the Annapolis conference in a manner that aligns with the apartheid policies of the Arab world which prohibit Israelis from setting foot on Arab soil. Evident everywhere, the discrimination against Israel received its starkest expression at the main assembly of the Annapolis conference on Tuesday. There, in accordance with Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs."

Useless diplomacy: "But does modern diplomacy actually work? Careful consideration does not make for comfortable reading. Kosovo, Darfur, North Korea and Iran suggest that more progress might have been made had a little more stick been employed than endless talk. All the main aid agencies estimate about two million innocent civilians have been the victims of the Sudanese Islamic militias that have waged a genocidal campaign against the Christian and Animist tribes that predominantly inhabit the south of the country. There are 700,000 people in refugee camps in the Darfur province of western Sudan and eastern Chad and it is universally agreed that this is the one issue that demands immediate and effective attention. But four years after the start of a conflict former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called "little short of hell on earth", the killing and deprivation goes on"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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



2 December, 2007

The latest IQ debate

Apparently James Flynn and Charles Murray have had another public debate about black/white IQ. Flynn is the only Leftist who is capable of sustaining an informed debate on the matter (people like Gardner and Sternberg are off with the fairies). There was another debate between Flynn and Murray a year ago. The report of the latest debate is by John Derbyshire, who is as cautious and polite as ever.

It is really sad to hear that Flynn is still leaning heavily on the old Eyferth study. Flynn himself knows the problems of generalizing from that study and I point them out with my usual brutal frankness here. Flynn is a perfectly competent IQ researcher so why he clings to something so unhelpful to his case is quite a mystery. It must just be that curious Leftist inability to cope with the world as it is. In Flynn's case it is denial on a pathological scale.

If anything, the Eyferth study shows the central role of genetics in IQ. The study found that the children of black American GIs and white women had similar IQs to whites. But blacks at the time had to pass the same IQ test as whites to get into the army. So what the study shows is that what IQ tests test for is genetically transmitted! And it shows that it was genetically transmitted AMONG BLACKS! Nasty! Putting it another way, it shows that only a subset of blacks especially selected by IQ tests will get results similar to whites. Why Flynn thinks that study helps his case is rather a mystery. It does make him look like some sort of mental case. It might be worth noting that Leftists themselves are much less confident of their mental health than are conservatives.

The other study mentioned by Derb is the Ogbu ("Shaker Heights") study. Black researcher Ogbu found that the children of middle class blacks did not do as well at school as the children of middle class whites. Ogbu himself attributed that to an anti-intellectual culture among blacks and there is no doubt that such a culture exists. A more straightforward explanation of his findings, however, is that affirmative action makes it easy for blacks of only average ability to rise into the middle class whereas whites have to be above-average to get there. So the children simply reflect the genetic endowment of their parents.

There is also a statistical effect known as regression to the mean that could be at work in the Ogbu study. The effect says that parents who are exceptional within their group will IN GENERAL have less exceptional children. That regression to the mean effect has always been a bit of a teeth-grinder for me, in fact. It has always had me wondering about how bright my son would turn out to be. His recent achievements in mathematics have allayed such doubts rather convincingly, however.

Reference:
Eyferth, K. (1961). Leistungenverchiedener Gruppen von Besatzungskindern im Hamburg Wechsler intelligenztest fuer Kinder (HAWIK). Archiv fuer die gesamte Psychologie, 1 13, 222 241.



1 December, 2007

The Palestinian "Right of return" claim in context

During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.

What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.

The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.

The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.

The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.

Source

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Brookes News Update

Economics sank the Howard Government: It is very likely that an autopsy will reveal that the principal cause of the Liberal Government's demise was its grotesque mishandling of labour market reform
Recession, the dollar and the US economy: Once again the US economy is defying gravity as well as the pessimists. Predictions that the 'mortgage crisis' would bring down the economy have been confounded, much to the disappointment of the Democrats. So what is really happening?
Protectionism and " free-market absolutism": Once again Terry McCrann demonstrates why he should give up economic commentary. Unfortunately his incompetence in the field of economics is shared by other media commentators. People - including McCrann - need to learn that economic laws do exist, and ignoring them can be a wealth hazard
The Al Qaeda-Iran axis has been beaten in Iraq: Al Qaeda has been thrashed in Iraq and its Iranian alliance broken. It now seems that it might by the mad mullahs turn to get a beating
Truthless in Gaza: the al-Dura scandal exposed: Western journalists have a long record of collaboration with the Arab propaganda machine. It is Western journalists who suppress the truth about the Palestinian Authority. It was the same journalists who lied about the Iraq. This is the same scum that pushed the al-Dura affair that has now been exposed as a vicious anti-Semitic hoax
How global warming activism hurts the poor: The Religious Left - a group of socialists posing as Christians - is using the myth of man-made global warming to launch a thoroughly dishonest attack on the US economy. It's calling for more taxes, spending and greater control of the economy

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ELSEWHERE

Michael Gerson has a very strange view of conservatism. He is a retired GWB speechwriter and he has written a book called "Heroic Conservatism". There is a review of his book here which points out how off-beam it is. (H/T KBJ)

Bans on Muslim garb in Flanders: "Belgium's third largest city Ghent has banned its employees from wearing Muslim headscarves and other religious or political symbols. All city personnel, such as librarians and child care workers, will not be allowed to wear such garments or symbols if they come into contact with the public, a city spokesman said. Similar measures have been imposed in other European countries like France, where there are growing numbers of Muslim immigrants. The council voted 26 to 23 yesterday for the ban, with the Liberals, Christian Democrats and far-right Vlaams Belang in favour and the socialists and Greens against. "It is really not clear who counts as an employee in contact with the public, but we will have to carry it out," said the spokesman. The city has 4700 employees and is aware of two women wearing headscarves who work on counters dealing with the public. It was possible they might be offered work elsewhere, the spokesman said. The ban would not affect teachers and police officers. Ghent follows Belgium's second city Antwerp, which banned its workers from wearing headscarves and religious wear earlier this year. Antwerp has since said Muslim women in nurseries would be allowed to cover their heads with bandanas instead."

McCain opposes waterboarding: "It is a matter of controversy whether waterboarding constitutes torture. McCain's position is certainly a defensible one, but we find his instinct unsettling. There are going to be gray areas in the war on terror, and we'd rather have the man at the top be someone who, when faced with difficult questions, errs on the side of protecting American women and children from being murdered rather than protecting terrorists from being treated unpleasantly.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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