The original of this mirror site is HERE. My Blogroll; Archives here or here; My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here. Other mirror sites: Greenie Watch, Political Correctness Watch, Education Watch, Immigration Watch, Food & Health Skeptic, Gun Watch, Socialized Medicine, Recipes, Tongue Tied and Australian Politics. For a list of backups viewable in China, see here. (Click "Refresh" on your browser if background colour is missing)
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31 July, 2007

HILLARY'S YOUTHFUL LETTERS

The NYT has some (no doubt carefully selected) excerpts from letters written by Hillary during her college years. The excerpts below give some idea of the pathologies that drive her: Inauthenticity, misanthropy and narcissism

"Since Xmas vacation, I've gone through three and a half metamorphoses and am beginning to feel as though there is a smorgasbord of personalities spread before me," Ms. Rodham wrote to Mr. Peavoy in April 1967. "So far, I've used alienated academic, involved pseudo-hippie, educational and social reformer and one-half of withdrawn simplicity." ....

"Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?" Ms. Rodham wrote in an April 1967 letter....

Her letters at times betray a kind of innocent narcissism over "my lost youth," as she described it in a letter shortly after her 19th birthday. She wrote of being a little girl and believing that she was the only person in the universe. She had a sense that if she turned around quickly, "everyone else would disappear. "I'd play out in the patch of sunlight that broke the density of the elms in front of our house and pretend there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move," she says. She yearns for all the excitement and discoveries of life without losing "the little girl in the sunlight."

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Hillary's Slithering from Legal Jeopardy Nearing an End? "The ability of Hillary Clinton to slither away from legal scrutiny is uncanny. Consider Travelgate, Whitewater, and the Barrett Report, all examples of alleged crimes and coverups that would have toppled a Republican administration. Now a civil case brought by Clinton fundraiser Peter Paul threatens to dismantle's Hillary's hard-won reputation for evading legal jeopardy. According to insiders, on Sept. 7, 2007 the appellate court will rule whether Hillary will be included as a defendant in the case. No matter the outcome, though, she will be forced to testify under oath regarding the fundraising for her 2000 Senate campaign."

US/UK relationship continues: "The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would not unveil plans for an early withdrawal of British troops from Iraq in talks with the US President, George Bush, Mr Brown's spokesman said yesterday. The two leaders were scheduled to meet yesterday for the first time since Mr Brown succeeded Tony Blair last month. Speculation has been rife in British media that Mr Brown might distance himself from Mr Blair's Iraq policy.... The White House and Downing Street are stressing that little has been disturbed in the "special relationship" between Britain and the US since the elevation of Mr Brown. Although friction may lie ahead on issues such as Iran's nuclear program, US officials appear confident there will be no sudden departures from Mr Brown on the key issues - especially on keeping Britain's 5500 troops in Iraq. Officials in both governments said this week's summit would focus on building a rapport between the leaders, aided by the bucolic setting of Camp David, the mountain retreat where Mr Bush entertains his closest foreign allies. "This will mainly be a reassurance thing," said the British author and political analyst Peter Riddell. "They want to knock down any suggestion that there is distance between them. Yes, they are different people, but they are fundamentally on the same wavelength."

Why Are We Reading Their Names?: "I don't get this, Mark Steyn points to the seemingly ridiculous cases against Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13 and their names and faces are being splashed all over the news. It's bad enough that, at least from what I've read, it appears they are being railroaded on some trumped-up charges by the PC Police, but we already know the lengths media goes to protect the identities of under-aged gang members and even murderers. Suddenly these two young boys are fair game? Messrs Mashburn and Cornelison are pupils at Patton Middle School. They were arrested in February after being observed in the vestibule, swatting girls on the butt. Butt-swatting had apparently become a form of greeting at the school - like "a handshake we do," as one female student put it. On "Slap Butt Fridays," boys and girls would hail each other with a cheery application of manual friction to the posterior, akin to a Masonic greeting. The boys spent five days in a juvenile detention facility and were charged with several counts of felony sex abuse for what they and their parents said was merely inappropriate but not criminal behavior."

Clinton CIA Wouldn't Give Torture Assurance : "A new report has just been released that says Britain offered to give intelligence to the CIA on the whereabouts of bin Laden, with one catch: we had to promise not to torture him. The CIA refused to give that guarantee, and so bin Laden remains free to strike again. Now I can hear all you libs out there saying your usual nonsense, that Bush caused this, blah, blah, blah. See here's the problem with that. This was long before abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or even the war on terror. Yeah, this happened on Bubba Clinton's watch."

Musharraf risks civil war as he invades the Al-Qaeda badlands: "In North Waziristan, the wild border land that America hopes will be Osama Bin Laden's graveyard, the normally busy roads are almost deserted and the fear is pervasive. Army helicopters sweep the valleys at night hunting for Al-Qaeda militants as troops and gunmen exchange artillery and rocket fire. America and Britain regard this usually autonomous tribal area - where Bin Laden is long believed to have been hiding - as the logistics centre of Islamic terrorist attacks around the world. President Pervez Musharraf sees it as the centre of a campaign to "Talibanise" Pakistan. Spurred on by Washington, he has abandoned a truce with Waziristan's Islamist guerrillas and ordered his army to root them out"

Leftist voting fraudsters didn't mean it! "King and Pierce County prosecutors filed felony charges today against seven people who allegedly committed the biggest voter-registration fraud in state history. The defendants, who were paid employees and supervisors of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, concocted the scheme as an easy way to get paid, not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections, King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said. "This was an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls of King County," Satterberg said."

Sudan blames Darfur genocide on Jews : "Sudan's defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has accused "24 Jewish organizations" of "fueling the conflict in Darfur" last week in an interview with a Saudi newspaper. Hussein was interviewed during an official state-visit to the Saudi kingdom last week. A journalist from Saudi Arabia's Okaz newspaper asked Hussein: "Some people are talking about the penetration of Jewish organizations in Darfur and that there is no conflict there?" "The Darfur issue is being fuelled by 24 Jewish organizations, who are making the largest amount of noise over the issue, and using the Holocaust in their campaigning," the Sudanese defense minister replied."

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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30 July, 2007

SOME RECENT POSTINGS ON ICJS

Why I am not joining the party
The case for mistrusting Muslims
Letter to Mark Scott
Islamophobia idiocy
Radical Islam's Goal is Global Conquest
Speech to Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce by Alexander Downer

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Outrage of the Week: Arrested for Desecrating a Koran: "This is completely insane. It's now officially a mindcrime in the United States to violate Islamic law. At Pace University, a man has been arrested and will face "hate crime" charges for throwing a Koran into a toilet, after the university caved in to demands from Muslim students" [If he stole the Korans he should be prosecuted for theft -- not hate crime]

People not buying the media whitewash of Muslims: "A new Newsweek Poll on American attitudes toward Muslims and Islam has found that 46 percent of Americans believe that the United States is taking in too many Muslim immigrants. 32 percent think that Muslims in America are less loyal to the United States than they are to Islam. 28 percent believe that the Qur'an condones violence, and 41 percent hold that Islamic culture "glorifies suicide." 54 percent are either "somewhat worried" or "very worried" about Islamic jihadists in this country, and 52 percent support FBI surveillance of mosques, with the same percentage rejecting the claim of American Muslim advocacy groups that Muslims are being singled out by investigators and police. What are we to make of these figures? Do they mean that American Muslim advocacy groups have to do more to combat "Islamophobia"? That is the likely response: watch now for the follow-up stories about "Islamophobia," in which the onus for all the attitudes displayed in this poll is placed firmly and solely upon non-Muslim Americans, as if Muslims were an entirely innocent, passive group that was doing nothing whatsoever to make anyone suspicious or angry at all.

A dangerous legacy in time of war: "Democrats have destroyed the trust of the American people in government, not just the Bush administration. As I speak, New Yorkers are refusing to accept assurances that the air is safe in the wake of a steam pipe explosion. The assumption is that the city government is lying--why? Because Hillary Clinton, in an effort to slime the Bush administration, told New Yorkers that "she knew how it worked in the White House", which meant of course that she knew how it worked in the Clinton White house. Democrat have won a Pyrrhic victory--even as the Bush administration has a 30% approval rating, Congress "enjoys" a 14% rating. Nobody wins in a situation like this, except perhaps the nation's enemies"

The CIA's war against the war : "Rowan Scarborough's superb new book Sabotage lays out a boatload of evidence documenting years of serious misconduct, malfeasance and incompetence at the CIA. Excerpted this week at his newspaper, the Washington Examiner, Scarborough's book has plenty of news-breaking revelations that should stimulate an abundance of discussion in the ensuing days. The book is likely generate a tepid response from the drive-by media. They'll have to acknowledge it because Scarborough is one of the most respected reporters on the national security beat. But they'll do their level best to diminish its importance, mostly by ignoring it."

Sheikh delays plane over seating, pilot unintimidated: "A Qatar sheikh held up a British Airways flight at Milan's Linate airport for nearly three hours after discovering three of his female relatives had been seated next to men they did not know. When none of the other business class passengers agreed to swap seats, the sheikh, a member of Qatar's ruling family, went to the pilot, who had already started the engine, to complain, an airport official said. But the pilot ordered him and his traveling companions, the three women, two men, a cook and a servant, off the plane."

Walter Williams neatly summarizes the difference between free markets and the alternative: "Free markets are simply millions upon millions of individual decision-makers, engaged in peaceable, voluntary exchange pursuing what they see in their best interests. People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange, and are for control and coercion, believe they have more intelligence and superior wisdom to the masses. What's more, they believe they've been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider good reasons for doing so, but every tyrant that has ever existed has had what he believed were good reasons for restricting the liberty of others. .Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite. For example, I might plan to purchase a car, a shirt or apples from a foreign producer because I see it in my best interest. The powerful elite might supersede my plan, through import tariffs and quotas, because they think I should make the purchases from a domestic producer. My daughter might plan to work for the hardware guy down the street for $4 an hour. She agrees; he agrees; her mother says it's OK, and I say it's OK. The powerful elite say, "We're going to supersede that plan because it's not being transacted at the price we think it ought be -- the minimum wage."

America's Anti-Competitive Corporate Income Tax: "At least 25 developed nations have adopted Reaganite corporate income tax rate cuts since 2001. The U.S. is conspicuously not one of them. . Even in France, of all places, new President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed reducing the corporate tax rate to 25% from 34.4%. What do politicians in these countries understand that the U.S. Congress doesn't? Perhaps they've read "International Competitiveness for Dummies." In each of the countries that have cut corporate tax rates this year, the motivation has been the same -- to boost the nation's attractiveness as a location for international investment. Germany's overall rate will fall to 29.8% by 2008 from 38.7%. Remarkably, at the start of this decade Germany's corporate tax rate was 52%. All of which means that the U.S. now has the unflattering distinction of having the developed world's highest corporate tax rate of 39.3% (35% federal plus a state average of 4.3%), according to the Tax Foundation. Lower corporate tax rates with fewer loopholes can lead to more, not less, tax revenue from business. Tax receipts tend to fall below their optimum potential when corporate tax rates are so high that they lead to the creation of loopholes and the incentive to move income to countries with a lower tax rate. Ireland is the classic case of a nation on the "correct side" of this curve. It has a 12.5% corporate rate, nearly the lowest in the world, and yet collects 3.6% of GDP in corporate revenues, well above the international average. The U.S., by contrast, with its near 40% rate has been averaging less than 2.5% of GDP in corporate receipts. most economists understand that corporations don't ultimately pay any taxes. They merely serve as a collection agent, passing along the cost of those taxes in some combination of lower returns for shareholders, higher prices for customers, or lower compensation for employees. In other words, America's high corporate tax rates are an indirect, but still damaging, tax on average American workers" (H/T CFP)

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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29 July, 2007

Why Does the Left hate Israel?

A small excerpt (a summary) below from a very large and thorough article by Richard Baehr here. I think the reasons given below all have some point but the main reason is basic: Leftists hate success in others and Israel is in many ways a great success story. Leftists always claim that they want to lift up the poor and downtrodden. But their real motive can be inferred from what they do whenever they can: They never do much good for the poor but they do attack the rich and successful. "By their fruits shall ye known them", as a wise Jew once said

1. It is an easy way to express one's hatred for America.

2. Israel is viewed as an outpost of colonialism , and an active practitioner of it.

3. Israel is a western nation, and hence can be judged by the left. Israel is not protected by cultural relativism, as the Arabs are.

4. Leftist Christian churches can escape any lingering guilt about the Holocaust, by turning Israel into a villain. Some leftist churches hate Israel because they think this will help protect their members in the holy land- in other words they feel threatened.

5. Ferocious Muslim hatred of Israel and the Jews reinforces the natural cowardice of many on the left who go along with the Muslims to stay out of their line of fire.

6. Jewish leftists are prominent in the anti-Israel movement. This opens the floodgates for everybody else.

7. Israel is attacked because the secular left is appalled by the influence of religious settlers and their biblical connections to the land of Israel, and by the support for Israel by evangelical Christians, and Christian Zionists.

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Brookes News Update

The dangerous fallacy that consumer confidence drives economic growth: That the ridiculous fallacy that consumer confidence drives an economy is still widely held and promulgated is a damning indictment of the appalling state of what passes for economic thought in our newspapers and business magazines - not to mention our universities and colleges
The media gives terrorists the friendly Wilfred Burchett treatment: The hostility of so many journalists to the liberation of Iraq reminds me of the very gentle way in which these paragons journalistic virtue handled Wilfred Burchett who was an out-and-out traitor to his country
South America: Carbon Copying Cuban Tyranny: Once again proving that socialism is just another power cult, leftwing goons like Chavez are working to impose socialism on South America. This would be hilarious if the situation were not tragic
Should President Bush's Surgeon General pick make the cut?: A Surgeon General who succumbs to intimidation tactics by extremist left-wing special interest groups, especially the powerful homosexual lobby, cannot be good for America
Like the Clinton boom the Bush boom will also crash: Why the Bush boom is bound to crash. Although is possible that a recession could be forestalled by significant injections of credit into the economy a point would still be reached where the Fed would have no alternative but to use the monetary brakes to wring inflation out of the economy

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Why are Leftists so reliably illiterate? I don't blame a humble man for being unable to spell but Leftists parade themselves as knowing it all. The emails I get from Leftists are reliably illiterate but I also enjoyed an email from a Leftist called Steve Mack that Dean Barnett put up for our amusement. A tiny excerpt: "marshal sensibilities, fervent worship at the alter of". In that short passage the writer showed that he did not know the difference between "martial" and "marshall" or "altar" and "alter". There are some things that spellcheckers cannot save you from. Steve Mack thought he was clever. He has himself shown that he is not. Verbal skills are the highest single correlate of IQ, by the way.

al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Termite Control: "We can use all the fancy terms we want such as "violent Islamist extremists", or "Islamic terrorists", or "terrorists" in accordance with Gordon Brown's tough stand, or "Muslim terrorists". Point is they are termites gnawing away at our culture, our secular rule of law just as termites gnaw at the foundation and structure of your home. Now, tell me - truthfully - would you even consider "negotiating" with the termites? Even once. No, you'd call your Termite Control folks and zap the little bastards! You'd breathe a sigh of relief and have your home re-treated on schedule. Well, al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jamaat ul-Fuqra, and all of the rest - let's toss in MS-13 too - are the termites of our time. They are more dangerous than Hitler - I said dangerous, not more brutal - Hitler wore a uniform and so did his SS. We had an enemy we could see."

U.S. State Dept. worse than French Intelligence? "Despite protests from the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon, the State Department is pushing ahead with plans to build a new embassy in a part of Beirut city controlled by the anti-U.S. Hezbollah group. A U.S. official tells the Blotter on ABCNEWS.com that Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, in a May 31, 2007 classified cable to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, registered his strong objections, saying his staff "unanimously opposes construction" of the embassy on the proposed site. Hezbollah is believed to be behind two attacks on the U.S. Embassy and an embassy annex in 1983 and 1984 that led to the deaths of 87 people, including eight CIA employees. Let us not forget the 241 Marines murdered back in 1983 by Hezbollah by order of Iran."

Babies back in Germany: "For Rico Thisius and Juliane Herda the decision to have a child was spontaneous. Many of their friends had children, and Mr Thisius, 31, says "It was just the right time." But then, having children is suddenly back in fashion in Germany. Having once had one of the lowest birthrates in Europe, it is now experiencing a baby boom. Officials in Germany's biggest cities reported a rise in births of more than 20 per cent during the first quarter of the year after the Government of the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, introduced a range of family-friendly incentives. Her policies were a response to dire warnings that the country's once-generous welfare state and comprehensive health service could collapse. The country's birthrate has slipped to 1.34 children per woman over the past 30 years, and the population is predicted to shrink from about 83 million to about 70 million over the next 40 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 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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28 July, 2007

Asymmetrical war? Let's even it out

Trying to appease terrorists or look for common ground - a prerequisite for opening a dialogue - is irrational. Nothing can be done to change their steadfast conviction. Indoctrinated by family, state, mosque, media, school, university, and millions of fundamentalist spokesmen that form the base structure of their societies, there is nothing that can make these people change their position that it is better to kill or die than to live.

Throughout the Islamic world, there is a blinding indoctrination that calls for conversion or submission to Islam or the destruction of the infidels. Diplomacy cannot manage this situation. The only option is war, but not a war of surgical strikes that pretend to remove the cancer without touching or damaging the other organs. The cancer is in all the organs, and they all need to be attacked. The terrorists' objectives are civilians, so the western response must also include their civilians. The Islamists will change their defiant attitude only when the West is willing to destroy the populations that sustain, protect, and applaud terrorism, and to defend itself using the same methods that were used to attack it.

Bertrand Russell said, "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt." If the war is asymmetrical, then it is an issue of restoring its symmetry. The foremost reason for this imbalance is because the west is weak-willed. In addition to a feigned sensitivity for humankind (motivated more by political collusion than by tenderness towards its fellow man), the west fears a large-scale fire that might reduce the supply of oil. The Islamists declared war against everyone, including our elderly, women and children. The west must act the same way if it wants to put an end to the massacre. The Islamists take advantage of the humanitarian sensibilities of the "infidel" and use their civilians as human shields, but when they see that their ruse has no effect, they will tremble in fear and return to their caves.

With each passing day, the hatred of the west grows, especially towards the United States. This hatred - fruits of leftist propaganda and the sensationalist press - is opportunistic, anti-democratic and suicidal; it uses euphemisms to describe the Islamic fascists who try to justify their actions as if there were something justifiable in the murder of anyone who does not share their religion. Terrorism is never acceptable because by definition, its targets are civilians. If in more than thirty years, Arab governments have not demonstrated any interest in stopping the terrorists, it is because they are part of the plan. The jihadis who attempted to carry out the most recent thwarted attacks in London were doctors; their reason was because Salmon Rushdie had been knighted. The murderers occupy all social strata.

If the west wants to return to normalcy and establish peace on Earth, it needs to finish off Saudi Arabia, the ideological mentor and financial backer of radical Islam; Iran, the promotor of Nazism and nuclear destruction; Pakistan, if Musharraf is toppled; and that leaves others like Syria, Libya, and the insignificant Hugo Chavez, who loves to participate in conflict and looks for more relations with the Islamists to gain political and military support.

Approximately every 50 years, history teaches that psychiatrically disturbed individuals achieve high levels of power, form alliances, and look to make themselves masters of the world. Nuclear proliferation has made their motives a global cause for concern. As a result of technological advances, arms and armies are more powerful, and military conflicts result in more death and destruction. Around 50 million people died in World War Two. The current world war that we face will certainly bring much more victims. Only when the Islamists are attacked by a west committed to bombing its cities, destroying its refineries and demolishing their multi-million-dollar sources of income, and obligating them to spend the coming decades reconstructing their countries and economies, will the world live in peace for another half century

Source

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There is a comprehensive roundup here on the "Scott Thomas" affair -- where a serving U.S. soldier wrote obviously untrue stories about the evils of his fellow soldiers and got them published in the Leftist TNR. It seems that he is a Leftist and an admitted liar. By his own admission he joined the army only to do a John Kerry -- to give himself an air of authority when he denounced the U.S. military.

The Leftist "expert" on the Middle East (a professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History in the History Department at the University of Michigan), Juan Cole, gets shown up for the know-nothing he is here. For an older debunking of Cole, see Mark Kleiman. And I had a post in 2005 in which I pointed out that Cole thinks Iraq is on the Mediterranean. And if you read here you will see that the wacky Prof. Cole does not even know that a large part of what is the USA today was taken from Mexico! It's rather a wonder Cole still dares to stick his head above the parapet at all. Perhaps we should leave the dummo alone. He really is a rather pathetic case. Leftists and the facts just do not get on. Cole calls his blog Informed Comment, in the fine old Leftist tradition of calling a thing by its opposite.

