The original of this mirror site is HERE. My Blogroll; The archive; My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here. Other mirror sites (viewable in China): Greenie Watch, Political Correctness Watch, Education Watch, Gun Watch, Socialized Medicine, Recipes and Australian Politics. (Click "Refresh" on your browser if background colour is missing)
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31 May, 2006

Smart army man trumps scare-mongering media



An Australian military commander has tried to ensure truth does not become a casualty of conflict in East Timor, but embarrassed a TV network in the process. Australian commander in East Timor Brigadier Michael Slater appeared this morning in a live cross from Dili to the Nine Network's Today show, with helmeted and heavily armed Australian soldiers standing behind him. He was pressed by Today host Jessica Rowe about whether Dili really was as safe as the Australian military claimed, given the presence of armed soldiers at his shoulder. Pausing briefly, Brig Slater replied: "Jessica I feel quite safe, yes, but not because I've got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good. "I don't need these guys here. "It is not safe on the streets, as it is back home in Sydney or Brisbane - no it's not, if it was we wouldn't be here. But things are getting better every day."

Rowe apologised, saying she didn't realise the guards had been placed specifically for the interview. But Rowe ran into more trouble when she persisted with her line of questioning, and referred to footage of looting and violence. Brig Slater told her the pictures were a "couple of days old". TV rival the Seven Network gleefully circulated grabs of the interview this morning.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

The war on poverty: "Four decades after President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964 it remains a compelling need in America. The US Census Bureau still measures poverty in great detail, and the total number of people living in poverty during each of the past 40 years has remained stubbornly high. After hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent to aid impoverished Americans, the conventional wisdom is that more than 35 million are still without adequate income. Conventional wisdom describes the 'poor' as a large and persistent group of families and individuals left out of the economic success of America. Enduring debilitating poverty, the poor -- a group of individuals larger than California's entire population -- are entitled to political advocates, specially funded programs, and government bureaucracies to coordinate benefits. Fortunately for America, the basic description of the poor is wrong. And therefore public policy based upon an aggregate view of poverty is inherently misinformed."

The death of the nation-state: "The disintegration of Yugoslavia, the second partition of Czechoslovakia and the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 nations -- many of which had never before existed -- seem to confirm what Israeli historian Martin van Creveld and U.S. geostrategist William Lind have written. The nation-state is dying. Men have begun to transfer their allegiance, loyalty and love from the older nations both upward to the new transnational regimes that are arising and downward to the sub-nations whence they came, the true nations, united by blood and soil, language, literature, history, faith, tradition and memory. Imperial and ideological nations appear, for the foreseeable future, to be finished."

Federal Government regulations Created Hawaii's Asphalt Shortage: "An article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on Tuesday May 16, 2006 is a study in economics and the results of government interference in the marketplace. Detailing the shortage of asphalt the article reveals that government is, in fact, the cause of the shortage. The problem is that there are only two oil refineries in Hawaii and one of them, Chevron, has stopped producing asphalt. The reason given for this is that "the federal government is requiring refiners to produce gasoline and diesel that have a lower sulfur content" so Chevron has switched to a lighter type of crude oil. Tesoro, the company that owns the other refinery in the state, is waiting for a shipment of the proper type of crude to then produce the needed liquid asphalt. In the meantime the city of Honolulu has stopped repairing potholes and several projects around the state are on hold. Companies dependent upon asphalt for their products are closing and employees are being laid off."

This was written in the 18th century!: "There are no more Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, even Englishmen, nowadays, regardless of what people may say; there are only Europeans. All have the same tastes, the same passions, the same morals, because none has been given a national form by a distinctive institution. All will do the same things under the same circumstances; all will declare themselves disinterested and be cheats; all will speak of the public good and think only of themselves; all will praise moderation and wish to be Croesuses; they have no other ambition than for luxury, no other passion than for gold. Confident that with it they will have whatever tempts them, all will sell themselves to the first man willing to pay them. What do they care what master they obey, the laws of what State they follow? Provided they find money to steal and women to corrupt, they are at home in any country."

Second-rate British academics attack Israel: "The British government regrets the decision by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) to vote in favor of boycotting Israeli academics and institutions, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Lord Triesman said Monday. "The British Government has a record of supporting academic freedom for academics throughout the world. We also recognize the independence of NATFHE. We believe that such academic boycotts are counterproductive and retrograde. Far more can be obtained through dialogue and academic cooperation," a statement read".

Iraq Less Violent than Washington, D.C. : "Despite media coverage purporting to show that escalating violence in Iraq has the country spiraling out of control, civilian death statistics complied by Rep. Steve King, R-IA, indicate that Iraq actually has a lower civilian violent death rate than Washington, D.C. ... Using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research, King said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000. While that number sounds high - astonishingly, the Iowa Republican discovered that it's significantly lower than a number of major American cities, including the nation's capital. "It's 45 violent deaths per 100,000 in Washington, D.C.," King told Crowley. Other American cities with higher violent civilian death rates than Iraq include: Detroit - 41.8 per 100,000; Baltimore - 37.7 per 100,000"

There is a revealing, though somewhat dated, comment on "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan here

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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30 May, 2006

ALICE IN AMERICALAND

Some excerpts:

The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for informing our terrorist enemies who want to kill us that our government was listening to their cell phone calls. A prize? For aiding and abetting the enemy during wartime? The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that the CIA held terrorists in "secret prisons" in Europe. The problem is, the same newspaper has since reported that Europeans investigated and found zero evidence that any secret prisons ever existed.

The U.S. Senate is cracking down on illegal immigration with a new law that will allow merely 193 million aliens into the country over the next 20 years. That should solve the problem, since we've had only 12 million illegals sneak into the country over the past 20 years. This way we can increase the flow by 171 million simply by making it legal. That should be a big boost to the school and health care systems, to say nothing of rush-hour traffic.

Iran, which wants to become a nuclear power, says the U.S. is the great Satan and that Israel should be wiped off the map. So we have turned the matter over to the United Nations and its courageous corps of foppish European diplomats, Third World crooks and assorted despots and dictators. If this isn't Alice in Wonderland thinking, what is?...

The ACLU has announced that no one should think it's launching a war on Christianity, despite filing lawsuits for decades from coast to coast to remove any reference to God, bar any utterance about Jesus and prohibit any instruction concerning the Lord from every public venue.

Vanity Fair's magazine cover headline insists global warming is a worse threat than terrorism, despite the fact so-called global warming may have managed to heat the earth all of one degree Fahrenheit over the last century, and fluctuated far more radically hundreds and thousands of years ago, long before factories or SUVs....

Democrat Party chief Howard Dean says his party has evangelical Christian values, even though they are for males committing sodomy with other males, women marrying women, men marrying men, children being raised without a mother or without a father if one of the spouses wants it that way, mothers killing their babies if they don't wish to be bothered by them, cloning humans to destroy them and then harvest their parts, keeping cold-blooded murderers alive, enforcing "charity" by taking your money at gunpoint and giving it to someone else, trying to understand people who have sworn to kill us, keeping God out of schools where children might hear about Him and extending the rights of law-abiding citizens to law-breaking foreigners.

On second thought, I'll keep reading my granddaughter Alice in Wonderland. She's got a really good imagination, but this other stuff is just too hard to believe.

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Socialist Britain: "The growth in public spending in northern areas of Britain is so rampant that it is resulting in the "sovietisation" of swathes of the country, new figures show. Gordon Brown, the chancellor, has pushed up national public spending beyond the levels of former communist countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.... The "sovietisation" of parts of Britain as a result of Brown's huge increases in public spending looks even more dramatic when the figures are adjusted for comparison with other countries. On this basis, public spending is equivalent to 76.2% of the size of the Northern Ireland economy this year, 66.2% in Wales, 64.9% in the northeast, 57.7% in Scotland and 56.1% in the northwest. This compares with 56.1% in high-spending Sweden, 54.1% in France, 51.9% in former communist Hungary, 51.5% in Denmark, 46% in Germany, 42.6% in the Czech Republic, 41.2% in Poland and 36.3% in Slovakia. Sir Digby Jones, director- general of the CBI, the employers' organisation, said that he was increasingly concerned about the "crowding out" of the private sector by a rapidly expanding public sector. "I'm very, very worried about this," he said. "The private sector is responsible for around 62% of GDP in China - a communist, totalitarian regime." In the northeast of "the fifth largest economy in the world" there is a mirror image, he pointed out, with the public sector responsible for nearly 62% of GDP."

'Alimony' coming for unmarried in Britain: "Unmarried couples who live together for more than two years are to be given new legal and financial rights under official proposals to be unveiled this week, write Isabel Oakeshott and John Elliott. Under the Law Commission plans, cohabiting couples will be entitled to lump sums and annual maintenance payments if they split up, and some inheritance benefits in the event of a death. The changes were criticised by the Church of England, which said it was concerned by any proposals that could "undermine the gift of marriage".

Charley Reese on "reparations": "I don't feel guilty about slavery. I don't feel guilty about the fate of Native Americans. In fact, I don't feel guilty about anything that happened prior to the date of my birth. I never owned a slave or desired to, nor did I ever shoot an Indian and steal his land. I say this because there are a lot of special-interest groups trying to lay guilt trips on Americans of European ancestry. That is nothing more than a con game. All we inherit from our ancestors are genes.... People who never owned slaves who apologize to people who were never slaves only succeed in making public fools of themselves. Our ancestors don't give half a cow pie what we think of them. People who were never slaves and want people who never owned slaves to pay them money are just trying to pull off a con job. Good luck if they can find somebody stupid enough to fall for it.

Walter Williams on "reparations": "But, in the recognition Europeans themselves have been victims of various and sundry human rights violations to wit: the Norman Conquest, the Irish Potato Famine, Decline of the Hapsburg Dynasty, Napoleonic and Czarist adventurism, and gratuitous insults and speculations about the intelligence of Europeans of Polish descent, I, Walter E. Williams, do declare full and general amnesty and pardon to all persons of European ancestry, for both their own grievances, and those of their forebears, against my people. Therefore, from this day forward Americans of European ancestry can stand straight and proud knowing they are without guilt and thus obliged not to act like damn fools in their relationships with Americans of African ancestry."

George Will on the Leftist "plantation": "The unbearable boredom occasioned by most of today's talk about race is alleviated by a slender, stunning new book. In "White Guilt," Shelby Steele, America's most discerning black writer, casts a cool eye on yet another soft bigotry of low expectations-the ruinous "compassion" of a theory of social determinism that reduces blacks to, in Steele's word, "non-individuated" creatures. That reduction is the basis of identity politics-you are your (racial, ethnic, sexual) group. A pioneer of this politics, which is now considered "progressive," was, Steele says, George Wallace. He, too, insisted that race is destiny.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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29 May, 2006

POLITICAL PARASITES

In our modern politicized economy - which National Journal columnist Jonathan Rauch called the "parasite economy" - no good deed goes unpunished for long. Some people want to declare Google a public utility that must be regulated in the public interest, perhaps by a federal Office of Search Engines. The Bush administration wants Google to turn over a million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from a one-week period. Congress is investigating how the company deals with the Chinese government's demands for censorship of search results by Chinese users. So, like Microsoft and other companies before it, Google has decided it will have to start playing the Washington game. It has opened a Washington office and hired well-connected lobbyists. One of the country's top executive search firms is looking for a political director for the company.

What should concern us here is how the government lured Google into the political sector of the economy. For most of a decade the company went about its business, developing software, creating a search engine better than any of us could have dreamed, and innocently making money. Then, as its size and wealth drew the attention of competitors, anti-business activists, and politicians, it was forced to start spending some of its money and brainpower fending off political attacks. It's the same process Microsoft went through a few years earlier, when it faced the same sorts of attacks. Now Microsoft is part of the Washington establishment, with more than $9 million in lobbying expenditures last year.....

Microsoft went through the same hazing, though with more of an edge. A congressional aide said, "They don't want to play the D.C. game, that's clear, and they've gotten away with it so far. The problem is, in the long run they won't be able to." Sorta like, "Hey, Bill, nice little company ya got there. Shame if anything happened to it." And companies get the message: If you want to produce something in America, you'd better play the game. Contribute to politicians' campaigns, hire their friends, go hat in hand to a congressional hearing and apologize for your success.

The tragedy is that the most important factor in America's economic future - in raising everyone's standard of living - is not land, or money, or computers; it's human talent. And some part of the human talent at another of America's most dynamic companies is now being diverted from productive activity to protecting the company from political predation. The parasite economy has sucked in another productive enterprise.

More here

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Another "hate crime" that wasn't: "A case of alleged hate crime in Des Moines has a bizarre ending. Several times over the winter, the Hermasillo family thought they were the targets of hate crimes. Two of the family's cars were set on fire and their house at 317 S.W. Watrous Ave. in Des Moines was broken into and vandalized. "The house was a mess, graffitti on the walls -- KKK, wetbacks, go back to Mexico -- on the door here, was a Nazi sign," Luis Silva told KCCI in February. Silva lived in the house with the Hermasillo family, but he was later kicked out of the house. Des Moines police now say Silva is accused of doing the vandalism. "He fabricated everything," Sgt. Tony Steverson said. Steverson said Silva burned cars and vandalized the Hermasillo's home in an effort to convince the family he was needed as protection. Silva is charged with arson, stalking, criminal mischief and filing false police reports. He is being held in the Polk County Jail.

Is racism worse now than in the 80s?: "Racism and sexism may be deepening despite decades of measures aimed at cleansing them from society. This conclusion is suggested by the ugly and unrelenting public backlash that surrounds the Duke Lacrosse case in which a black female was allegedly raped by three white males. If racism and sexism are deepening, I believe it is because of and not despite the measures now being taken. Racism shares many political characteristics with sexism, and the two are usually addressed in a similar manner; almost identical laws and policies seek to eliminate or otherwise control both."

Senate reveals ugly underside of the "nanny state": "According to populist presidential 'wannabe' John McCain (R.-AZ), illegals deserve access to the social security funds because they paid taxes. Yet nobody seems to know how much they paid, what percentage of their paychecks was withheld by the government, or how much more they have cost American society than they may have paid into the system. The lingering myth that social programs exist for the 'good of the people' has just been shredded by the proposed Senate action. Such programs were never devised to assist those in need, but rather for the political empowerment of the individuals dispensing the 'benefits.' Although liberals in Congress wailed that President Bush's proposal to privatize a tiny portion of Social Security would bankrupt the system, they are now perfectly willing to give away an enormously larger portion of those funds to the millions of illegals working in the dark fringes of the U.S. economy."

What conservative paradigm?: "While we have some conservative-oriented politicians, who occasionally pass some conservative-oriented legislation, the truth is that on the truly big issues on the ground, America is still in the grip of the liberal paradigm that came into existence under FDR. The American people may in some sense be 'conservative,' but the political, intellectual, and economic elites that set the terms of debate, and largely control the direction of society, are most definitely liberal -- indeed, in many ways, more so than they ever have been."

Canada now "vibrant": "In Canada, guns and gangs are a relatively new phenomenon, particularly in Toronto, known as "Toronto the Good" for its traditionally safe streets and low homicide rates. There were 52 deadly handgun shootings in the city in 2005, compared with 12 in 1995. Police and social workers alike attribute the acts largely to young black males - many of whom are the children of West Indian immigrants - who feel marginalized and drop out of school early to join the "gangsta" culture where they make quick money through drugs, guns, or prostitution."

Publicity-seeking at Ellis Island: "British music producer Adam Kidron, who sparked controversy last month with the release of a Spanish-language version of the national anthem, will present the song and its album, "Somos Americanos (We Are Americans)" live in concert Tuesday at Ellis Island. The album features "El Himno Nacional" along with a compilation of previously released songs by artists from across Latin America and the United States, all singing about the immigrant experience. "We were very happy to get permission to perform on Ellis Island because of symbolism of the place," said Kidron, who also invited Latino veterans to attend the event in honor of Memorial Day. Kidron had said he hoped the song would be become the anthem of recent pro-immigrant protest marches. Yet despite the publicity and accompanying backlash the song generated, it has gotten little play. It garnered 95 plays in the first week but hasn't been played since on any stations tracked by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, according to Billboard Magazine"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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28 May, 2006

NO CONSISTENCY OR PRINCIPLE ON THE LEFT

Burt Prelutsky thinks Leftists are nuts. The relevant clinical diagnostic category is psychopathy

The thing that has me stumped is trying to figure out what leftists want. For example, when left-wing judges take it upon themselves to legislate from the bench, liberals are quick to say that the Constitution is a living document and that it has to evolve to accommodate a changing world. However, whenever a conservative suggests that the 14th amendment, which grants automatic citizenship on any person born in America, ought to be changed to deny that gift to those born to illegal aliens, those same people carry on as if the Constitution, like the 10 Commandments, was carved in stone.

But, really, we have no reason to believe that the Founding Fathers, who fought a war to gain sovereignty for this nation, wouldn't have entertained second thoughts if they'd ever envisioned a foreign invasion numbering in the millions. I mean, it's a basic tenet of the law that nobody is entitled to profit from a crime. To suggest that the child, the beneficiary of his parents' illegal act, doesn't profit is patently absurd. To argue that he shouldn't be deprived of the advantage because he didn't break the law, is ridiculous. You might as well suggest that if a bank robber gives his ill-gotten gains to his wife and kids, the family should get to keep the loot because, after all, they weren't the ones who drove the getaway car.

Another thing about liberals I can't begin to figure out is their abiding devotion to failed economic theories. The fact that communism hasn't worked anywhere in the world doesn't cool their ardor in the slightest. The fact that Marx's brainstorm invariably metastasizes into a despotic tyranny - be it in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Cambodia or Venezuela - doesn't make the slightest impression on them. Neither does the fact that socialism has brought much of Europe to the brink of moral and financial bankruptcy faze them in the least.

In our own country, the most obvious failure of socialism is Social Security, the single largest pyramid scheme ever conceived by the mind of man. When Ponzi did it, he went to jail for fraud; when Roosevelt pulled it off, he was hailed as a savior. As someone or other once observed, if you're going to steal, steal big.

So why is it that leftists continue to promote these half-cocked alternatives to capitalism, the only economic program that's ever motivated people to aspire, to compete, to achieve and to innovate? Well, I hate to be impolite, but when people keep doing the same thing in spite of getting the same rotten results, we have been told by experts in the field that it's a pretty sure sign of insanity. And just in case any doubt remains, you merely have to look to those who speak on their behalf. Assuming you're not a cuckoo yourself, can you possibly imagine rallying around the unappetizing likes of Gore and Kerry, Schumer and Durbin, Kennedy and Rangel, Leahy and Biden, Byrd and Boxer, Sharpton and Jackson, McKinney and Waters, Al Franken and Michael Moore, George Soros and Norman Lear, Hillary and Bill, and Jimmy Carter?

More here

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ELSEWHERE



Saturday night's massacre: "America, Mark Twain said, is a nation without a distinct criminal class 'with the possible exception of Congress.' Apparently nothing changes. This week it was the Democratic Party's turn to feel chagrined as one of its own was captured on tape taking bribes. William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) was allegedly involved in a Nigerian Internet scam. No, not that Nigerian Internet scam, the one that shows up in your email inbox each time you log on. Congressman Jefferson, after all, is no dummy. He is a 'Harvard-trained' lawyer. His scam was a bit more sophisticated. Faced with yet another malefactor in their ranks, congressional leaders sought to divert the media's attention, while they doubtless made desperate phone calls to their staff with orders to shred evidence and bury the bodies."

A serious challenge for the New York Times: "The Times is launching a US edition next month that will be printed at facilities owned by its News Corporation sibling the New York Post. "This is a key moment in the development of The Times as an international media brand," the paper's Australian-born editor, Robert Thompson, said in a statement last night. "We have seen a large increase in our Times Online readership in the US and the appearance of the newspaper on the streets of New York marks the next stage in our print and web expansion." The launch is set for June 6, the week the football World Cup kicks off in Germany. [A repeat of Murdoch's Fox TV success would put the cat among the pigeons!]

A sign of the times: "Hell has frozen over. In a debate in Congress it took a well-known Left-wing Democrat, Barney Frank, to refer to Hayek and Mises to chastise Republicans for supporting subidies to agriculture. The Republican Party has gone far astray that even a man as far Left as Rep. Frank is more free market on this issue. Here is what Frank had to say ..."

Sin cities on a hill : "'Now we see,' Wolf complains at the Sheraton, 'as if our nation isn't saturated enough with gambling, a group of investors this spring has announced plans to try to open a casino two miles from historic Gettysburg.' To desecrate such hallowed ground, Wolf implies, isn't just a lapse of good taste; it's a blight on our national honor. Alas, in trying to protect history from gambling, you also have to protect history from history. As any contemporary gambling booster will tell you, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was underwritten by a lottery conducted in London by the Virginia Company. That trend continued as the New World moved toward nationhood. With all 13 colonies establishing lotteries at one time or another, government-approved gambling was one of the original features of the landscape."