The forgotten Jews driven out by Arabs: " Former justice minister Irwin Cotler and other Canadian scholars presented the U.S. Congress yesterday with its first testimony on Jews driven from Arab lands following Israel's creation in 1948. The group was among experts helping U.S. lawmakers decide on a pair of bills that would oblige the Bush administration to actively oppose the Arab-led practice in Middle East peace efforts to speak only of Palestinian refugees. While key Arab voices continue to push for a "right of return" for descendants of some 600,000 Palestinians whose pre-1948 homes are now inside Israel, the general discourse for decades has all but ignored tens of thousands of Jews, Christians and other minorities who were similarly turned into refugees... "Today, we cannot allow a second injustice, namely for the international community to recognize rights for [only] one victim population," Mr. Urman, executive director of New York-based Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, said."

A surprisingly devout and moving comment from Wretchard: "As children we know one sort of God, the kind who loves us like our parents. He is the God who we spoke to just as if He was in the next room in the moments before we went to sleep. And as we grow up, the God of our childhood slips away forgotten, but He is replaced, if we are in Grace, by one we can speak to as adults. He never truly goes away, but as we are adults, leaves us mostly on our own. The God of adulthood comes seldom and usually in moments of great happiness and loss. There finally is the Lord who speaks to us when we are old, when we awake bewildered to watery brightness of each new day, when we know we are close to leaving the flowers and yet are not wholly despairing of meeting them again."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual themes.

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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27 July, 2007

Latest on the Lancet agitprop about Iraqi deaths

What fun! Courtesy of Michelle Malkin, there is a scholarly paper here by a statistical mathematician which finds that the "600,000 Iraqi deaths" paper published in 2004 in Lancet is internally inconsistent. Using the paper's own figures, the statistician shows that the authors cannot conclude anything from their "research".

The original paper was so out of line with normal survey methodology that those of us who are experienced in survey research pointed that out long ago but it is interesting to see the same point absolutely demonstrated. It is another example of Lancet prostituting their medical reputation to make political points. They obviously did not do a proper peer review on the paper before they accepted it and that may well be because they were so out of their field that they did not know how to do a proper review of a survey research paper. They should stick to medicine.

It may be noted that the authors of the paper refuse to release their raw data -- a most unusual thing for scientists to do. It suggests that the "research" was a fraud from beginning to end -- rather like the Mann "hockeystick" finding in climate science -- a finding that the IPCC no longer mentions!

Something Michelle seems to have overlooked, however, is that there seems to have been an attempt by Lancet to redact what they originally published. The paper Michelle cites is a version that says only 100,000 Iraqis died. Whereas the original paper said that 654,965 Iraqis died. Is this an admission? Does even Lancet now concede that they goofed? The plot thickens!

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Hillary a self-declared Fascist? She denies she is a liberal and says she is a "progressive": "I prefer the word `progressive,' which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century". I believe her. But the early 20th century American progressives were Fascists. Don't believe it? All the details are here

But who do these guys speak for? "In a historic first, an Arab League delegation came to Jerusalem on Wednesday to promote a plan for peace with Israel, saying it offers the country "security, recognition and acceptance" by its Middle East neighbors. Such a visit - and offer - once would have been unimaginable, but was greeted now with little public fanfare, pushed well down on the evening TV news by a public sector strike and a row involving Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Led by the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan, the Arab delegation was taken deep into Israel's political heartland. The delegates saw the prime minister and the president and visited parliament, bringing a proposal for full recognition of Israel by the Arab and Islamic world in return for Israel's withdrawal from all lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war"



Elitist Democrat contempt for the little guy: ""Despite overwhelming support in and out of Congress, legal protection for airline passengers who report suspicious behavior is being blocked by Democratic leaders. Wasn't one 9/11 enough for them? Were it not for the courage and sacrifice of the passengers of United Flight 93 who forced their plane into a Pennsylvania field, many in Congress might not be here today, with a gaping hole where the U.S. Capitol still stands. We wonder if this fact is appreciated by those trying to block final passage of the so-called `John Doe' provision protecting from legal action those who report suspicious behavior on airplanes. Today's passengers have an advantage. They know what can happen. They know what to look for. They will not be taken by surprise, and they are willing to take action. But some in Congress would sacrifice their lives on the altar of political correctness. Last November, six Muslim imams leaving an Islamic conference were removed from U.S. Airways Flight 300 in Minneapolis when passengers reported that the imams had acted in suspicious ways. Both U.S. Airways and the passengers soon became targets of legal action charging discrimination and racial profiling... So [in] March, the House of Representatives passed by a 304-121 vote the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007, with language protecting from such lawsuits airline passengers who might report suspicious activity. All seemed well. But last week, as Republicans tried to have the `John Doe' protection included in final homeland security legislation crafted by a House-Senate conference committee to implement the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, they found Democratic conferees blocking its inclusion."

Idiotic rural socialism: ""House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed off Friday on a five-year farm bill that would keep multibillion-dollar subsidies flowing to cotton, corn and a handful of other crops, deeply disappointing Bay Area food and environmental activists who had hoped that Congress might shift federal farm policy this year to combat obesity, air and water pollution and industrial farming.... The bill comes during the most prosperous era American agriculture has seen in decades as crop prices and farm income approach or set record highs."

British navy not to be scrapped after all: "The go-ahead was given yesterday for the construction of two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers as big as the QE2, but the Royal Navy will have to wait until 2014 for the first one - two years behind previous projections. Under government planning announced nearly ten years ago, the two new large aircraft carriers for the Navy were supposed to come into service in 2012 and 2015. The ageing and smaller carriers they are replacing, HMS Invincible, HMS Ark Royal, and HMS Illustrious, were to be taken out of service by 2013. However, senior defence officials said the new in-service date for the first of the large carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was now expected to be 2014, and the second ship, HMS Prince of Wales,in 2016. In the past the Government insisted that the 2012 date for the first carrier was "nonnegotiable". The delay means that the current carriers will stay in service for longer to prevent a huge gap in the Armed Forces' expeditionary capability."

Reactionary Leftists support an obsolete transport system yet again: "The House on Tuesday rejected moves by conservatives to cut taxpayer subsidies for Amtrak as backers of the money-losing passenger railroad cemented their position in the Democratic Congress. The move came as the House easily passed a $104 billion measure funding transportation and housing programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. That vote was 268-153, enough to sustain a promised veto by President Bush. The key Amtrak vote came as the House emphatically dismissed a move by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., to eliminate Amtrak's nearly $500 million operating subsidy. The vote was 328-94. Flake argued that subsidies of more than $400 per passenger on the most inefficient money-losing routes demonstrate that cross-country train travel no longer makes economic sense. "There is not any passenger rail system anywhere in this world that operates without some operating subsidy," countered Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., who credited Amtrak with squeezing fat from its operations. Overall, the bill contains almost $1.5 billion for Amtrak, with $925 million for capital and debt service."

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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26 July, 2007

Fear trumps integrity among Leftists

They barely know what integrity is

There is a phenomena of the self hating Jew, an individual who denies his or her own identity, culture and faith, and seeks to identify and support those who make no secret of their own pathological agendas, directed against Jews. The pathology of the self hating Jew is not new. Jews were attracted to communism and socialism, because someone said, "We are all equal. You are a comrade." For the first time, Jews believed they were to be `free.' After centuries of relentless oppression the idea was intoxicating.

After the horrors of the Second World War were made clear, there were a whole sub culture of Jews, even the children of Holocaust survivors that migrated to the self hating brigades. Why? Because those Jews believed that if they could be unlike the Jews (and more like their oppressors), then no one would come for them. They would be safe and secure. Surely the oppressors would see there were `good Jews' too, noted just evil and hated Jews.

The same is true today of leftists (Jews included) who believe that siding with the racist, bigoted and dysfunctional oppressors might save them from the destiny of those their new friends promise. They are the Kapos of this generation, willing to sacrifice their own so as to save themselves. Prewar German Jews could at least hope against hope that there would be no Holocaust. Leftists of today cannot argue ignorance.

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.

More here. There is a sarcastic comment on the cowardice of the Left here. In case any sneering Leftist reads this, I might mention that I myself not only joined the army voluntarily in the Vietnam era and reached the rank of Sergeant but I also volunteered for a posting in Vietnam. For those who want to see the evidence, there is a pic of me in battledress here and my certificate of discharge (not that a Leftist would know what that is) is here

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WITHOUT A BLINK

A small excerpt from a good post by Dr. Sanity:

Victor Davis Hanson made a very astute observation recently in his Work and Days column at Pajamas Media discussing the nature of our enemies:

Apparently what gives these pre-modern fascist killers a pass from widespread Western censure is their purported impotency-as long as their grotesqueries don't match 9/11 we have the luxury to blame-game Guantanamo, still puff up about the black hoods at Abu Ghraib, and spout off about Halliburton-while having latte uninterrupted by Ahmed and his suicide vest.

But should the latter be able to penetrate all of cowboy George Bush's nightmarish anti-constitutional measures like wire-tapping the phones of terrorists, locking them up in Guantanamo, or pursuing them with provisions of the Patriot Act, then these measures will suddenly be reinvented as shockingly too little when all the "intelligence" made it clear that we were in jeopardy. Yes, I think after the next attack the media will go, without a blink, from the dangers of a police state and Gulag-US to the negligence of open borders and poor terrorist tracking.

Interesting to note that what "gives the pre-modern fascist killers a pass" is the post-modern rhetoric and dogma of the left. It is precisely this inherently psychologically dysfunctional cognitive strategy that is able to shift, "without a blink" from one subjective conviction to its exact opposite without a shred of self-awareness or mental dissonance.

Minds under the postmodern spell are simply not capable of appreciating the irrationality; nor are they capable of even appreciating the irony of their contradictory discourses .

There is a common pattern in the lefts childish rantings: a subjectivism and relativism that comes across in one breath; alternating with a dogmatic absolutism in the next. In other words, it is a waste of time to look for sense or logic in their incessant adolescent demands.

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Ward Churchill, the lying, fake-Indian professor who accused those who died on 9/11 of being "little Eichmans", has just got the boot -- been dismissed from his job!. Some shreds of integrity in American academe after all.

If you want to see some old bats baring their boobs for "peace", the indefatiguable Zombietime has the pix. I wonder if milk ever came out of any of them? More likely vinegar. The "ladies" concerned have a website flowing over with "wisdom". A sample utterance: "I see on the front page yesterday that the FDA had lifted the ban on silicone implants. This seems like a subtle form of terrorism to me". Definite deep thinkers.

Dead farmers got subsidies: "The Agriculture Department sent $1.1 billion in farm payments to more than 170,000 dead people over a seven-year period, congressional investigators say. The findings by the Government Accountability Office were released Monday as the House prepared to debate and pass farm legislation this week that would govern subsidies and the department's programs for the next five years. GAO auditors reviewed payments from 1999 through 2005 and found that the department has not been conducting the necessary checks to ensure that subsidy payments are proper. Of the identified payments to deceased farmers' estates or businesses, 40 percent went to those who had been dead more than three years, and 19 percent went to those who had been dead for seven or more years"

Libyan horror finally ended: "Six medics who were sentenced to life in prison in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV arrived in Sofia on Tuesday, and immediately received a presidential pardon allowing them to walk free after 8 1/2 years behind bars. The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were flown from Tripoli to Sofia on board a plane with French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and the EU's commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Last week, Tripoli had agreed to a Bulgarian request to allow the six to serve the rest of their sentence at home."

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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25 July, 2007

Equality not needed for happiness

James Taranto forwarded an article by Arthur C. Brooks of Syracuse University's Maxwell School. Professor Brooks makes several good arguments against the left's misguided obsession with income equality. In his research, Professor Brooks has found that inequality does not make poor people miserable and that:

"...the evidence reveals that it is not economic inequality that frustrates Americans. Rather, it is a perceived lack of opportunity. To focus our policies on inequality, instead of opportunity, is to make a serious error..."

Professor Brooks notes that some left wing academics hold that the wealthy should be taxed so that they will not work. The proponents of this theory believe that the only significance of high incomes is high earners' ability to make whoopee and spend money. This, of course, fails to grasp that high earners create consumer surplus, so that discouraging the productive wealthy from working would devastate national welfare.

Think of it this way. Let's say Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk had become wealthy as scientists. The left would argue that because they had made money in prior work, they should have been discouraged from doing further work because their high incomes might have been irritating to low-income Americans. However, the low-income Americans who would otherwise have suffered from polio might have been more irritated at the economists than at Sabin's and Salk's high incomes. Advocacy of broad policies based on narrow findings about reactions to income inequality puts academics making such generalizations into the quack category.

Brooks adds that the general level of happiness has not changed since 1972 and that economic mobility rather than equality creates happiness among Americans:

"An accurate and constructive vision of America sees a land of both inequality and opportunity, in which hard work and perseverance are the keys to jumping from the ranks of the have-nots to those of the haves. This vision promotes policies focused not on wiping out economic inequality, but rather on enhancing economic mobility."

Source

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AN APOLOGY

I normally reply to any email that seems to require a reply. Even abusive emails from Leftists normally get a sarcastic reply. But I get a vast amount of spam so some legitimate messages undoubtedly get trashed by the spam filter. Most spam messages I never see but those that do survive as far as the "Junk mail" folder do at least get a glance at the subject line and sender. And among those I often find legitimate messages. So goodness knows what the spam filter throws out. So if you think I have ignored some message from you, I probably have just not seen it and you should try resending it with an informative subject line. I do however see all comments in the comment box here -- though the spam prevention features make it a bit pesky to use. The old Tongue Tied site had limited spam prevention features in its commenting facility so I was deleting over 500 spam comments there every day!

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Brookes News Update

Why do billionaires fund the Democrats' fascist economic policies?: The further away a businessman is from the actual production of physical things the greater is the possibility of him voting for leftist policies. I do not know of a single Democrat billionaire who is directly involved in manufacturing. But I can name those who are perfectly willing to give financial support to the Dems' fascist economic policies
General David Petraeus visits Baqubah: Michael Yon, an independent blogger who embedded himself with the troops, reports that the situation in Iraq looks promising.One should add that the mainstream media is still refusing to report the Hamari village massacre that al Qaeda carried out. This the same media that publishes lies about Coalition troops
Iraq War: Phantom Thunder Update: The media has made it clear that the way the public can find discover the truth about the Iraq War is by reading the reports of independent bloggers like Bill Roggio who have imbedded themselves with the troops. I think that in the course of time the public will eventually find out the extent to which the mainstream media willingly gave aid and comfort to terrorists
Islam's Global War against Christianity: Not a single Christian or Jew lives in peace in the Muslim world, and if it is truly our nation's foreign policy to spread democracy around the world, this issue is the perfect topic for us to press. Back at home, raising Islam's global war on Christianity should be the immediate response to the seemingly endless media grievance machine of radical Islam's Western apologists
More evidence that Marxism is a power cult: Communism on the march in Latin America: Sao Paulo Forum is the headquarters of Latin-American communism. Founded in 1990 by Lula and Fidel Castro under the promise of 'winning back in Latin America all that was lost in Eastern Europe.' It has more than 180 affiliated organizations, both legal parties and criminal gangs, following a common blueprint and marching fast to conquer the absolute power over the continent
President Roosevelt gave the US economy its worse economic recovery, not President Bush: As malicious as ever, democrats claimed that US economy was the worst since the Hoover administration. Now they are arguing that the economic recovery is the worst in US history. Both claims are outrageous lies

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Eye in the Iraqi sky: "Insurgents firing rockets at a British base in southern Iraq were spotted and tracked by an Australian unmanned spyplane, then obliterated with a guided bomb from a US fighter jet. In a stunning demonstration of the capabilities of the new ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle, the Australian operators tracked the insurgents for half an hour as they fired one rocket then drove to a different location to fire another. They were not aware they had been spotted until a 227kg JDAM guided bomb exploded in their midst. Television images of the May 1 attack have now been released to media visiting the Australian overwatch battle group base at Tallil, outside the city of Nasariyah in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province. Under Britain's re-alignment of forces in Basra, it now runs just two major bases. Both are attacked regularly by insurgents who fire mortars and rockets as often as three or four times a day. Australian troops have used the Boeing-operated ScanEagle in Iraq since late last year. Each remote-controlled aircraft has a wingspan of 3m, can stay aloft for up to 15 hours and is equipped with day and night cameras. Video images are transmitted back to base on a secure datalink."

British journalists back down over Israel: "The National Union of Journalists will take "no further action" on implementing the controversial resolution by its members to boycott Israeli goods and services. The NUJ's national executive council (NEC) took the decision and called for members to unite instead behind the union's "key workplace priorities". It unanimously backed a motion that recognised the NUJ would take no further action on the call for an Israeli boycott because the Trades Union Congress has rejected it. The motion was tabled by the NUJ general secretary, Jeremy Dear, and seconded by the union president, Michelle Stanistreet, at a NEC meeting on Friday. It recognised the concerns expressed by some members, chapels and branches about the proposed boycott and said that it had met the terms of the original delegate vote in favour of the boycott at its annual meeting earlier this year by informing the TUC of the conference vote."

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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24 July, 2007

PSYCHOPATHS: THE U.S. ARMY OR U.S. LEFTIST POLITICIANS?

There are a couple of blog posts here and here which give details of a recent Leftist attempt -- mainly on Daily Kos -- to smear the U.S. Army as psychopathic killers.

The article concerned relies entirely on anecdote and therefore has no scholarly worth whatever. It picks out a set of criminals and says: SEE! All these served in the army. So the army creates criminals. You can of course prove anything that way. One could equally pick out a set of former army men who undertook charity work and say: SEE! All these served in the army. So the army creates angels.

The one substantial point the article has is that the incidence of soldiers who actually fire their weapons in battle has improved over the years. The author says that this is because the army has found ways to make men into machines. Military people would be rather surprised by that. The problem is a well known one and it was long ago noted that the problem was largely one of aiming. Men who were using automatic weapons fired much more frequently -- as such weapons can be effective even without much aiming. So one response has been to make available to the men more weapons capable of automatic fire. But more training in use of weapons is of course also effective. Many of the non-firers of the two world wars were conscripts with very little training. Additionally, the rate of fire will depend on the battlefield situation and the use of men as cannonfodder has declined over the last century. Men are now more likely to be put in situations where they can be individually effective.

And the idea that the U.S. army wants its men to be killer robots is truly laughable. It would be more accurate to say that the onerous ROE under which U.S. soldiers now operate make them the most restrained and cautious soldiers in all of military history. The army takes great pains to ensure that their soldiers DON'T fire unless absolutely necessary.

So the article is the sort of ignorance of the military that one expects from today's Left. But another sort of ignorance it displays is ignorance about psychopathy. As someone who has contributed a couple of research papers on psychopathy to the academic journals (See here and here), I may be in a better position than most to offer a quick summary of what is involved. The basic point is that psychopaths are born not made. The condition is highly hereditary and emerges from early childhood on. Any attempt to MAKE a person a psychopath is more likely to traumatize them deeply than anything else.

And one place where true psychopaths are likely to be found is in Leftist politics -- from Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pol on. They are the ones who have no compunction about slaughtering other people en masse. And the basic underlying feature of psychopathy -- lack of any moral anchors -- is in fact glorified by Leftists as "postmodernism". Where have you heard "There is no such thing as right and wrong" before? And amoral men are very successful even in democratic Leftist politics -- with Bill Clinton being the standout example. But John Kerry and Barack Obama also have clear psychopathic characteristics. I go into the diagnosis of all three men in some detail here

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THE BBC IS JUST ONE FACE OF THE LOCKSTEP LEFTIST MEDIA

The mass media age may have increased our freedom of speech but our mass-mediated perception of reality has arguably stifled our freedom of thought. In times past people may have known only what was going on in their own neck of the woods but at least they knew it intimately, which perhaps provided some reality check. Also one community was relatively free from the influence of another. Not anymore. Now, thanks to the likes of the BBC you know so much more - and have an opinion on so much more.