Affirmative folly: "A reader responds to an animadversion of mine against affirmative action by e-mailing me President Lyndon Johnson's famous argument in favor of racial preferences: 'You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race, and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.' In reply, I e-mail back the words of Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave who became the foremost black spokesman of his age. In a speech in Boston in 1865, Douglass said: 'What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. ... Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! ...'"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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27 May, 2006

Brookes News Update

Bernanke's monetary policy likely to generate more instability: Further strengthening in the growth momentum in the US money supply raises possibility that economic activity will strengthen and that the Fed runs the risk of setting the platform for a higher inflationary expectations and higher price inflation
Is the Australian economy facing recession?: Australia's manufacturing problems have not been caused by China's massive demand for resources - which is largely driven by China's loose monetary policy - but by the RBA's loose monetary policy
Fidel Castro's true wealth: Because `Forbes' named Castro among the world's richest heads of state in 2005 he is terribly upset. He ought to be. As one of the world's biggest political gangsters he's a lot richer than that. The whole of Cuba, including its hapless people, belong to him and should be included as part of his assets
Natural resources: The market knows best, not Bracks and other meddling politicians: With all the arrogance of a Soviet-style planner Bracks is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on grossly inefficient wind generators and is also locking away natural resources
True leadership needed on illegal immigration: The root cause of our illegal immigration dilemma stems from the overwhelming availability of illegal employment in the US. Hiring illegal immigrants, employers also create the incentive for otherwise law abiding foreign nationals to become law-breakers
The Church is keeping Marx alive in Brazil and undermining the rule of law: Despite the lessons of history Marxist clergy in Brazil are preaching violence and the necessity for a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship
The question of illegal immigration and a border fence: Illegal immigration is now taking centre stage. How long will it be before the Government succumbs to public pressure and takes drastic action?

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ELSEWHERE

An email from Sean Gabb (in good form): "Those who contribute additional funds [to the Libertarian Alliance] may be eligible for our Top Top Secred Dinners held in a cellar deep below Buckingham Palace. Here you will meet prominent members of the Royal Family and others of the Illuminati. Last month, our dinner was graced by the presence of Her Majesty the Queen, who for the occasion assumed her lizard form and sacrificed a virgin. Those of you who may be familiar with the welfare policies of the Blair Government and the corrupt and pornographic nature of our media will appreciate the trouble we faced in providing Her Majesty with a semi-attractive virgin from the working classes under the age of five. I am proud to say I did find one during a nocturnal prowl through Doncaster. Her loved ones have been silenced by the promise of a quintuple rollover jackpot win for her mother on the National Lottery this August and the admission of her latest "uncle" to the Big Brother household."

Ritalin Making Kids Sick: "Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder drugs send about 3,100 Americans -- 80 percent of them children -- to hospital emergency rooms annually, a federal survey has found."

Arrogant do-gooder: ""Online poker players will have to fold their hands if a Virginia congressman gets his way. Today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a bill introduced by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R) that would ban much online gambling, including bets on sporting events and games of chance -- namely poker, which has enjoyed a boom in recent years."

Well-deserved award: "Sara Carter of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., has been named the recipient of the 2006 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration. This award, presented since 1997 by the Center for Immigration Studies, is intended to promote informed and fair reporting on this most contentious and complicated issue. Traveling frequently from California to Arizona and Texas and Mexico, Ms. Carter broke story after story related to the dangerous conditions all along America's southern border. Rare has been the week in the past six months that Ms. Carter hasn't appeared on a cable news program discussing her latest scoop. It was Ms. Carter who broke the story that our government was alerting Mexico City to the locations and membership and other details of the Minuteman Project civilian border-watch group".

In defense of consumerism: "I'm beginning to think that the epithet 'consumerism' is just another word for freedom in the marketplace. It's true that the market is delivering goods, services, and technological advances by leaps, day after day. People claim that they are so inundated with techno advances that they don't want anymore. Say no to the latest gizmo! But we really don't mean it. No one wants to be denied web access, and we want it faster and better with more variety. We want to download songs, movies, and treatises on every subject. No amount of information is too much when it is something specific we seek. And that's not all."

Taxing questions: "Do you think your taxes are too high or too low? Though I expect that well over 90 percent of you are thinking 'too high,' many in the media and political class keep telling us taxes are too low. The left-leaning intelligentsia, in their arrogant smugness, claim we just don't know what is good for us. Yet, they are the ones who ignore the empirical evidence and are unable to distinguish between variables and constants. As a prime example, a May 7 editorial in The Washington Post, advocating higher tax rates on the rich, states: 'Economics cannot predict how high taxes can be raised before they reach counterproductive levels.'... The left has a notable ability to ignore the fact that low-tax-rate states tend to create more jobs and grow more rapidly than high-tax-rate states. We see this throughout the world, but one of the greatest laboratories of the benefits of tax competition is that between the 50 U.S. states"

Why we overregulate: "Assume you are a mid-level bureaucrat in a government regulatory agency, and you know your pay and title depend on how many regulations you are responsible for administering, and the number of people who work for you. Do you think you would push for more or fewer regulations? Assume you are a corporate regulatory compliance officer, and again you know your pay depends in part upon the number of regulations you must comply with, and the number of people who work for you. Would you tend to favor a world with more or fewer regulations?"

One for the Straussians: "The demonization of Leo Strauss, in short, is one of the most dismal signs of the times. The shamelessness and baseness of much of what has been written about him is redolent of the propaganda of the 1930s, Auden's "low, dishonest decade."That is why "Reading Leo Strauss" (Chicago, 256 pages, $32.50), a sober new study by Yale professor Steven Smith, feels so heartening.By returning to the source and examining what Strauss actually wrote, Mr. Smith lets the breeze of reason into the feverish sickroom of ideology. He portrays a Strauss who cherished democracy as the best bulwark against tyranny, and who valued intellectual honesty above all. By the time Mr. Smith is done, nothing is left of the Strauss caricature except the ignorance and malice that fathered it.



For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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26 May, 2006

LEFTIST "CARING" IS JUST HYPOCRISY

Consider the case of Nancy Pelosi, the ultimate San Francisco big-government liberal, and leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. She is the daughter of Big Tommy D'Alesandro, boss of the Baltimore Democrat political machine. She grew up in a household built around the use of political power for personal gain, under the banner of compassion. In her career in Congress, she has garnered the highest praise from the AFL-CIO, the Americans for Democratic Action, and the League of Conservation Voters. She is grotesquely pro-union and pro-regulation, and a fierce "environmentalist," of course. Her favorite pastime is attacking people on her political right - which is everyone to the right of, say, Mao Zedong - as enemies of clean air, clean water, the working man, or whatever. To her, we're all greedy, vile exploiters of the poor.

Actually, to be fair, her favorite pastime is enacting laws to increase the power of unions, trial lawyers, and the federal government. But Pelosi's private life is all capitalist. She and her husband have a net worth of over $50 million - not bad for champions of the poor. Much of their wealth comes from real estate ventures, such as the development of the Corde Valle Golf Club and Resort in Silicon Valley. Schweizer documents how the Pelosis' private partnership (Lions Gate Limited) managed to get approval to develop some raw land over the objections of environmentalists and other local groups, by contractually promising that the club would be primarily a public course and that the development would be ecologically friendly. But the developers stiffed the public. The golf course turned out to be primarily for the use of the ultrawealthy: the hoi polloi have to reserve three days in advance and pay $275 for a round of golf. A membership at the club costs $250,000! And Lions Gate failed to live up to the promised environmental guarantees. When the San Jose Planning Commission started thinking about looking into whether Lions Gate had made fraudulent representations to get the development approvals, the Pelosis simply hired some local, well-connected lobbyists, and the Planning Commission backed away like frightened kittens.

In a similar manner, Schweizer shows that Pelosi, winner of the Cesar Chavez Legacy Award, uses companies without United Farm Workers contracts to harvest grapes on her vineyard, and she sells those grapes to nonunion wineries. Again, this darling of the AFL-CIO (and recipient of a huge amount of its money for her campaigns) owns a big chunk of two lavish hotels and a chain of chi-chi restaurants that are all resolutely non-union shops.

Next consider Ralph Nader, the ultimate corporation basher and perennial candidate for the presidency (not to mention sainthood). Nader's persona is that of the Spartan lefty, the "walk the walk not just talk the talk" opponent of the hideous corporate greed that dirties the soul of America. When he visited the Soviet Union back in the 1960s, he admired the lack of consumer products, and when he returned to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet system he was dismayed to hear people praising free market economics. To Nader, corporations are evil: they dominate governments, rig prices, sell dangerous and useless products, and generally hurt our standard of living.

But in his personal life, about which St. Ralph is very secretive, things are different. He lives well, using a D.C. mansion that he apparently owns (though the title is in his sister's name), earns millions from speaking and writing, and invests in - big, multinational corporations! He has net assets of about $4 million, most of it in corporate stock, such as the $1 million he owns in Cisco Systems, not to mention his stocks in major defense contractors such as GE and IBM. He controls nonprofit organizations and trusts, all secretly run, with his family members on the governing boards. His charitable foundations give away 4% of their assets every year, the lowest amount possible to keep their IRS tax-exempt status. The remaining assets are also in corporate stock, including telecom monopolies such as Verizon, BellSouth, and Qwest.

More here. And yet more here

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Bush: US would aid Israel under attack: "President Bush said Tuesday that the United States would come to Israel's aid if it were attacked by Iran and welcomed the Jewish state's plan to define its borders. He made the comments at the White House during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after a meeting between the two leaders. It was Olmert's first official visit to the United States as prime minister. Bush also praised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and called on the Hamas-led Palestinian government to meet international demands."

Senate ignoramuses: "Although most provisions of the current U.S. farm bill won't expire until September 2007, a group of senators recently proposed extending it until after the Doha Round of global trade negotiations is complete. Extending the farm bill -- damaging though it is -- will 'send a signal to our trading partners,' says one of the legislation's sponsors. It certainly will. At a time when leadership in the global trade talks is sadly lacking and desperately needed, the signal will be a big fat raspberry."

Pondlife Murtha and his probably false allegation: "Rep. John Murtha, who last year called for the immediate pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq, [has] accused an entire Marine company of murdering 15 Iraqis 'in cold blood.' Mr. Murtha claims he received his information from sources inside the Pentagon, which is conducting an investigation into the Nov. 15 incident in the town of Haditha. That investigation is not yet completed, which makes Mr. Murtha's accusation not only irresponsible, but an egregious violation of ethical conduct by a sitting congressman. Mr. Murtha concedes that he has not read any part of the Pentagon's unfinished report. All he has are his 'sources.'... The incident in question occurred when a roadside bomb struck a Humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas. What happened next is the subject of the Pentagon investigation, but 15 Iraqis were in fact killed... What's important to remember is that if the Marines did act outside the rules of combat, they will be tried by a military court martial-not by Jack Murtha, a former Marine who should know better. Which makes us wonder if there's an ulterior motive behind his indefensible comments: 'Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,' he said. Mr. Murtha is actually accusing the Bush administration of murder, because of the 'pressure' it has put on U.S. troops... Mr. Murtha obviously has a problem with the Bush administration and the Iraq war. Fair enough. But he should leave the troops out of his vendetta."

Australians now objectively better off than ever before: "Spending power may have increased by $9000 for every man, woman and child over the past decade... Over the past decade, real disposable income per capita has been growing steadily at an annual average rate of 3 per cent, reaching more than $35,000 per person last financial year, compared to about $26,000 in 1994-95. The spoils of economic growth over the past decade also appear to have been reasonably evenly shared. The bureau said the average weekly income of low-income earners leapt 22 per cent to $300 over the nine years to 2004, while weekly incomes for high earners increased 19.3 per cent to $1027... Australians are also living longer. Boys born in 2004 can expect to live three years longer than boys born in 1994, while girls can expect to live two years longer."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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25 May, 2006

SMALL GOVERNMENTS NOT ONLY PROMOTE WEALTH BUT ALSO HEALTH, HAPPINESS AND A CLEANER ENVIRONMENT

A few excerpts

When it comes to government spending, less is more. Less government spending and involvement in the economy - both in terms of regulatory interference and taxation burden - are associated with higher rates of economic growth, better productivity and more diverse markets for products. This is supported by country-specific evidence and several long-running international indices ranking economic environments.

To discount the benefits of the minimal government, the state-reliant opponents of free markets and personal freedom usually argue that while less government may indeed mean more economic prosperity, smaller governments deliver lower quality of public services. In doing so, supporters of the large welfare state usually point to the alleged lack of public services in the US - a myth hardly supported by reality. The supposedly contrasting social-services-in "rich" European welfare states are similarly mythical.

Two recent studies released by UK and Swiss researchers provide some insight into the overall argument: is smaller government better for a country's non-economic well-being?

First, a group of Swiss and Danish researchers from the WIF Institute of Economic Research in Zurich looked at whether government involvement in the economy is conducive to life satisfaction across 74 countries. The results show that life satisfaction actually decreases with higher government spending. This negative impact of the government is stronger in countries with a left-leaning median voter. It is alleviated by government effectiveness - but, crucially, only in countries where the state sector is already small. In general, a one standard deviation increase in government spending yields a median decrease of 4.42 percent in self-reported satisfaction by the voters, a drop in the degree of economic competition of 4.17 percent and a shift in voter preferences in rightward ideological direction of 4.15-9 percent.

Another comprehensive study released by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) in the UK summarized available data from various sources, to show that modern governments that spend less can, indeed, provide better public services, a better standard of living and more equitable incomes than high-spending governments....

Not surprisingly, the data show that countries with smaller governments also outperformed those with larger state spending in domestic savings (by over 31 percent), investment (which grew 2.5 times faster in the 1990s in the leaner states), and lending to private sector. Since 1987, the leaner states also say lower inflation and slightly higher wages growth, implying that inflation adjusted wages grew faster in the smaller government states over the last 20 years period. Controlling for the native firms investments abroad, countries with smaller government enjoy the stock of FDI that is twice the size of that found in the states with larger governments. Similar trends hold for private sector productivity growth, private non-residential investment growth and the overall size of the countries' stock markets.

However, contrary to popular beliefs, the better economic and social spending indicators performance by the leaner countries were also associated with the relative strength of their performance in terms of environment. In 1990, states with larger government produced some 0.4 kg pf carbon dioxide emissions per 1 unit of income. By 2000 this figure fell to 0.3 kg. Comparable measures in the states with leaner governments were 0.5 kg in 1990 and 0.4 kg in 2000. On the surface, this appears to be the story of matched improvements across the two types of states with the leaner states continuing to lag behind the larger states. The problem with this arithmetic is that it neglects the vital role of CO2 sinks, such as forests, capable of absorbing the emitted pollutants. Leaner states have 11.6 times greater volume of sinks than the larger states and their forestry areas are increasing at double the rate of forestry growth in the states with large government. Adjusting for the average absorption rates for forestry sinks and relative size of sinks in two groups of countries, the states with leaner government have net CO2 emissions of 0.25 kg per unit of output. This, effectively, is less than the pollution intensity of output that is hoped to be achieved under the Kyoto Protocol.

Overall, the study concludes that "It may be surprising, even counter-intuitive, to find that countries with leaner governments spend more on health and education than those with larger governments (and have been growing that expenditure at a faster rate), that they have a better standard of living, better employment records and similar spending on income support. But the data... should give policy-makers some confidence in arguing [that] ...the leaner governments clearly benefit their citizens more than the narrow illusory benefits offered by larger governments."

The lesson is a simple one. If the real objective of European governments is to improve social and personal well-being, they should lower taxes, cut state spending and let the private sector do its job.

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There is an interesting Reuters video just up here of modern day German neo-Nazis that refers to them as "Far Right". The commentary is however careful not to translate the banner being paraded by the "Far Rightists" concerned. It reads: "Unser Sozialismus ist national. Arbeiter der Stirn und der Faust". Translation" "Our socialism is national. Workers of the hand and the head". So a socialist workers' party is "Far Right"??? That the group concerned (the NPD) is Nazi is however totally clear. You can see here that Hitler used exactly the same slogan. Nazism was socialist in the 30s and it is socialist now.

George McGovern criticizes unions and defends Wal Mart!: "I have never wavered in my support for policies that relieve poverty and improve the standard of living of American workers. As a lifelong liberal, I supported Medicare and Medicaid, civil rights, Social Security and workplace safety requirements. Today, I strongly support universal healthcare. And I have always been a supporter of the labor movement. Unions have a proud legacy of improving the lives of millions of workers over the last century. But lately I have seen developments that have me worried. And I have been reminded of legendary union leader John L. Lewis, who was once asked what his miners were after. His answer? 'More.' It was a funny answer, and perhaps it was honest too. But these days, it's not a very effective strategy, and we are seeing some unfortunate and unintended consequences of Lewis' 'more' philosophy."

Supreme Court: Police don't need warrants in emergencies: "The Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday that police can enter homes in emergencies without knocking or announcing their presence. Justices said four Brigham City, Utah, police officers were justified in entering a home after peeking through a window and seeing a fight between a teenager and adults. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the unanimous court, said that officers had a reasonable basis for going inside to stop violence. The decision overturned a ruling by Utah's Supreme Court that said a trial judge was correct to throw out charges stemming from the police search."

Senators back useless gesture: "The Senate, eager to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants, signaled overwhelming support Monday for President Bush's plan to dispatch National Guard troops to states along the Mexican border. No tour of duty could last longer than 21 days and troops would be excluded from 'search, seizure, arrest or similar activity.' They would support the Border Patrol, which has primary responsibility for intercepting illegal immigrants."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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24 May, 2006

MINNESOTA: MORE OFFICAL INDULGENCE OF ILLEGALS

The debate over illegal immigrants is especially important to some local law enforcement agencies, who say they often have must release illegals who commit crimes because they do not have valid identification. Winsted Police Chief Mike Henrich says the U.S. Citizen and Immigration service (formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service) will only apprehend and deport illegals when local police have a large number in custody. "We have taken a few of these immigrants and detained them, and we've found that unless you have a lot of illegal immigrants, they will not come and get them," Henrich says.

One illegal immigrant was arrested four times for driving while intoxicated and once for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, each incident involving a separate incident. "These people are getting away with things that somebody who had a genuine, legitimate ID would be held accountable for," says Sheriff Wayne Vinkemeier of McLeod County. "I think that's something the state needs to take a look at."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty says the problem illustrates that current laws are not working. "It just reinforces the fact that the current system is obviously broken," he says. "We have people making a mockery out of our laws." Pawlenty says the solution is to develop a national I.D. card with fingerprint or eye scan technology. The C.I.S. says it often tells police to release illegal immigrants after arrests, adding that that decision is made on a case-by-case basis, based on the crime and past criminal history.

Source

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Mexico sets the example: "If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force. Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory. In the United States, only two posts - the presidency and vice presidency - are reserved for the native born. In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens... Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges."

Immigration nonsense: "To assert as some have that illegal immigrants do not depress wages because they do the jobs Americans refuse is the kind of nonsense economists speak when they strain to be counterintuitive. It is similar to saying that cheap imports do not hold down prices. If employers paid higher than substandard wages, Americans (who famously do almost anything for money, including eating worms, shooting themselves from cannons and listening to Barbra Streisand sing) would take these jobs."

Europe is learning: "Across Europe, countries that for decades have provided a generous reception for immigrants and refugees are now pulling away the welcome mat. Anti-immigrant sentiment bordering on the xenophobic -- once the purlieu of a few right-wing parties -- has become mainstream politics in such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Britain. New laws are raising the hurdles for newcomers, especially Muslims, and winning cheers from many Europeans. Polls indicate that strong majorities in almost every European country favor not just tightening restrictions on ordinary immigrants but also casting a colder eye on the hard-luck tales of refugees seeking asylum".

IBM researcher slams UK ID card scheme: "IBM researcher Michael Osborne, whose job is research into secure ID cards, slated the UK government's ID cards scheme on the grounds of cost, over-centralisation, and being the wrong tool for the job. Based in Big Blue's Zurich research labs, where the scanning tunnelling microscope was invented and won its inventors a Nobel Prize, Osborne said that the problem is neither the cards nor the fact that the scheme is intended to use biometric technology. The big issue is that the UK government, plans to set up a central database containing volumes of data about its citizens. Unlike other European governments, most of whom already use some form of ID card, the central database will allow connections between different identity contexts - such as driver, taxpayer, or healthcare recipient - which compromises security. Centrally-stored biometric data would be attractive to hackers, he said, adding that such data could be made anonymous but that the UK Government's plans do not include such an implementation. Osborne added that biometric technology is still immature. "It's not an exact science", he said. In real world trials, some 10 per cent of people identified using iris recognition failed to enrol - which means the system didn't recognise them. Even fingerprinting is no panacea, as four per cent failed to enrol. Scale that up to a whole population - the UK contains nearly 60 million people - and the problem of biometric identification becomes huge, he said."