Now you know that some brutal murders merit grief on a national scale whilst others deserve barely a passing mention. You know that jumping up and down at rock concerts will help to save the world from poverty. You know that man made global warming is threatening to destroy the planet and it's all the fault of capitalism. Just like you know that capitalism was virtually brought down on the stroke of midnight in 2000 by something called the Millenium Bug. Older people know that the world was very nearly overwhelmed in the 1970's by The Next Ice Age. You know that if you have ever stood next to someone smoking a cigarette it might one day kill you. Best of all you know what the most important thing going on in the world at any one time is because it is the thing that headlines the news. Thus has the mass media deluged people's consciousness with trashy certainties at huge cost to their freedom of spirit. Killing off The Age of Reason and replacing it with the Age of Feeling.

It is not even that the BBC and its like are deliberately trying to present a distorted perspective on current affairs or anything else. It is worse than that; the distortion is so embedded in media culture that it collectively fails to comprehend that there are other perspectives. The BBC and its hinterland of favoured contributors teems with champagne lefties, celebrity poseurs and assorted other have-your-cake-and-eat-it fellow travellers of the liberal establishment elite.

And it is a veritable honey pot for the not so big wide world of the arts and academia. The joke is that they all think of themselves as radicals and guardians of freedom. Funny business radicalism; the word suggests boldness, independent mindedness, freethinking. The reality is the opposite. It is a me- too mentality of fitting in with the prevailing ethos, often first absorbed during student days. I remember when I was at university in the 1970's, one or two lonely guys in tweeds and sports jackets flitting furtively across the psychedelic bead strewn quadrangle clutching their briefcases. I remember thinking those guys are the real radicals here. The thoroughly predictable `radical' offerings from the BBC in-crowd are invariably dripping with media establishment mythology and the depressing fact that the BBC is often hailed as a great bastion of intellectual independence merely demonstrates the overwhelming brainwashing power that the little box in the corner now has on our intellectual horizons.

The last half-century was so dominated by the spectre of the totalitarian state that no one foresaw what was really coming down the line. George Orwell partly saw the future that we now inhabit - but with one crucial difference. In his nightmare 1984, a political elite controlled the television in the corner of the room and used it to brainwash the citizenry. Whereas in the real post 1984 nightmare, a pervasive mass media - a cancerous organism out of the control of anyone, even its own media elite - brainwashes everyone, politicians included. It is not that anyone is actively trying to brainwash you; it is more that a powerful tendency to group-think is the very nature of mass broadcasting.

But the most insidious brainwashing happens at a more subtle level than this. The most insidious brainwashing lies in the power of storytelling. It is at this subliminal level that the great soft-left crusades - moral relativism and the cult of victimhood have been won. More than anywhere it is in radio and television film, drama and soap opera.

Try these tests next time you are watching your favourite BBC drama or Hollywood movie: If the characters happen to include - say - a white middle class guy and a non-white working class guy, who is going to turn out to have surprising hidden qualities and who is going to turn out to have a surprising hidden dark side? Or compare the proportion homosexual characters on your tv screen with that in your own real life. Try and find the drama where the `right wing' character turns out to be full of compassion and the `left wing' character full of bile or where the successful business executive turns out to be rather a nice chap. This sort of myth making has underpinned so much of Western story telling for at least fifty years now and has been more corrosive of freedom than any political regime.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Romney hits out at Dems: "Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney took aim at Democratic rivals on Sunday, calling them all unprepared to lead the country and comparing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's economic plan to that of Socialist Karl Marx. "It would be helpful to have a person leading the country who understands how the economy works and has actually managed something," the former Massachusetts governor told reporters after a Republican fundraiser. "In the case of the three Democratic front-runners, not one of them has managed even a corner store, let alone a state or a city." Romney targeted a recent economic policy speech by Clinton for special criticism. Clinton said "we have been an on-your-own society. She said it's time to get rid of that and replace that with shared responsibility and we're-in-it-together society. That's out with Adam Smith and in with Karl Marx."

Brand new Airbus fails: "The Jetstar plane whose engine failed and forced an emergency landing at Bali was just three weeks old, Jetstar has revealed. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Bali after an apparent engine failure after leaving Bangkok bound for Melbourne. It was diverted to Denpasar Airport at Bali. Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said the left-hand engine was shut down during the flight. ''It's a brand new plane, it's three weeks old off the production line at Airbus in Toulouse, France. ''We're, obviously, working on some contingencies for those passengers and and aircraft as we speak.'' Passengers onboard the flight have been told 'engine failure' was behind the forced landing. It's believed they're still on board the jet, because there's no one at the airport to help them disembark"

French told to be doers rather than pundits: "France is the country that produced the Enlightenment, Descartes' one-liner "I think, therefore I am" and the solemn pontifications of Jean-Paul Sartre and other celebrity philosophers. But, in the Government of Nicolas Sarkozy, thinking has lost its cachet. Proposing a tax-cut law last week, the Minister for Finance, Christine Lagarde, advised the French people to abandon their "old national habit". "France is a country that thinks," she told the National Assembly. "There is hardly an ideology that we haven't turned into a theory . This is why I would like to tell you: enough thinking, already. Roll up your sleeves." Citing Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, she said the French should work harder, earn more and be rewarded with lower taxes if they get rich"

Iraqis turning against Al Qaeda: "Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person's face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood. The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement. "They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace," said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area"

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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23 July, 2007

More straight talk from Bolton

When John Bolton left the United Nations, some of the fun went out of the multi-storey talking shop. No longer was the walrus-moustached rightwinger there to cast barbs at the silver-tongued bureaucrats who took pride in peddling compromises, turned a blind eye to corrupt practices and humoured dictators - the very essence of diplomacy, some might say.

Happily, Gordon Brown's elevation of Mark Malloch Brown to be his minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, a lofty perch from which the newly minted peer will attend cabinet meetings and play the "wise eminence" to young David Miliband at the Foreign Office, has revived one of the most entertaining transatlantic grudge matches of recent years. If the hawkish former US ambassador to the UN is from Mars, the flexible former UN deputy secretary-general is from Venus....

Malloch Brown, Bolton points out, was "simply saying the sort of thing he used to say lurking behind closed doors in the United Nations", where diplomats have perfected the art of "speaking with four or five faces". It is important, he suggests, for the United States to "know exactly where the Brown government is going instead of skulking around the hallways".

"If the Brown government wants to be more European than Atlanticist, let's hear it. If they would rather not have a special relationship, let's hear it." And then comes the zinger: "If they want to be a part of Europe in the same way as Belgium and Luxembourg, let's hear it." Bolton believes Britain must face the question: "Do you want to be an independent country or a county in a big Europe?" The way he tells it is guaranteed to offend our national pride, but you can't say he hasn't warned us. "If Britain wants to be subsumed into the European soup, the United States will have to react accordingly - and we will, make no mistake." ....

Officials on both sides of the Atlantic believe that Iran presents the greatest threat of disagreement between Brown's Britain and America - not Iraq, where plans for a drawdown of British troops were agreed long ago with Tony Blair. Although the balance of power between Dick Cheney, the bellicose vice-president, and the dovish Pentagon and State Department is more volatile than it used to be, some senior officials are convinced that Bush is determined to strike Iran's nuclear facilities before he leaves office. "I hope so," says Bolton, unabashed. "I don't regard the use of military force as attractive, but if the choice is a nuclear-armed Iran, there is no question that you have to come down on the side of force."

Bolton believes the "blind persistence" of diplomacy through the EU3 nations of Britain, France and Germany has merely strengthened Iran's hand. "What will it take to convince Europe the policy has failed? If we wait till they get a bomb, it will be too late."

More here

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MORE LEFTIST LIES

Post excerpted from Gates of Vienna. See the original for links

The New Republic is being either naive or cynical. This one is a tough call if you want to believe the best about a person, or group of people - in this case a magazine that's been around since the First World War.

By now you've probably read about what Sgt. Mom calls "the latest milblog kerfuffle-du-jour."

The dust-up concerns a series of essays The New Republic has published by a supposed soldier in Iraq who describes anecdotes about his fellow soldiers that are (a) horrific and disgusting, and (b) inaccurate in their details. Of course, (b) simply means another "fake-but-accurate" strand in the MSM tapestry of careless lies and half-truths woven to serve their purposes. With the MSM, f-b-a is a standard sufficient to allow them to print what the rest of us consider slanderous, but which gives them license to put their agenda into the public sphere for consumption by the willing or the unwary.

OPFOR blog and The Weekly Standard magazine both question the veracity of the pseudonymous Scott Thomas' stories about his service in Iraq, and then ask their readers to pass judgment based on their own experience of military life.

The commenters on both sites take the stories apart; they do so on the basis of small, telling details. For example, it's not called a "chow hall" in Iraq, and the things on soldiers' heads are no longer "helmets." Nor do enlisted men ever operate as free of the oversight of their NCO's as TNR's "correspondent" would have you believe. In real life, any sergeant or junior officer would take these fellows down based on the ghoulish, sick stories this writer tells. Not to mention what their peers might do to them for such depraved behavior.

Since its inception in 1914 TNR has had a decidedly liberal bent. Its first issue included an essay by Rebecca West which complained about British conservatism. Its current editor says that TNR coined the word " liberalism". I believe him, for his magazine is solidly in the liberals' camp.

In march of this year CanWest, a media conglomerate based in Canada, acquired a majority interest in TNR. Interestingly, when you go to the Canwest site there is no mention of their ownership, though CBC.ca has the details.

...TNR's soldier storyteller is in another category of tale-telling... His brutal, sadistic "recollections" have been created not to entertain but to titillate, and to discredit the American soldier in Iraq. It is obvious that the author has a very tightly focused agenda. It is also obvious that TNR shares his view of our military. If this were not the case then TNR would have published an opposing point of view. At the very least they would have said up front that they had not checked his story.

TNR joins the ranks of those publications which have given in to the temptation to put out material which supports their philosophy whether or not the essays are true. What counts is what the readership is hungering for.

Dean Barnett and Democracy Project and Gateway Pundit are among many who have more details and comments on the above. Note that TNR has published journalistic fakes before.

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ELSEWHERE

Arabs and the U.N. -- what a lovely mix: "The United Nations says it is investigating allegations of widespread sexual abuse by a unit of peacekeepers in Ivory Coast and confined the soldiers in question to base. A UN statement did not say which country the soldiers were from or how many were under investigation. But a UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the investigation involved Moroccan soldiers having sex with underage girls."

Force protection in the court room : "Conservative Christians and military veterans are part an emerging group of Americans who say they are upset by the recent prosecutions of soldiers and marines based in Iraq on war crimes charges, and are coming to their defense with words, Web sites and money. In the past year, more than a dozen Web sites have been developed to solicit donations to hire private lawyers for service members who have been charged with violent crimes for actions taken in the confusion of combat or counterinsurgency operations. They have raised more than $600,000, organizers say, from grandparents, business executives and college students, among others. The average donation is for $25 to $50."

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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22 July, 2007

Leftists are fearful and cowardly

The real issue is simple: If Liberals admit there is a problem, they could be called upon to act. Liberals are blinded by the fear of action. They rest their hope upon the "reason" and "benevolence" of an enemy, an enemy who would slit their collective throats. Truly if they could understand, this adversary finds their existence useful but abhorrent---useful in that this enemy will support liberals' quest for power through their propagandist efforts; abhorrent in that liberals only seem weak and cowardly, which is detestable in these parts.

Liberals seek to destroy any institution of intrinsic value: God, country, family, honor, valor, courage, VIRTUE..Why? Because if such things exist, then they must be defended, which brings them back to their fear of action.

If foundations of a society capture the essence of a State---patriotism, faith--- they must be honored and defended, but this not a raison d'etre for a Liberal. That is why movies like "The Da Vinci Code" are so important to them, and the "Passion of the Christ" was so threatening..Why believe or fight for this thing called Christianity if it is based upon lies and deceit? If it is, then it does not need to be defended. Christianity becomes a target for them to be destroyed and in its place can be created a completely secular state, with no faith to hold dear to ones' heart. Legislation that permits the desecration of the American flag serves the same purpose, to destroy a symbol which, if honored, requires defense.

No, do not expect Liberals to analyze Islam and Mohammed. That requires action, which leads to fear, which leads to inaction. So do not ever expect the media to confront Islam and the problems of radical Islamic Fascism, theocracies/autocracies, and terrorism. It is far easier for Liberals to denounce our Judeo-Christian faith than to confront the truth that faces us all: that Islam is a religion of subjugation, submission and intimidation, whose teachings defend terrorism.

It is far simpler and easier for Liberals to say that Christians are terrorists, President Bush is a Nazi, Jesus Christ does not exist, and the defenders of their rights are "murderers". That way, they can hide behind free speech, a right provided by those who embody the very character traits and virtues which Liberals seek to destroy.

This concept is both puzzling and intriguing. Liberals hate those who defend them because they are afraid to be them. In doing so, they turn a blind eye to, and even celebrate, those who would destroy them because Liberals are afraid to confront them. In the long term, who really has the most to lose in this War on Terror? Liberals do, because we who defend them will never hate them. We will only pity them, while the Islamic fascist, theocrat/autocrat, and terrorist will slaughter them and take away any of the "rights" they have enjoyed.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Dems lose Iraq vote: "Predictions of a Republican revolt against the White House on the Iraq war have proved wide of the mark as Democrats failed to win enough votes yesterday for a timetable to withdraw troops from the country. In what critics called a blatant media stunt to drum up more coverage of Democrats opposition to the war, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called an all-night debate on a troop withdrawal bill that had bleary eyed presidential candidates such as Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton addressing a mostly empty Senate chamber in the early hours of the morning. But given President George W.Bush's adamant refusal to consider any change in strategy ahead of advice from military commanders, and certainly not one dictated by the US Congress, a predictable 24 hours of debate in Congress ensued in which just four Republicans crossed the floor to vote with Democrats. The 52-47 vote to set a timetable for withdrawal fell far short of the 60 needed to advance the legislation and stop a so-called "filibuster" from Republicans, in which they have the right to continue to debate the legislation."

Mere rage did not work: "This week, Reid launched a major offensive in the form of an all-nighter, designed to force the hand of wavering GOP senators. Here's Reid, compliments of the Washington Post: "Will the all-night session change any votes? I hope so." It did. It forced several of them right back into the Bush camp. Here are a couple of the wavering senators, compliments of the New York Times: "You wonder if they are more interested in politics than dealing with the substance of this," said Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio. Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, labeled the Democratic plan calling for a troop pullout to begin within 120 days vague and unenforceable. "If it did pass, it would lead to chaos in Iraq and a dramatic increase in casualties," said Mr. Gregg, who is backing an alternative plan that incorporates the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group."

Republicans smarter in the Senate: "A remarkable thing happened in the United States Senate earlier this evening, and it occurred over a rather unremarkable piece of legislation that was being debated. Conservatives, frustrated at the lack of a genuine leader of their party, may have finally found one in Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. After Democratic leader Harry Reid's MoveOn.org all-night session Tuesday night, a move that resulted only in helping unify the weak-kneed Republicans who were peeling away from continued support of the Petraeus surge in Iraq, McConnell, the Republican leader, served notice to anyone watching C-SPAN that he now runs the Senate..."

Turkey on the slide: "Turkish citizens go to the polls on Sunday for an important election. Will the vote reverse the course of Islamization or move it further down the road of becoming a more Islamic, socially conservative society and a foreign policy more attuned to Iran and Syria than to the United States? Barry Rubin, who is covering the elections for PJM, isn't optimistic"

Israeli oppression of the poor Palis? "One of the 256 terrorists slated for release Friday as part of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's "good will" gesture to the Palestinian Authority has said "Thanks, but no thanks" to the offer. The prisoner chose to remain in an Israeli prison, according to Pardons Department director Emmy Palmor, because he prefers to continue receiving free medication for arthritis"

The left lifts the veil on hatred of the military : "The decline of the leftwing netroots into one great, venomous snarl is far advanced, well-known, and much remarked upon by political observers from across the spectrum. But even given its deserved reputation for poisonous invective, the assault mounted against General David Petraeus surprises. General Petraeus made the unforgivable mistake in their eyes of appearing on my radio program and answering questions.... Both because he agreed to be interviewed by a journalist favorable to victory and supportive of President Bush and because his answers suggest progress is being made in Iraq, Petraeus has been savaged by leftist bloggers big and little.... Analysis of what the general actually said was in short supply among the critics. Even before he had read the transcript, Andrew Sullivan launched into one of his trademarks explosions of hysteria and slander"

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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21 July, 2007

Even Leftist assertions show that Bush is NOT like Hitler

From Don Surber -- a whimsical response to the latest Bush=Hitler claim by Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison

1. Hitler was an articulate and dynamic speaker. Lefties mock the way Bush says "nuclear."
2. Hitler was a decorated combat veteran. Lefties call Bush a chickenhawk.
3. Hitler's people set fire to the Reichstag to seize power. Lefties pretend Bush had something to do with 9/11.
4. Leni Riefenstahl paid tribute to Hitler in the film, "Triumph of the Will." Michael Moore mocked Bush in "Farenheit 911."
5. Hitler was a best-selling author who wrote, "Mein Kampf." Bush was mocked for reading, "The Pet Goat."
6. Hitler was an accomplished painter. Bush might have painted a barn once.
7. Nazi art featured realistic nudes. Lefties say Republicans are too uptight about sex.
8. Hitler's job approval rating? 90%. Bush? 30%.
9. Hitler built autobahns. Lefties say Bush sat on his hands while the levee broke in New Orleans.
10. Hitler was able to slaughter 12 million of his own people in concentration camps, including 6 million Jews without anyone complaining. Bush cannot even keep at Gitmo a battalion of terrorists who want to destroy America without the ACLU getting on his case.

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A long war ahead if we continue on our present course

Some excerpts from Shrinkwrapped

Jihadi extremism is a growing ideology. Sunni extremism and Shia extremism are merely different manifestations of an underlying supremacist ideology which has grown in response to the failures of the Muslim world in the face of modernity. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda in Iraq are all different franchises and brand names. Franchises are successful when there are markets for their products, consumers, and workers to support the enterprise. Financial support, an eager population ready to consume the product, and an army of willing workers are all required for a franchise to thrive. Al Qaeda, the McDonald's of Islamism, and Hezbollah, the Burger King of Islamism, have been growing their franchises for years. It is only post-9/11 that the West has begun to offer alternatives. Unfortunately, the alternatives the West offers are completely incompatible with the cultures in which we are attempting to gain market share. We offer Sushi (democracy backed by the US military) and Tofu burgers (Western "soft" power) and as a result find few takers.

The Muslim world contains a combustible mix that is amenable to Jihad and inimical to modern liberal capitalist democracy. There is an extremely large cohort of young men with very little opportunity to achieve status, huge sums of money that have been generated by their parasitic perch on the primary source of the world's energy supplies, a culture that supports a supremacist ideology, and an information environment that facilitates the spread of Jihad propaganda.....

Complexity and fact have almost no chance in the short and medium term against a simple, convenient narrative. For example, the Nazi narrative was simple and convenient: Jews and other inferior peoples kept the Aryans from achieving their natural dominance. No amount of counter-narrative made much of a dent in it within the native German population. It required unconditionally defeating the Nazis in the kinetic war in order to discredit their ideology. We are facing a similar situation with radical Islam.

It should be clear to anyone who spends time in the blogosphere that reasoned debate based on complexity and fact has very little persuasive power. One of our great blind spots in the West is that we imagine ourselves to be so firmly wedded to our rationality that we do not realize how often we use our rationality to support emotionally charged and irrational ideas. Complexity and nuance are poor allies in the fight against a powerful ideology.

The West has lagged terribly in this aspect of the war. Six years after we realized we are in a war with a determined and amoral enemy we still have not even begun to engage him in the information war. We have no easily understandable counter-narrative to use against the allure of Jihad with its promises of glorious martyrdom and blissful, eternal sex.

Until we can find a way to discredit the Jihadis with a more powerful counter-narrative or find a way to destroy their ability to organize and survive (ie, via the kinetic battle and the financial struggle), the war will continue no matter what we do. Since there appears nowhere on the horizon any evidence that we are ready, willing, and able to mobilize our forces (since our intellectual elites, MSM, Hollywood do not see themselves as being stake holders) for engagement in the information war, the long war seems aptly named.

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ELSEWHERE

Recently, a Leftist reporter identified a Democrat supporter as a "Disgruntled Republican". The blogosphere called her out. Her response? More lies. See here.

Life Imitating South Park again: "Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is "age-appropriate," is "the right thing to do." The left, at the rate of almost several times per month now, is intent on mimicking South Park's proverbial "theater of the absurd" in real life and real time. The episode? Season 5's "Proper Condom Use," in which the school board decides that condom use has to be taught to progressively younger grades to the point that the kindergarteners are learning about it."