What a laugh! "Super-sizing was still a national pastime back in 2001, when Eric Schlosser's first book, Fast Food Nation, made the New York Times best-seller list. Since then, Wal-Mart has started selling organic foods, free-range chickens can be spotted at almost any supermarket and checking for a product's trans-fat content has become commonplace. But awareness isn't the only thing that's grown. Unfortunately, so has the incidence of childhood obesity.

The Anchoress hits back very powerfully at conservative critics of GWB. She says that people are criticizing him for not being a conservative purist even though he has always claimed to be a moderate ("compassionate") conservative.

Pathological Saudi textbooks: "Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change. A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.... The problem is: These claims are not true. A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels"). This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text"

See Education Watch for the latest 9th Circus (Whoops! Circuit) outrage. The court which does its best to suppress Christian expression has made participation in Islamic practices compulsory in Californian schools!

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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23 May, 2006

ISRAEL REBOUNDS

At a time when the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza are teetering on the brink of a collapse, Israeli growth - 6.6 percent GDP rise in the first quarter of 2006 - has returned to the torrid pace set before the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising.

It's also a recognition of a growing separation between the Israeli and Palestinian economies - and Israel's receding fear of attacks. Tourists are filling up hotels. Private spending jumped 10.3 percent in the first three months of the year and the real estate market is heating up. Earlier this month, US investment guru Warren Buffet announced a $4 billion buyout of an Israeli metal tool cutting manufacturer, the biggest foreign investment in Israel.

A wave of suicide bombings that once scared off businessmen has been brought under control, and foreign investors are recognizing the long-term resilience of Israel's economy to the waves of conflict with the Palestinians. The trend seems to lend credence to a mantra of a former finance minister that Israel's high-tech, export-based economy is more sensitive to the US Nasdaq stock market than violence in the West Bank city of Nablus....

Per-capita income - a measure of the standard of living - is 17 times higher in Israel than among its neighbors from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That gap is forecast to widen as an economic boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority pushes up poverty levels and as foreign investment fuels Israeli prosperity...

More here

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Dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1) - The Intelligence Gene: "Psychiatric researchers at The Zucker Hillside Hospital campus of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have uncovered evidence of a gene that appears to influence intelligence. Working in conjunction with researchers at Harvard Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics in Boston, the Zucker Hillside team examined the genetic blueprints of individuals with schizophrenia, a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by cognitive impairment, and compared them with healthy volunteers. They discovered that the dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1), which they previously demonstrated to be associated with schizophrenia, may also be linked to general cognitive ability.... The specific role of dysbindin in the central nervous system is unknown, but it is highly present in key brain regions linked to cognition, including learning, problem solving, judgment, memory and comprehension. Scientists speculate that dysbindin plays a role in communication between brain cells in these regions and helps promote their survival. An alteration in the genetic blueprint for dysbindin may ultimately interfere with cell communication and fail to protect brain cells from dying, with a resulting negative impact on cognition and intelligence."

An old truth rediscovered: "More boys are highly gifted than girls, but boys also show up more often at the low end of the intelligence scale. Those are among the findings of a study by Douglas Frank, math/science chairman at the Schilling School for Gifted Children, who analyzed national test results and looked at IQ differences in boys and girls. "Guys are always more variable," Frank said. "If they're more variable, that means you're going to have more at the extremes." His findings correlate with what the Schilling School has found since it opened in 1997: Boys have always outnumbered girls at the K-12 school, which requires students have an IQ of 130 or above. The Sycamore Township school has consistently enrolled about two to three boys for every girl. There are eight girls among the 32 students there now."

Jimmy Carter Is Right: Amend the immigration bill to require voters to show ID: Amid all the disputes over immigration in Congress, one amendment is being proposed that in theory should unite people in both parties. How about requiring that everyone show some form of identification before voting in federal elections? Polls show overwhelming support for the idea, and there is increasing concern that more illegal aliens are showing up on voter registration rolls. But the fact that photo ID isn't likely to pass shows both how deeply emotional the immigration issue has become and how bitter congressional politics have become with elections only 5 1/2 months away. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican whip, is proposing the photo ID amendment. He notes that Mexico and many other countries require the production of such identification in their own elections, and that the idea builds on the suggestion of last year's bipartisan election reform commission headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker.

From a recent speech by Australian Prime Minister Howard: ""Without American leadership, the trials and tragedies of recent years could be but a prelude of darker days to come," Mr Howard said in an address yesterday to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. "With American leadership, we can build a better world - not just for us, but for all." Sharpening his call for the US to play a greater role in global affairs, Mr Howard told the council: "To the voices of anti-Americanism around the world, to those who shout 'Yankee go home', let me offer some quiet advice: be careful what you wish for."

The right approach to the abortion problem: "Responding to an issue that Jews often refer to as "the demographic threat", a non-profit Jewish group is encouraging poor, pregnant Jewish women who might be considering having an abortion to go ahead and have a child instead. Set up 29 years ago by Eli Schussheim, a surgeon, the Efrat organisation offers women $1,000 of support for a year, including diapers, a crib and baby clothes, if they decide to give birth rather than terminate their pregnancies"

The family vs. the state: "The original idea of 'compassionate conservatism' was for government to achieve goals using as partners faith-based organizations and other nongovernmental associations. If that idea ever takes off, I believe it will be a disaster. My line is that 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and private-public partnerships absolutely corrupt the private sector.' There is nothing compassionate about government subcontracting out to private entities. The only real compassionate conservatism is conservatism that shrinks the role of government. Compassion should start with families and expand through voluntary associations. Government programs, everywhere and always, undermine families and weaken voluntary associations."

What's a self-made individual?: "Why do we hear so much criticism and ridicule of the self-made individual? One reason is that people who would want to be leaders of others, people who like to rule others, people who want to impose ideas on others find the self-made individual an obstacle to their program. People who think for themselves do not fall for the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Jim Jones and similar charismatic figures who are eager to run the world for the rest of us. So they hope to demean the idea that we can think for ourselves and guide are lives pretty well without their intervention."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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



22 May, 2006

AFRICA

Even in a country grown accustomed to horrific acts of violence, it is a crime that still shocks. ''Muti murder'', in which human body parts are removed to be used in traditional "medicine", is increasing in South Africa - but victims' families complain that the police too often ignore it.

The murder of four-year-old Connie Ncube, whose mutilated body was discovered in a river near her home east of Pretoria by her father last month, has sparked a public outcry and demands for tougher action against the gruesome crimes.

Jabu Majola said: "I was shocked to see my daughter that way. It took me 10 minutes to identify her because of the way they cut at her. I couldn't believe someone could do something like this." Mr Majola condemned the police for not responding to his calls for almost 12 hours after Connie disappeared. "If they had sent police to search for my daughter when we asked them to, she would be alive today," he said.

It was only after a report of her death appeared in a local newspaper, Mr Majola said, that the police launched a full investigation and eventually identified a suspect - a neighbour with links to traditional "healers" - who has not been caught.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Alain's Newsletter was a Christian conservative site that was getting a fair bit of attention but it disappeared suddenly. Why? I have been forwarded an email signed "Alain's wife" which said: "for health reasons my husband has closed the newsletter for a while".

Some Baptists still follow the Bible: "Following the approval of a large majority of its churches, the board of the American Baptist Churches Pacific Southwest region voted unanimously May 11 to withdraw from its covenant relationship with its parent denomination. The board's action makes final the separation of the 300-church region from the American Baptist Churches (USA) in Valley Forge, Pa. The decision comes after eight months of discussion and a vote on the part of the region's churches in late April to recommend that the board withdraw over the refusal of the ABC (USA) to deal with the acceptance of churches with lax policies on homosexuality in the denomination".

The pain in Spain: "2330 illegal immigrants are currently being held in Canary Islands detention centers, though an unknown number have been transferred to mainland Spain during the last week. Nearly 400 immigrants arrived by boat in the Canaries yesterday, and the interior ministry has been unable to alleviate the overcrowding. Foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos yesterday announced that Spain would begin diplomatic efforts with six sub-Saharan African countries to control the flow of illegals."

Afghan women graduate US college program: "When she was a child growing up in Afghanistan, Nadima Sahar loved to draw. But after the Taliban came to power in the 1990s, her love for art became a secret. The strict Islamic movement banned art and secular music, so only Sahar's family knew about her drawings. 'I couldn't share them with my neighbors,' Sahar said. Today, after four years as a college student in Rhode Island, Sahar has showcased her mostly abstract, black-and-white drawings at four art competitions and won prizes in all of them."

Islamic bank shunned in Britain: "Evolution Securities and BNP Paribas failed to persuade a single UK investor to sign up for shares in yesterday's initial public offering of the first British investment bank to comply with Islamic financial law. The failure will compound the brokers' embarrassment about the European Islamic Investment Bank's (EIIB) London float as its shares slumped 38 per cent on their first day of trading, after raising less than half of the target. One source close to the offering said that the float did "not attract a single UK investor"

Hitchens: Don't talk to the mullahs: "There is an excellent case to be made for initiating an imaginative diplomatic overture to Iran, or rather to the Iranians, and I did my best to lay it out. But this case is not strengthened by the demented letter recently made public by the man posing as Iran's president. I say 'posing,' because, however many times our media babble about his 'landslide' victory in Iran's 'elections,' everybody knows that he was put in by the reigning mullahs at the very last moment, after all independent and reformist candidates had been eliminated from the process, and that the counting of the votes was an insult to the meanest intelligence."

George Will: "Proof that incumbent politicians are highly susceptible to corruption is the fact that the government they control is shot through with it. Yet [according to John McCain] that government should be regarded as a disinterested arbiter, untainted by politics and therefore qualified to regulate the content, quantity and timing of speech in campaigns that determine who controls the government."

Shelby Steele: Black truth-teller: ""The only thing that makes me interesting as a writer," Shelby Steele says, "is that I'm just talking common sense. The most ordinary, everyday sort of common sense." Correction. What sets Steele apart is that he's saying things many people, even those who secretly agree with him, would rather not hear. He says that blacks should take responsibility for their own disproportionate crime rates and poor academic performance and not blame a system imposed on them by whites; that whites support affirmative action and other "silly racial policies" out of fear, to avoid accusations of racism. He says that blacks who use the "race card," as Johnnie Cochran did in defending O.J. Simpson, are practicing "blackmail" through the manipulation of white guilt."

Why $3 gas won't slow the US economy: "As all the pollsters are telling us, there's an inverse relationship between rising gasoline prices and President Bush's falling approval ratings -- most especially his approval rating on the economy. Of course, these polls describe a certain national angst over energy that harkens back to the dreadful 1970s. But there's a better reality out there: Namely, the upturn in gas prices simply is not stopping the economy the way it did three decades ago. Today's economy may be the greatest story never told. It's an American boom, spurred by lower tax rates, huge profits, big productivity, plentiful jobs, and an ongoing free-market capitalist resiliency. It's also a global boom, marked by a spread of free- market capitalism like we've never seen before."

There is an interesting article here reviewing the present role of women in the U.S. armed forces.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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



21 May, 2006

AMERICAN ELECTION SYSTEMS

One summary:

"The biggest problem in cleaning up our elections is the issue of voter registries, and Carter's commission doesn't begin to deal with it. If voter registries are corrupt, there is no way our democracy can be assured a fair election. Throughout America, people with the flimsiest kinds of ID are put on voter registries, allowing ineligible voters to determine our elected officials and the fate of the nation. That this doesn't horrify more Americans is, in itself, horrifying, and smacks of some Third World banana republic. For our elections to be right, our voter registries must be right.

I will never understand why Americans put up with all that crapola. The site from which the quote above was taken offers some simple alternatives that would be much better. Australia uses an old-fashioned paper ballot system that evokes very few complaints and criticisms, though it is not perfect, of course.

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ELSEWHERE

An interesting comment from a tax accountant: "As the Senate cleverly negotiates the amendments that would scuttle new immigration legislation, they blithely ignore the real nightmare immigrants face if a path to citizenship is enacted: they must pay their back taxes. Those of us who have worked in the tax field can tell you that (1) the IRS can reconstruct your past income out of the thin air with great precision, (2) The effort to fight the IRS or to reconstruct your own version of what you made and what you owe is so painful it can by itself motivate the illegal to return home and (3) Certain taxes like Social Security and Medicare are payable on the first dollar you earn and the amounts owed the government will, in almost all cases, bankrupt the illegal or make the water so deep he will drown before he survives. The House has passed a very specific bill to effect the deportation of 12 million illegals. The Senate by requiring poverty-stricken illegals to pay back taxes has finished the job. Either way attrition will shrink that population."



Spain seeks to stem tide of African immigrants: "Spain has put the last touches to initiatives, including a strengthened presence in Africa, to try to stem the swelling tide of immigrants from the continent heading for its shores. The government's plan was agreed as it was announced that a total of 656 African illegal immigrants had arrived in Spain's Canary Islands in the space of 24 hours. In Madrid Deputy Prime Minister Maria-Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said after a cabinet meeting she would be going to Brussels next week to discuss the issue with, among others, European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso. She said that "more Europe" had to be one of the weapons in the battle against would-be illegal immigration. An "Africa plan" was to be implemented within the space of 48 hours, said de la Vega. The headquarters will be in the Senegalese capital Dakar, under the supervision of a specially appointed ambassador, Miguel Angel Mazarambroz.

Nothing like a good track record: "Russia overnight took over the presidency of Europe's chief body charged with maintaining democracy and human rights, issues on which it has frequently found itself the target of criticism. Speaking in Strasbourg overnight, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov promised "a concrete approach to the committee's tasks, respectful of the rights of all citizens and of instruments for the defence of those rights." Russia succeeds Romania as president of the committee of ministers, or executive body, of the 46-member Council of Europe, for six months. The Russian presidency is likely to dwell more on dialogue between cultures and local democracy than the basic freedoms Moscow is said to ignore."

Political posturing on gas prices mostly hot air: "Three gas station owners report for their first day in prison. The prison guard asks one of them, 'What are you in for?' He replies, 'The government says I charged customers more for my gasoline than other gas stations. I'm in for price gouging.' The guard looks at the second man. 'And you?' He answers, 'I charged less for my gasoline than everyone else. I'm in for anti-competitive pricing.' The guard looks to the third. 'And you?' He shrugs. 'I charged the same price for my gasoline as all the other gas stations. I'm in for collusion.' Like many jokes, that one has a lot of truth to it. I'd imagine many Americans wouldn't mind at all to see just about everyone involved in the oil industry do some time in the pokey these days. What's been even more disheartening has been to see Americans turn to their politicians, and ask them to 'do something' about the price of gas. We seem to love the free market until it inconveniences us. Then we want someone punished."



Genetics again: "A group of Yale researchers studying the origin of irrational decision-making found that choosing impractically isn't a behavior exhibited only by humans. Our evolutionary cousins, capuchin monkeys, exhibit the same tendency with respect to loss aversion, or the tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring gains. The findings, published in the Journal of Political Economy, indicate these biases are innate in primates and have existed since before capuchins and humans split 40 million years ago. "Some of the most deeply ingrained economic behaviors turn out to be very, very ancient and hardwired parts of our decision-making processes," said Yale economics professor and the study's lead author, Keith Chen. "If I showed a string of capuchin monkey data to an economist, he couldn't, with any statistical test, tell the difference between a capuchin monkey and your average American stock market investor."



My doubts about the "hobbits" get learned support: "A report released today disputes scientists' claims that bones of a dwarf human discovered on an Indonesian island are those of an entirely new human species. The 18,000-year-old bones found on Flores Island in 2003 were given the scientific name Homo floresiensis, and the nickname "Hobbit" after the diminutive figures in JRR Tolkien's novel. Anthropologists from Australia and Indonesia said it was an entirely new human species derived from the primitive Homo erectus.... But a group of scientists led by primatologist Robert Martin said in an article in Science magazine's May 19 issue that, far from being a new species, the bones were of Homo sapiens suffering from the pathological condition microcephaly, which results in small brain and body size....Dr Martin's team also argued that sophisticated tools found with the Flores bones could not have been created by a race with such small brains. "These tools are so advanced that there is no way they were made by anyone other than Homo sapiens," anthropologist James Phillips, also of the Field Museum said."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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

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



20 May, 2006

NOTHING CAN DENT THE LOVE OF THE LEFT FOR COMMUNIST CUBA

The following is a program promo for SBS -- one of Australia's public broadcasters. No bias there at all of course. It appears that viewers will hear of Cuba's system for earning dollars by selling cheap medical services to foreigners but no mention of the medical care that Cubans get seems to be in the offing. Straight cold-war propaganda lives on -- courtesy of the taxpayer

"For almost half a century Cuba has endured crippling sanctions imposed by its near neighbour the United States. But this tiny Caribbean nation has not only survived but achieved the unthinkable. It has had made major medical breakthroughs and now has a medical report card that is the envy of its most of its neighbours. Last year, Cuba's infant mortality rate declined even further. It now equals many developed nations but has surpassed that of the United States.

America, the largest medical market in the world, has responded, by accusing Cuba of trying to make money out of medicine. Health and medicine are indeed big business in Cuba. This year, monies raised from health tourism and from its biotechnology breakthroughs look set to surpass Cuba's traditional economic mainstay which has been tourism.

But Cuba's medical miracles are not confined to homeshores. A legion of medical missionaries have been sent to work overseas and the United States is concerned what impact that is having on the region."

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Brookes News Update

Is supply-side economics driving the US economy?: Although supply-siders have made serious errors they should still emphasise that if you want more of something you have to reduce the cost of producing it. What every country needs is more capital -- and capital comes out of savings. By eliminating taxes on capital gains more savings are made available which then expand the capital structure
Australian economy is still signalling an impending recession: The Treasurer Peter Costello believes that the economy is still on course and a recession is far beyond the horizon -- or at least beyond the next federal election. He could be making a grave error
The left finally find a cause they can support that will kill US troops: With the left there is neither shame nor honour, but there is consistency -- and it is their remorseless hatred of the United States and of liberty. That's why they will sacrifice US troops when it suits them
Democrats -- World's second largest Death Cult: Muslims reign as the Number 1 Death Cult on the planet, closely followed by America's Democrat Party. In 1,400 years of terror Muslims have slaughtered hundreds of millions forcing their faux religion on others
Support from Jews but not for Jews?: I met that amazing woman, Dr. Wafa Sultana, whose comments about the Arabs during an interview on the Arab television station, Al-Jazeera were like 'the shot fired around the world
New offshore drilling = more oil and fish: Offshore drilling not only means more energy it will also create a more fruitful environment for marine life -- as if greens really cared"
National day of regret: The President, with his cockeyed optimism and can-do American spirit, seems to believe he can and will succeed. And he believes that much of the credit can be attributed to prayer

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ELSEWHERE



Hunting with dogs was banned recently in Britain and it seems likely that the same thing is going to happen to the California version ("live field coursing") soon too. See here. Since hunting is how the human race got here, that does seem to be an attack on normal humanity.

Half-hearted Senate vote in favour of English: "The Senate voted Thursday to make English the "national language" of the United States, declaring that no one has a right to federal communications or services in a language other than English except for those already guaranteed by law. The amendment, approved 63-34, directs the government to "preserve and enhance" the role of English, without altering current laws that require some government documents and services be provided in other languages".

Senate bypasses security for immigration: "Buoyed by President Bush, supporters of immigration legislation established command in the Senate on Tuesday, brushing aside potentially crippling challenges to a bill that blends tougher border enforcement with a path to citizenship for millions in the United States illegally. 'It was a good way to start,' said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. as a shifting bipartisan coalition held firm against attacks from the left and the right. On a vote of 55-40 that crossed party lines, the Senate rejected an appeal from Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., to require the border be secured before other immigration law changes could take place."



Minuteman fence still a goer: "A civilian border-patrol group said it still plans to erect a short security fence along the Mexican border, despite President Bush's pledge to deploy thousands of National Guard troops there. A spokeswoman for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps [sic] said Tuesday what Bush promised was not enough. 'It's adding more people to the mix who will not be in position to do actual patrols,' Connie Hair said."

Australian kids conservative: "Adolescent angst is not what it used to be. A survey from the Australian Institute of Family Studies presents the current crop of teenagers as sane and sensible, with an utter absence of the angry self-indulgence the boomer generation made the measure of youth. Instead of denouncing capitalism, the survey found young people today are very keen to acquire capital - and lots of it. Instead of wanting to turn on, tune in and drop out, they are keen on sport and hobbies. Rather than getting wasted, they want to work.... And the survey is especially bad news for politicians whose stock in trade is contempt for traditional family values. Because the coming generation of voters is just not buying ancient, eccentric arguments that claim family life is for failures and making money is inherently evil. Certainly, this survey offers no evidence on the future political allegiances of today's teens. But it does suggest an eroding audience for people who bang on about abstract rights while ignoring the economic interests and social aspirations of young couples and their kids.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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

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



19 May, 2006

A GOOD EXCERPT FROM TARANTO:

"Unknown assailants killed a senior Hamas activist [sic] in Gaza on Tuesday," Reuters reports:

"Unidentified Palestinian gunmen shot dead Mohammed Tatar, a senior member of Hamas's military wing, as he drove his car in Gaza city, Palestinian medics and a security source said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. Hundreds of Hamas supporters took to the streets later on Tuesday calling for revenge. Separately, masked gunmen shot and critically wounded another senior member of Hamas's military wing and injured a second Hamas member in Gaza's Khan Younis area, witnesses said.

Remember a couple of years ago when Israel killed some Hamas honchos in an effort to prevent suicide bombings? That prompted world-wide outrage. This time, however, it was Arab terrorists killing other Arab terrorists. If any Jewish lives were saved in the process, it was purely incidental. Thus there is no cause for world-wide outrage.



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ELSEWHERE

Disgraceful: "A Georgia judge on Tuesday struck down a ban on same-sex marriage that was approved by voters in 2004, saying it violated the Southern state's constitution. Judge Constance Russell of Fulton County Superior Court ruled that the measure violates the state's "single-subject rule" as it asked voters to decide on multiple issues in one amendment, said Jack Senterfitt, an attorney with gay rights group Lambda Legal Defense.... Georgia was one of several states where voters solidly backed state constitutional amendments in 2004 to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue voiced disappointment in the ruling and said he was weighing his options to protect the will of the people. "This decision highlights the effect activist judges can have on our system of governance," Perdue, a Republican seeking re-election this year, said in a statement. Perdue noted that 76 percent voted in support of the constitutional amendment two years ago".

More political persecution: "Five British National Party (BNP) "activists" have been arrested and bailed on suspicion of committing public order offences in Swansea. Police said the men were taken into custody at 1117 BST on Sunday in the Bonymaen area of the city. The BNP's website described the men as a "leafleting team" that was "lawfully campaigning" in Swansea. A spokesman for South Wales Police said they had been released on police bail pending further inquiries".

Japan gets the idea: "Japan's cabinet approved a bill on Friday to make nurturing "love of country" an aim of education, a change sought by conservatives who want patriotism in schools but opposed by those who see parallels with militarism.... The revisions would make it a goal of education policy to cultivate "an attitude that respects tradition and culture, loves the nation and the homeland that have fostered them, respects other nations, and contributes to peace and development of international society"."

Homosexual indoctrination in the guise of a "survey": "Parents are angry and school leaders are promising action in response to a "Heterosexual Questionnaire," approved by two teachers, that asked students questions such as: "If you have never slept with someone of your same gender, then how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?" Hundreds of Port Washington High School students were told to submit written answers and discuss the survey."

US bans weapons sales to Venezuela: "The United States is imposing a ban on weapons sales to Venezuela because of what it claims is a lack of support by President Hugo Chavez's leftist government on counterterrorism efforts, the State Department said Monday. The Bush administration will also list Venezuela -- the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States -- as a 'country of concern' in the war on terrorism, an official told NBC News, speaking on condition of anonymity. The label is not as severe as being listed as a 'state sponsor of terror,' but it reflects what the State Department reported in April about Venezuela in its annual terror report."

The Bush administration snubs Taiwan: "When it came into office, the Bush administration vowed to treat the leader of a sister democracy with far more consideration. And it did. The reception accorded Chen during his stopovers throughout Bush's first term was cordial and respectful, despite strong objections from China. Chen routinely interacted with journalists, members of Congress, and public audiences while in the United States. Washington's reaction was very different, however, regarding Chen's latest trip in early May. This time, U.S. officials even refused his request to land in New York City for a refueling stop on his way to Central America. Indeed, they indicated that all airports in the United States would be off limits. They did offer to let him stop in Alaska, provided that he have no interaction with the public."

Amusing: Castro makes the rich list, but doesn't like it. Bill Gates makes the rich list and he doesn't like it either.

Murdoch, 75, tells the PM, 66, it's time to go: "The most influential expatriate Australian, Rupert Murdoch, has suggested John Howard should quit while he's ahead. Mr Murdoch, 75, who shows no sign of quitting himself, offered the retirement advice just before attending a White House banquet in honour of the Prime Minister, who is 66. Mr Howard was "on top of his form and much better to go out that way, than like Margaret Thatcher, or losing an election", he said".

Congressional stupidity in aid of looking good: "Last week the House of Representatives expressed its collective outrage over high gas prices by voting as a herd, 389-34, to make gasoline 'price gouging' a federal felony. Really. This command and control legislation reads like the kind of law passed by the old Soviet Politburo... The heretofore sensible Joe Barton, head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, explains that 'we know price gouging when we see it.'... There's no actual evidence that oil companies or gas stations are in any way 'gouging' consumers. Webster's Dictionary defines the term 'gouge' as 'to extort from or to swindle.' But in the marketplace with prices set free of government intervention, the sales price is established through a transaction of a willing buyer and a willing seller. Service stations are in no way 'extorting' or 'swindling' motorists at the pump... If service stations are guilty of extortion because their prices are rising more than their costs, then are we to have pricing police preventing homeowners from selling their houses for two or three times what they bought them for, or movie theaters from charging $6 for popcorn that costs 25 cents to produce, or Barbra Streisand from commanding a $1 million fee for a single performance?... The irony here is that if there is any extortion or swindling going on in the oil marketplace, Congress is the guilty party. It is Congress that ordered service stations across America to switch last month to ethanol additives that have both raised prices at the pump and exacerbated shortages in recent weeks. It is Congress and state governments that take 59 cents a gallon on average of fuel taxes at the pump-almost six times the average of 10 cents per gallon profit that the oil companies make."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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

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



18 May, 2006

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Illegal immigration is THE political topic in the USA at the moment and the recent "Have it both ways" speech by GWB will inflame the debate rather than douse it. I have not so far posted a lot on the topic as I live in a country that has a settled immigration policy that I and most others of my fellow citizens agree with. Some years ago, Australia's conservative government firmly reasserted control over our borders and we now have virtually no illegal immigrants. And since Australia has many thousands of miles of unguarded and mostly deserted coastline, that was not intrinsically easy. And we have far more poor Asians living to our immediate North than the USA has poor Hispanics to its South. So it seems completely obvious to me that the USA should and could control its borders too.

So why is it not happening? It is not happening because of an unholy alliance of Leftist Democrats and lassez faire Republicans. Leftists will support anything that tears down existing society and liberty-minded conservatives think government controls are mostly counterproductive. But there are liberties and liberties. Does a person have the liberty to decide who lives in his own home? Must he accept as a resident anyone who wanders into his house? Most people would say that a householder should be free to boot intruders out. And it seems to me that a nation should be similarly free.

But the time for that discussion is of course now long past. The egg has been scrambled. Half the babies now being born in the USA are "minority" babies. The USA is now a largely Hispanic nation and will steadily become more so even if effective border control measures are taken. So the already large numbers of Hispanics who vote will also grow. And NO political party can afford to alienate them. And although effective border control would not alienate ALL Hispanic voters, it would alienate many millions of them. And that would certainly be enough to swing an election.

So GWB has no choice. He has to go easy on Hispanic immigration or he will hand the next election to the Democrats. And much the same is true of Congress. There are substantial numbers of Hispanics in all States so many Congressmen would lose their jobs if Hispanics turned solidly against them.

So Americans no longer have much choice about the future ethnic composition of their country. It has been settled. The only choice is whether the USA will become rapidly more Hispanic (which is what will happen if the Democrats get control) or whether it slowly becomes more Hispanic (if GWB's policies prevail). There is no third option that would win an election.

So is that a good thing? Is the future of the USA clouded by its demographic transformation? It seems unlikely to be a big problem. Non-Hispanic whites will go on doing what they have always done -- leading the world in most spheres of endeavour -- and most Hispanics will probably have learnt enough from growing up in America not to support the Fascist political policies that regularly prevail in Latin America.

An increased level of crime may be one adverse result from the Hispanic influx but high crime levels are largely a reflection of poor policing and a lenient criminal justice system so that can be fixed whenever there is a public will to do so. Similarly, the burden of giving free medical care and schooling to illegals could be ended by requiring proof of citizenship first -- but there is virtually no will for that.

In the present, the Hispanic influx undoubtedly lowers wages at the bottom end of the market but there are both winners and losers from that.

Is there anything that non-Hispanic whites can do if they want America to remain predominantly non-Hispanic? Just one thing: Have babies.

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Bill permits 193 million more aliens by 2026: "The Senate immigration reform bill would allow for up to 193 million new legal immigrants -- a number greater than 60 percent of the current U.S. population -- in the next 20 years, according to a study released yesterday. "The magnitude of changes that are entailed in this bill -- and are largely unknown -- rival the impact of the creation of Social Security or the creation of the Medicare program," said Robert Rector, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation who conducted the study. Although the legislation would permit 193 million new immigrants in the next two decades, Mr. Rector estimated that it is more likely that about 103 million new immigrants actually would arrive in the next 20 years."

Your bureaucracy will protect you: "The Home Office has abandoned hope of finding hundreds of thousands of failed asylum seekers, its most senior enforcement officer admitted yesterday. In a shockingly frank series of answers to MPs, Dave Roberts said he didn't have the 'faintest idea' how many were at large. Mr Roberts is director of enforcement and removals at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, which polices migration into Britain on behalf of the Home Office. Coming from such an authoritative source, the comments exposed more starkly than ever the hopeless inadequacy of the asylum system".

Ward Churchill found guilty: "A University of Colorado investigative committee found deliberate and serious misconduct by ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill, including plagiarism, fabrication, and "serious deviation from accepted practices in reporting results from research," according to a report made public today. The committee also noted Churchill was "disrespectful of Indian oral traditions" when he wrote the U.S. government distributed blankets infested with smallpox to Mandan Indians in 1837 on the Upper Missouri River. Three of the five members of the committee said the transgressions were serious enough that CU could revoke Churchill's tenure and fire him. But two of those three said the most appropriate sanction would be a five-year suspension without pay. See also here

Supreme Court won't block lesbian "parent's" rights: "In a Washington state case, the U.S. Supreme Court refused today to block a gay woman from seeking parental rights to a child she had helped raise with her partner. Justices could have used the case to clarify the rights of gays in child custody disputes stemming from nontraditional families. They declined, without comment, to disturb a ruling of Washington state's highest court that said Sue Ellen Carvin could pursue ties to the girl as a 'de facto parent.' The girl is now 11. The case had brought a contentious issue to a court that has shied away from gay rights disputes. Lawyers for the girl's biological mother, Page Britain, told justices that the state court decision in this case and others around the country 'pave the way for children to have an unlimited and ever-changing number of parents.' Carvin's attorneys had said the court has never agreed to hear a case involving parenting or visitation disputes arising from same-sex relationships.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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17 May, 2006

Muslim refugees desecrate Belgian churches

Failure to confront reality exacts its price:

Illegal immigrants have taken refuge in some Belgian churches and, according to the conservative Brussels Journal, these churches "are being turned into mosques before [the bishops'] very eyes." A recent report in the journal indicates that the Belgian bishops have opened their churches and offered sanctuary to illegal immigrants in order to pressurize the Belgian authorities to allow them to stay in the country. Most of these illegal immigrants are Muslim, and the Brussels Journal accused the bishops of being "ignorant" to the fact that these immigrants are desecrating the churches.

According to the Belgian publication, the squatters live in tents in the churches. Catholic relief organizations provided the tents and offered radios, television sets and computers. They hold Islamic prayer services in the church and display banners showing the name of Allah. They have also moved the altar and covered the face of a statue of Our Lady with a cloth

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LEFTISTS ARE THE REAL HATERS

As Richard Cohen, a Washington Post "liberal", found out when he said that a comedian who had criticized Bush was not funny. HE then became the target of the hate. Cohen writes:

"Then I wrote about Stephen Colbert and his unfunny performance at the White House Correspondents' dinner. Kapow! Within a day, I got more than 2,000 e-mails. A day later, I got 1,000 more. By the fourth day, the number had reached 3,499 -- a figure that does not include the usual offers of nubile Russian women or loot from African dictators. The Colbert messages began with Patrick Manley ("You wouldn't know funny if it slapped you in the face'') and ended with Ron (``Colbert ROCKS, you MURDER'') who was so proud of his thought that he copied countless others. Ron, you're a genius.

"Truth to tell, I peeked into only a few of the e-mails. I did this because I would sometimes recognize a name I thought I knew, which was almost always a mistake. When I guilelessly clicked on the name, I would get a bucket of raw, untreated and disease-laden sewage right in the face. I'd quickly delete the thing, like closing a manhole cover, and move on, trying to figure out how to peek into an e-mail without getting the full, ugly message. No way....

"The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble -- not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out Hillary!) I have seen this anger before -- back in the Vietnam War era. That's when the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.

"The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during anti-war demonstrations."

For more on Leftists as haters, see here

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Tokenism: "US President George W. Bush unveiled plans overnight to deploy up to 6000 National Guard troops on the US-Mexico border to bolster efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. In a rare nationally televised speech that underlined the political stakes, Mr Bush denied he was "militarising" the border but said he wanted to use the troops to back up the Border Patrol while he added 6000 officers in the next two years."

Now we are in big trouble -- Chavez supports Iran!: "Venezuela's visiting President Hugo Chavez said here Friday Caracas supports the Islamic Republic of Iran. Speaking to IRNA on the sidelines of the EU-Latin America Summit, Chavez said, "We pray to `Allah' that no war would be launched against Iran!" The Venezuelan President added, "We believe the Iranian nation's campaign is our own nation's, and we ask the world countries to respect Iran's independence." He concluded stressing, "We are on the side of the Iranian nation and pray for President Ahmadinejad."

Tories attack the Beeb: "The Conservatives will intensify their attack on the power of the BBC today with a call for limits on its ability to "crowd out smaller players" in internet and local television markets. George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, will suggest that the BBC should be blocked from dominating online and local media in order to safeguard independent innovators who cannot get a foothold. Mr Osborne will build on the warning from his leader David Cameron last week that "we need to look at ways of making sure that the BBC doesn't overextend itself"."

Freer trade lifts all boats: "The global economy is on a growth streak that is shaping up to be the broadest and strongest expansion in more than three decades. Rising spending and investment by consumers and businesses worldwide are boosting national economies on every continent, pushing down unemployment rates in many countries and lifting business earnings and confidence. . . . The trend is being driven by free trade, which has created millions of jobs in emerging nations in recent years, fueling stunning new wealth in those countries."

Brazil is finished! Or so Luis Afonso thinks. And it is hard to disagree. Read Luis for the details.

With the recent arrival in London of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, an editorial in the Sunday Times once again mulls over the puzzle of why Leftists cream their jeans over dictators and other authoritarian rulers. The editorial does not quite get to the obvious solution to the puzzle, however: That Leftists themselves are would-be dictators -- despite all their flim-flam about "caring" etc.

Good: Muslim thugs kill one-another: "A man shot dead in a Sydney park was a suspect on the run over the fatal stabbing of Robin Nassour and the wounding of his brother, Fat Pizza actor George Nassour. Police have used fingerprints to identify Faouxi Abou-Jibal after his body was found with a gunshot wound to the back in a Lakemba park early yesterday. A warrant was issued late last month for Abou-Jibal's arrest over the attack on the Nassour brothers, stabbed in a Chiswick garage in January.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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16 May, 2006

PROGRESS IN HUMAN GENETIC ENGINEERING

A Brisbane couple is set to give birth to a designer baby hand-picked from a test tube as part of a world-first IVF test. The test, developed for Brisbane's City Fertility Centre, is set to revolutionise the booming IVF industry by allowing couples to select disease-free embryos. They will also be able to pick the gender, and safeguard against lab mix-ups by providing a DNA swab to match with the embryos.

The test, available nationally from July 1, involves taking a single cell from a three-day-old embryo and screening it for chromosome abnormalities which can lead to miscarriage and diseases, including cystic fibrosis and Down, Edwards and Patau syndromes. The molecular technology, known as MFPCR or multiplex fluorescent polymerase chain reaction, will cut down the time it takes to scan embryos for abnormalities to just a few hours. The $500 test is also predicted to slash the cost of IVF treatments from up to $20,000 each.

CFC medical director Glenn Sterling said the test was not about producing "designer babies". "We are examining embryos, not interfering with the genetic makeup," Dr Sterling said. "So many women go through IVF and they don't get pregnant, miscarry, or have a baby with major complications, and now they can go, `Let's get pregnant the first time and not go through the heartache'," he said.

The test took Griffith University's Prof Ian Findlay and scientists from South Australia-based company Gribble Molecular Science eight years to develop.

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on 14 May, 2006. Now that it is mostly the dumber element of society that is having the babies, some form of genetic engineering would appear to be the only hope for the intelligence of the future human population

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PROOF THAT PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH PROBABILITY OF BLACK CRIME

Leftist denials and excuses haven't fooled them

Male murderers with stereotypically "black-looking" features are more than twice as likely to be executed as lighter-skinned African-Americans convicted of killing a white person, researchers have found. But this effect disappears when both murderers and their victims are black, the scientists said. "Race clearly matters in criminal justice in ways in which people may or may not be consciously aware," said Jennifer Eberhardt, a psychologist at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., one of the researchers.

"When black defendants are accused of killing whites, perhaps jurors use the degree to which these defendants appear stereotypically black as a proxy for criminality, and then punish accordingly." The findings appear in the May issue of the journal Psychological Science.....

The study found that 57.5 percent of defendants rated by students to have "stereotypically black" features-broad noses, thick lips, dark skin and hair-were sentenced to death. This happened to only 24.4 percent of men rated as less stereotypically black. ...

Source

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Duke university "rape" update: "The second round of DNA test results in the Duke University rape investigation show "no conclusive match'' to any lacrosse players, defense attorneys said, but a vaginal swab of the alleged rape victim produced DNA from a "single male source'' - a man not on the lacrosse team who did not attend a March 13 party that was the site of the alleged rape. Defense attorney Joe Cheshire declined to identify the mystery man or his connection to the alleged victim, but ABC News' Law and Justice Unit has learned that the unnamed source of the DNA is the alleged victim's "boyfriend," according to her mother."

Presbyterian antisemitism: "As unpleasant as this may be for Presbyterians to face, the offices of the PC(USA) have also issued several statements that clearly cross whatever lines exist between an anti-Israel stance and a blatantly anti-Jewish one. Our Washington Office has assured us, in more polished words, that powerful Jews control American politics. Their missives have referred to "The traditional pandering by political candidates for Jewish support" and bemoaned the strange alliance between conservative Christians and some Jewish groups. The possibility that a person actually believed Israel to be in the right in the conflict, or at least neutral, does not seem to have occurred to the Washington office..... if something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, an observer does not know it's a duck, but there's a pretty good chance that it is. If official actions and statements of the Presbyterian Church (USA) look like anti-Semitism and sound like anti-Semitism, an observer could be excused for concluding that they in fact represent anti-Semitism.

Odd that the Cathoic church is now more faithful to the Bible than many Protestant churches are: "The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, faced accusations of hypocrisy from gay rights groups last night after it emerged that he dismissed a senior aide who was homosexual. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, regarded as the spiritual head of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain, dismissed his press secretary, Stephen Noon, three years ago. Sources suggested that the Cardinal was prepared to accept Mr Noon's homosexual orientation but when he was presented with irrefutable evidence that he had a partner and was living an openly gay lifestyle he felt he had to act."

Sickening : "A German reader informs us that it is not just the Catholic Church that has its quislings selling out to the Muslims. On Palm Sunday (9 April) a Protestant church in Bochum/Germany celebrated Muhammad’s birthday. The church invited the local Turkish community and the Turkish Consul, Munis Dirik, to attend the service. A Turkish music band played sufi music during the service, in which Protestants and Muslims joined together in honour of Muhammad".

I have just put up a new entry on my Scripture blog. It is an account by Chris Brand of how Jesus might have survived the resurrection without recourse to anything miraculous. My own view is that the post-crucifixion Jesus was probably a con-man impersonating Jesus but Chris thinks it more likely that the real Jesus was never crucified at all.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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15 May, 2006

HILARIOUS DILEMMA FOR BRITISH LEFTISTS

As part of their "all men are equal" mania, Leftists hate to acknowledge the high level of crime among blacks. Among Leftists you are allowed to blame black crime on anything but blacks themselves -- with police "racism" being the usual explanation. But what if the crime is detected by a machine? "Racist" machines are a bit much even for Leftists!