Obama the empty vessel again: "The intelligence report in question said, in essence, that, after the devastating blow we struck against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the terrorists have regained some strength in their safe haven on Pakistan's Northwest Frontier. It doesn't say that al Qaeda is stronger than ever - although that's what the Dems imply. In 2001, al Qaeda had a country of its own. Today, it survives in isolated compounds. And guess which "veteran warrior" wants to go get them? Sen. Barack Obama. Far too important to ever serve in the military himself, Obama thinks we should invade Pakistan. Go for it, Big Guy. Of course, we'll have to reintroduce the draft to find enough troops. And we'll need to kill, at a minimum, a few hundred thousand tribesmen and their families. We'll need to occupy the miserable place indefinitely. Oh, and Pakistan's a nuclear power already teetering on the edge of chaos. Barack Obama, strategist and military expert. Who knew?"

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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20 July, 2007

People want security and order before democracy

As we also see in Russia these days

The great tragic failure in Iraq has been political failure, not military failure. At the heart of that failure have been two lofty notions - "nation-building" and democracy.

Nations cannot be built. You can transplant institutions from one country to another, but you cannot transplant the history and culture from which the attitudes and traditions evolved that enable those institutions to work. It took centuries for democracy to evolve in the Western world. Yet we tried to create democracy in Iraq before we created the security - the law and order - that is a prerequisite for any form of viable government.

Having made democracy the centerpiece of the reconstruction of postwar Iraq, Americans have been hamstrung by the inadequacies of that government and the fact that our military could not simply ignore the Iraqi government when its politicians got in the way of restoring law and order.

People will support tyranny before they will support anarchy. Both can be avoided by creating an interim government based on competence, rather than on its being an embodiment of democratic ideals.

Neither in Europe nor in Asia did today's democracies begin as democracies. As late as 1950, no one could have called Taiwan or South Korea democracies. Even today, Singapore does not have the kind of freedom that Westerners regard as democratic. But it is a decent and prosperous society, vastly superior in every way to what it was at the end of World War II.

Trying to create democracy in places where it has never existed - and where the prerequisites for democracy may not exist - has been a needless gamble. Among those prerequisites are a toleration of different views, an accommodation of different interests, and a willingness to put the national interest above one's own. The Middle East is the last place to look for such qualities. Such things evolved in the West only after centuries of different religions and peoples trying unsuccessfully to destroy each other.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Author claims anti-war groups gave material support to terrorists: "A New York Times best-selling author says members of the supposed "peace movement" delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and supplies to terrorists engaged in a bloody street battle against United States Marines in Iraq. The latest book by Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson (U.S. Air Force-Ret.) is called War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror. In the book, he claims that two anti-war groups -- "United for Peace & Justice" and "CODEPINK: Women for Peace" -- literally gave aid and comfort to terrorists when they delivered $600,000 in cash and supplies they claim was humanitarian aid to civilians. According to Patterson, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California) facilitated the transaction for CODEPINK by signing a letter allowing them to get the cash and supplies into Fallujah."

According to the media, good news about America is always bad news: "On July 12, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at record highs. The stock market saw its largest gain in nearly four years. But ABC and CBS placed the emphasis on negative symptoms of the economy, a "slumping" housing market and high gas prices. "There are still some dark clouds looming over this market," said Harris. "The housing market is in a slump, interest rates are rising and gas prices are ticking back up."

Want Fries With That?: "French people are not against McDonald's. They are against the Bush administration," Jose Bove, the radical farmer and French presidential candidate, said in an interview. How, HOW do you get to the point where you make something as meaningless as a retail outlet that is a vast sanitary improvement over the cruddy corner "Sandwicherie" an object of "philosophical" discussions, a bit of shorthand for a nation five times as populous that they refuse to understand, and a dagger of the mind? Easy. Have an empty life, nothing to say, and let a unexplainable cancerous well of envy grow inside you that you actively ignore.

More BBC crookedness: "The British Broadcasting Corporation suspended all phone-in and interactive contests on Wednesday after an investigation exposed several incidents in which competition winners were faked. The BBC, which has been battered by revelations about rigged contests and doctored footage, said an internal inquiry had found that "a small number of production staff ... have passed themselves off as viewers and listeners" on radio and TV shows. BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said six new cases had been uncovered in addition to a previously known incident involving the children's TV show "Blue Peter". "We must now swiftly put our house in order," he said. Thompson said phone-in contests on radio and TV would cease from midnight and internet competitions would be taken down as soon as possible. [Leftists destroy anything they touch. Destruction is the real aim behind their "compassionate" facade. They have certainly destroyed the respect in which the BBC was once held]

It's the Left who are dumb: "I think that President Bush has got one thing very much right, which is that Arab-Islamic terrorism is a symptom that something is rotten in the Middle East. If anything, his failures in Iraq and Palestine are due to underestimating the degree of rot. For all the allegations of his lack of intellect, George Bush is a brainiac compared to people who want to see terrorism as a symptom of something rotten in the United States or Israel."

The Saudi menace: "Although Bush administration officials frequently have lashed out at Syria and Iran for helping the insurgents and militias who attack U.S. troops and civilians here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third next-door neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers. The U.S. military believes 45 percent of all foreign militants are Saudi, another 15 percent are from Syria and Lebanon and 10 percent from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures released to the Los Angeles Times by the officer. Nearly half the 135 foreigners held in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudi. Saudi fighters are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than any other nationality, said the senior American military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity for the U.S. government. He added that 50 percent of all Saudi fighters here are suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis."

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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19 July, 2007

"Polyglot babies" nonsense

The article reproduced below shows what a religion Leftism is among social scientists. They found (surprise!) that humans are tribal from infancy on. They found that very young kids can recognize the accents of the tribe they are growing up in. Anybody who has observed how quickly babies become disturbed when they are handed to someone outside their own family will not be the least bit surprised. It is a survival instinct for a baby to recognize danger from outsiders and the baby will turn on his alarm (cry) whenever he detects strangers too close to him.

From all that, the researchers below conclude that babies born into a multilingual household will grow up more tolerant -- a complete non-sequitur full of too many assumptions to name -- though the fact that they did not examine any multilingual households may be mentioned.

Such knotheaded folly is less surprising when we see who is the chief researcher concerned. Elizabeth Spelke has a quite crippling leftward lean. Her grip on reality is so tenuous that she claimed recently that there is "not a shred of evidence" for inborn male/female differences in abilities -- despite around a century of evidence showing that females have better language abilities and males have better mathematical abilities.

Quite obviously, Spelke has a robotlike inability to see, hear or think anything except that which supports her ideology. Like most Leftists, Spelke is incapable of admitting that preference for others who are similar to oneself is not "racism" but is basically human. So when they find out how basically human it is they quickly have to invent circumstances when it would not happen.

A study of newborn babies and preschoolers has revealed that language may be the root of prejudice - and the way to avoid it. US and French researchers have found that the language babies hear spoken in their first six months of life leads to a preference for speakers of that language. The preference is so entrenched that by age five youngsters prefer playmates who not only speak the same language but do so with the same accent.

A key implication ["implication"? A wild extrapolation, more accurately] of the findings - reported in the US publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Science - is that children exposed to different languages grow into more tolerant adults than their monolingual mates. University of Sydney linguist Stephen Crain tended to agree: "I've always thought it would be beneficial to expose our children to more than one language," he said. "If they no longer have a prejudice against people who don't sound the same as they, they may be more accepting of people from different backgrounds who don't sound the same," Professor Crain said.

Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Spelke of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, conducted a series of experiments with Harvard doctoral student Katherine Kinzler and Emmanuel Dupoux of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. They judged the preferences of three groups of children. Five-to six-month-old infants looked at native speakers longer than non-native speakers. Ten-month-olds selected toys most often from native speakers, and most five-year-olds chose native speaking playmates over children with an accent.

According to Professor Spelke, the most surprising result came from the group's experiment with five-year-olds. "The findings suggest that (the preference) has nothing to do with information, the semantics of language, but rather with group identity," she said.

Source

Perhaps I should mention that not all psychologists are as cognitively handicapped as Spelke. Social psychology textbook author Roger Brown (1986) surveyed the large body of extant psychological research on the genesis of group loyalty and group identification and concluded that they are are rooted in "universal ineradicable psychological processes". In other words, group loyalty is not only normal but universal.

Reference:

Brown, R. (1986) Social psychology. (2nd. Ed.) N.Y.: Free Press

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Height: Leftists are still going on about how terrible it is that Americans are not on average the tallest nation on earth. Since some very tall national groups (as in East Africa) are at the bottom of just about every index of wellbeing, that hardly has the significance Leftists claim. It is is just another example of the desperation Leftists have to knock America. I have commented on this twice already (scroll down) so will leave it to Taranto to comment further. Mitchell Langbert also comments.

The negligence of Brazil's Leftist government caused the recent airliner crash there. Despite long delays the runway was still under repair and the grooves to drain water off and prevent skidding had not been installed.

Surprise! Democrats find one government office they want to cut back. It's the one that exposes union corruption: "The new Democratic Congress has finally found a government agency whose budget It wants to cut: an obscure Labor Department office that monitors the compliance of unions with federal law. In the past six years, the Office of Labor Management Standards, or OLMS, has helped secure the convictions of 775 corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to union members of over $70 million in dues. The House is set to vote Thursday on a proposal to chop 20% from the OLMS budget. Every other Labor Department enforcement agency is due for a budget increase, and overall the Congress has added $935 million to the Bush administration's budget request for Labor. The only office the Democrats want to cut back is the one engaged in union oversight.

The Kuwait Arab Times just published a call to arms -- not against Israel but Tehran: ""The entire Arab world is in danger, after becoming the epicenter of Iran's policies. Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's aggressive policies confirm our fears. Many issues which concern only Arabs have now fallen into the hands of Iran. ..." "Currently, Iran is trying to extend its aggressive policies to all the Gulf countries and to Egypt ... . This raises the question: Why are Arab countries not taking any steps or holding a summit to wrest control of these issues, which essentially belong to them? They should tell Tehran to focus on its internal affairs instead of interfering in the affairs of other countries. "We cannot forget the three islands which rightfully belong to the United Arab Emirates; the recent assault on a Kuwaiti diplomat in Tehran; or (those) who made the Palestinians die twice - once at the hands of the Israelis and a second time at the hands of their own brothers"

Black Group Calls Senate Leaders "Hypocrites": "Project 21 members say the liberal Senate leadership, which has embarked on an overnight session to "highlight Republican obstructionism" on consideration to legislation to withdraw troops from Iraq, is hypocritical, as these senators have used the same tactics they now condemn to block the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominations over the past six-and-a-half years. "The immoral duplicity of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his henchmen once again unambiguously shows there are no depths too low for liberal politicians to plumb," said Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie. "It is extraordinarily incongruous that, on one hand, Reid would complain about a conservative filibuster against an arbitrary and predetermined withdrawal date in Iraq while he and his gang have stalled on the confirmation of people such as Judge Southwick since the day President Bush announced his judicial first nominees."

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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18 July, 2007

Is the U.S. tax system fair?

Excerpt:

At a recent fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett said that rich guys like him weren't paying enough. Mr. Buffett asserted that his taxes last year equaled only 17.7 percent of his taxable income, compared with about 30 percent for his receptionist. Mr. Buffett was echoing a refrain that is popular in some circles. Last year, Robert B. Reich, labor secretary during the Clinton administration, wrote on his blog that "middle-income workers are now paying a larger share of their incomes than people at or near the top."

These claims are enough to get populist juices flowing. The problem with them is that they don't hold up under close examination. The best source for objective data on the distribution of the tax burden is the Congressional Budget Office. The C.B.O. goes beyond anecdotes and bald assertions to provide hard data on who pays taxes. One can argue about the details of its methods, but there is no doubt that it is nonpartisan and that its tax analysts are some of the best in the business.

The C.B.O.'s most recent calculations of federal tax rates show a highly progressive system. (The numbers are based on 2004 data, but the tax code has not changed much since then.) The poorest fifth of the population, with average annual income of $15,400, pays only 4.5 percent of its income in federal taxes. The middle fifth, with income of $56,200, pays 13.9 percent. And the top fifth, with income of $207,200, pays 25.1 percent. At the very top of the income distribution, the C.B.O. reports even higher tax rates. The richest 1 percent has average income of $1,259,700 and forks over 31.1 percent of its income to the federal government.

If your image of the typical rich person is someone who collects interest and dividend checks and spends long afternoons relaxing on his yacht, you are decades out of date. The leisure class has been replaced by the working rich... None of these calculations, however, say whether the rich are paying their fair share. Fairness is not an economic concept. If you want to talk fairness, you have to leave the department of economics and head over to philosophy.

Source

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I have been saying for some time that Russia has evolved into a true modern-day Fascist State. I see that the WSJ has come to the same conclusion. Leftists will love it, of course. The only Fascists they dislike are imaginary Fascists -- like George Bush. Their repeately asserted "opposition" to Fascism in the past was just chest thumping.

The party for minorities: "The Democratic presidential candidates have agreed to another televised debate, this one focusing on issues related to homosexuality. The sponsors are the Human Rights Campaign, a gay activist lobby, and Logo, a gay-themed cable channel, which will broadcast the event live from Los Angeles on Aug. 9. Human Rights Campaign chairman Joe Solmonese will moderate, along with lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge. They can call it a "debate," but it will undoubtedly be a pander-palooza, with each candidate trying to outdo the others in pledging fealty to the gay-left agenda. These are the same Democrats, of course, who refuse to debate on the Fox News Channel because they object to its political agenda. So be it. But what does it say about their priorities that they gladly court Logo's niche viewers, yet snub the far larger mainstream audience that watches Fox?"

Attack on Iran coming up: "The Guardian's source in Washington explained that as of now, Bush and Cheney do not trust potential successors from either political party to deal with Iran decisively. Any reluctance to strike, however, originates with Israel. "The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the U.S. will have to take decisive action," Cronin adds. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself." Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs said last week he had received approval from the U.S. and Europe for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the U.S. will support us," Avigdor Lieberman said following a meeting with NATO and European Union officials."

Israeli government folly: "A list of wanted militants from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization who were granted amnesty this weekend by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert includes almost the entire senior West Bank leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, WND has learned. The Brigades, Fatah's declared military wing, took responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. Statistically, the Brigades carried out more anti-Israel terror attacks emanating from the West Bank since 2005 than any other group, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad."

Even mainstream Leftists are loony: "America's first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks. Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers. "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.""

How lax can the Brits get? "An al-Qaeda fanatic jailed for inciting murder online was caught making a website urging terror attacks - from his cell in Britain's most secure prison. Tariq Al-Daour, 21, used a smuggled mobile phone and modem lead to access the internet on a laptop issued by the Prison Service to help him prepare his court case. The laptop was seized after a violent struggle when prison officers suspected he was misusing it and the hate-filled website called Global Jihad was found. The Home Office has launched an urgent inquiry to discover how the mobile was smuggled into Belmarsh's High Security Unit, which holds the country's most dangerous inmates. They fear Al-Daour may have used it to contact other al-Qaeda terrorists and are scrutinising calls he made. A senior prison source said yesterday: "It is frightening that an al-Qaeda prisoner was able to build an extremist website within Britain's supposedly most secure jail."

No party label for Democrat scandals: "One the most comic aspects of liberal media bias is the well-established pattern of identifying politicians caught up in scandal by party only when they are Republicans. Democrats rarely if ever are identified by party. The past week supplies a good example courtesy of the New York Times and AP, arguably the two organizations which do the most to shape national political coverage. In a Times editorial today on the outrageous abuse of taxpayer funds by Newark's former mayor Democrat Sharpe James, his political affiliation is nowhere mentioned. "Sharpe James, the former mayor of Newark who was indicted this week on corruption charges, has for years exhibited a finger-in-the-eye arrogance. Still, the 33-count indictment against him is stunning, most of all for the list of luxuries he allegedly charged to taxpayers of his impoverished city. Among the standouts: multiple tropical vacations and a trip to Florida to test drive a Rolls-Royce.""

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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17 July, 2007

Security is a basic need too

Excerpt:

I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I voted for President Clinton twice, President Bush twice, and I've always voted a split ticket when it comes to Congress. Party means little to me anymore as they are becoming indistinguishable. I don't like the war in Iraq, but I accept it, and I support the troops and their efforts.

For me, it doesn't matter if a person goes to a foreign land with the intent of being a missionary bringing hope and a religious option to cannibals or those imprisoned by Islamic Sharia laws. It doesn't matter if someone wants to travel to a 3rd world country and build bridges with the Peace Corps, treat the sick via Doctors Without Borders, or if they want to start a company in destitute land so as to give people jobs. I don't care if someone wants to go overseas to try and broker a peace agreement, or if someone goes to teach at school where there's never been one before. There are lots of things that developing nations need: hope, infrastructure, healthcare, jobs, education, peace. For each of these needs, we readily, eagerly, and enthusiastically support those who travel to far away lands to help people.

Similarly, I think that if a nation has bridges, etc., and what they need most is security from terrorists, then why don't Americans support the efforts of those who individually believe they have traveled to far away lands to bring security? Have we convinced ourselves so fiercely that the Iraq War is "Bush's War" that now we cannot see the good? Have we come to hate the man so much that we now deliberately ignore the good that's being done in Iraq? It is both na‹ve and arrogant to believe that providing security is an evil, immoral, or frivolous effort.

My home is in Northeast Ohio, and we've lost several soldiers, Marines, and airmen in Iraq (particularly in the past few weeks). Those people did not enlist to wait for an enemy on the beaches of Lake Erie, and they didn't enlist to get a check from Halliburton. They were good men who served knowing that they'd go overseas, knowing that they'd go to far away places where security was in dire need, and they intended to do good. I have no doubt of that. To that end, I believe we must not only support the troops, but support their efforts. If that means supporting the war, then I do. I support the war not because it's "Bush's War", or because I want cheaper gasoline. I support the war because as much as Iraq and Afghanistan need doctors, schools, bridges, etc., they need security. So I support the doctors, the teachers, the bridge-builders from Halliburton, and I support all the Americans who deliberately, knowingly go into harm's way to help people whose lives depend on their efforts.

No war is good. No war is necessary. No war unavoidable. That being said, mankind has not outgrown war. Plato knew it thousands of years ago when he said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

Source

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British police want to get tougher: "British police chiefs are demanding the power to lock up terrorism suspects indefinitely. Reopening the debate over detention without trial, the Association of Chief Police Officers called for some suspects to be held for "as long as it takes". The call for longer detention periods came as two suspects in last month's failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow were released without charge, British police said overnight. The suspects, both thought to be trainee doctors aged 24 and 27, were arrested on July 2. Police have also charged a third person over the bombings. Sabeel Ahmed, of Liverpool, was charged on Saturday with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism. The former prime minister Tony Blair was defeated in Parliament two years ago when he tried to introduce a 90-day detention period. Instead, MPs backed an increase to just 28 days. But the association's president, Ken Jones, said police were struggling to operate within the 28-day limit, stressing the global scale of terrorism investigations and the need to arrest suspects early. "We are now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes," he told The Observer. "We are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit."

Boy who trained as suicide bomber freed: "Calling child suicide bombers a "fearful and terrifying truth," President Hamid Karzai freed a 14-year-old Pakistani boy arrested in eastern Afghanistan the night before he planned to kill a provincial governor. Rafiqullah, who goes by one name, told The Associated Press in an interview over the weekend while attending a madrassa, or religious school, in Pakistan he and two other boys were separated from the rest of the students and trained to drive a car and made to watch videos of suicide bombers carrying out attacks. The teenager said he walked across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border into Khost province, where a man named Abdul Aziz gave him a vest full of explosives. Rafiqullah said he told Aziz he was afraid of carrying out a suicide bombing, and Aziz pointed a gun at him and threatened to kill him if he didn't. Rafiqullah's intended target was the governor of Khost province. "Today we are faced with a fearful and terrifying truth, and that truth is the sending of a Muslim child to carry out a suicide attack," Karzai told reporters at the presidential palace. "(His parents) sent him to study at a madrassa," he said. "The enemy of Islam deceived him and prepared him to carry out a suicide attack to kill himself and other people around him."

Dubious Israeli optimism: "Scores of Fatah militants in the West Bank have signed a pledge renouncing attacks against Israel in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them, a Palestinian security official said Sunday. The deal would grant amnesty to 178 Fatah gunmen who will join the official Palestinian security forces, and Israel will remove them from its lists of wanted militants, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge details of the agreement. An official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office confirmed the deal would extend to wanted militants who openly renounce terrorism, and was part of a series of measures to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas."