Britain's most senior policeman Sir Ian Blair is facing a race relations dilemma after the release of figures that reveal almost half the number of people arrested in relation to car crime in London are black. Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has signed off a report by his force's traffic unit which shows that black people account for 46% of all arrests generated by new automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras. The technology allows car registration plates to be scanned and automatically run through databases to determine whether a vehicle is stolen, uninsured or has not had its road tax paid. Each numberplate is also checked with the police national computer, where vehicles suspected of links to crimes such as robberies are flagged up. The Met has deployed six mobile ANPR camera units in the capital, primarily in areas with high levels of street crime. When a suspect vehicle is identified, police officers are sent to intercept the driver.

Although ANPR technology is impartial, the disproportionate number of blacks being arrested has prompted the Met to investigate. The arrests have been broken down by ethnicity in a report sent last month to the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), to which the force is accountable. It reveals that between April 2005 and January this year the units generated 2,023 arrests. Of these 923 were black suspects, while 738 (36%) came from white backgrounds. Asians accounted for just over 9% of arrests. The report tacitly appears to address concerns among ethnic minority communities who believe they are unfairly targeted by the police through stop and search powers. Black people are up to six times more likely to be stopped than whites. The report says: "It is worth stating that out of all our activities, this is the one area where the officer has minimal discretion as they respond to an electronic matching process." ...

Captain Gatso, of Motorists Against Detection, the anti-speed-camera group that uncovered the Met figures, said: "All this does is create a new problem for Sir Ian Blair, the politically correct PC, as ANPR cameras and the databases they are linked to are colour blind." It is more than a decade ago that Lord Condon, the former Met commissioner, caused controversy when he suggested that young black men were likely to be responsible for most muggings.

More here

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Leftist Susan Estrich thinks the L.A. Times is a rag: "When I was in law school, I thought the press could do no wrong. I was a strong supporter of New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court decision granting the press extra protection from state libel and slander laws and providing that only where there was actual malice could the press be sued for destroying a person's reputation. Then I entered the public world, where I -- or the candidates for whom I worked -- were frequently the subjects of newspaper stories, and I discovered something very upsetting. In almost every case, in almost every story, there was always something, usually more than one thing, that was just plain factually wrong."

Taking the "play" out of kids' playgrounds: "Most adults can remember the carefree days of childhood, climbing trees and jumping from swings, often on schoolyard playgrounds. Climbing, swinging and sliding was once a rite of passage during recess, a time for adventure, to see how high, how far and how fast we could go as a kid. Today, kids find themselves grounded, victims of a culture of fear and injury litigation. A growing number of school districts are going so far as to ban the game of tag and are even posting signs that read 'no running on the playground.' Is there real danger on the modern playground? Safety advocates say yes and want to eliminate it. Their first target: swing sets."

How can farmers be expected to anticipate such unprecedented phenomena as severe weather and rising costs? "Congress and the administration are engaged in a bitter fight over a $1.5 billion assistance package for farmers that senators tucked into a $109 billion war and hurricane-recovery spending bill last week. The new subsidy -- aimed at mitigating the impact of severe weather conditions and rising energy prices -- would primarily help farmers in the Midwest and Southeast who already get subsidies from the federal government for growing crops such as wheat, grain, rice and corn."

French wines imitating Australian and Californian wine: "Pascal Renaudat is the founder of the most sacrilegious concept imaginable to any Gallic purist - a French wine company that unashamedly imitates the New World. Op,ra Vins et Spiritueux (OVS) aims to win back drinkers in France's biggest export markets, and notably in Britain, where it introduced its wines this week. M Renaudat, 52, made a fortune as a wine distributor in France and then followed his father and brother into farming. But he was soon back in an attempt to prove that his compatriots had no one but themselves to blame for a fall in their global market share from 70 per cent to 40 per cent in the past decade. "I got fed up with reading that the difficulties of French wine were always the fault of everyone else - of the Government, of the New World, of supermarkets. The real problem is the way French wine is organised." ... With French wine sales in Britain falling to 761 million pounds last year, M Renaudat convinced them that the sort of easy-to-drink product that has proved successful in California and Australia would meet with similar fortune in France.

Bolivia Fascist, not Communist: "On May 1st, President Evo Morales of Bolivia ordered the army to assume control of Bolivia's natural gas fields and announced their nationalization. Not coincidentally, Morales' command came after his return from a meeting in Havana with two other self-identified leftists, Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba. Many observers commented that Morales' decision reflects Latin America's shift to the left. 'Left' in this context does not mean mildly center-left policies. 'Left' in the case of Morales and Chavez involves embracing aggressive class-struggle rhetoric and a classically socialist political agenda. Up to a point, this is a fair depiction of affairs. But a more accurate description would be to say that Bolivia and Venezuela are experiencing a resurgence of 'corporatism.'"

If anybody wants to follow Cardinal Pell's advice and read the Koran, you can download a copy from here

The truth about British casualties in Iraq: "Iraq is becoming less dangerous for British troops - and the IRA killed twice as many soldiers in one year as Iraqi insurgents have killed in three".

There is a little-known but interesting blog here. I like his idea that Americans should burn MORE gasoline, not less. He's got a good argument for it.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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14 May, 2006

Absurd bureaucratic attack on church music in Left-ruled Australian State

When the Reverend Warwick Cadenhead, the minister at Paddington Uniting Church, tallied the costs of hosting live music at the 130-year-old sandstone pile he knew it must be a test. "My God," he said, "There has to be a better system." There is not. For the price of a temporary council-issued place of public entertainment authority - required for any performance on church grounds, even the singing of hymns - there was not much change from $30,000. "We had to pay Sydney Council for the development application, and for acoustic and traffic engineers to conduct reports - it's taken four months," Mr Cadenhead said.

Under the Local Government Act, every NSW church is required to have an authority for live music, which includes singing by congregations and choirs. But councils apply the law inconsistently, and in most cases they require churches to comply only when noise complainants make a fuss. In Balmain the Campbell Street Presbyterian Church, founded in the 1840s, has cancelled a Mother's Day concert planned for tomorrow because a one-off authority from Leichhardt Council could cost more than $5000. The church's minister, the Reverend Ivan Ransom, said the complaints started about a month ago when a new resident moved into the neighbourhood. "There are lots of churches around here that are considering defying the council," he said.

When applying for the last 12-month permit from the City of Sydney, Mr Cadenhead had to lay out more than $200,000 to soundproof Paddington Uniting Church. "I'm not suggesting that churches should get special treatment, but surely this is extreme." However, in pubs and clubs the State Government exempted big screen TVs, jukeboxes and poker machines from needing the authority...."

Source

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Inquiry sought on 'tipping' of border group locations: "Congressional leaders Thursday called on the Department of Homeland Security to investigate reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has given information to the Mexican government about the locations of U.S. civilian border watch groups. California Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and Darryl Issa, R-Vista, along with Texas Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, sent a formal letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff asking for a full investigation into all circumstances and events related to civilian border observation groups and the Mexican government. The letter was in response to a story published in Tuesday's Daily Bulletin, which reported Border Patrol officials shared civilian groups' locations with the Mexican government when illegal border crossers were detained and at the request of the Mexican consulate, among other things".

Organ socialism: "Congress passed the National Organ Transplantation Act in 1984, making it illegal to buy or sell human organs. That law funded organ procurement organizations, which find organ donors, acquire organs, and ship them to transplant hospitals. It also created the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. It made the Secretary of Health & Human Services responsible for outsourcing OPTN's operation. HHS hired the United Network for Organ Sharing. People who need transplants can only be put on the waiting list by government-approved transplant hospitals, and only if they pay UNOS a listing fee. Transplant patients pay hospitals for the donated organs they get from organ procurement organizations. How's this system working? Over 6,000 people on the transplant waiting list died waiting in 2005. Another 1,800 left the list because they became too sick for surgery. They'll die soon -- if they're still alive. The waiting list has doubled in ten years to over 92,000 people. Most people on the list will die waiting."

U.S. as biggest foreign aid recipient: "Which country receives the most in total foreign aid from all donors? The official numbers show Iraq at the top with $3 to $18 billion in aid (depending on how you define 'aid') and all the other recipient nations of the world at less than $3 billion per year. However, if you look at which nation benefits most from foreign subsidies, the U.S. would come out on top by a very wide margin. Yes, I did just say that the U.S. is the world's largest recipient of foreign assistance. Other countries are not sending official government 'aid' dollars to help the U.S. but are doing things that have the same effect. For instance, China provides the biggest single subsidy to the U.S."

Gas tax a bonanza for state: "Oil companies aren't the only ones raking in the money because of rising prices at the fuel pump. The coffers of state and local governments are seeing big gains as a result of increased revenue generated by the sales tax that consumers pay on gasoline. Sales tax receipts from the gas pumps in the fourth quarter of last year grew by nearly $100 million from the same period the year before , according to the latest figures available. And that was when California's average price for a gallon of gas at the pump, which includes state and local sales tax along with fixed state and federal excise taxes, was at $2.56. Since 2002, sales tax revenues on gas have been growing annually by $300 million to $400 million to reach $2.86 billion in 2005, according to the California Board of Equalization. And with fuel prices at the pump already well above $3, the gas tax boom will likely continue for state and local governments."

Massachusetts gets real on gas taxes: "Motorists in Massachusetts would save 21 cents a gallon for gasoline this summer under a bill filed yesterday by House minority leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. that would eliminate the state gas tax for three months. ... With the summer travel season approaching, the bill, backed by Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey and legislators from both parties, would be in effect from Memorial Day through Labor Day, giving relief to businesses who need tourism dollars to thrive and to working families who want to travel, Jones said. ... Chances of the bill's passage appeared slim yesterday, given the criticism from a key Democratic lawmaker and other observers. The critics said the tax cut would endanger spending on other state initiatives, such as education and healthcare. The supporters estimate the cut would cost the state $187 million in revenue. They propose using up to $200 million of the state's $1.7 billion budget reserves to make up for the loss."

The "Peoples Cube" satirists are having a shot at Muslims now. See here. As with all good satire, it's not far from the truth.

Wicked Thoughts has just put up an exceptionally funny collection of kid stories.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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



13 May, 2006

LYING DEMOCRAT BOSS MAKES IT EASY FOR THE GOP

It looks like John Kerry has made flip-flopping into the Democrat modus operandi. Not impressive

Democratic chairman Howard Dean mischaracterized his party's platform on gay rights in an interview courting evangelicals, then set the record straight Thursday when an advocacy group called him on it. Dean told Christian Broadcasting Network News that the 2004 Democratic platform declares "marriage is between a man and a woman" - just one of the points he made in reaching out to religious conservatives who are largely hostile to the party. But the platform does not define marriage that way, and his remarks prompted the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to return a $5,000 donation from the Democratic National Committee.

Dean later acknowledged his misstatement, but the group sent back the money anyway. "We need for Governor Dean to demonstrate real leadership on our issues," executive director Matt Foreman said in an interview, "not to equivocate depending on the audience." Dean sought to establish common ground with religious conservatives in the interview on Pat Robertson's network, a tall order considering their opposition to the Democratic Party's positions on abortion rights, gay rights and some other social issues.

More here

Once again we see that Leftist principles are as solid as foam rubber. When they say that there is no such thing as right and wrong they really mean it. As Tibor Machan says:

Do "liberals" care about liberty? "I assume most of those who read this column have heard modern liberals proclaim their the deep concern civil liberties and due process. Among them many tell us they are upset about how President George W. Bush and most of those on his team are willing to sacrifice these so as to carry on with 'the war on terror.' These liberals express earnest concern about how the rights of detainees are violated. They lament how Americans are being subjected to unlawful wiretapping. They are very upset with certain provisions of the Patriot Act and similar measures that they claim violate our rights. These liberals profess real worry about our loss of liberties. I don't believe them. I am convinced they are not at all serious about liberty. They are merely playing power politics"

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New immigration bill in the works: "Senate leaders reached a deal Thursday on reviving a broad immigration bill that could provide millions of illegal immigrants a chance to become American citizens and said they'll try to pass it before Memorial Day.... Key to the agreement is who will be negotiating a compromise with the House, which last December passed an enforcement-only bill that would subject the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States to felony charges as well as deportation.... Frist said a "considerable" number of amendments would be debated when the Senate begins debating the bill early next week. That measure absorbed a bill drafted by McCain and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that called for allowing illegal immigrants to work toward becoming legal permanent residents. President Bush had helped accelerate progress on the bill after meeting with a bipartisan group of senators last month and stating clearer support for allowing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. "Business and labor, Democrats and Republicans, religious leaders and the American people strongly support our plan to strengthen borders, provide a path to earned citizenship for those undocumented workers who are here and put in place a realistic guest worker program for the future," Kennedy said.

Comment from Keith Burgess Jackson: "The president of Iran says that "America is a sinner." Gee, that's what Noam Chomsky and Brian Leiter have been saying. Sometimes I wonder whether these great thinkers realize how ludicrous they sound. Their mantra is "America bad; everyone else good." If this country is so bad, why don't they move to Iran or some other land of liberty, opportunity, justice, and prosperity? I'm serious. Why would you live in a place that you think deeply and irredeemably immoral? Why would you raise your children in such a place? Isn't that a dereliction of parental duty? Chomsky and Leiter want it both ways. They want all the advantages and comforts of living in the United States, but aren't willing to pay any price, bear any burden, or incur any risk to promote its interests. They are leeches."

National security at work: "Bush Administration officials insist they have no idea how a minute-by-minute schedule for the President's trip to Florida landed in a pile of trash, where almost anyone could grab it, hours before the President took off. But the White House does admit the document should have been burned not tossed. The document in question appears to be a White House staff schedule for the President's trip to Florida Tuesday. And a sanitation worker was alarmed to find in the trash long hours before Mr. Bush left for his trip. It's the kind of thing you would expect would be shredded or burned, not thrown in the garbage. Randy Hopkins could not believe what he was seeing. There on the floor next to a big trash truck was a thick sheaf of papers with nearly every detail of the President's voyage. "I saw locations and names and places where the President was going to be. I knew it was important. And it shouldn't have been in a trash hole like this," he said."

More brilliant security: "On April 28, 2006, Eric McCarty was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. McCarty is a professional computer security consultant who noticed that there was a problem with the way the University of Southern California had constructed its web page for online applications. A database programming error allowed outsiders to obtain applicants' personal information, including Social Security numbers. For proof, the man copied seven applicants' personal records and anonymously sent them to a reporter for SecurityFocus. The journalist notified the school, the school fixed the problem, and the reporter wrote an article about it. The incident might have ended there, but didn't. The school went through its server logs and easily traced the activity back to McCarty, who had made no attempt to hide his tracks. The FBI interviewed McCarty, who explained everything to the agents. Then the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles charged the security expert with violating 18 U.S.C. 1030, the federal computer crime law".

More California craziness: "The state has placed more than 20 high-risk sex offenders on parole in hotels and motels near Disneyland, and in some cases moved them from place to place to avoid registering their addresses, a legislator charged Tuesday. This shows 'a total lack of common sense' by top corrections officials, said Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk) on Tuesday at an Anaheim news conference. He compared the practice to 'putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.' He cited a recent investigative KCBS-TV report that allegedly showed parole agents moving sex offenders from one motel to another. 'It's a devastating situation,' Bermudez said. 'When you place high-risk sex offenders where children are, you're almost violating the laws by putting children in harm's way.' The Department of Corrections denied Tuesday that any parolee 'shuffling' took place."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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12 May, 2006

Hispanic future now set for the USA

Nearly half of the nation's children under 5 are racial or ethnic minorities, and the percentage is increasing mainly because the Hispanic population is growing so rapidly, according to a census report released today. Hispanics are the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group. They accounted for 49 percent of the country's growth from 2004 to 2005, the report shows. And the increase in young children is largely a Hispanic story, driving 70 percent of the growth in children younger than 5. Forty-five percent of U.S. children younger than 5 are minorities. The new numbers offer a preview of demographic shifts to come, with broad implications for the nation's schools, workforce and Social Security.

One in three Americans is now a member of a minority group, a share that is bound to rise, because the non-Hispanic white population is older and growing much more slowly. The country already is engaged in a national debate about how government should respond to growing immigration, legal and illegal. In some parts of the country, the transformation is more visible than in others. Large swaths of the upper Midwest are still mainly non-Hispanic white. But minorities are a majority of children younger than 5 in the Washington area, according to previously released census numbers. That is also true in Miami, Houston, Los Angeles and other high-immigration regions....

Experts say immigrant families are becoming more concerned with the quality of their children's early education, aware that it can affect their future academic success. That is one reason there is a waiting list at the Child and Family Network Centers, a preschool in Alexandria. The centers, which also operate a preschool in Arlington, provide free and subsidized preschools for about 200 children from low-income families. They serve many immigrants, including those who don't qualify for other programs. The waiting list is 150 children long. Eight out 10 speak English as a second language, and 70 percent are Latino.... Cruz said she has seen a huge difference in children's abilities from when they start the program and when they move on to kindergarten. She pointed at a 5-year-old girl from Mexico who was prattling about butterflies in English: Last year, Cruz said, "she came with zero English -- zero."....

The census figures show that the number of Hispanic and Asian children younger than 5 grew by double-digit percentages since 2000. The number of black children grew more slowly. The number of non-Hispanic white children younger than 5 declined for two years this decade before increasing again. The nation's Asian population growth still is dominated by immigration, the census report shows, but among Hispanics, births added more to the population growth than immigrants did this decade. That means the growth trend among the youngest Hispanics "is only going to accelerate under almost any scenario you can think about, even without immigration," said demographer Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center. "As the children age, they are the ones who in 20 years will be having children."

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Population worries in Russia too: "President Putin offered to pay Russian women to have more children in an attempt to stem a demographic crisis that has shrunk the Russian population by five million since 1991.... Pointing out that his country's population was contracting by 700,000 a year, Mr Putin said: "We have often raised this subject but, to be frank, little has been done," he said. Russia's population has fallen from 148 million when the Soviet Union collapsed to less than 143 million today, because of a low birth rate and a huge number of alcohol-related deaths. Average male life expectancy is only 58.8 years. Experts have said that the population could drop as low as 100 million within half a century, and urged the Kremlin to allow millions of immigrants to supplement the workforce. But nationalists and leaders of the Orthodox Church firmly oppose that, fearing that a flood of Muslim and Chinese immigrants from ex-Soviet republics would corrupt what they see as Russia's Slavic and Christian identity. Mr Putin, an only child and the father of two girls, proposed using some of Russia's oil wealth to lower the mortality rate, increase the birth rate and entice ethnic Russians back from abroad. He said that the Government should increase monthly handouts for a first baby from 700 roubles (14 pounds ) to 1,500 roubles by the end of this year, and start paying 3,000 roubles a month for a second child. He also suggested a one-off payment of 250,000 roubles for each second child.

BBC dishonesty: "The official for the governors of the BBC on its coverage of the Palestine-Israeli conflict found predictably that there was "was little to suggest systematic or deliberate bias" but then went on to list a series of measurements by which the BBC could be said to be biased in favour of Israel. This produced mocking guffaws in my own newsroom, where some of the BBC's greatest hits - or perhaps misses - remain fresh in the memory. There was the hagiographic send-off for Yassir Arafat by a BBC reporter with tears in her eyes and that half-hour profile of Arafat in 2002 which called him a "hero" and "an icon" and concluded that the corrupt old brute was "the stuff of legends". There was Orla Guerin's unforgettably inventive spin on the story of a Palestinian child being deployed as a suicide bomber, which most journalists saw as a sickening example of child abuse in the pursuit of terrorism. Guerin had it as "Israel's cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes"...."

Jeb? "US President George W Bush praised his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, as an "excellent" leader who would make a "great president" of the United States, according to news accounts. "I think Jeb would be a great president. But it's up to Jeb to make a decision to run," Bush told reporters today at a roundtable interview in Orlando with several Florida newspapers. "I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not," said the president, in comments published in the St Petersburg Times, and other dailies".

Leftist ego and GWB: "President Bush, by his very persona, triggers the very wellsprings of anger and resentment on the part of the secular fundamentalists who dominate the contemporary Left. A large segment of the American intelligentsia and its hangers-on has found an object wholly outside their framework of affection. People who obtained their status and income partially from the ability to speak articulately, and master a body of learning, find it troubling when one who does not flaunt his reading of books and newspapers and does not wield a large vocabulary of eloquently-spoken words rises above them in status. It is an insult to the personal values they have embraced, and on whose rightness their own sense of self-worth depends."