Dutch cowardice and surrender to Islam: "Unbelievable as it may seem, the Dutch 'Minister voor Wonen, Wijken en Integratie' (Residence, Neighbourhoods and Integration (I'm not making this up)), Ella Vogelaar, today has declared in an interview that The Netherlands will be Islamic at some point in the future. She feels that The Netherlands should adapt to Islam, and subsidise Islamic institutions. What will emerge, according to her, is a "Christian-Jewish-Islamic culture". As if Christianity and Judaism aren't 100% opposite to Islam's teachings. The stupidity of the statement is mind boggling."

Feminist gets catty about Hillary -- but she's got a point: "OK, sisters, how will it feel when the supposed "first feminist," if she does get the nomination, gets it not on her own but on the coattails of her serial-adulterer husband? Bill and Hill is now morphing into Hill and Bill, for obvious reasons. The road show came to New Hampshire yesterday. Bill stared at Hill adoringly, rapt, like Nancy Reagan in drag, for God's sake, except Nancy actually felt it. Does it get more humiliating? Did Elizabeth Dole drag Bob all across America? Did Kerry Healey? Have you ever even seen Attorney General Martha Coakley's husband? "It's a bad commentary on women candidates that she can't stand on her own," says GOP strategist Holly Robichaud. Said a local big-time Democrat (who did not get where she is by dragging her husband everywhere), "But it's the Clinton motto, `anything to win,' even though it's unseemly. I really like him, despite his incredible flaws, a lot more than I like her. And that's what they're trying to play on." [The feminist who wrote the above also thinks Bill has got a huge brain. She's got the wrong part of his anatomy!]

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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16 July, 2007

Another Far-Leftist who loves Islam and hates Israel

Post below lifted from American Thinker. Richard Falk's views are fully explainable by the fact that he is a far-Leftist but I wonder if he is also another one of those utterly contemptible Jews who think they can protect themselves by betraying their own people? Falk can be a Jewish surname. I once encountered the profoundly unscholarly Avner Falk at a psychology conference and he is an Israeli

At a historical moment when Iran threatens to wipe Israel off the map, Princeton University professor-emeritus Richard Falk is worried about a new Holocaust - against the Palestinians. He is quoted as saying:

"...is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty...

"...To persist with such an approach under present circumstances is indeed genocidal, and risks destroying an entire Palestinian community that is an integral part of an ethnic whole. It is this prospect that makes appropriate the warning of a Palestinian holocaust in the making, and should remind the world of the famous post-Nazi pledge of 'never again.'

There's an old joke to the effect that some propositions are so ridiculous that only a moron or an intellectual would believe them. This is certainly an apposite situation. To conflate murderous factions of Palestinians killing each other for the privilege of wiping out Jews with the Nazi extermination of Jews requires a degree of abstraction from reality that few can match.

Professor Falk might begin by asking himself who has kept Palestinians confined in refugee camps for decades, unlike every other group of refugees in history? As many Jews were expelled from Arab countries as Arabs who on their own fled Israel in 1947. Far more Germans were expelled from Poland and the USSR after WW II. Neither of these groups were kept confined in refugee camps for generations.

Willful blindness like this on the part of a man who knows better can only be attributed to the darker regions of the mind or soul.

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Aid for Africa never works

Only white men wielding a big stick has ever raised African living standards and no white men want to do that any more

Time, once again, to look at why foreign aid isn't working. This week, it's the turn of the Sahel, the arid, drought-prone belt of countries skirting the southern edge of the Sahara from Senegal in the west to Eritrea in the east. As Reuters reported yesterday, a new study - commissioned by a coalition of major charities working in the region - provides a disheartening assessment of short-sighted, poorly coordinated aid policies.

Two years after the widely reported hunger crisis in Niger, aid agencies are still failing to work effectively, either with the government or with each other. Local populations aren't properly consulted and foreign organisations are still serving up preconceived short-term aid projects that meet donor targets while overlooking the longer-term needs of hungry and poverty-stricken communities.

The most vulnerable - the poorest, the youngest and pretty much every woman - are excluded from decision-making processes. Meaningful benefits from policies such as market liberalisation and budget support for governments have completely failed to trickle down to those who need it most. And all the while, the strategic rift between development aid workers and their counterparts in emergency response seems to get ever wider. At the London launch of Beyond Any Drought, Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) think-tank which co-commissioned the report, described the findings as "hauntingly familiar". No kidding.

But it beggars belief that the debate has not moved on. Even at the height of the Niger crisis, it was already understood that this was an emergency not caused by a one-off drought, but rather the logical catastrophic by-product of years of corrosive poverty and political neglect. Everything this report tells us now was more or less known then. Not only that, but its conclusions remind us once again of a predicament far deeper than Sahelian food security alone. Sitting at the launch at London's Chatham House think tank, it occurred to me that one could close one's eyes and be in almost any meeting in any aid forum discussing any country in Africa at any point over the last ten years.

As any campaigner on climate change or HIV/AIDS will tell you, profound structural changes in behaviour require either significant incentives or persuasive coercion. If you've no carrots left, you need a big stick. The unspoken conclusion of the report is that both are still missing when it comes to strategies for the Sahel's poor and hungry.

More here

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Veiled Muggers Stalk Old Ladies In Stockholm: "A gang of veiled muggers were arrested in Sweden for robbing and abusing elderly women in several Stockholm suburbs. Over a period of four months six girls aged between 17 and 20 robbed fourteen elderly women in the Tensta, Rinkeby, Sundbyberg and H,sselby suburbs of Stockholm. On Friday four of the girls were jailed by Solna district court, reported Aftonbladet. A 19 year old was given a two month prison sentence and further probation for robbery and falsification of documents. Three 17 year olds were sentenced to youth detention of between two years and two and a half years. The other two girls were given suspended sentences. During the attacks the girls hid their faces behind veils. In one incident, a 71 year old woman was pushed down a staircase after three of the girls snatched her handbag."

Joooos destroying Gaza: "The World Bank is accusing Jerusalem of creating the conditions for an "irreversible" economic collapse in Hamas-controlled Gaza, blaming Israel for closures of the border crossings with the region. "The pillars of Gaza's economy have weakened over the years. Now, with a sustained closure on this current scale, they would be at risk of virtually irreversible collapse," said Faris Hadad-Zervos, the acting director for the World Bank in the Palestinian Authority territories"

Is there any hope for any Arab democracy? "U.S. forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid captured an Iraqi police lieutenant accused of leading a cell of Shiite militiamen, the military said. Seven gunmen also died in the fight, a rare open street battle between American troops and policemen. Washington has demanded the government purge its police force of militants, and U.S. and Iraqi authorities have arrested officers in the past for militia links. But the Bush administration said in an assessment Thursday that progress on that front was "unsatisfactory." The captured lieutenant was a "high-ranking" leader of a cell suspected of helping coordinate Iranian support for Shiite extremists in Iraq as well as carrying out roadside bombings against mortar attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, the military said. The lieutenant is believed to be linked to the Quds Force, a branch of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, it said. Infiltration by Shiite militias is pervasive in the Iraqi police, fueling a deep mistrust of the force among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, who often accuse policemen of involvement in kidnappings and slaying of Sunnis - or at least ignoring them".

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- including skeptical comments about the recent conviction of Canadian newspaper tycoon, Conrad Black.

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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15 July, 2007

AMERICA THE IMPERFECT

Vanderleun has some thoughts about the childish people who expect America to be perfect -- when perfection is arbitrary anyway. Some excerpts:

In the discussion of a previous post, a commenter delivers a vest pocket critique of America seen from abroad. The salient part reads:

As for the last paragraph - well, personally, I don't give a damn whether Americans kill themselves through gross overeating and under-exercising, filling their food with chemicals for short-term profit or turning their cities' air into poison gas - not to mention handing terrorists billions of dollars to kill Americans (and others) with.

What I do mind is that Americans are setting a bad example for everyone else; as a small example the streets of Britain are filled with grotesquely large 4x4s. I am quite sure the fashion comes from across the pond. As another, the Chinese might well ask why they should restrict their economic growth when America already uses many times more fuel than they do - and they'd be right.

By way of example, my day-to-day experience tells me that while the lumbering results of having "way too much food" are more than visible in America, so is the cult of "way too much exercise." They are the opposite ends of the bell-curve. In the middle I see that most Americans are mindful of what they eat because the can afford to be. Making this possible is a system of food production and distribution that delivers such a wide-spectrum of food choice at cheap prices (organic, non-organic, and junk) to every niche of the landscape. Indeed, the system is so advanced and sophisticated that we have achieved a society in which one of the major problems among the poor that remain is obesity....

The impression that Americans are "turning their cities' air into poison gas" is likewise well-meant but ill-informed. It is demonstrably not true. It is not true from a look at the steadily declining levels of emission in a steadily increasing and mobile population over the decades. It is can be seen to be obviously untrue from the simple fact of living in America for six decades -- decades that have seen more deep and lasting social change than at any other time in the history of the country, perhaps the world. I was, as constant readers may know, born in Los Angeles six decades ago. I remember the poison air of the 1950s. I remember the smog alerts, the soot that would settle on the windowsills and grind its way into the clothes, and the black smudge that would be visible within a block of my front yard. I saw it again some three decades later, but not in Los Angeles, but in London.....

As is often the case in the envious world today, we encounter -- in the commenter's plaint and elsewhere at home and abroad -- a mindset in which "the perfect is the enemy of the good." It is a mindset that views anything less than some imagined perfect state as somehow failing and worthy of excoriation. It is a mindset in which, if the real world falls short of the imagined perfection, it is the real world that is ill rather than the mind of the imaginer. It is a mindset which finds nothing is impossible as long as others much do the work and pay the price. It is a mindset forever doomed to disappointment; a doom in which it takes a strange and almost masochistic pleasure.....

The commenter seems to feel that it is there is some implicit global responsibility of America to set a "good" example rather than, as he feels, its current "bad" example. He seems to feel that as America goes, so goes the world; that the Brits drive big cars in Britain not because they make that choice as free people but because 'American mind waves' force them to do so against their will; that the Chinese, if impressed by some future America's return to some eco-idyllic state, will shrug off the desires that the increasing wealth and semi-liberty of their situation affords them and return to the days of the ox-cart, the rickshaw, and famine. In short he places too much power in the hands of America and too little in the hands of the human individuals in the rest of the world. To this way of thinking the example is all, and that only if the example is a "good" example can the world be perfected.....

We don't try to force our example on the world. If we did want to do that we could force it easily enough by becoming a real imperial power, but that would mean building the military to a level that would not make for a good society. (Something discussed extensively in The Federalist Papers and since and always discarded.) Some of course will rise to object that our current war of intervention is proof at last of our imperial ambitions, but this is only because they have little insight and understanding of exactly how gently and carefully we are moving in Iraq; that they do not comprehend just how great a power we hold in reserve and still abjure to use. Iraq is not a war of conquest. It is a war of patty-cake.....

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ELSEWHERE

If you don't know who FDT is yet, you had better read this.

Controversial BBC chief knew that footage of Her Majesty was misleading: "Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC One, was facing a battle to save his job yesterday after the corporation's Director-General described the edited footage of the Queen shown to the media as "incorrect and misleading". Mark Thompson said that he planned to introduce a series of measures to tighten standards after the error, which Mr Fincham was forced to admit having known about on Wednesday evening, although he did not apologise until Thursday. Mr Fincham's fate will most likely be decided by a meeting on Wednesday of the corporation's regulator, the BBC Trust, for which Mr Thompson has been asked to provide a full report as to how pictures of the Queen walking into a photo shoot came to be presented as footage of her storming out."



Peace hypocrite wants to kill GWB: "In a keynote speech at the International Women's Peace Conference on Wednesday night, Ms. Williams told a crowd of about 1,000 that the Bush administration has been treacherous and wrong and acted unconstitutionally. "Right now, I could kill George Bush," she said at the Adam's Mark Hotel and Conference Center in Dallas." [She has subsequently apologized for her remark but that does not alter the hypocrisy in her attitudes]

The politics of accepting defeat: "Contrary to what you've read in the newspapers, we are not debating whether to "change course" in Iraq. We are debating whether to accept defeat in Iraq. Contrary to what you've seen on television, there is no way for us to "end the war." If we retreat from Iraq, the war will not just continue but expand. The only difference is that a battlefield on which we are now killing our enemies will be transformed into a base from which our enemies can safely plan to kill us."

Surrender At Any Cost: "Well, the Surrendercrats have done it again. By a vote of 223-201 in favor of the measure, the House of Representatives called for troop withdrawal from Iraq by Spring 2008. If the House gets its way, troops will begin leaving Iraq in 120 days and be completed by April 1, 2008. It seems the House of Representatives knows better than the Commander-in-Chief and General David Petraeus when we should deploy or redeploy the troops. Americans were absolutely phenomenal on the immigration fight and we need to respond the same way on this troop withdrawal issue. We cannot have politicians dictating how the military conducts 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 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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14 July, 2007

BBC CAUGHT OUT AGAIN

It is to be expected that the far-Leftists at the BBC would be hostile to the monarchy. It is a tribute to the Queen that she has given them no real ammunition



THE BBC has apologised to Queen Elizabeth for wrongly implying that she had stormed out of a photo shoot with American celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. The British broadcaster backtracked on its implication that the monarch had lost her temper when asked to remove her crown.

The story became headline news around the world after a promotional trailer for a BBC documentary A Year with the Queen, due to be shown later this year, was shown to journalists. "In this trailer there is a sequence that implies that the Queen left a sitting prematurely," it said. "This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented. "The BBC would like to apologise to both the Queen and Annie Leibowitz for any upset this may have caused."

Source

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The Mind Of Modern Liberals

Their "ethics" are just a pretense. Power is the only thing they believe in

Of course, if anyone should need no convincing that withdrawal would be unethical, it is modern liberals. For it is they who, in their rhetoric, advocate the most sweeping ethics-based restrictions on the conduct of foreign policy. The record of modern liberalism is another story, as witness its penchant for defending tyrants, from totalizing ideologues such as Stalin and Mao to machete-wielding, "anti-colonialist" jungle thugs. Where war is concerned, however, liberal impulses are consistently pacifistic. The post-Vietnam Left looks upon all war as morally suspect for the reason that it maims and kills innocent people. So deep does this feeling run in liberal bones that the Left has opposed using force even against regimes which flagrantly violate human rights, and even when overwhelming strategic reasons to topple these regimes have emerged. (The most obvious recent case is the adulteress- and homosexual-murdering Taliban.)

If liberals took their rhetoric seriously, the politicians aligned most closely with the pacifist Left - Nancy Pelosi being the paradigmatic example - would suffer insomnia each night as they contemplated the probable human cost of U.S. failure in Iraq. They would recognize that their moral opposition to starting this war - or even a universalized opposition to starting any war - is consistent with the view that there are compelling moral reasons to continue it. More: that if the war was unjust, we have a unique interest in minimizing its harms, just as one feels a special obligation of kindness toward a person one has offended. Instead we have Mrs. Pelosi voting with the majority of her caucus for immediate withdrawal.

These votes would be defensible, and consistent with liberal principles, if it were true either that the U.S. could do nothing to win the war, or that pulling out of Iraq would - cue deus ex machina - improve its security. In the latter case, withdrawal would be morally and not just strategically desirable; in the former, we would have no alternative but to withdraw and feel a guilt commensurate to the weight of the resultant catastrophe. Neither of these claims is plausible, or borne out by recent events (there is a reason the Iraqi government is begging us to stay). This may be why Pelosi and her Democrats make no argument for them.

Their apparent indifference to the consequences of their votes only highlights their immorality: for the case that withdrawal would destroy Iraq is a compelling one, and in any event it is the advocate of the new policy who must prove that it will not come at an unbearable cost. The most charitable thing that can be said of the Democratic majority is that it is morally thoughtless, in which case it is committing the political equivalent of criminal negligence. If it has its way and Iraq survives, it will have been lucky, not good. And if, as is more probable, our worst fears come true, then it will have been something else altogether.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



A good example for the TSA from Canada: "Air travellers in Canada who make comments about bombs and guns will from now on only be arrested if it is clear they are making a serious threat, officials have said. The Canadian Air Transport Safety Authority, trying to clamp down on screeners who alert police every time they hear alarming words, has issued a bulletin urging staff to show more discretion. A person who announces "You better look through my suitcase carefully, because there's a bomb in there", "I am going to set fire to this airplane with this blowtorch" or "The man in seat 32F has a machine gun" will still be arrested. But someone who remarks "Your hockey team is going to get bombed (badly beaten) tonight", "Hi Jack!" or "You don't need to frisk me, I'm not carrying a weapon" will first be warned about their behaviour"

Farm folly: "America's prodigiously productive farmers are never more so than when a minority of them are cultivating Capitol Hill. Their lobbyists have toiled to preserve the New Deal approach. They stress the romance of the family farm, but their fog of sentimentality obscures pertinent facts: Fifty-seven percent of farms receive no payments; two-thirds of those that do receive less than $10,000. The largest 8 percent of farms receive 58 percent of the payments. Farms with revenues of $250,000 or more receive payments averaging $70,000. Lugar wants to redirect the flow of federal funds, from subsidizing favored crops to rural development, because fewer than 14 percent of residents in rural areas work on farms. Under the continuing New Deal approach, five commodities - corn, soybeans, cotton, rice and wheat - got about 90 percent of last year's $19 billion in subsidies. This is a perverse incentive for overproduction of the five, which depresses prices, which triggers federal supports."

Byrd and Clinton want to surrender: "I will not mince words. The call to bring our troops home from Iraq is nothing short of a surrender that will move the theater of war from Baghdad to the streets of the United States. Unlike Vietnam, the enemy will follow our soldiers home. On Sunday, the New York Times called for a surrender in Iraq. In so doing, the newspaper abandoned any pretense of liberalism, of decency and of compassion for one's fellow man. Consider this passage in its lengthy editorial: "There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs." Got that? The editors of the New York Times think it is OK to slaughter anyone in Iraq who worked with Americans and gives the approval to "even genocide" in its call for the immediate withdrawal of American forces as soon as the Pentagon can distribute the white flags to its soldiers."

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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12 July, 2007

Old Testament figure named on 2600-year-old Babylonian tablet

The Bible repeatedly proves to be good history



The British Museum yesterday hailed a discovery within a clay tablet in its collection as a breakthrough for biblical archeology - proof of the accuracy of the Old Testament. The cuneiform inscription in a tablet dating from 595BC has been deciphered for the first time - revealing a reference to an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that proves the historical existence of a figure mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah. It is rare evidence in a non-biblical source of a real person, other than kings, featured in the Bible.

The tablet names a Babylonian officer called Nebo-Sarsekim who, according to Jeremiah 39 was present in 587BC when Nebuchadnezzar "marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it". The cuneiform inscription records how Nebo-Sarsekim lavished a gift of gold on the Temple of Esangila in the fabled city of Babylon, where, at least in folk tradition, Nebuchadnezzar is credited with building the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

British Museum staff are excited by the discovery. Irving Finkel, assistant keeper in the Department of the Middle East, said: "A mundane commercial transaction takes its place as a primary witness to one of the turning points in Old Testament history. "This is a tablet that deserves to be famous." The discovery was made by Michael Jursa, associate professor at the University of Vienna, on a research trip to the museum. "It's very exciting and very surprising," he said. "Finding something like this tablet, where we see a person mentioned in the Bible making an everyday payment to the temple in Babylon and quoting the exact date, is quite extraordinary."

Source

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Brookes News Update

President Roosevelt gave the US economy its worse economic recovery, not President Bush: As malicious as ever, democrats claimed that US economy was the worst since the Hoover administration. Now they are arguing that the economic recovery is the worst in US history. Both claims are outrageous lies that economic history easily refutes. But, as is invariably the case, economic history has important lessons for policy-makers, particularly those in the Bush administration
Financial engineering and a possible financial accident - what is the connection?: Various financial products, including ingenious montage pack ages, are causing a great deal of concern to the Feds and economic commentators. Once again it takes an economist from the Austrian school to explain what is really happening and why
Why Australia is not a low-inflation economy: Treasury, central bankers and the economic commentariat appear to congenitally incapable of grasping the true nature of inflation. As for capital theory and its tie-in with loose monetary policy, these are alien territory for our orthodox economists. I fear we could pay a heavy price for their ignorance
The sanctimonious Warren Buffett's economic illiteracy: Warren Buffett is evidently the kind of billionaire who has come to believe that his vast wealth gives him the right to govern others. And if you are that kind of person, then the Democrat Party is just the place for you
News from Iraq - the kind of news that our leftist media spikes: The news from Iraq that journalists have refused to report. It's not just Allied success stories that are being spiked but also stories about al Qaeda's indescribable cruelty. And that includes a village that they massacred. There is also a report that a child was murdered and baked by al Qaeda sadists as a warning to others. So why are the media covering for these sadistic savages?
President Bush got it right on Libby... unlike Mr. Clinton: Bush was right to act as he did with regard to Libby. What is really needed is an investigation of the vicious Fitzgerald whose disgusting behaviour was every bit as unethical and dishonest as Nifong's. The sheer vindictiveness of the judge, his contempt of legal procedure should not go unchallenged. The unethical Russert should also be held to account for his own shady behaviour. Perjury charges against Valerie Plame should, in the interest of justice, also be explored. But then, Fitzgerald, Russert and Plame are all Democrats
President Bush and the economics of deficit reduction: How it was done: The next hurdle for the Bush administration will be the sheer destructiveness of the Democrats. In dealing with Dems and their ilk one must constantly bear in mind that bad faith is their principal characteristic

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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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12 July, 2007

The New Myths About Inequality

The Left is gearing up for 2008 with major proposals for government intervention to "fix" the distribution of income. For example, the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, recently proposed raising the minimum wage, giving unions more advantages in the workplace, expanding government's role in child care, and other policies that will be harmful to economic growth, which is the one proven way to raise our standard of living.

In order to build support for this statist agenda, policy wonks and pundits are spreading a set of myths about inequality. We are hearing that incomes are stagnating in middle America, that class mobility is disappearing, and that the political process favors the wealthy. But we should not believe the myths.....

Fifty years ago, many of America's mid-range workers toiled on assembly lines. Today, more of them work in service industries. How does the standard of living of today's mid-range workers compare to that of their counterparts in America thirty years ago or their counterparts in other advanced nations today? Here are some generalizations:

--In terms of food, clothing, shelter, and durable goods, mid-range workers are doing rather well. Their living spaces are notably larger. They almost all have air conditioning and central heating, while some of their foreign counterparts do not. They have plenty of television sets, telephones, and household appliances.

--In health care, they consume more premium medicine (services provided by specialists and advanced equipment). They are more likely to overcome cancer, heart disease, depression, or an at-risk pregnancy; however, much of their additional health care spending produces benefits that are at best difficult to measure and at worst nonexistent. And a relatively large share of their compensation consists of employer-provided health benefits, even though they might instead prefer more take-home pay.

--Today's mid-range worker probably has a more difficult time affording a home in a highly-desirable location. Those with a taste for urban amenities, beaches, or spectacular mountain scenery are likely to be priced out of the market. The supply of amenity-rich locations has not kept up with demand, and affluent Americans have bid up the cost of living along the ocean in San Diego or near the ski slopes of Aspen or in the classy sections of San Francisco.

--Speaking of classy locations, do not expect the mid-range worker's children to go to the schools favored by the affluent. Private school tuition has gone up faster than the mid-range worker's income, as has the cost of housing in the neighborhoods with deluxe public schools. College choice, too, will be very constrained by the determination of the affluent to bid up the price of the prestige spots.

The distribution of rewards in America today is still relatively merit-based. However, the extent of economic and social mobility is difficult to assess. One optimistic indicator of mobility is that wealth differences across siblings remain fairly high. Another optimistic indicator is that educational attainment continues to rise with each generation, particularly among immigrants. On the pessimistic side, the trend toward smaller families tends to reduce sibling variation, and my guess is that it reduces the deviation of children's social standing relative to their parents....

The share of government in our economy moves steadily upward. The fastest-growing sector of our economy, health care, is headed for government domination, either with health care "reform" or without it, due to the demographics of Medicare. Many politicians campaign as if they believe that concentration of political power is a good thing-as long as they have the power. Populists promise to use that power to fight against the wealthy and the privileged.

In reality, major corporations and entrenched interests are systemically favored by greater concentration of political power. Unregulated competition, not big government, is the friend of the little guy. Political leaders who campaign on the issue of economic inequality are almost certain to tighten the relationship between political and economic power.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Deliberate BBC deception: Taranto has the story. An attempt to portray Muslims in a good light by concealing half the facts. Perhaps the Beeb should be renamed "The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation".

Disgusting Army brass again: "Erik Botta believes he's done right by his country. Days after 9/11, as a young Army reservist, he volunteered to go to war. He was soon in Afghanistan. The next year, he was sent out again, this time to Iraq, part of a Special Operations team. In the next two years, he was sent to Iraq again. And again. He thought he was done. But now, the Army wants Sgt. Botta one more time. The 26-year-old Port St. Lucie man has been ordered to report to Fort Jackson, S.C., on July 15 for his fifth deployment. And that has compelled Botta, a first-generation American who counts himself a quiet patriot, to do something he never thought he'd do: sue the Army. "I'm proud of my service," he said. "I never wanted it to end like this." Nearly seven years into his eight-year commitment to the reserves, the personal costs are higher for Botta. He could lose his home. His job at Sikorsky, working on the Black Hawk military helicopter, could be on the line. He's halfway to his electrical engineering degree, planning a career in defense work, but his professors say he'll suffer a significant setback if he is deployed. He doesn't mention the danger another deployment would bring, but his wife and parents do."

The two Americas: "Could Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards actually be right about something? Not where to go to get a haircut, mind you, I mean about there being two Americas. There is the vibrant America ... and the stagnant one. There is the America of ever-increasing wealth, innovation, creativity, of a dynamic economy, new jobs, new products and services. Choices galore. And there is the politician's America: The regulated America, the subsidized America, the earmarked America. The failing America."

Spirit of independence: "Control-freak politicians in the states that outlaw fireworks (among other things) are fond of telling us how they're saving us from ourselves by building a legislative wall between us and our pyrotechnic fun. Severed fingers, scorched shrubbery and ruptured eardrums, they never tire of lecturing us, are the inevitable wages of allowing us to make our own decisions. It's better that we get tackled and dragged away by the always exuberant forces of law and order than risk setting fire to the neighbor's petunias. Well, they're (sort of) right -- some segment of the population will, inevitably, get injured by fireworks, just as people suffer from the misuse of chainsaws, candles and random pointy objects lying around the kitchen. But it's not the responsibility of politicians to save us from ourselves or to bundle the world in bubble-wrap to protect us from every possible risk. Lord knows, if we need protection from anything, it's busybody politicians and their pet enforcers."

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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11 July, 2007

The "postmodernist" view of Israel

Post lifted from Democracy Project. See the original for links

Avineri calls it "nothing new under the sun."

The arguments called "post-Zionist" have various aspects - not only political but also cultural. They view Zionism as a colonial phenomenon, not as a national movement that is contending with another, Palestinian, national movement over its claim to the same territory. Some of those who are called "post-Zionists" go even further in their argument that the very existence of a Jewish people is a "narrative" that was invented in the 19th century, and that the Jews are at base a religious community. The attitude of Zionism, which has most of its roots in Europe, toward Jews from the Muslim countries is also perceived in the context of colonial exploitation..

They do not see Zionism and the State of Israel as a reality that has come to pass, but rather as something that is not legitimate from the outset and that must be eliminated down to its very foundations.

Avineri points out that such thinking is, in effect, nihilist and anti-historical, and even lacks the gleam of visionary utopian or idealistic patina that masked other authoritarian movements. Their sour grapes over their ideological gods that failed has fermented into a bitter wine being poured into new bottles of deluded, violence inducing, drunkeness.

There is something pathetic in that 20 years ago they believed in a new, just world that was to emerge from Moscow or Cuba, and the only thing that is left to them of that lofty vision today is anti-Zionism. Not the brotherhood of nations, not the liberation of the proletariat, not universal social justice - all of this has collapsed in a tragic way; the only thing that remains is the hatred of Zionism.

Much the same can be said about the Post-Americans who can only berate and bring down U.S. institutions and uniqueness, opposed to defense, and only offering visions of recycling carbon as a future mission while accepting tyrannies even when their reach is into our heartland.

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ELSEWHERE

The death cult: "It is the question at the back of many people's minds as they absorb the frightening details of the terror plot in Britain. Yes, we understand that many Muslims are angry-about the Iraq War, about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and the usual list of grievances. But there are many people, in many different societies and cultures, who are angry about many things. Would any other culture or religion produce a group of doctors and professionals who apparently deemed it morally correct to kill innocent people in large numbers? Has something gone wrong with Islam itself, or at least the culture it has produced? To merely pose that question, of course, is to play with political dynamite. But it must be asked. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that "a death cult" ."has taken root" in Islam, "feeding off it like a cancerous tumor."

Leftist antisemitism spreading: "The Politico has enjoyed success as a brand-new, mostly on-line news outlet. Its orientation is moderately liberal. Like us, Politico has a Forum where registered users can start threads and post. The problem, though, with inviting liberals to hang out at your web site is that you can no longer separate the liberals from the crazies. Check out this thread, which is nakedly antisemitic. (HT: LGF.) The thread was started by a nut; more Politico posters have joined in with the usual sickening antisemitic nonsense, including bogus quotes from the Founding Fathers. This is the kind of thing we are used to seeing at hard-left sites like Daily Kos and Democratic Underground. But with top leaders of the Democratic Party now posting at those sites, it is hard to see any boundary between the "respectable" left, which Politico wants to be a part of, and the cesspool you can catch a glimpse of today on Politico.com."

More UN crookedness: "A UN agency has denied firing an employee after the man questioned alleged financial irregularities at its North Korean operations. Mr Shkurtaj said he found fake US bills in an office safe and local staff were paid in euros, and not local currency. The UNDP denied any wrongdoing, and keeping improper accounts."

Burqas: hazardous to your health: "Conservative Muslim dress codes may be causing vitamin D deficiency in women by limiting their exposure to sunlight, humans' main source for the vitamin, according to new research. Scientists had previously found high rates of vitamin D deficiency in Arab and East Indian women living in the United Arab Emirates. A follow-up study investigated the effect of vitamin D supplements on 178 UAE women, many of whom covered themselves entirely, faces and hands included, when outside their homes. Only two of the women did not have vitamin D deficiency prior to receiving supplements. The results were published by a team of scientists in the June issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"

Canada: Radioactive devices disappearing: "Radioactive devices -- some of which have the potential to be used in terrorist attacks -- have gone missing in alarming numbers in Canada over the past five years. A new database compiled by The Canadian Press shows that the devices, which are used in everything from medical research to measuring oil wells, are becoming a favoured target of thieves. At least 76 have gone missing in Canada over the past five years -- disappearing from construction sites, specialized tool boxes, and generally growing legs and walking away. Some of the devices could be used in a "dirty bomb," where conventional explosives are used to detonate nuclear material, spreading the contamination over a wide area, said Alan Bell, a security and international terrorism expert from Globe Risk Security Holdings"

A fine example of Democrat hate -- you can see where Communist brutality comes from: "I will only reiterate what I've said WHEN they manage to inevitably push their litany of hatespeak into actual bloodletting, and full-blown civil war (for there is no other place that this hatred of American against American can go), well ... I've got dibs on Rush, as soon as it's legal and lawful to shoot him. Whoever wants Ted Nugent is welcome to him, but I would prefer that you would call it now, so as to conserve on ammunition. We will need to manage it prudently. But when the day comes that they have finally set brother against brother, and sister against sister in the name of their pocketbooks, I won't approach exterminating them with anything approaching remorse."

The airheads at the NYT can't even get their own building right: ""The soaring new New York Times tower - already known for its weird toilets (when flushed, they apparently sound like a kitten being strangled), its weirder elevators (no buttons, and no indication of what floor they're on), a leak problem (editor Bill Keller's office got soggy in a recent rainstorm), and a mouse problem (reported by Gawker) - still has a few more surprises between the floorboards: maggots. "It's hard to put out a newspaper when you're worried about what might fall on your head," one Times staffer told us this week. "One of the photo editors was sitting at her desk and maggots started falling from the ceiling tile on to her head."

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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10 July, 2007

BLACK INTELLIGENCE AND "WHITE" IQ TESTS

I know that conjoining the two terms "IQ" and "black" casts me into the outer darkness as far as most people are concerned but psychometrics is my field of academic specialization so I feel that I have an obligation to tell what is known about the topic concerned. And I often do, because so few others are willing to tell the public all that is known.

Chris Brand has drawn our attention to a strange book recently issued by Stephen Murdoch called IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea. Murdoch attacks all use of IQ tests. Since Murdoch appears to have no academic background in psychometrics, the book is a very arrogant one. Murdoch is in effect saying that he can in one fell swoop soar above the combined thinking and research of the hundreds of keen minds who have worked on the IQ concept (which scientists call 'g') over the last century or so. There is however no sign in the book that he has anything to say that has not been carefully considered and dismissed many times in the last 100 years. Rather than soaring, he simply shows his ignorance.

I will therefore mention just one point that even Chris does not refute as well as he might: The claim that because IQ tests are devised by whites they cannot validly be used to test blacks. This claim has of course been the focus of a very large body of research and has resulted in the production of widely-used "culture fair" tests -- i.e. tests that do not depend on any particular educational or linguistic background but which nonetheless provide good predictions of success in many areas of life for many different populations. These tests show the black/white gap to be at least as large as other tests do.

What is often overlooked, however, is that one group of psychologists (McElwain & Kearney) went even further: Rather than construct a test that had NO cultural biases, they constructed a test that WAS biased -- but biased towards blacks rather than towards whites. They included in their test (the Queensland Test or QT) only those items that blacks responded well to and which actually could be shown to be valid predictors of problem solving performance among blacks. In effect, blacks constructed the test themselves -- by providing the responses used to select the individual questions within the test.

But you know what happened, don't you? On a test intrinsically biased against them, whites still greatly outperformed blacks. So there really is an underlying difference between blacks and whites. The difference is not just the result of naively constructed tests. The blacks to which the QT was applied were Australian Aborigines and Melanesians but these groups are very much like people of African ancestry in scoring much below whites on any test that has ever been tried. The QT ended up, in other words, giving results very much like those from culture-fair tests and it is now normally classified as simply another culture-fair test.

A very important point to make here, however, is that general problem-solving ability (which is what IQ tests measure) is not the only ability that is important to survival. A bright smile, an ability to run fast and an ability to get on well with other people are obvious examples of other attributes important to survival. And Australian Aborigines do have some mental attributes that are very well developed indeed. Anybody who knows them well will tell you that they are in general a very friendly and immensely polite and sociable people with an excellent sense of humour -- though alcohol transmogrifies them.

And those who know Aborigines really well will tell you that Aborigines have something else: an absolutely eerie ability to observe, remember and interpret the physical landscape around them. For this reason they were widely used in the early days as "trackers" -- people who could track someone (usually fleeing criminals) down by observing minute marks he had made while walking through the landscape. This greater spatial ability has been recorded academically in the work of Kearins -- and the report by Klekamp et al. (1994) that Australian aboriginals have a larger visual cortex than Caucasians would appear to provide the explanation of the phenomenon.

So any claim that whites are superior to blacks is simply too sweeping. In some ways whites are superior and in other ways blacks are. Which area of superiority is most advantageous will depend on the situation. In situations constructed by whites, blacks often do very poorly. That there is any remedy for that, however, seems most unlikely.

REFERENCES:

McElwain, D. W.& Kearney, G. E. (1973). Intellectual development. In Kearney, G. E., de Lacey, P. R. & Davidson, G. R. (Eds.). The Psychology of Aboriginal Australians (pp. 43-56). Sydney: John Wiley.

Kearins, J. M. (1986). Visual spatial memory in Aboriginal and white Australian children. Australian Journal of Psychology, 38, 203-214

Klekamp, J., Riedel, A., Harper, C., Kretschmann, H. J. (1994). Morphometric study of the postnatal growth of the visual cortex of Australian aborigines and Caucasians. Journal of Brain Research, 35, 541-548.

Ray, J.J. (1972) Are all races equally intelligent? Or: When is knowledge knowledge? J. Human Relations 20, 71-75.

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ELSEWHERE

It's an old saying that some ideas are so crazy that only an intellectual could believe them. Princeton economist Alan Krueger seems to be such an intellectual. He admits that the old fallback -- poverty -- does not cause terrorism and says that it is "suppression of civil liberties and political rights" that causes terrorism. Yet nowhere in the world do Muslims have such great civil liberties and political rights as they do in Britain. So that is why there have been so many Muslim attacks in Britain, you see! Anything at all will be grasped at rather than admit that Islam is the problem.

Islam's Global War against Christianity: "From Nigeria to Indonesia, Christians are under siege in virtually every single country in the Muslim world, the victims of countless acts of discrimination, depredation, brutality, and murder that are so widespread and systematic that it can rightfully be called the new Holocaust. This time, however, the perpetrators of this Holocaust aren't wearing swastikas, but kufi skull caps and hijabs. Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are subject to relentless attack and teeter on the brink of extinction at the hands of the "Religion of Peace": Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank; Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in Iraq; Coptic Christians in Egypt; Evangelical and Orthodox Christians in Eastern Ethiopia and Eritrea; Armenian Orthodox Christians in Turkey; and Maronite Christians in Lebanon. Several of these communities date back to the beginning decades of Christianity"

Lead poisoning the major cause of crime???? "Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the "New York miracle" was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning." [It's just more epidemiological crap based on the old "correlation is causation" fallacy. See here on epidemiology]

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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9 July, 2007

The bizarre British government response to Muslim attacks

We began with the usual and - this time - quite surreal assurances from politicians, Muslim leaders and, in particular the BBC, that the latest attacks were `nothing to do with Islam'. This is what we always hear when a bomb has gone off, or failed to go off - and it is always a silly statement, based upon nothing more real than wishful thinking and a quick, thoughtless, unnecessary genuflection towards crowd control. On this occasion, though, it was subtly undermined by one of the perpetrators, doused in flames outside Glasgow airport, screaming `Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!' before being peremptorily battered by a passer-by. Also, they parked their car at a mosque - and yet, according to every bigwig, policeman and community leader interviewed, this was a mere case of coincidence - NCP being full at the time, presumably.

Then, as always happens, we had the next stage of wishful thinking. Led by the BBC's bizarrely pro-Islamist Frank Gardner, we were assured by assorted correspondents and politicians that Britain's Muslim community were, in their entirety, appalled and outraged by the attacks. Well, maybe they were - but how do you know? Did you ask 'em, Frank? Don't forget that more than half of our Muslims feel sympathy for suicide bombers in Israel and a fairly hefty minority (one in eight, at the last count) for similar action against the cockroach imperialist infidel scum (i.e. you and me) over here. Not to mention almost half of Britain's Muslims who want Sharia law in this country and do not remotely, therefore, share our norms and values.

We are told these sorts of things in order to stop us coming to unpalatable conclusions, because the government still clings, ever more precariously, to the vestigial tail of that discredited ideology, multiculturalism. Take, for example, the issue of immigration. The aspirant, useless bombers who missed their targets at Glasgow and London came here from Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. A recent Mori opinion poll commissioned by the government's Commission on Integration and Cohesion showed that almost 70 per cent of British people thought that we had let far too many immigrants into the country. This figure, incidentally, included almost half of all black and Asian British citizens polled. It was a remarkable poll not so much for its statistics, however, as for the strange response to those statistics. The establishment - the government, the BBC, the race charities and so on - professed themselves very worried and wondered what on earth should be done. A task force charged with dampening down trouble in the immigration hotspots, maybe? A few more lessons in English for the incomers and maybe fewer translators? But at no point did any of the powers that be suggest the one thing which an overwhelming majority of those polled wished for: an end to immigration. A moratorium. Or, at the least, an influx which was vastly reduced and better regulated. This suggestion, implicitly supported by almost 70 per cent of those questioned and opposed by only ten per cent, was not even considered; it simply didn't figure on the radar.....

But then, even if we had been told that the 12 or so aspirant bombers were members of al-Qa'eda and about to launch an attack against British citizens, it is unlikely we could have done very much about it, even if we had their home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Every month or so we read that the immigration appeals court has allowed some murderous lunatic from the Maghreb or beyond to stay in the country, despite his clearly stated homicidal impulses, because it would be an infringement of his human rights were he to be returned to the Islamic hellhole from which he arrived....