Tax cap extended: "House Republican leaders are ready to move forward on tax breaks worth $70 billion over five years to investors and some middle-income families now that they've sorted out a disagreement among themselves. The breakthrough Tuesday set up a vote in the House late Wednesday. The Senate is expected to clear the bill Thursday, which would let President Bush achieve one of his top tax priorities and give his GOP allies on Capitol Hill a victory in times of sagging poll numbers. The bill offers a two-year extension of the reduced 15 percent tax rate for capital gains and dividends, currently set to expire at the end of 2008."

Carnival of the Vanities is now up again.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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11 May, 2006

ANOTHER DOS ATTACK?

TONGUE-TIED is down again at the time of writing -- apparently because of a DOS attack on the host. The mirror version of TT is still available here.



Brookes News Update

How China's monetary policy drives world commodity prices: Since China's monetary pumping relative to real economic activity has been accelerating while in the US relative pumping has been decelerating, it follows that China's Yuan has to depreciate against the US dollar
The Australian economy and recession: It now looks that recession might be much closer than many economists realise. Combine a monetary flattening with the possibility that China's central bank might tighten credit and things begin to look very gloomy
Michael Kroger's shabby ambition is destroying the Victorian Liberal Party: The unofficial head of the Victorian State Liberal Party is the blue blood Michael Kroger whose arrogance and incompetence is wrecking it. And if he thinks sliming people is a good idea, this headkicker had better think again while there is still a Party. Better still -- throw the grasping cream puff out
Republican answer for alternative energy and cheap gasoline: The US has massive reserves of natural gas easily and safely accessible on its offshore continental shelf and federal lands -- enough for centuries. Energy companies must be allowed to extract it no matter what greens say or do
Another lefty economist who thinks cars and oil are bad for us: `Rising petrol prices are good for us' is the title of an article by Ross Gittins of the Sydney Morning Herald. The title and thinking behind it neatly sums up just how bad economic commentary is in Australia

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ELSEWHERE

Lesbian genes? "Lesbians' brains react differently to sex hormones than those of heterosexual women, new research indicates. That's in line with an earlier study that had indicated gay men's brain responses were different from straight men ? though the difference for men was more pronounced than has now been found in women. Lesbians' brains reacted somewhat, though not completely, like those of heterosexual men, a team of Swedish researchers said in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A year ago, the same group reported findings for gay men that showed their brain response to hormones was similar to that of heterosexual women. In both cases the findings add weight to the idea that homosexuality has a physical basis and is not learned behavior".

Italy to elect ex-communist as president: "Italy's incoming government is set to elect the country's first former communist president on Wednesday in the face of opposition from most of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative bloc. Prime minister-in-waiting Romano Prodi has vowed to ram through his candidate, Giorgio Napolitano, after two days of wrangling and inconclusive ballots.... Napolitano, an 80-year-old life senator for the Democrats of the Left, failed to gain the two-thirds majority needed in previous voting rounds, but from Wednesday an absolute majority will be enough to elect Italy's 11th post-war head of state... The post of president is largely ceremonial but under the constitution the head of state names the prime minister and dissolves parliament - prerogatives which could be crucial for Prodi as he prepares to form a government."

Murdoch keeping his powder dry: "Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch will host a fundraiser to support New York Democratic US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election bid in November, her campaign office said. The fundraiser by the head of News Corporation, with such media outlets as Fox News cable television and the New York Post, would be held by July, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the story. A Clinton campaign spokesman said her office was not contradicting the report, and a Murdoch source confirmed the fundraiser would take place."

Australia now debt-free: "We have now eliminated the $96 billion of net debt that Labor left the Australian Government when it left office. Our Budget is in surplus for the 9th time in 10 years: in 2006-07 a forecast surplus of $10.8 billion. We have established a Future Fund which has begun to save for the future. With these savings the next generation will be able to meet the challenges of their time. Now the Australian Government is debt-free in net terms. We do not have to collect taxes to pay the Government's interest bill. We are saving over $8 billion per annum in interest payments."

Iraq: Local men gather arms, work shifts to guard families : "As night fell, young men emerged from their homes, pulled a tree trunk across the entrance to their street and took their positions for another shift guarding their families from the armed groups that roam Baghdad. Beside them, in a residential Sunni area in the southwest of the city, lay their weapons. At the moment it is only Kalashnikovs. But they seek more, especially heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. ... 'The groups we are nervous of have many guns and are well-organized. If they come, can we beat them? If not, we would die knowing we fought to save our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters.' This is neighborhood watch Iraqi-style. ... the U.S. Army in the most troubled spots has started to issue weapons licenses to people guarding their homes."

Blogger beats lawsuit: "The effort to silence Maine blogger Jeffrey Dutson, with a libel suit brought by the advertising firm of Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, ended in ignominious failure. Warren Kremer Paino withdrew its suit, and the Media Bloggers Association, a blogger-defense organization, claimed victory.... A big round of thanks is in order for the lawyers who volunteered their time on Lance's behalf including MBA General Counsel, Ronald Coleman of the Coleman Law Firm, Greg Herbert of Greenberg Traurig and private attorney Jon Stanley. "This demonstrates precisely what we have said all along," said Coleman, "Suits like this are premised solely on the anticipation that there will be no push back from the little guy. Here, there was.""

Antisemitic British academics again: "The largest university and college lecturers union in Britain is likely to decide shortly to recommend that its 67,000 members boycott Israeli lecturers and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the territories. The boycott motion, which was drafted by the southeast region of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), will be brought to a vote at its annual national conference, which will be held May 27-29. It comes about a year after the last boycott by British lecturers."

Surprising! French forces rejoin Operation Enduring Freedom: " The French Navy Carrier Air Wing returned to the coalition fight last week, flying their first missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom since November. "Our main mission while we are here is to support troops on the ground and contribute to reconnaissance efforts as well," said Lt. Col. Gerard Brunel, commander of the French detachment at the Combined Air Operations Center. It is Central Command Air Forces policy not to disclose the specific location of its forward headquarters or the CAOC... "We welcome the return of our French allies to the CAOC," said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Allen Peck, deputy Combined Force Air Component commander. "With continuing rotations of airpower provided by our allies from around the world, the effort to support our troops on the ground is a truly a coalition operation.""

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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



10 May, 2006

SOME ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON THINK ISRAEL

ISRAELI AND JEWISH USEFUL IDIOTS: We are so used to blatant distortions and outrageous statements by anti-Israel Jews such as Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein or Ilan Pappe, we have ignored the damage that can be done by Jews that Jack Berger calls "useful idiots" -- Jews that appear mild in manner and sound reasonable but damage Israel by omissions and by slanting the truth. And there are those that do Israel a disservice by sugar-coating the truth about Israel's neighbors so that the audience is left feeling good, though unenlightened. "'Useful idiots' are those who try to deny the obvious. Armed with excuses and rationalizations, they have created an art form of telling people what they wanted them to hear rather than what was actually happening."

GREEN TIDE RISING: Philip B. Haney points out that Hamas winning the election to head the Palestine Authority is not surprising. Contrary to what we'd like to believe, they've been much admired in the Arab world for some twenty years. They represent the global Jihadist movement and "at least four generations of Middle Eastern Arab Muslims ... have all been saturated from birth on the liberation theology of Jihad." Using democratic means to gain power, the Middle East Jihadist groups -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, the clerics in Iran and Saudi Arabia -- have a single objective: to impose Islamic Sharia'ah law on whatever country they control. The similarity between resurgent Islam and Nazi Germany -- their local popularity, their ability to sway crowds and intimidate their neighbors as well as their unabashed desire to conquer the world -- is both frightening and real.

ISRAEL'S NEW WAR: While so many politicians keep denying there is a loose confederacy among the multiple terror groups, their unification has reached the point that Caroline Glick suggests the new Israeli Kadima government rethink its plan to retreat from most of Samaria and Judea. We should take seriously the fact that Hamas is making Gaza into a wall-to-wall terror stronghold and bomb manufactory and the fact that Al Qaeda is sizing up the area as a base from which to attack both Israel and Jordan.

ALLAH BE APPRAISED: Considering that so many people -- including President Bush -- claim Islam is a peaceful religion, Burt Prelutsky finds it remarkable that "... wherever Islam gains a stranglehold, you will find the nightmare of slavery, genocide and female stoning and mutilation, the norm." Of course, the Muslim cult of death may have other causes -- the climate, "... too much sand in one's diet ... sharing one's life with camels, a notoriously nasty beast..."

ISLAM'S IMPERIAL DREAMS: Efraim Karsh explains that Islam's hostility to the West is not a new phenomenon engendered by legimate grievances. To the contrary, he points out that "[t]he last great Muslim empire may have been destroyed and the caliphate left vacant, but the dream of regional and world domination has remained very much alive" and has now been adapted by various radical Islamic groups. He also reminds us about historical inaccuracies about past Caliphates that are still current. You'll be glad you read this article the next time someone tells you that some horrible killing by the Arabs was only in response to (an event within the previous week).

ISLAM'S COMING CRUSADE: The theory is that only a few misguided souls are interested in terror and in conducting a jihad to install shari'a throughout the world. This is given the lie by polls that show "that 60 percent of Jordanians, Egyptians and Palestinians want Islamic shari'a law to be the sole source of legislation." There really is a clash of civilizations. ... The clash goes beyond differing interests. Hundreds of millions of Muslims who live alongside us and among us inhabit another mental world."

WAR AND PEACE: Yashiko Sagamori suggests that over much of the world, the choice, vis a vis the Muslims "is not between war and peace, because the war, whose name is jihad, is upon us, whether we are willing to admit it or prefer suicidal denial. Our choice is between fighting it and surrendering." Yet in many cases, people are ignoring the enemy and focusing on Israel as the easy-to-tackle bad guy. England would eliminate Iranian nuclear power, but it also wants to disarm Israel. Blaming Israel can only increase as Muslims take over more of Europe. And "with every passing year, the Europe of an overseas vacationer acquires more and more of the unreal quality of an amusement park. Its attractions are still running, but the place is now under new management." Israel is another place where Islam could be defeated. "The government of Israel has all the means necessary to defeat the enemy, but, along with a large percentage of the population, lacks the will to do so. Trying to avoid displeasing the world at all costs, they prefer to surrender their land and sacrifice their lives to a weak, inhumane enemy." And America will soon have its own struggle with a resident population of Muslims promoting shari'a.

THE FALL OF FRANCE AND THE MULTICULTURAL WORLD WAR: Fjordman is a Norwegian essayist who writes on Scandanavian affairs and Islam. In this essay, he expects that continued unrestrained Muslim immigration and their easily-sparked riots may end in a complete breakdown of French society, with France dominated by the Muslims or becoming an Islamic state, either with or without protracted protest from the natives. He suggests possible scenarios on what this process might mean for the rest of Europe.

CRISIS IN EUROPE: Bruce Bawer writes that most of the countries in Western Europe now have two very separate communities -- secular, liberal populations with a low birthrate and "self-segregating enclaves whose autocratic leaders despised democracy and whose population (thanks to high birth and immigration rates) was climbing rapidly." But few people talk about this division openly or have examined it critically. Bawer brilliantly summarizes the major analyses. Europeans contributed to the problem, because, ironically, out of respect for Muslim traditions, they didn't promote integration or force the Muslim immigrants to work but romantically "pursued ... an approach they saw as humane and multicultural." The Muslims responded with contempt. Conversely, practices sanctioned by the Koran and therefore intrinsic to Muslim society -- slavery, polygamy, oppressive attitudes toward women and infidels -- are antithetic to integration into the greater society. This is an excellent introduction to material on what is a serious problem in Europe.

THE ISLAMIZATION OF AMERICA: Phyllis Chesler focusses on how Muslims bent on islamization use America's tolerance and its freedom of expression against us. We feel virtuous when we admit admitted Jihadists into this country; we defend the right of imams to indoctrinate others with poisonous messages of hate; we welcome rabid hate groups to the campus. But there's no reciprocity. Newspapers are afraid to run cartoons of Mohammad; bookstores are afraid to stock anti-Muslim books; talk shows are afraid to say that all of the terrorists of 911 were Arab; and tracking the funding of the terrorists is a suable offense. Chesler suggests some remedies.

SPEAKING (AND NOT SPEAKING) ABOUT POLITICS, GENDER, AND RACE AT HARVARD: Richard Cravetts tells us about the events that led up to Lawrence Summers' resigning his post as president of Harvard University. Harvard has had a long-standing ban on ROTC on campus, even after 911. "Patriotism," Summers said at the Kennedy School of Government, "might actually be a positive and virtuous emotion for a wounded nation..." Bloing! He tackled a black racist. He rejected a petition to divest Harvard of funds invested in Israel from the "campus Left's campus Left's obsession with the Palestinian cause -- and its contemporaneous and subsequent demonization of Israel ..." Bloing! Bloing! Bloing! And he was finally shafted for daring to suggest that men and women might have built-in differences in mathematical ability. His real crime? Advocating diversity of opinion in an environment that believed in a restricted set of opinions that should not be questioned.

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ELSEWHERE

An interesting email from a reader in South Africa: "Most people only dream of what they can get out of a socialist society, not what they have to put into it. There was a story here recently about a farm that was purchased for the local itinerants to run for themselves. As a White owned farm, it had an annual turnover of R3m (approx $A640k), mostly mangoes. Now it produces nothing, the farmhouse has been stripped. One of the 'owners' is quoted as saying "Workers cannot work on the farm if they don't get paid". To me, this is the kernel of socialism-he could not get his head around the fact that he now owned the damned farm and that his pay is a result of his own efforts"

Sexual frustration among Iranian footballers? "Iran's hardline Islamic regime has had enough of footballers with long hair and plucked eyebrows. "I will ban athletes with an effeminate look," the head of the country's Physical Education Organisation, Mohammad Ali-Abadi said, told the Etemad-Melli newspaper. "It is really disgraceful for Iran that young people step onto fields wearing make-up," the top official fumed. "When a man enters the field with dyed hair and groomed eyebrows he is disrespecting society."

Leftist lunacy never stops: "Which international leader publicly threatens to blow up his country's oilfields, supports Iran's nuclear programme, says that the Falklands belong to Argentina and believes that Robert Mugabe is a "true freedom-fighter"? The answer is none other than Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, who readily antagonises and hurls insults at the leaders of other nations, including Tony Blair, whom he called an "ally of Hitler". Next week London will have the dubious honour of a visit by Senor Chavez, hosted by none other than its mayor, Ken Livingstone. Emboldened by a huge windfall of petrodollars due to climbing oil prices, Senor Chavez has no shortage of international cheerleaders. He has become the voice and leader of the resentful of our world. From Argentina to the offices of the Greater London Authority, almost every person bearing a grudge against capitalism, free markets, democracy and the rule of law support his "revolution"."

Hooray! Hacker jailed: "A US computer hacker has been jailed for nearly five years for hijacking around 400,000 computers, including military servers, and infecting them with malicious software. Sealing the first prosecution of its kind today, US federal Judge Gary Klausner in Los Angeles sentenced "botmaster" Jeanson Ancheta, 20, to 57 months in jail for taking control of an array of computers he had corralled into his "Botnet". Ancheta had pleaded guilty in January to infecting the computers with software that caused them to send spam, show ads and launch crippling attacks on internet sites. The crime was "extensive, serious and sophisticated," the judge told the court as he handed down the longest-known sentence for someone accused of spreading computer viruses. "Your worst enemy is your own intellectual arrogance that somehow the world cannot touch you on this," the judge told Ancheta."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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

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



9 May, 2006

THE LEFT ARE THE BIGGEST PART OF THE MUSLIM PROBLEM

Islamic beliefs, ideas and intentions as such pose a threat to our civilization and our way of life, and not some allegedly aberrant variety of Muhammad's faith. The elite class rejects this diagnosis, of course, but among reasonable, patriotic, and well-informed citizens the debate on Islam's nature should be long over. Americans did not agonize over communism's "true" nature during the Berlin air lift in 1949, or at Pusan in 1950, but acted effectively to contain it by whatever means necessary.

Yes, back then we had a legion of Moscow's apologists, character witnesses, moles and fellow-travelers, assuring us that the Comrades want nothing but social justice at home and peaceful coexistence abroad. They held tenured chairs, staffed the New York Times' Moscow bureaus, controlled many Hollywood studios, and dominated all smart salons on both coasts. They explained away and justified the inconsistencies and horrifyingly violent implications of the source texts of Marx and Lenin. They explained away and justified the appalling fruits: the bloodbath of the Bolshevik Revolution itself, the genocidal crime of the great famine, the show trials and purges, the killing machine that destroyed millions of innocents known as the Gulag, the pact with Hitler, the works.

Today their spiritual heirs in politics, the academy and the media establishment act as Islam's apologists, character witnesses and fellow travelers. They explain away, with identical scholastic sophistry and moral depravity, the dark and violent implications of the source texts, the Koran and the Hadith, the deeply unnerving career of Muhammad, and 14 centuries of conquests, wars, slaughters, subjugation, decline without fall, spiritual and material misery, and murderous fanaticism.

Much more here

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Where have I seen those collar patches before?



US sues black activist on voting act violation: "Ike Brown is a legend in Mississippi politics, a fast-talking operative both loved and hated for his ability to turn out black voters and get his candidates into office. That success has also landed him at the heart of a federal lawsuit that's about to turn the Voting Rights Act on its head. For the first time, the Justice Department is using the 1965 law to allege racial discrimination against whites. Brown, head of the Democratic Party in Mississippi's rural Noxubee County, is accused of waging a campaign to defeat white voters and candidates with tactics including intimidation and coercion."

Reason irrelevant to Leftism: "It may well be that socialism isn't dead because socialism cannot die. As Sorel argued, the revolutionary myth may, like religion, continue to thrive in "the profounder regions of our mental life," in those realms unreachable by mere reason and argument, where even a hundred proofs of failure are insufficient to wean us from those primordial illusions that we so badly wish to be true. Who doesn't want to see the wicked and the arrogant put in their place? Who among the downtrodden and the dispossessed can fail to be stirred by the promise of a world in which all men are equal, and each has what he needs? ... Those who, like Chavez, Morales, and Castro, are preaching the old time religion of socialism may well be able to tap into something deeper and more primordial than mere reason and argument"

Vietnam becoming capitalist: "Today Vietnam is one of the seriously reforming Southeast Asian "tigers," countries that grew rapidly for many years but stumbled for a time after the 1997 economic crisis. Over the past five years Vietnam has had the most consistent growth record of all the Southeast Asian nations: going from a 1999 GDP low of 4.7% (which is still higher than growth rates in most countries of the world), to more than 8% in 2005. This growth has been driven by an increasingly market- oriented perspective that encourages private enterprise, as well as a burgeoning private business sector. This private sector has expanded by about 20% per year in recent years, has created hundreds of thousands of jobs and has become a major force in substantially raising general living standards".

How big is Bush's big government?: "When teaching economics I sometimes find it beneficial to use government budget data to apply the lessons of economics to our current political circumstances. The students tend to be surprised at the size of our government, the amount of tax revenues that we 'pay,' and the amount of government debt. The following numbers get the point across. We, in the United States, live under the rule of the largest civil government, measured in budgetary terms, in history. Federal spending alone in fiscal year 2006 is expected to be over $2.7 trillion, which means the federal government spends $7.4 billion a day or $5.1 million in every minute of the year. This is 815 times the level of federal spending in 1930."

Walter Williams on Disappearing manufacturing jobs: "According to some pundits and political hustlers, free trade has led to a loss of "good manufacturing jobs." Let's look at it, but before doing so, let's first see whether we should work ourselves into a tizzy over other job losses. In 1900, 41 percent of the U.S. labor force was employed in agriculture. Now, only two percent of today's labor force works in agricultural jobs. If declining employment is used as a gauge of an industry's health, agriculture is America's sickest industry. Let's not stop with agriculture. In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 workers in good-paying jobs as switchboard operators. Today, the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000 operators. That's a tremendous 80 percent job loss. What happened to all those agriculture and switchboard operator jobs? Were they exported to China and India by rapacious businessmen? Here's my question to you: Should Congress do something to restore all of those jobs lost in agriculture and telecommunications, and what might that something be?"

Migrants to Australia will have to speak English: "Foreigners applying to come to Australia as skilled migrants are to face tougher English tests. The overhaul of the skilled migration program follows a recent call by a prominent government MP for aspiring citizens to sit an English test. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone announced the changes to the program yesterday after a report found problems with the system. "The key aim of our skilled program is to select migrants who will find skilled jobs quickly," she said. "The evaluation has confirmed categorically that good English and relevant work experience are essential to achieving this result."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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8 May, 2006

THE REAL HISTORY OF CUBA

Just an excerpt:

Andy Garcia blew it big-time with his movie "The Lost City." He blew it with the mainstream critics, that is. Almost unanimously, they're ripping a movie 16 years in the making. In this engaging drama of a middle-class Cuban family crumbling during free Havana's last days, which he both directs and stars in, Garcia insisted on depicting some historical truth about Cuba -- a grotesque and unforgivable blunder in his industry. He's now paying the price.

Earlier, many film festivals refused to screen it. Now many Latin American countries refuse to show it. The film's offenses are many and varied. Most unforgivable of all, Che Guevara is shown killing people in cold blood. Who ever heard of such nonsense? And just where does this uppity Andy Garcia get the effrontery to portray such things? The man obviously doesn't know his place.

And just where did Garcia get this preposterous notion of pre-Castro Cuba as a relatively prosperous but politically troubled place, they ask. All the Cubans he portrays seem middle class. Where in his movie is the tsunami of stooped and starving peasants that carried Fidel and Che into Havana on its crest, they ask. Where are all those diseased and illiterate laborers and peasants my professors, Dan Rather, CNN and Oliver Stone told me about, ask the critics....

You're better off attempting rational discourse with the Flat-Earth Society, but nonetheless I'll try to dispel the fantasies of pre-Castro Cuba still cherished by America's most prestigious academics and its most learned film critics. I'll even stay away from those "crackpots" and "hotheads" in Miami. In place of those insufferable "revanchists" and "hard-liners" I'll use a source generally esteemed by liberal highbrow types: the United Nations.

Here's a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) report on Cuba circa 1957: "One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class," it starts. "Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8-hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 70 per cent, in Switzerland 64 per cent. 44 per cent of Cubans are covered by social legislation, a higher percentage than in the U.S."

In 1958 Cuba had a higher per-capita income than Austria and Japan. Cuban industrial workers had the eighth-highest wages in the world. In the 1950s Cuban stevedores earned more per hour than their counterparts in New Orleans and San Francisco. Cuba had established an eight-hour workday in 1933 -- five years before FDR's New Dealers got around to it. Add to this a one-month paid vacation. The much-lauded (by liberals) social democracies of Western Europe didn't manage this till 30 years later.

And get this, Maxine Waters, Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell, Diane Sawyer and the rest of you feminist Castro groupies: Cuban women got three months of paid maternity leave. I repeat, this was in the 1930s. Cuba, a country 71 percent white in 1957, was completely desegregated 30 years before Rosa Parks was dragged off that Birmingham bus and handcuffed. In 1958 Cuba had more female college graduates per capita than the U.S....

Cuba took in more immigrants (primarily from Europe) as a percentage of population than the U.S. And more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S. Furthermore, inner tubes were used in truck tires, oil drums for oil, and Styrofoam for insulation. None were cherished black market items for use as flotation devices to flee the glorious liberation while fighting off hammerheads and tiger sharks.

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ELSEWHERE

Amazing news: Heterosexual elected Episcopal Bishop of California: "The Episcopal Diocese of California has avoided widening a rift over gays in the global Anglican Communion by electing a heterosexual man as its next bishop. More than 1,000 clergy and laypeople packed Grace Cathedral in San Francisco's tony Nob Hill neighbourhood to elect the Rt Rev. Mark Andrus as successor to longtime Bishop William Swing, who is retiring after 27 years. Two openly gay men and one lesbian were among the seven candidates on the ballot. No gay or lesbian cleric has been elected bishop since the consecration of Eugene Robinson in 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire threw the US church and the worldwide family of 77 million Anglicans into turmoil.

Theodore Dalrymple: "What a human catastrophe is the doctrine of human rights! Not only does it give officialdom an excuse to insinuate itself into the fabric of our lives but it has a profoundly corrupting effect on youth, who have been indoctrinated into believing that until such rights were granted (or is it discovered?) there was no freedom. Worse still, it persuades each young person that they are uniquely precious, which is to say more precious than anyone else; and that, moreover, the world is a giant conspiracy to deprive them of their rightful entitlements. Once someone is convinced of their rights, it becomes impossible to reason with them; and thus the reason of the Enlightenment is swiftly transformed into the unreason of the psychopath."

Business owners get the blame for weak law enforcement: "Anyone convinced that America is suffering from excessive diversity should troll through the seven immigration bills now floating around the Capitol. Traversing the conceptual distance, roughly, between the minds of Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly, Congressmen on both side of the aisle are debating how high the walls should be, how onerous the fines, how long the wait to legality. Amid all this robust debate, one steadfast conviction unites the almost-distinguishable ravings of center-left and center-right: The need to keep closer watch on those radical patrons of social unrest, American business owners."

Immigrant frustration finding an outlet: "State legislatures around the nation are considering hundreds of proposals dealing with illegal immigration, reflecting the exasperation of many local officials with Congress's failure to contend with the millions of undocumented workers who have entered the nation in recent years. Here in Arizona, the House has passed a proposal to set fines and other penalties for companies that hire undocumented workers. The bill, which had regularly failed in previous years, is expected to win Senate approval within days and is only one of many plans under consideration. Others include bills to erect an 80-mile fence and a multimillion-dollar radar system along the Mexican border, designed to slow the nightly flow of migrants across the desert. Another bill would require police to check the citizenship of anyone stopped for a traffic offense."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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7 May, 2006

THE RECENT STUDY SUMMARIZED BELOW WOULD SEEM TO SUGGEST A LINK BETWEEN LEFTISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA

Leftists often follow simple rules and generalizations (e.g. "all men are equal") to an absurd degree -- in defiance of all commonsense. The study below shows that schizophrenics do that too

Now, scientists say they have found that the link between insanity and rationality may be more than a fanciful notion. In some situations-limited ones-they have found that schizophrenics have a reasoning advantage over normal people, stemming from their very lack of what we typically call common sense. Schizophrenia, a long-term mental disorder involving delusions and a derailed sense of reality, disrupts people's ability to see the "context" of events, a key part of common sense, said Emmanuel Mellet, one of the researchers. ...

Mellet, of the Universities of Caen and Paris-Descartes in Paris, and a group of colleagues presented a set of logic problems to 26 schizophrenics and an equal number of healthy patients. One type of problem in particular was designed to turn context into a trap; 90 percent of healthy people typically fail it, the researchers said....

There are many more right than wrong solutions possible for such a problem. In this case, an answer would be correct as long as the test-taker put anything but a red square on the left, and anything but a yellow circle on the right. Yet "sane" people usually give wrong answers. For the above problem, they would often put a red square on the left and a yellow circle on the right, quite compatible with the dictum they're supposed to break.

The error results from misplaced use of common sense, according to Mellet and colleagues.... The researchers reported that in their study, 58 percent of healthy participants failed such problems on all eight tries that they were given. Only 19 percent of schizophrenics suffered this failure rate. "We suggest that, thanks to their difficulty in processing contextual information, the schizophrenic patients ignored the elements that misled healthy participants," the scientists wrote....

Mellet and colleagues noted that similar findings came earlier this year from researchers at King's College London.... The finding supported the idea that "decision-making in people with schizophrenia is less influenced by common sense and more influenced by theoretical reason" than in normal people, the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.

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NEW FILM ABOUT IRAQ

Press release:

Thanks in part to the skill and dedication of trauma center teams in Iraq, wounded troops have a 90 percent chance of survival - the highest rate of war survivors in U.S. history. Still, 17,124 Americans have been wounded to date, among them 413 amputees, and Operation Iraqi Freedom has claimed 2,313 American lives since it began in March 2003.

"Baghdad ER", an unflinching hour-long documentary that debuts on May 21st on HBO, offers a raw and rare look at the humanity, hardship and heroism of the U.S. military and medical personnel in Iraq. As a result of unprecedented access to the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq, 11-time Emmyr-Award winning producer/director Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill, along with an intrepid crew, followed doctors, nurses, medics, soldiers, chaplains, and others in the U.S. Military over a two-month period in 2005.

The documentary gives viewers a taste of daily life in the thick of war, including exclusive frontline rescue footage with the 54th Medical Company Air Ambulance Team, and dangerous missions of soldiers patrolling "IED Alley," the most dangerous road in the world. At times graphic in its depiction of combat-related wounds, BAGHDAD ER is a socially relevant account of war in our time - emotional, devastating and honest. Those caring for the wounded Americans and Iraqis demonstrate focused intensity, selflessness and a unified purpose, which "BAGHDAD ER" juxtaposes against the chaos of war.

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ELSEWHERE

I liked this parody of Green/Left logic from Taranto: "President Bush is riding high. In just two weeks, his approval rating has skyrocketed to 38% from 33%, according to Fox News/Opinion Dynamics polls. That's an increase of 15%, or five percentage points. If we assume conservatively that his rating will continue increasing linearly (i.e., five points every two weeks), he'll be back at 98% by mid-October. That could give a big boost to Republican hopes of expanding their House and Senate majorities."

Warning to Israel-haters: "US President George W.Bush has used a speech in Washington to declare the US's "unshakeable" commitment to defend Israel from aggression. Mr Bush said the US and Israel were "natural allies" with ties that would "never be broken". The comments, made at a dinner to mark the 100th anniversary of the American Jewish Committee in Washington on Thursday night, were aimed squarely at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and at the recently elected Hamas regime in Palestine. Mr Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" while Hamas refuses to recognise the Jewish state".

GWB is getting it: "US President George W. Bush has said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III". In an interview with the financial news network CNBC, Mr Bush said he had yet to see the recently released film of the uprising, a dramatic portrayal of events on the United Airlines plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field. But he said he agreed with the description of David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, who in a Wall Street Journal commentary last month called it "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war, World War III". Mr Bush said: "I believe that. I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III."

Whatever happened to self-reliance? "The Senate added money to rebuild a highway in Hawaii; protect riverbanks in California; upgrade a hurricane barrier in Providence, R.I.; and compensate New England shell fishermen for their losses from a red tide outbreak. The Senate also took steps to make farming less risky by offering compensation for virtually any scourge, including drought, flood, wildfires and pestilence."

German City Privatizes Public Housing: "[Dresden Mayor Ingolf] Rossberg reached a deal in March to sell Dresden's entire stock of 48,000 city-owned apartments to an American private equity firm, the Fortress Investment Group, for $1.2 billion. In a single stroke, Dresden wiped out its burdensome public debt."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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6 May, 2006

His Eminence on the Koran and on the Greenies

His Eminence, the Cardinal archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Pell, advises reading the Koran as a way of knowing your enemy. He also very reasonably identifies extreme environmentalism as a religion. Muslims and Greenies are fuming, of course. Summary of Dr. Pell's speech below:



Australia's most influential Catholic has said the Koran is riddled with "invocations to violence" and the central challenge of Islam lies in the struggle between moderate and extremist forces as the faith spreads into a "childless Europe". The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said reading the Koran, the sacred text of Islam, was vital "because the challenge of Islam will be with us for the remainder of our lives - at least".

But in a speech to US Catholic business leaders, Dr Pell said Western democracy was also suffering a crisis of confidence as evidenced by the decline in fertility rates. "Pagan emptiness" and Western fears of the uncontrollable forces of nature had contributed to "hysteric and extreme claims" about global warming. "In the past, pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions."

Dr Pell said the September 11 terrorist attacks had been his personal wake-up call to understand Islam better. He had tried to reconcile claims that Islam was a faith of peace with those that suggested the Koran legitimised the killings of non-Muslims. While there was room for optimism in fruitful dialogue between faiths and the common human desire for peace, a pessimistic response began "with the Koran itself". Errors of facts, inconsistencies, anachronisms and other defects were not unknown to scholars but difficult for Muslims to debate openly, he said. "In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."...

Dr Pell said every nation and every religion, including Catholicism, had "crimes in their histories". In the same way, Islam could not airbrush its "shadows". Claims of Muslim tolerance of Christian and Jewish minorities were largely mythical and he wondered about the possibility of theological development in Islam when the Koran was said to come directly from God. "Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion and its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited," he said.

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ELSEWHERE

U.S. economy steams ahead: "Activity in both the vast US services sector and at factories accelerated more than expected, according to data that pointed to fresh economic vigour and the risk of more interest rate hikes. Most economists are expecting economic growth to slow from a torrid first-quarter pace of 4.8 per cent, yet the latest figures showed no hints of slowing and appeared likely to keep the Federal Reserve leaning toward further rate rises. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week a pause in the rate-hike cycle was possible. The Institute for Supply Management's services index rose to 63.0 in April from 60.5 in March, with new orders hitting a two-year high, confounding Wall Street estimates for a slowdown to 59.2. In addition, the government reported new factory orders rose a stronger-than-expected 4.2 per cent in March, beating estimates for a 3.5 per cent gain, as demand for transportation equipment, computers and electronics proved robust."

BNP has a win: "The British National Party (BNP), running on a hardline anti-immigration platform, won 11 seats from the ruling Labour Party in a key east London seat in local elections today. The BNP targeted working-class areas with voters who are dissatisfied with the main political parties. Opponents dismissed the party as a neo-fascist minority group peddling racism and preying on voters' prejudices. But Richard Barnbrook, a winning BNP candidate in the London suburb of Barking and Dagenham, denied being racist and said the party's success at the polls was due to the Labour party's failings on local issues. "This race concern is nonsense, it doesn't exist," Mr Barnbrook said to Sky News television. "It's law and order, education and proper housing." Some Barking and Dagenham voters said they had turned to the BNP because mainstream parties had ignored their concerns over issues such as immigration and housing. The BNP says its policies are not racist but are an attempt to return to "traditional British values". Its manifesto pledges to "stop further attempts to enforce multi-culturalism on an increasingly sceptical and unwilling populace."

Democrat oil hypocrisy: ""[Senator Chuck] Schumer and most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate-the very crowd shouting the loudest about 'obscene' gas prices-have voted uniformly for nearly 20 years against allowing most domestic oil production. They have vetoed opening even a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas production. If there is as much oil as the U.S. Geological Survey estimates, this would increase America's proven domestic oil reserves by about 50%. They have also voted against producing oil from the Outer Continental Shelf, where there are more supplies by some estimates than in Saudi Arabia... If [environmentalists have] discovered some new law of economics in which a fall in output with rising demand can cause a reduction in price, we'd love to hear it. The dirty little secret about oil politics is that today's high gas price is precisely the policy result that Mr. Schumer and other liberals have long desired. High prices have been the prod that the left has favored to persuade Americans to abandon their SUVs and minivans, use mass transit, turn the thermostat down, produce less consumer goods and services, and stop emitting those satanic greenhouse gases... So how do the sages on Capitol Hill propose to reduce gas prices? They want to slap a profits tax on Big Oil because of alleged price gouging. Here we have another head-scratcher that seems to defy even junior-high-school economics. Usually when you tax something, like tobacco, you get less of it. But somehow a tax on oil will magically lead to more oil."

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (of Maricopa County Arizona) strikes again: "A posse of 100 volunteers and sheriff's deputies will patrol the Phoenix area and arrest any illegal immigrants, the county sheriff said. The group likely will be deployed across parts of Maricopa County by the weekend, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday. Volunteers will be drawn from the department's 3,000-member posse, whose members are trained and are often former deputies. "It's important to send the message out to stay in Mexico and don't come roaming around here hoping you're going to get amnesty," said Arpaio, who in years past gained notoriety for putting inmates on chain gangs and issuing them striped uniforms and pink underwear. Arpaio's deputies have already arrested about 120 illegal immigrants using a new state smuggling law. "We're going to arrest any illegal who violates this new law," he said. "I'm not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico. I'll give them a free ride into the county jail."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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5 May, 2006

Brookes News Update

Is free trade destroying manufacturing and exporting jobs?: The trade account deficit and the movement of manufacturers to other countries has been blamed on free trade. But the picture is far more complicated than it looks
Minimum wages and capital accumulation: lefty economists fail again: The Liberal Party's labour reform legislation is taking a pounding from its critics, particularly in the media. So far the Party has been lamentably remiss in its response to these attacks. Unfortunately the situation is going to get worse as the attacks become more sophisticated
Michael Kroger's hatchet men betray Liberal Party member: Treachery comes easily to some members of the Victory state Liberal Party. The Richmond branch wanted Prodos Marinakis as their candidate. Some of the big boys in exhibitions Street didn't like that so they started smearing and arm-twisting. Some of us little people think it's time Peter Kroger had a chat with Julian Sheezel and Tony Barry. Better still -- just sack the jerks
Journalist smears President Bush over Mary McCarthy's treason: I would love to say that Geoff Elliot was the exception to the rule that most journalists are lying leftwing bigots -- but I cannot. If Murdoch had any decency he would have sacked this liar years ago
Michael Kroger gets a savaging while the Victorian Liberal Party crumbles: Peter Kroger and his gang of spineless incompetents are leading the Victorian Liberal Party into a political black hole. If his minions insist on treating Party members like dirt while they themselves treat the Party as a means of furthering their own political ambitions I fear the Party's next motto will be RIP
How the Liberal Party's labour market reforms got stuffed: The HRNS conned the Liberal Party into thinking that it is the expert on labour markets and that the Party need look no further for sound advice. The result has been a disaster for the Libs
Islamofascists want to exterminate Israel -- and guess who will be next: I had became accustomed to sympathetic posters of sadistic Che Guevara and the equally sadistic Fidel Castro. But I'm not ready for films like 'Munich' created by Stephen Spielberg and the self-hating Tony Kushner that give Muslims a platform to justify mass murder
The feminist furor has finally passed: After years of holding America a virtual hostage, old-fashioned radical feminism appears to be just about dead

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ELSEWHERE

It is well-known that Americans have substantially higher average incomes than Europeans. Leftists say that Americans earn more only because they work longer hours. A recent comparison of the USA and Germany is therefore interesting. It shows that Americans and Germans work virtually the same hours overall but, because of their high taxes, Germans spend a larger proportion of their working time "Doing it yourself". For example, they may service their own car rather than paying a mechanic to do it. Since "Doing it yourself" will usually be much slower and less efficient than getting an expert to do the job, Americans will obviously get more results per unit time spent working.

Blair talks tough: "The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, yesterday unveiled plans to deport foreign criminals automatically, seeking to regain the initiative in a crisis that is threatening to topple a minister on the eve of local elections. During a rowdy session of Parliament, opponents said he was spouting "sound bites" to grab the headlines, adding that laws were already in place to protect the public but ministers were failing to do so. They stepped up calls for the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to resign over a bungle when a systemic failure meant 1023 foreign criminals who should have been considered for deportation were released."

GOP would benefit from stronger immigration stand: "California voted for Republican presidential candidates in nine of the ten elections from 1952 through 1988. The collapse of the California GOP first became evident in 1992, two years before Prop. 187, when Republicans got skunked in California in the presidential election and two U.S. Senate races. In the last dozen major contests for president, governor, or senator there, Republicans have won only the two times they appealed to voter anger over illegal immigration. The ten times they meekly avoided the topic, they quietly went down to defeat."

Mexico goes libertarian: "To the alarm of its northern neighbour, Mexico is to decriminalise the possession of nearly every drug - hard and soft - that the US has battled for decades to keep off its territory. President Fox is to sign legislation that will make Mexico one of the most permissive countries in the world when it comes to narcotics. Users will be able to possess up to five grams of marijuana (the equivalent of about four joints), five grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin and 500 milligrams of cocaine - enough for a few lines. Nor will they be prosecuted for possessing a few tabs of Ecstasy, small quantities of amphetamines or magic mushrooms, or even a kilo of so-called indigenous drugs such as the hallucinogenic peyote, a psychotropic cactus still used in shamanic rituals. The Mexican Government says the legislation will allow the authorities to concentrate on fighting the violent drugs gangs that have turned several cities into war zones.

Great stuff! "The Los Angeles Police Department is being sued in connection with its policy prohibiting officers from inquiring about an individual's immigration status, and reportedly restricting them from cooperating with federal immigration officials. The action has been filed by the public-interest group Judicial Watch, and asks the court to prohibit the LAPD from expending taxpayer funds to enforce and maintain "Special Order 40," claiming it violates both California and federal laws and puts American citizens at risk.

"A Day Without Migrants" becomes day without news: "Like most other news professionals in the Valley, I began Monday by monitoring progress of the work stoppages, boycotts and demonstrations for what had been called by organizers 'A Day Without Immigrants.' That is to say, I sat at my desk in The Arizona Republic's nice, air-conditioned downtown offices and looked out on a beautiful expanse of urbanized desert on what looked like, felt like and was a perfectly normal day. ... There were some protesters gathered at a Home Depot and at the site of a company that had been raided by federal immigration officials. There were reports of some businesses that had not opened and others that were operating short-handed. News reporters and photographers blanketed the Valley. The story was all over the news. ... And, most importantly, it was ... zzzzzzzzzz ... all over before it got started."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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4 May, 2006

THE HILDABEEST

Taranto seems to have caught Hillary Clinton out. She said of her personal history: "So I wrote to NASA and said, 'How do I sign up to be an astronaut?. And they wrote back very politely and said, 'We don't take girls.'. Taranto comments: But wait. Is that NASA story believable? First, Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, is only 3 1/2 years younger than Mrs. Clinton. Second, given that she has an epicene [unisex] name, how did NASA even know she was a girl?