The public is perpetually outraged by such clear absurdities and, on this occasion at least, the government seemed a little vexed too. But there was no resolve to enact legislation (or repeal existing legislation) to prevent such outrages occurring again. Faced with the law - and in particular, international treaties to which we gladly affixed our names in simpler times - the government feels and perhaps is impotent. It is surely only a matter of time before someone who comes before the immigration appeals court is allowed to stay and later blows himself up in a public place. Perhaps it has happened already.....

The odd thing is that on all of these issues - immigration, human rights legislation, the notion that British Muslims do not share very many of our liberal values, the war against Iraq - the public seems to get it and our political leaders simply do not. There will be many more attempts at carnage on our streets before they do get it, I suspect. In the meantime, I suppose we'll just have to put our faith in al-Qa'eda's continuing incompetence.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

I have just put up on my Marx blog an older article that gives a very comprehensive account of the antisemitism of Karl Marx.

How the BBC inspires Muslim terrorism: "How could Muslim doctors want to bomb innocent young party goers in their own country? Because for decades the BBC has been telling them how evil Britain and the West really are, every single day, without ever being questioned. Even without imported Pakistani imams to brainwash gullible young men into bloody jihad, sixty million people in Britain receive daily wall-to-wall indoctrination from the Left. Forget those two million Pakistani Muslims in London; the tax-funded BBC has become the single most suicidal force in Britain.... This is the mindset ...that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world - from colonialism to global warming... today's young Muslims are more radical than their parents. What do you expect, when they keep getting the same hate-Britain message every single day from the tenured radicals at the tax-supported BBC?"

More Islamic hatred: "In Denmark, Muslims are attacking the Inuit people, the indigenous people of Greenland, who have been a part of the Kingdom of Denmark for centuries. Whenever Muslims target non-Muslims with violence, this is blamed by the media on past legacy of colonialism, US foreign policy, Israeli aggression etc. Well, Muslims are now attacking. Greenlanders. And we all know they are evil, Zionist Crusaders with a long history of colonial aggression in the Middle East, right? Here's a Scandinavian post on the subject, with my translations.Apparently, some Arabs feel that Greenlanders don't belong in Denmark and should go back home where they came from

The crass and sexist NYT: "Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable inquiry that is spurring debate in Internet chat rooms, on cable television and on talk radio: Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife? The question may seem sexist, even crass, but serious people - as well as Mr. Thompson's supporters - have been wrestling with the public reaction to Jeri Kehn Thompson, whose youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blond hair present a contrast to the 64-year-old man who hopes to win the hearts of the conservative core of the Republican party. Will the so-called values voters accept this union?"

A Bush speech that you are unlikely to see much reported in the media: "This week, we received more good news showing that our economy is strong and growing. The Department of Labor reports that our economy has now created jobs for 46 consecutive months. America added 132,000 jobs in June, and that means our economy has added more than 8.2 million new jobs since August of 2003. Unemployment is low, consumer confidence is high, incomes are rising, and opportunity is growing across America. Our Nation's strong economy is no accident. It is the result of the hard work of the American people and pro-growth policies in Washington. Starting in 2001, my Administration delivered the largest tax relief since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Our tax relief has left $1.1 trillion in the hands of citizens like you to save, and spend, and invest as you see fit..." [Don Surber has more]

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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8 July, 2007

Muslim Suicide Bombers Are Losers Who Can't Get Laid

Post lifted from Ace. See the original for links

Muslim suicide bombing...has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.....

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

...nearly all suicide bombers are single.

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SCIENCE FICTION

I was for many years a science fiction devotee and if I had time to read ANY fiction these days I probably still would be. As it happens, one of my more regular correspondents publishes books -- and science fiction books are among them. He specializes in books that are out of print but which he thinks are unfairly neglected and should be republished.

When he heard that I liked science fiction, therefore, he sent me a copy of one of his books -- one which he has published in "uncut" form. The original editions left out significant sections of what the author had written. The book is called "Out of the silence" -- one of several books with that name. This one was written by Erle Cox.

It did seem to be something of a gem from my quick look at it so I handed it over to my usual book reviewer for comment. He too was very favourably impressed. You can read his review here.

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ELSEWHERE

Charlie Foxtrot fisks a stupid attack on Fred Thompson.

Amusing. Andrew Sullivan is always going on about "Christianism". I used that word long before he did -- in 1970 -- but both of us were much preceded by James Leigh Hunt, who wrote a book called "Christianism" in 1832!

There is an article here about the widespread support for eugenics in "progressive" circles before WWII. Hitler's eugenic beliefs were normal among Leftists of his time.

There are some nice graphs of the meltdown at the whiny and dishonest NYT here

Eight Al Qaeda fanatics working for the British police (but they don't dare sack them): "Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda. Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces. The dossier was drawn up with the help of MI5 amid fears that individuals linked to Islamic extremism are taking advantage of police attempts to increase the proportion of ethnic staff. Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because - it is claimed - police do not have the "legal power" to dismiss them. We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq."

This obsequious description of John Edwards would make any normal man ill: "The hair, up close, is peppered with tiny strands of blond. Chestnut brown and so finely trimmed, mellifluous, smooth, and feathery, it could almost be a weave, the Platonic ideal as imagined by the Hair Club for Men. Along with the piercing blue eyes, slashing V-shaped smile, and a shimmering burgundy shirt tucked into stonewashed Levi's resting low on the hips, the hair completes the man: John Edwards, a populist Adonis, a golden god of a Southern Democrat." [GM is one of the nauseous ones]

A different nation: "You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism"

Richard Littlejohn on the new British Prime Mionister: "As I said a couple of days before Gordon got the job, this column doesn't do honeymoon periods. But, wary of getting submerged in the glow of post-coital adulation, I thought I'd give it a week before putting the boot in. The usual bunch of crawlers are doing their best to flatter him, but the simple fact of the matter is that when it comes to being Prime Minister, Gordon just doesn't cut the Colman's. He's certainly not what Napoleon would have called a lucky general. Since he took over last Wednesday, he's had dead soldiers in Iraq, Muslim maniacs on the rampage in London and Glasgow and a rise in interest rates, as a basis for negotiation. So why on earth has the elevation of Gordon Brown been hailed as if it were the second coming of JFK? Quentin Letts has already remarked on the BBC constantly referring to the 'new government'. This isn't a 'new' government - it's a collection of has-beens, placemen and people who weren't good enough to be in the last Cabinet. You'd be hard-pushed to find such a weird array of incompetents, dullards and social inadequates this side of the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. The Miliband brothers even look like Vulcans. Hilariously, we're asked to believe that Gordon has assembled a government of 'all the talents'. If this is as good as it gets, God help us."

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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7 July, 2007

GWB IS A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN BUT HE IS NOT MUCH OF A CONSERVATIVE

Post below excerpted from Dinocrat. See the original for links and more

President Bush made this important statement at the re-dedication of the Washington DC Islamic Center last week, via Daniel Pipes:

"I have invested the heart of my presidency in helping Muslims fight terrorism, and claim their liberty, and find their own unique paths to prosperity and peace."

This is a sentence that deserves to be read several times. The "heart of my presidency" - a very revealing phrase indeed. One must question whether the "heart" of any American presidency should be about people who are overwhelmingly not Americans, who live mostly very far away, and whose societies have so little in common with the Judeo-Christian-Enlightenment traditions passed down to us principally from England. We find the statement disturbing in its grandiosity. In electing George Bush, Americans did not elect a Pope, or Martin Luther, or the new rector of Al Azhar University, or president of the world.

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"PAPA DOC": IN MEMORIAM

"Papa Doc" Duvalier was the "quiet country doctor" who became the grisly dictator of Haiti from 1957 to 1971

The arrest of seven doctors in the attempted British terror bombings has shocked many people. Sadly, it shouldn't. All seven are Muslims working at government-financed hospitals, their salaries paid by the British taxpayer. Dr. Muhammad Hanif practiced at Halton Hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire; Dr. Muhammad Asha, at the North Staffordshire NHS Trust's University Hospital.

So can doctors be terrorists? Can people who are financially well-off be terrorists? Absolutely. It is ideology, after all, that turns people into terrorists - not suffering. Indeed, the No. 2 leader of al Qaeda is Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri - who was previously a stalwart of the Muslim Brotherhood in his native Egypt. Zawahiri made the connections that led to his role in al Qaeda when he went to Afghanistan in 1980 to provide medical care for jihadists fighting the Soviets. Later, he was a key architect of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed hundreds of innocents, and of the 9/11 attacks.

Other Islamist MDs include two recent leaders of the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Abdel Aziz Rantisi graduated first in his class from an Egyptian university in pediatrics; he succeeded slain cleric Ahmad Yassin as Hamas' chief in March 2004 - only to perish himself a month later. After him came Mahmoud al-Zahar (who had helped found Hamas in 1987), an Egyptian-trained surgeon who today is the most powerful man in the Gaza Strip. Even before the rise of Islamism, there were secular doctor-terrorists. Dr. George Habash, a founder and for three decades leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is now still active though enjoying his semi-retirement in Syria. The PFLP was one of the most bloodthirsty terrorist groups in history, with exploits such as a 1978 attack at Orly Airport in Paris and the 2002 shooting of five (including a mother and three children) in Itamar on the West Bank.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

More media fraud. Gateway Pundit has a roundup of the versions of the latest "horror story" in Iraq being reported by the MSM. The stories are all so different that one doubts whether anything really happened at all. Such differences would cause such a story to be thrown out in a court of law.

Comparing Economies: Two Respected Measures Put Bush 43's at or Near the Top: "Today's release of the Institute for Supply Management's Non-Manufacturing Activity Report, which measures business conditions in the 86% of the economy other than manufacturing, came in with a reading of 60.7, after recording a 59.7 last month. As has been customary, the report whipped the pants off of "expectations." This Thomson Financial article at Forbes predicted a decline to 58.1 instead of the full-point increase that occurred, as did this AFX piece. This was the 51st consecutive reported month of expansion for the Non-Manufacturing Index (any reading above 50 indicates expansion). It comes on the heels of Monday's ISM Manufacturing Report, which came in at 56, marking the 47th month of expansion in that index in the past 49 months. So 14% of the economy is expanding nicely, while the other 86% can fairly be said to be nearly booming. Who knew?"



Nearly 600 U.S. Troops Reenlist in Baghdad on Independence Day : "Hundreds of troops gathered at Al Faw Palace for the Multi-National Force-Iraq Reenlistment, Naturalization and Independence Day Ceremony today at Camp Victory. During the ceremony, 588 troops reenlisted and 161 were naturalized as American citizens. During the Multi-National Force-Iraq Reenlistment, Naturalization and Independence Day Ceremony July 4, 2007, at Camp Victory, Iraq, today 588 troops reenlisted and 161 were naturalized as American citizens"

Wilfully blind Brits: "On BBC Radio Four's Today programme this morning (0755 approx), the reformed Islamist extremist Hassan Butt patiently spelled out to presenter Jim Naughtie that Islamist terrorists carry out their acts of mass murder as an expression of religious faith and fervour. They do it, he said, `for the pleasure of God'. Far from being acts of despair, these terrible atrocities are acts of religious exultation. If we don't understand, even now, that what we are facing is a religious war, a jihad against the unbeliever and backsliding Muslims across the world we cannot possibly hope to defend ourselves against it. Yet while former Islamist extremists such as Hassan Butt and Ed Husain are urgently telling us the truth, Gordon Brown's new administration is shutting its ears and embarking on a suicidally stupid and cowardly strategy. Astoundingly, it has decided to deny the religious element of this jihad altogether, to redefine Islamic terrorism as mere criminality and to ban all terms that call this horror by its proper name"

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up. Some interesting new IQ data, among other things.

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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6 July, 2007

Economic Reds: A Diagnosis

More amusing than apocalyptic Greens are economic Reds. An economic red is not necessarily a socialist; he does not necessarily believe in, for instance, the abolition of private property, the planned economy, or treating profit as an anti-social crime. He does not necessarily think being rich is evil; in fact, some economic reds are quite rich themselves, and enjoy being rich. He is, however, gripped by three seductive fascinations--the views that 1) government is motherly and warm, 2) a halo attaches to the "leveling" of economic differences, and 3) there exists in corporations and in those who profit from commerce a residual stench of evil.

Economic reds grow up believing that compassion is the highest of all moral qualities, and that it serves as a kind of plenary indulgence making up for a lot of other sins. For some, this sentiment arises from the rational "fraternity" evoked by the Enlightenment. Others learned it from Deuteronomy, or the Sermon on the Mount. These Biblical sources preceded the Enlightenment by many centuries, and may have rendered the "reason" of the Enlightenment a good deal less cold, mathematical, and self-interested than it might otherwise have been. So, at least, Bertrand Russell, Richard Rorty, and Juergen Habermas--rationalists all--have suggested.

Sociologically, economic reds seem to be found far more often among artists, writers, and professors than among engineers, surgeons, agricultural scientists, realtors, and those who deal with the public as retailers or clerks. Some hard sciences that depend heavily on government subsidies tend also to nurture many economic reds--but also a surprising number of dissenters.

Beyond fantasizing about government as motherly, and about victims as helpless without it, economic reds also fantasize that businessmen, large corporations, and especially CEOs of large corporations, are villainous or, at least, shady. Few today call such persons, as vulgarly as FDR did, "economic royalists." FDR meant to suggest that the new white knights of government were like the heroic aristocrats who obliged King John to sign the Magna Carta, or the Cromwellian republicans who drove James II from power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Royalists were for FDR the bad guys. And to call businessmen "royalty" when they were not even "barons," let alone "robbers," was a bit of a low blow.

No, the real philosophical sex change that transformed manly "liberalism" from the party of opposition to government, ever watchful against government as liberty's chief foe, into an entirely different kind of liberalism, now the party of ever bigger and more "compassionate" government, was first made by John Dewey in 1935, in Liberalism and Social Action. Dewey wrote the instruction manual for the modern liberal in how to steal a potent term--one that had meant "free, independent, and self-governing"--and change it into its opposite: Big-government "liberalism" now meant government as the mothering nurse of the weak. From David Hume, Adam Smith, and Francis Hutcheson, Dewey fled to Hegel's "spirit of government"; from Anglo-Saxon history to a world of misty, geistliche concepts; from the old conviction that the New World had much to teach the Old, to the new conviction that the avant-garde battle flag to follow is European red. Thus did the grand dream emerge: Big government is to be visualized no longer as the main threat against the rights and liberties of local communities and independent persons, but as the nurturing mother of social good, from above.

A rather substantial number of union members among what quaintly used to be called "the working classes" are no longer economic reds, even though some others remain so. Many blue-collar workers want their sons and daughters to gain college degrees, and push them to seek out jobs in the professional and upper-middle classes. These parents have become economic "blues": They are mightily in favor of upward mobility, hard work, education, and entrepreneurship. They hate those economic reds who want to level society just as their own children are at last getting a chance to climb upwards. This observation helps explain why John Sweeney and other old-line trade-union leaders are having so hard a time delivering the votes of their members. Sweeney is far too red for many of his members, who look at the blue skies beckoning their children. The number of workers belonging to unions has dwindled, and the unions cannot deliver all the votes of the remaining members.

Thus, the only recruiting ground left for economic reds these days lies among "victims." This net is cast mainly to pull in racial minorities, although to some extent, too, certain segments (single women) of racial majorities. Both single women with children and widows understandably may be more attracted than others to a big, caring government that might fill the place of the missing earners in their lives.

That is why, in politics, economic reds strive mightily to instill victimhood in fellow citizens, and to picture them as helplessly in need of government's assistance. In trying to lift these victims, however, economic reds typically engender greater benefits to benefit-providers than to the poor. There is some merit in what economic reds try to do. Still, their method is like feeding horses as a way of getting to the swallows, when there are far more direct ways to do the job.

In short, the dream of economic reds is not a vision of an America driven forward by new entrepreneurs, new inventors, and those untamed "animal spirits" that are released by a good system of incentives. Rather, it is a vision of rule-making, curbs, limitations, bureaucratic selection among alternatives, new burdens on the private sector--and larger powers unwisely given to the federal government. While Senator Clinton calls her vision "progressive," most of us would call it "regressive." Economic reds are still mesmerized by the imaginary powers that they attribute to the motherly, "caring" state--but, fortunately, this illusion is harder to sell than it was in earlier, less experienced generations

More here

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ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON ICJS

Carter makes more money selling integrity than peanuts.
Hezbollah is a voice ofextremism, murder and hate
The three-state solution?
Nuclear Power and Anti-Semitism The Iranian threat to Israel
Crippled by paradigm paralysis
Islam the problem
Two-state solution finally works
World must join battle with hate
Seeing the truth
Hurtling into the darkness
Thirst for impact spoils political coverage
Terrorist twin
Letter re boycott of Israeli academia by British Uni union.
Response to Raphael Israeli
Where's the Outrage?
Sordid dance to a dead end with the devil we need
Desperate for Enlightenment
Israeli watchdog finds alarming level of indoctrination

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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5 July, 2007

Glorious Capitalism

It is sometimes difficult to conceive how dramatically living standards have improved thanks to economic liberalization, property rights, and the ability to trade. A column in the Wall Street Journal looks at how prosperity has improved everyone's lives:

Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of agriculture -- but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality of people's lives. Almost everyone lived on the modern equivalent of $400 to $600 a year, just above the subsistence level. True, there were always tiny aristocracies who lived far better, but numerically they were quite insignificant.

Then -- just a couple of hundred years ago, maybe 10 generations -- people started getting richer. And richer and richer still. Per capita income, at least in the West, began to grow at the unprecedented rate of about three quarters of a percent per year. A couple of decades later, the same thing was happening around the world. ...

Rising income is only part of the story. One hundred years ago the average American workweek was over 60 hours; today it's under 35. One hundred years ago 6% of manufacturing workers took vacations; today it's over 90%. One hundred years ago the average housekeeper spent 12 hours a day on laundry, cooking, cleaning and sewing; today it's about three hours. ...

The moral is that increases in measured income -- even the phenomenal increases of the past two centuries -- grossly understate the real improvements in our economic condition. The average middle-class American might have a smaller measured income than the European monarchs of the Middle Ages, but I suspect that Tudor King Henry VIII would have traded half his kingdom for modern plumbing, a lifetime supply of antibiotics and access to the Internet...

(Via Market Center blog)

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ELSEWHERE

The cringing Associated Press says that the would-be bombers in Britain were a "diverse" group! All Muslim doctors! How diverse can you get? In America, "diverse" means black. I guess in Britain it must mean "Muslim". Gateway Pundit and others are commenting on how the "M-word" is being avoided in reporting the attacks in Britain.

Seeing you read blogs, you may already have seen this story from Michael Yon about a massacre of Iraqi villagers by Al Qaeda. The mainstream media however are determinedly ignoring it so you would be unlikely to know about it unless you DO read a few blogs. To the mainstream media only Americans can be bad guys, of course. Al Qaeda is just misunderstood. Yon is an independent reporter who is actually on the ground in Iraq witnessing the events going on there and he has many pictures of it all.

Can animal rights activists behave like animals? They sure can. Read this post from Riehl World for a horrible example.

Hong Kong Benefits from Bad Policies in Europe: "Many EU residents who previously banked in Gibraltar, Cayman Islands or Switzerland have moved their portfolio to places not covered by the OECD, including Hong Kong and Singapore. The recent abolition of estate tax in Hong Kong has made it an even more attractive option worthy of consideration by those seeking to secure their assets and protect them from unfair taxation. ...More than 73,000 new Hong Kong companies were incorporated last year and there are now more than 800,000 companies on the Hong Kong companies register. ...And while the OECD continued its efforts to crack down on tax havens, the head of one Hong Kong trust company said he did not see the point. Jacques Scherman, managing director of Sovereign Trust (Hong Kong), said: "Tax havens are already intensely scrutinised and subject to strict anti-money laundering regulations. I do not think further scrutiny will achieve any useful end."

The United Kingdom Now Has a Bigger Government than Germany: "Public spending in Germany, as a percentage of total economic output, has fallen sharply in the past three years and is fast approaching British levels, according to a finance ministry study. The report, obtained by the Financial Times, shows state expenditures reached 45.6 per cent of gross domestic product last year, compared with 44.1 per cent in the UK, which is generally thought of as a low-tax, low-spending economy. . Instead of focusing on the fiscal deficit - the difference between state expenditures and revenues - the report concentrates solely on spending. The spending-to-GDP ratio fell from 47.1 to 45.6 per cent between 2004 and 2006, making Germany the fourth-smallest spender in the eurozone. The same ratio rose from 42.7 to 44.1 in the UK over the same period. . "Good progress has been made in the recent past, mainly in cutting public sector headcounts," said Winfried Fuest, economist at the business-funded IW economic institute. But he expressed worries about government being tempted "to spend more now that the economy is doing better".