Why does all that remind me of this? Bill Clinton's claim that Hillary was named in honour of the first Everest summiteer has a fundamental problem: Edmund Hillary reached Everest's peak on May 29, 1953, nearly seven years after Hillary Clinton was born.. Both Clintons would seem to be stupid liars, a prime symptom of psychopathy.

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HIGH FUEL PRICES A GOOD THING?

One Australian economist thinks so. Excerpt:

One good thing about next week's federal budget is that even though Peter Costello is flush with cash and likely to offer tax relief to families, he's unlikely to make any cut in the tax on petrol. That's a good thing because we must learn to live with high petrol prices, not find ways to duck them. With prices nudging $1.40 a litre in some cities and Costello warning that worries about the Iranian nuclear stand-off could push them up to $1.60, the motoring lobbies are looking for ways to ease the pain. The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, for instance, wants Costello to remove the GST on fuel excise, saving about 3.4 cents a litre.

But, whichever way you look at it, cutting the tax on petrol would be the wrong way to go. For a start, there's the conventional economists' argument that the best response to higher prices is higher prices. Huh? When you think about it, it's not as meaningless as it sounds. Prices rise when the demand for something is growing faster than its supply. Although part of the rise in oil prices is based on speculation about disruption in the Middle East, and so may not last long, the underlying increase in demand is coming from the rapid growth in the economies of China, India and other developing countries. This is likely to keep upward pressure on oil prices for many years.

But in a market system, a rise in the price of such a commodity prompts a change in behaviour. It increases supply by encouraging exploration for new sources, makes formerly uneconomic oilfields profitable and encourages the development of substitute fuels. At the same time, it reduces demand by encouraging consumers to use petrol more economically and search for cheaper substitutes. Put this reduction in demand together with the increase in supply and you see that a rise in prices should lead to a fall in prices. So allowing retail petrol prices to move in response to market forces is the best way to minimise the long-term rise in prices likely to come from the developing world's increasing demand for oil.

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ELSEWHERE



Froggy racism? (Or reality dawning?): "The French parliament is to discuss whether to approve a new immigration bill which would make it harder for foreigners to work in France. The proposals, drawn up by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, demand that newcomers learn the French language and culture. They also favour highly skilled workers over those who are less qualified. The draft law would make it harder for immigrants' families to settle in France and restrict residence permits".

Libertarians will cheer: "The German government is planning to supply long-term drug addicts with controlled amounts of free heroin to "improve their health", the government's commissioner for substance abuse Sabine Baetzing said today. "A heroin therapy is the last hope and provides help for survival for some of those who are addicted," Baetzing said. "It can improve their health and stabilise their social situation." ... Baetzing said that pilot projects in seven German cities had shown that giving controlled amounts of heroin to long-term addicts was a more effective way of getting them off the drug than methadone, a drug used as a heroin-substitute. Baetzing said the testing in the pilot cities also showed the heroin therapy had led to reduction in crime".

Evidence not needed for a Pulitzer: "Washington Post reporter Dana Priest won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about CIA "secret prisons" in Europe that cannot be confirmed and appears to be essentially false. This puts the paper in a very difficult position. It gave back one Pulitzer, a story about a child heroin addict by Janet Cooke, after it was exposed as a fraud. So far, the only evidence that the Priest story is true is her insistence that her secret sources were telling the truth. But Priest isn't talking about the nature of those "sources" and whether fired CIA officer and John Kerry campaign contributor Mary O. McCarthy was one of them"

Mexico to make it easier for illegals: "The Mexican Red Cross (CRM) and the National Migration Agency (INM) will boost their help for Mexicans on their journey to the United States, Mexico's Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The two bodies support migrants through the Beta Migrant Protection Group, with the INM funding first aid, medical emergency and humanitarian assistance to all foreigners, regardless of their nationalities.... Since 2004, the INM and CRM have worked together to provide a mobile clinic in Mexico's Sonora state, offering help to a large number of undocumented workers."

No economic news can please the media: "The ordinary nervousness of investors and market watchers has been converted into advanced paranoia by the business media's preference for bad news. Consider this headline in the Wall Street Journal: 'Economy's Surge Stirs Questions About When Slowdown May Come.' Share prices are driven to a six-year high by rising corporate profits and commentators trot out stories about bubbles and irrational exuberance, the latter a phrase used by then-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan to describe share prices -- after which they doubled. Germany and Japan finally shake off their decades-long economic lethargy and show signs of recovery, and all talk is that, like rising share prices, this will force a recession-inducing rise in world interest rates."

I must confess to being pleased at the death of that arrogant old socialist, J.K. Galbraith. As an economist, he should have known better. Bill Buckley does his best to be generous about him in death.

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

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

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

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3 May, 2006

RECENT ARTICLES UP ON ICJS

The Euston manifesto: For a Renewal of Progressive Politics
Harper urged to block UN appointment
Wolves in sheep's clothing on extremist Islam mission
Hamas in charge
Visa row on links to terror
B'nai Brith Press Release
Why `this night' is still different
The rise of the Islamist Axis
The Shabbat guest
Let's ignore Hamas
Cat and mouse with Muslim paranoia
World Bank. Money won't fix things here
ABC Parliamentary debate

I particularly recommend "The Shabbat guest"

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ELSEWHERE

There is a big Leftist whine here about GWB interpreting the constitution to suit himself. Odd that the same people don't object to the Supreme Court interpreting the constitition any way that suits themselves on matters such as abortion, affirmative action etc. So sad that the Left are now realizing that two can play their game -- the game of squeezing anything you like out of the constitution. I wonder how long it will take them to start arguing that the "original meaning" of the constitution should be respected? When the Left can celebrate a Left-dominated court denying to whites the "equal protection" explicitly provided for all U.S. citizens by the 14th Amendment, they can't squawk about GWB interpreting his "Commander in Chief" powers rather widely.

Japan: Matchmaking ads 'to boost birth rate': "Alarmed by a falling birth rate and rapidly ageing population, Japanese policymakers are thinking about allowing TV ads for matchmaking agencies in the hope that an increase in couples will result in more children. Japan's population shrank in the year to October for the first time since 1945, heightening worries about economic decline due to a smaller workforce supporting a growing number of pensioners. An official at the Trade Ministry said today that the ministry is considering allowing advertisements for matchmaking agencies to be shown on television, which is currently forbidden".

The wails over the wall: "Another little-mentioned fact has to do with the Israeli security fence -- it is the reason there haven't been any attacks for so long. The wall that separates Israeli from Palestinian territory -- and makes liberals, libertarians, and plain old bigots like Bob Novak shriek like stuck pigs -- has cut by over 80 percent the number of Israelis maimed and murdered by suicide bombers. This barrier is not a political border; it can be dismantled. But lives taken by terrorism cannot be reconstituted. Still, mention any security fence intended to prevent undesired or undesirable human acts, and the Kumbaya Crowd launches into maudlin impersonations of the sainted Ronald Reagan, RIP: 'tear down this wall.'"

Estrich nervous about Leftist haters: "'I'll take a stand in favor of hatred,' said psychoanalyst Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch. Frank was defending Susan McDougal's tirade about why she hated Bush over my more restrained approach to winning elections. Radio host and commentator Hugh Hewitt scribbled furiously. A stand in favor of hatred. Hugh could not have been happier. His theory is that 'angry Democrats' will give Republicans a victory in the midterm elections. It's probably the Republicans' only shot, given the current numbers. Do Democrats have the capacity to seize defeat from the jaws of victory? You should have heard them boo Hugh at the Palm Springs Book Festival last weekend. It was music to his ears. I found it somewhat terrifying."

TN: Realistic juries evaded: "The district attorney who reached a plea settlement with ex-teacher Pamela Rogers for having sex with a 13-year-old student says one reason he didn't want to try the case was that some men on a jury would not convict an attractive woman for having sex with a teenage boy. District Attorney General Dale Potter said he was concerned that some male jurors might not convict Rogers, a former Warren County grade-school physical education teacher, because they wouldn't view what the attractive 28-year-old woman did as having harmed the boy. 'The fact that I could not get a jury of all women did play a heavy factor in my decision not to go to trial,' Potter said. 'There's a segment of men that would say that the victim wasn't harmed, but instead got lucky..."

More anti-Wal-Mart hysteria: "Wal-Mart's proposal to offer banking services to its customers has touched off another round of anti-Wal-Mart hysteria. At the urging of community banks and some members of Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is holding a series of public hearings on Wal-Mart's application for an industrial bank charter (IBC). Never before in its seventy-three-year history has the FDIC held hearings on an IBC application, and they should not start now. Consumers would benefit from Wal-Mart's expansion of financial services, although some banks afraid of competition are trying to block the bank charter."

The Estonian example: "Estonia is the ninth economically freest country in the world. Today, many people find it difficult to remember the days of the Soviet Union, when the Estonian economy was completely dominated by the state and marked by endless lines and shortages. Mart Laar replaced the "dead hand" of the government with Adam Smith's "invisible hand." His government eliminated import tariffs (a decision that was partly reversed by Estonia's membership of the European Union) and established a flat income tax. Corporate taxes on reinvested profits fell to zero and a currency board was established to combat inflation. The government also undertook extensive privatization of state companies. Though Estonia experienced a sharp but short recession that was shared by all transitional economies, by 1995 the economy was roaring again. According to the World Bank, between 1995 and 2004, Estonia's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a compounded average annual rate of 6.6 percent. During that decade, Estonia's GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity rose from $6,847 to $12,773 in constant 2000 dollars, an increase of 86.5 percent. Estonia's sustained, high growth rate was among the region's highest and set the country on course to join the rest of the developed world.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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2 May, 2006

AN EXTRA TAX ON OIL COMPANIES WILL RAISE FUEL PRICES

The companies will just add the tax into their cost base and proceed as before. Politicians huffing and puffing will HURT Joe Average, not help him. Excerpt from a comment by an economist below:

As gas prices top $3 per gallon, politicians are cashing in big - by throwing bombs at the U.S. oil industry. As in every crisis, Washington is suffering from a predictable case of "do something" disease. Products of the ready-to-eat microwave culture, Americans want an instant solution to high energy costs, and this lends itself to grandstanding and election-year maneuvering by politicians of all stripes. Numerous lawmakers, from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), are lining up to support a new federal windfall profits tax, with the aim of redistributing profits from "greedy" oil companies.

But lawmakers could benefit from a history lesson. The last time this country experimented with such a tax was the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980. According to a 1990 Congressional Research Service study, the tax depressed the domestic oil industry, increased foreign imports and raised only a tiny fraction of the revenue forecasted. It stunted domestic production of oil by 3% to 6% and created a surge in foreign imports, from 8% to 16%.

Politicians calling oil companies "greedy" is more than a little ironic. Tax Foundation studies have shown that state and federal treasuries profit handsomely from oil industry sales. The average American motorist pays taxes of 46 cents a gallon on gasoline, of which 18.4 cents a gallon goes to the federal government. States and localities pocket the rest. The nation's energy companies are already providing a "windfall" of taxes. According to Department of Energy data, from 1977 to 2004, federal and state governments extracted $397 billion by taxing the profits of the largest oil companies and an additional $1.1 trillion in taxes at the pump. In today's dollars, that's $2.2 trillion - enough to buy a Toyota Prius for every household in the nation....

It would be unfair and absurd to tax workers at different rates, based merely on the industry they work in. Similarly, it makes no sense to tax an industry punitively based on the volatility of its profits. Oil will always be a boom-or-bust business.

The U.S. debate over which group of people - workers, shareholders or consumers - ends up paying the bulk of these corporate taxes will go on forever. But the undisputed and most important point is that individuals pay taxes, not corporations. Therefore, attempts to punish oil companies for "obscene" profits by instituting additional taxes ultimately cause all of us to pay the price. Consumers will pay more at the pumps, and the five oil-producing states that suffered in the oil bust, including hard-hit Louisiana, won't benefit from the boom.

More here

Some more comments below:

Republicans target "economic crimes": "Should anyone doubt that the Republicans have become the sworn enemies of the forces of supply and demand, as well as free enterprise, the following statements should change the minds of most skeptics: Congressional GOP leaders on Monday formally called on President Bush to launch an investigation into possible price gouging by oil companies, as gas costs shot up nearly 25 cents a gallon in two weeks. 'Anyone who is trying to take advantage of this situation while American families are forced into making tough choices over whether to fill up their cars or severely cut back their budgets should be investigated and prosecuted,' House Speaker Dennis Hastert [R-Ill.] and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist [R-Tenn,] wrote in a letter to President Bush."

Scapegoating big oil is not the solution: "Oil prices continue to rise. Why would anyone expect otherwise given current circumstances? Let us start with the issue of destabilising the production of oil. The invasion of Iraq harmed oil production and everyone knows it. Military invasions are not good for production under most circumstances. Then we have Bush sabre rattling with Iran pushing prices up even more. We can't factor out the fact that a large amount of oil, in Venezuela, is under the control of a lunatic either. The supply of oil is very tenuous at best. Between the bad policies of George Bush and those of Hugo Chavez the world's oil supply is in trouble."

Real relief on gas prices: "Let them eat cake -- or wait in line for a Prius. The high price of gasoline is the talk of the nation. But there is little talk about government's piece of the action -- the revenue collected from federal and state gas taxes. Why not temporarily roll them back? That would provide instant consumer relief -- not the future, fantasy relief suggested this week in Washington. 'Gasoline price increases are like a hidden tax on the working people,' President Bush said in a speech that called for a federal inquiry into possible price-gouging, an easing of environmental rules on gasoline production, and a halt to new purchases for the nation's energy reserve. Bush conveniently ignored one built-in cost: Government levies include a federal 18.4 cents-a-gallon tax on gas; and the states tax on top of that. In Massachusetts, the gas tax includes a 21-cents-a-gallon excise tax and a 2.5-cents-a-gallon fee to reimburse gas stations for environmental cleanup."

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ELSEWHERE

"Don't ask, don't tell" suit dismissed: "A federal judge in Boston yesterday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, ruling that Congress has the authority to exclude gays from the armed services. US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. found that Congress made a rational decision to adopt the policy in 1993 after holding lengthy hearings and concluding that openly homosexual service members would have a negative impact on the military. The policy prohibits the military from asking about sexual orientation, but orders the dismissal of personnel who disclose that they are gay, engage in homosexual activity, or are outed by someone else. 'The legitimacy of the end Congress sought to serve -- maintaining effective military capability by maintaining high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion -- cannot be doubted,' O'Toole wrote. But, in his 41-page decision, O'Toole added that 'deciding that Congress has made a rational choice is not the same as deciding it has made a wise choice.'"

Government pesters wounded soldiers over debts: "Nearly 900 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have been saddled with government debts as they have recovered from war, according to a report that describes collection notices going out to veterans with brain damage, paralysis, lost limbs and shrapnel wounds. The report from the Government Accountability Office, to be released at a hearing today, details how long-recognized problems with military computer systems led to the soldiers being dunned for an array of debts related to everything from errors in paychecks to equipment left behind on the battlefield."

Mexican corruption: "Mexican politicians continuously demand more visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and "regularization" of illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. While neglecting to mention that the United States admits nearly one million legal newcomers each year, they also fail to publicize: (1) the extremely high salaries they receive, often-in the case of federal and state legislators-more than their counterparts in developed nations that have substantially longer annual sessions, (2) the generous stipends that they grant themselves, including year-end aguinaldos and end-of-term bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars known as bonos de marcha, and (3) the generous sums that party leaders in legislative bodies have to spend with few or any strings attached. For example President Vicente Fox ($236,693) makes more than the leaders of France ($95,658), the U.K. ($211,434), and Canada ($75,582)."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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1 May, 2006

NATIONAL ANTHEM LOGIC

Post lifted from Getting Elected

Now we have a Spanish version of our National Anthem and a call to allow crossing the border as the only qualification for citizenship. At first I was angered by all this. Why can't we all get along and speak (and sing) English? English was good enough for our Founding Fathers, why not us Americans today?

Then I started thinking about it. Wow, did my Polish and Welsh ancestors get a raw deal. They had to go through a complicated immigration procedure, take a difficult test and then they were even expected to speak and read English and have a job. To top this all off, there was no Polish or Welsh version of the National Anthem.

I say, this is the time to correct some of this injustice. Let's be fair to all. We need a federal law to require that the National Anthem be translated and recorded in the language of the country of origin of all Americans. To do this right, let's create a new agency to oversee this project. Hmmm, let's call it the FAOOB. (Federal Anthem of Origin Bureau). Ted Kennedy or some other liberal Dem would make good head of this new agency.

Of course, this would not correct all of the injustice, but it would be a start. The only drawback I can see would be the extra time it would take to sing the various versions of the National Anthem at football or baseball games.

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Some May Day thoughts and observations

May Day demos could bomb: "Rumors of immigration roundups have prompted thousands of illegal immigrants to stay home this week and are making some afraid to participate in a national immigration protest planned for Monday. Though federal immigration officials said they were unfounded, rumors of random sweeps were rampant from coast to coast Friday, prompting thousands of immigrants to stay home from work, take their children out of school and avoid church. The absences caused the rumors to build, as some thought their missing friends and co-workers had been arrested. Construction and agriculture were among the industries most affected. Len Mills, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of South Florida, said he estimated at least 50 percent of workers on construction jobs in the region hadn't shown up for work. He said he believed even some legal workers were afraid."

Muslims back illegals: "Muslims in Los Angeles and elsewhere are being urged to join millions of Latino protesters in the streets May 1 to demonstrate in favor of leniency toward illegal aliens currently living in the United States unlawfully. "In solidarity with immigration activists around the country, the Muslim Public Affairs Council as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Los Angeles, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, the L.A. Latino Muslim Association, the Muslim American Society - Los Angeles, and the Muslim Students Association - West are calling on American Muslims to participate in a day of action on May 1, 2006," says a statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "Islam's message is one of social justice, economic fairness, and fair treatment in the workplace. The Quran urges the proper treatment and respect of workers."

Anti-illegals push in California: "As Congress debates the polarizing issue of immigration, the founder of an anti-illegal immigrant group is pushing for San Bernardino to outlaw day labor sites and bar the undocumented from renting property. Joseph Turner, executive director of the group Save Our State, submitted voter petition signatures this week that would force a City Council vote or a citywide election on the measure, which would also deny city permits, contracts and grants to businesses that employ illegal immigrants, and require that city business be done in English".

Senate diverts war funds to border security: "The Senate voted today to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation's borders and provide the Coast Guard with new boats and helicopters. An amendment was adopted, 59-39, to cut Bush's Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new aircraft, patrol boats and other vehicles, as well as border checkpoints and a fence along the Mexico border crossing near San Diego."

No more excuses for Mexico: "Why do Mexicans only have one-third the per capita income (on a purchasing power parity basis) of Canadians and only one-fourth that of Americans? The answer is that Mexicans are relatively poor because have been plagued by semidespotic regimes that have ignored the rule of law and often engaged in destructive economic policies. Mexicans have been free of their Spanish colonial masters for almost 200 years (almost as long as their American neighbors and far longer than Canadians have enjoyed independence). Mexico has a better growing climate than Canada, and it is rich in natural resources -- oil, gas, and metals. Yet Mexican politicians frequently resort to blaming their northern neighbor for their economic woes but would not dare answer the question: 'If the U.S. were as poor as Mexico, would Mexico be better off or worse off?'"

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ELSEWHERE

Construction begins at ground zero: "After months of disputes over the future of ground zero, state and city officials finally brought in the heavy equipment and began construction Thursday on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower that will rise at the World Trade Center site. 'It is going to be a symbol of our freedom and independence,' Gov. George Pataki said after three yellow construction trucks -- driven by workers wearing hard hats emblazoned with the American flag and the words 'Freedom Tower, World Trade Center' -- rolled down a ramp to applause from politicians."

Republicans run dry: "Do my eyes deceive me? Am I reading that President George W. Bush has joined with the Republican leadership to call for investigation of the oil companies in light of soaring oil and gas prices? Oil hit $75 a barrel recently and apparently transformed the Republicans into Democrats, Democrats of the Charles Schumer and Jean-Francois Kerry variety."

Biased British official history: "A battle royal has broken out over a potted history of Britain that was written as a guide for immigrants wanting to become British citizens. Historians have condemned the Home Office booklet as being "riddled with errors" that risks misleading the public.... certain passages in Life in the United Kingdom are guaranteed to raise historians' hackles. Professor Coward, a specialist in 17th-century history, took particular exception to the document's description of Cromwell as a "God-fearing dictator". He said: "It's historical interpretation. I don't think he was a dictator - that is a contested adjective. A more balanced and independent account would have avoided using that word."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

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

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

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