Oppressed Canadians Finally Reach Tax Freedom Day: "American taxpayers worked until April 30 before they earned enough money to satisfy the rapacious demands of federal, state and local tax collectors. This is discouraging, but Americans should be grateful that they don't live in Canada. The Fraser Institute reveals that the average Canadian worked until June 20 before quenching the appetites of the political class. Taxpayers in Newfoundland and Labrador are still working as serfs for government. Their tax freedom day won't arrive until July 1"

More FEMA Incompetence: "USA Today reports that FEMA admits that it squandered $485 million on improper claims after the Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005, but that it has recovered only about 3 percent of the money. Unfortunately, there is every reason to suspect similar incompetence in the future. Rather than shrink FEMA and allow state and local governments to deal with what should be a state and local responsibility, politicians in Washington expanded the FEMA budget"

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 July, 2007

PEACENIKS: UNABLE TO COPE WITH REALITY

Excerpt from Dr Sanity

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc. Instead, these "pacifists" actually champion the terrorists; rationalizing terrorist behavior; refusing to call them to account for their uncivilized and barbaric actions;, demanding cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do); and have little or nothing to say about the standard terrorist operational policies that deliberately target the innocent.

You can find these these brave and loving peace activists marching in solidarity with these foul groups; proudly wearing the latest "hate couture", and imagining that their fashion statement shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are. They are unable to even appreciate the irony that it serves to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, those who are truly evil know they can get away with practically any horror; and that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity. For all their rhetoric to the contrary, the actual beneficiaries of the "antiwar" movement are the warmongering tyrants of the world whose naked aggression remains unchecked and is always rationalized away. The only outcome in the real world of all that lovely pacifism is the triumph of evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life. If you cannot consciously tap into the aggressive side of your human nature and permit the use of aggression and even violence to serve the good; you will inevitably end up serving all that is evil in the world.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth. In reality, they don't care much about human suffering, misery or even death; let alone the legacy of evil in the world. Through a variety of psychological defenses, they have managed to deny, displace, distort, and project real evil away. There cannot be found even a trace of psychological insight among all those angry marchers who violently and adamantly demand peace at any price.

For the carefree members of the antiwar movement, the triumph of evil is unimportant when compared to their own narcissistic need to appear virtuous and good. Like the parents ShrinkWrapped writes about, they will always find a way to externalize the blame for the consequences of their own self-delusion. Like Petunia, they will emphasize rhetoric over action; good intentions over actual behavior.

Antiwar activism is simply part of the left's ongoing struggle against reality; specifically, the reality of human nature. Aggression and violence are an integral part of human nature and are essential for human survival. These dangerous human qualities can either serve that which is good and decent about humanity, promoting human life and liberty and civilization; or, they can be used to support that which opposes life, liberty and civilization.

That is how the unconscious works; and how projective identification protects the user from having to come to terms with their own aggression. As these insightless fools bask in the glow of their radiant virtue, they fail to notice their own complicity with and appeasement of evil. Having absolved themselves of the requirement of making difficult moral choices in the real world; they have instead chosen the easy and facile rhetoric of self-delusion. That is why they are not bothered by real human suffering in the here and now; or by real oppression and tyranny. Their primary concern is in maintaing the fantasy that they are devoid of all those evil aggressive impulses that they, and they alone are the embodiment of perfect "peace" , "justice", and "brotherhood".

The track record of pacifism is horrendous. Not only do "peace movements" fail to bring peace; but by protecting, appeasing, and minimizing true evil, they ensure that war--when it inevitably comes--costs even more in terms of human suffering and lives.

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Hypocrisy is basic to the Left

All they believe in is power. Everything else is camouflage. Post below again excerpted from Dr. Sanity. See the original for links

One of the wondrous aspects of postmodern rhetoric, where reality and truth are only relative, is that anybody's "reality" is as good as anybody else's. For the dedicated postmodernist, polls and opinion are the final arbiters of truth; and the results of a poll or two, constructed along ideological lines to fit a particular template, is all you need to confirm your reality. Reality is a matter of opinion (simply ignore any polls that don't agree with your reality, of course).

This type of micraculous rhetoric can even determine today, what history will say many tomorrows from now. With enough repetition and passion, "history" can be set in stone in the temporal present! Extremely convenient for anyone who wants to avoid confronting their own contradictions in the present.

The rhetorical passion and word play is mere camouflage for the inherent philosophical and psychological contradictions that the postmodern left exploits in order to achieve and maximize political power. They are perfectly aware that their positions don't make any sense and can be refuted by anyone with basic knowledge of logic and logical fallacies; but their goal is to maintain the psychological denial necessary to believe in the left's ideology.

The possibility that the relativism is primary can be ruled out with some thought. If the modern leftist truly embraced relativism, then you would not see the uniformity of their politics or their reactions to events in the world. Instead, you would be able to observe an infinite number of postmodern leftist opinions and beliefs from all over the political spectrum. And, have you? Or, have you noticed that their opinions march completely in lockstep with their political ideology?

I must conclude from that observation that the moral relativism they preach so relentlessly as part of their multicultural drivel; and which equates the unceasing and institutional barbarity of terror groups like Al Qaeda with U.S. troops in Iraq; equates the deliberate targeting of innocents with herculean efforts to spare innocent life; equates Bush with Hitler; Iraq with Vietnam; etc. etc. are simple rhetorical devices that are being used to manipulate and advance their fundamentally socialist / totalitarian agenda.

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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 July, 2007

The Terrorist theology

An ex-Jihadi tells:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology....

... what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

More here

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The U.N. Gets even worse

Where does the global human rights movement stand in the seventh year of the 21st century? If the first year of the United Nations Human Rights Council is any indication, it's grown sick and cynical -- partly because of the fecklessness and flexible morality of some of the very governments and groups that claim to be most committed to democratic values.

At a session in Geneva last week, the council -- established a year ago in an attempt to reform the U.N. Human Rights Commission -- listened to reports by special envoys appointed by its predecessor condemning the governments of Cuba and Belarus. It then abolished the jobs of both "rapporteurs" in a post-midnight maneuver orchestrated by its chairman, who announced a "consensus" in spite of loud objections by the ambassador from Canada that there was no such accord.

While ending the scrutiny of those dictatorships, the council chose to establish one permanent and special agenda item: the "human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories." In other words, Israel (or "Palestine," in the council's terminology), alone among the nations of the world, will be subjected to continual and open-ended examination. That's in keeping with the record of the council's first year: Eleven resolutions were directed at the Jewish state. None criticized any other government.

Genocide in Sudan, child slavery and religious persecution in China, mass repression in Zimbabwe and Burma, state-sponsored murder in Syria and Russia -- and, for that matter, suicide bombings by Arab terrorist movements -- will not receive systematic attention from the world body charged with monitoring human rights. That is reserved only for Israel, a democratic country that has been guilty of human rights violations but also has been under sustained assault from terrorists and governments openly committed to its extinction.

The old human rights commission, which was disparaged by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan for casting "a shadow on the United Nations system as a whole," frequently issued unbalanced condemnations of Israel but also typically adopted half a dozen resolutions a year aimed at the worst human rights abusers. For the new council, Israel is the only target.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

North America's Welfare State appendage: "The Conference Board of Canada, a non-governmental, non-partisan, nonprofit think tank with a habit of stating unvarnished and often unflattering truths about Canada, came out this month with a doleful "report card" on the Canadian performance. The distinguishing Canadian characteristic, it said, is "mediocrity." Governments, businesses and people all "punch below their weight." Comparing Canada with other developed nations, it noted that "too often we trail the pack." Canadians are "unwilling to take risks." Since the nation's power to innovate is "stunningly poor," it lags seriously in the global economy. It is slow to bring out new products, though its governments offer some of the best tax breaks and subsidies in the world. "The average person," said Board President Anne Golden, "still thinks things are pretty good." The report had bad news. They aren't."

What astounding rubbish! "Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities in a bloodstained corridor along the East Coast are seeing a surge in killings, and one of the most provocative explanations offered by criminal-justice experts is this: not enough new immigrants. The theory holds that waves of hardworking, ambitious immigrants reinvigorate desperately poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods and help keep crime down. It is a theory that runs counter to the widely held notion that immigrants are a source of crime and disorder."

The tired old Leftist explanation of "poverty" for all misdeeds won't work this time either: "A suspected terror gang, at least two of whom are doctors, were being questioned today after being trapped by their mobile phones. Anti-terrorist detectives swooped on five members of the gang across Britain after gathering crucial clues from phones found in the two London car bombs. The phones were meant to trigger a blast when they were called. The bombers twice called the car outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, and the one in Cockspur Street four times, but the bombs failed to detonate for technical reasons. Traces on the mobile phones' calls led police to addresses in Liverpool, Staffordshire and Glasgow."

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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2 July, 2007

It only counts if you are killed by a professional

Post excerpted from Dinocrat. See the original for links

Apparently, it only counts, or at least counts much more, if you are killed by a "sophisticated" or "top-grade" professional, certainly not by someone whose tactics are "amateurish". Otherwise, things in London are fine. Here are selected quotes from the NYT on London:

the technology behind two thwarted car bombings in central London seemed to be amateurish.they didn't go off because there were not top-grade people putting them together.some experts have questioned the level of sophistication involved in the devices.the construction of the devices left in central London early on Friday morning "does not look very professional".a private research group, said the "amateur construction" of the devices and the way they were placed "suggest the plotter or plotters have no connection to a major militant organization".Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, declared today: "I think people are completely safe to walk about the streets of London today and tomorrow."

Apparently, it only counts if you are killed by a sophisticated, top-grade professional, which seems such an odd spin for the MSM to sell, given that the MO of the enemy has always been brutality and bloodlust, not professionalism and sophistication. Perhaps they've watched too much TV and too many spy movies....

Would the NYT have ever covered lynchings (which in total numbered over 3000 in the USA) by the KKK and others of innocent men, women and children by referring to the events in even one sentence or phrase as "amateurish" and "unsophisticated," and not the work of "top-grade people"?

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CHARITY DOES NOT HELP GOVERNMENTS MUCH EITHER

The consensus view is that the "Marshall Plan" was the catalyst for Europe's economic revival after World War II..... While countries have traditionally revived themselves economically through lower taxes, tariffs, and regulations, along with more credible currencies, the Marshall Plan was about offering financial aid to a devastated Europe - specifically $13 billion that was distributed between 1947 and 1951. As economist Reuven Brenner pointed out in his 2001 book, The Force of Finance, total aid amounted to roughly 5 to 10 percent of European GNP, about the same amount given to Europe after World War I. Brenner noted that no miracles occurred due to aid after the first war, so it seems a bit of a reach to assume Marshall Plan funds were any more effective.

More realistically, Brenner points to the influx into West Germany of 12 million mostly well-trained immigrants escaping the "promise" of the Communist-bloc countries, not to mention rapidly falling income-tax rates, as the cure for what ailed Germany. In 1948, the marginal tax rate there was 50 percent for annual income of $600 and above, and those who made more than $15,000 were taxed at 95 percent. Conversely, by 1955 the top tax rate was lowered to 63 percent for incomes of more than $250,000, and the 50 percent bracket started at $42,000.

Though Japan did not fall under the Marshall Plan umbrella, the U.S. offered the nearly destroyed country financial aid, along with lots of economic "solutions" including wage and price controls, greater government oversight of industry, and a heavily devalued yen. But as Nathan Lewis wrote in Hard Money, it was only when Japan ended "wage and price controls, liberated industry from government control, demolished subsidies, ended U.S. economic aid, and brought the central government's budget into balance" that its economy began to grow.

According to Lewis, Japan's government cut taxes every year from 1950 to 1974, and contrary to those who liken tax cuts to "free lunches," government revenues skyrocketed. Though revenues were 1.8 trillion yen in 1960, they rose to 7.75 trillion yen in 1970, despite the yearly cuts in taxes.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

See here for the latest bogus media "news" story from Iraq.

Congress condemns Iranian leader: "On June 20, the US House of Representatives passed HConRes21, calling for indictment of the President of Iran for incitement to genocide, based on his calls to wipe Israel off the map. by vote of 402 to 2. This is a landmark resolution, because it probably is the first time ever that there is a call for legal action by a major legislative body to prevent genocide by holding those accountable for incitement and hate language, which are known predictors and catalysts of genocide. Its wording is a template for the prevention of all genocides, and is based on previous research, work and statements by the Hebrew University from its Genocide Prevention Program"

Blair speaks out: "Tony Blair has launched a powerful attack on 'absurd' British Islamists who have nurtured a false 'sense of grievance' that they are being oppressed by Britain and the United States. In his most outspoken remarks on Islamists, the former Prime Minister warns that Britain is in danger of losing the battle against terrorists unless mainstream society confronts the threat. Blair's remarks, in which he also attacks some civil liberty campaigners as 'loopy loo', were made in a Channel 4 documentary recorded last Tuesday on the eve of his departure from Downing Street. 'The idea that as a Muslim in this country that you don't have the freedom to express your religion or your views, I mean you've got far more freedom in this country than you do in most Muslim countries,' Blair told Observer columnist Will Hutton, who presents the documentary. 'The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."'



Numerous cartoons recently published in the Arab press dealt with the Hamas takeover of Gaza: Some of the cartoons condemned the brutal murders perpetrated by Hamas, implied that they have led the movement, as well as the Palestinian cause, to a dead end, and presented the fighting among the Palestinians as shocking and pointless. Others presented the civil war as the result of an American-Israeli plot carried out with the collaboration of Fatah. And one cartoon even depicted Gaza as an Iranian nuclear outpost. In the cartoon above the newspaper headline says "The Internal Palestinian Conflict." The Jew holding the paper is laughing "ha ha ha." [Note that the cartoonist seems to have a low opinion of Arab IQ. He identifies the orthodox Jew by his big hat, big coat, big nose and hair ringlets but is still not sure his readers will get the message so he adds a star of David on the hat!]

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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1 July, 2007

Conservative Process Leads To Conservative Results

A classically conservative statement excerpted from Democracy Project below. See the original for links

Conservatism is not about transitory results or means. Conservatism is about process. As I wrote yesterday, conservatism requires that we "move forward based on solid evidence, means, plans, purpose, and competence." When one has that process, the results that merit survival will survive. That is essentially conservative governance. It entails more the avoidance of poor choices than, even, the making of good ones. It recognizes that grand designs are most often not so grand, as they fail to encompass the very diversity of legitimate means and ends of a democratic and free society, particularly one so large and vibrant as ours, and instead stifle individuals' circumstances and, thus, the adaptation and ingenuity upon which continued personal and national success depends.

Mark is correct to point at the Internet as an embodiment of that civic discussion, serving to remind otherwise imperious legislators. Ed is correct to bemoan the extent of intrusion into our daily affairs by such legislators and seek their reversal. Mark and Ed are invaluable resources in those struggles. Both, however, miss that it is process that matters more than results. Rich Lowry, of National Review, reminds us that, "Now, there is really no such thing as an "inside game" anymore, since bloggers make sure it gets "outside." Both the right and the left will take advantage of this, for good and ill policy ends. But it's clearly an enhancement of democracy."

Conservatives, and America, can survive the openness of democracy, and rise with it even when disagreements or disappointments occur. We can't survive the absence of democracy, which rests upon and is bereft without an informed and active citizenry and an open process. This past week was a triumph for democratic process, which is what is most beneficial to conservatives and which we should care most about. The results may not always be consistent with a conservative's desires, but they will have been arrived at in a conservative way -- meaning respectful of true diversity as the well-spring of progress, compared to the stultification, and in totalitarian extremes the bloody repression, from imposition of self-serving and grand designs.

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ELSEWHERE

Bush is shrinking the deficit too fast: "Darn you, George Bush. Bloomberg reported that the federal budget deficit is shrinking so fast that there is a shortage of government debt: "That's because the unexpected surge in tax receipts may pare the budget deficit by 39 percent to $150 billion this fiscal year, causing a relative scarcity of four-week, three-month and six-month bills. The result is the biggest bull market for Treasury bills since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 drove investors to the safety of the securities. This is driving down the interest that taxpayers have to pay, Bloomberg reported"

More Ted Kennedy dishonesty: "Mr. Kennedy is responsible for our immigration mess more than any other human being on the planet. But last night he was on ABC News complaining that the borders are porous! That is unmitigated gall. Who has been the most powerful Senator on immigration for four decades? Who has left the door open, with malice aforethought, to change American democraphics? Who has surely blocked enforcement more than anyone else? For Ted Kennedy to spin the defeat of the Senate immigration bill as a defeat for border enforcement shows the same lack of conscience that we saw displayed in the case of Mary Jo Kopechne, so many years ago. It is high time for the people of Massachussetts to throw out Kerry and Kennedy, and start from scratch. They can't possibly do any worse. With leaders like this, it is no wonder the Democrat Party has adopted American defeat in the war on terror as its overriding foreign policy goal."

The peasants are revolting: "The liberal media cannot believe that the immigration bill was defeated by people concerned about little things like mass violations of our sovereignty and rewarding law-breakers. It just has to be racism on the part of the unwashed... Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light, with one of the best eyes for photography on the web, caught the Los Angeles Times in full sneer mode a couple of days ago. Today, he caught the Washington Post blaming small town Americans from places "where men take their sons deer hunting and moms call out to one another in the supermarket in cheerful Southern drawls... [and] the highways leading out of the city have been colonized by the usual sprawl of Home Depot, PetSmart and OfficeMax big-box stores...." Once again, liberals who fashion themselves good people for their concern over the little guy can't help displaying their disdain for those who shop at Wal-Mart."

Leftist denial of reality in full spate: "When he was in office and responsible for protecting us, Al Gore was absent from the war on terror. As Vice President, he was part of an administration that failed to respond to the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993; that cut and ran when al-Qaeda ambushed US Army Rangers in Mogadishu; that called for regime change in Iraq when Saddam expelled the UN weapons inspectors but then failed to remove Saddam or to get him to allow the UN inspectors back in; that failed to respond to the murder of US troops in Saudi Arabia or the attack on an American warship in Yemen; that reacted to the blowing up two US embassies in Africa by firing missiles at an aspirin factory in the Sudan and empty tents in Afghanistan; that refused to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden when it had a dozen chances to do so; and that did not put in place simple airport security measures, its own task force recommended, that would have prevented 9/11.... Yet, it is characteristic of Gore's myopic arrogance that he would wag his finger at the Bush administration for its failure to anticipate the 9/11 attack."

Church destroyed in Gaza, Gaza's Christians fear for their lives: "Christians living in Gaza City on Monday appealed to the international community to protect them against increased attacks by Muslim extremists. Many Christians said they were prepared to leave the Gaza Strip as soon as the border crossings are reopened. The appeal came following a series of attacks on a Christian school and church in Gaza City over the past few days. Father Manuel Musalam, leader of the small Latin community in the Gaza Strip, said masked gunmen torched and looted the Rosary Sisters School and the Latin Church. "The masked gunmen used rocket-propelled grenades to storm the main entrances of the school and church," he said. "Then they destroyed almost everything inside, including the Cross, the Holy Book, computers and other equipment." Musalam expressed outrage over the burning of copies of the Bible, noting that the gunmen destroyed all the Crosses inside the church and school. "Those who did these awful things have no respect for Christian-Muslim relations," he said."

Note from a Marine in Iraq: "As I'm sure most of you are aware, a planned dual car bomb attack was foiled in the early morning hours (EST) in downtown London. I'm watching FoxNews/SkyNews on AFN here and it's horrible to watch. Two car bombs (here in Iraq we call them "suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices" or SVBIEDs... pronounced "ess-vee-bid") in different blocks of the city. They were only foiled by the vigilance of an ambulance crew and alert police. God bless those who turned up on-scene here and defused the bomb and saved possibly scores or hundreds of innocent lives. The parallels between the attempted attack in London and SVBIED attacks in Iraq are striking. Parking a vehicle loaded with explosives near crowded civilian population areas, not to achieve a tactical victory but solely to strike fear into the hearts of the innocent. It happens frequently and its biggest effect is to highlight the inhumanity of these monsters who deliberately and repeatedly target people just trying to go about their daily lives. One might hope this is the last attack we'll see like this -- anywhere -- but it is doubtful."

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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