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31 October, 2006

SCOTTISH DRINKING

For those who have a special affection for Scotland, there is a great article here by a Scotsman about the Scottish love of the bottle. He is trying to be censorious but cannot help celebrating Scottishness. A few excerpts:

The Buckfast fracas is emblematic of the ingrained, abusive and horribly destructive relationship between my countrymen and the bottle. We Scots make the best drink, and the best drinkers, in the world. No parties in the world can compare, in riotous enjoyment, with Hogmanay and Burns Night [Hear here!]. We just don't know when to stop...

Scottish humour and culture are soused in alcohol. Billy Connolly has long been sober, but his performance inevitably recalls, mocks and celebrates his legless days. Harry Lauder composed Glasgow's unofficial anthem as an ode to the city going "round and round" [That's from "I belong to Glasgow", which is usually attributed to Will Fife] on a Saturday night. John Reid, another reformed drinker, likes to tell a joke about how he found he was "allergic to leather" because he kept waking up with his shoes on and a splitting headache....

The drunken hero is a staple of Scots literature, and drinking has become culturally linked to the idea of liberty. Robert Louis Stevenson stated that "wine is bottled poetry" and Robert Burns himself wrote: "Freedom and whisky gang thegither." Somehow that sentiment has evolved into the freedom to get miserably blootered and die young....

The strange, miserablist tradition of Scottish drinking seems out of kilter with a nation that is increasingly self-confident, a country raking in money from tourists to spend on new livers. Today Scotland is wealthier, better educated and warmer than ever before. All dark, northern countries drink more deeply than those in the lighter south, [The French and the Italians might disagree with that] but now even Scottish weather seems to be improving. As I look outside the window, the rhododendrons are flowering for the third time, in late October.

As a child, I vividly remember the drunks lined up outside the hotel in our local village. Lurching, friendly men with wind-scoured faces, they would lean, patiently if unsteadily, against the wall between afternoon closing time and reopening in the evening regardless of the weather. My father insisted they were propping up the hotel.

Those drunks have long been gathered to the celestial tavern, but a new generation of Scottish drinkers is being pickled, with the freedom to drink all day, and alcohol comparatively cheaper than ever.

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ELSEWHERE

If there are any readers here who are willing to fire off an email in support of someone being badly treated by government, have a look here or here.

Feds spook illegal voters: "City officials and Hispanic community leaders objected Thursday to the federal government's plans to put monitors at city polling places on Election Day, saying those efforts could discourage people from voting. The Department of Justice this month asked a federal judge to authorize appointment of monitors beginning with the upcoming Nov. 7 election and ending in 2009. The government accused the city of failing to provide sufficient election materials in Spanish and not recruiting enough bilingual poll workers."

Business bankrolling of the left: "Big business primarily supports right-wing advocacy groups, right? Think again. A recent report from the Capital Research Center shows Fortune 100 corporate foundations give overwhelmingly to liberal groups. In fact, in the sample year studied (2001), these corporate foundations gave 14 times more money to liberal causes than business-friendly ones. Even more surprising, environmental causes got the most funding, approximately 75 percent of the $60 million from 53 corporate foundations."

What Iraqis think of Al Qaida: "Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very)."

Muslims out of control in France: "An average of 112 cars a day have been torched across France so far this year and there have been 15 attacks a day on police and emergency services. Nearly 3,000 police officers have been injured in clashes this year. Officers have been badly injured in four ambushes in the Paris outskirts since September. Some police talk of open war with youths who are bent on more than vandalism. "The thing that has changed over the past month is that they now want to kill us," said Bruno Beschizza, the leader of Synergie, a union to which 40 per cent of officers belong. Action Police, a hardline union, said: "We are in a civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists." Car-burning has become so routine on the estates that it has been eclipsed in news coverage by the violence against police."

England honours Adam Smith: "A new 20 pound note featuring a portrait of the Scots economist Adam Smith is to be issued, reports the BBC. He will replace Edward Elgar, and become the first Scotsman to appear on a Bank of England note. This was not a government decision, but one made by Mervyn King, Bank of England governor. The governor delivered the annual Adam Smith lecture in Kirkcaldy, and trailed the idea (already suggested here) that the independent Bank of England model might be used to depoliticize other area of national life."

Hunting promotes conservation: "Rifle-toting tourists hunting exotic animals could actually help protect Africa's vulnerable species, a leading conservationist has suggested. Elephant populations had benefited from a permit system that allowed sport hunters to kill a limited number of the beasts, according to Eugene Lapointe. Mr Lapointe was head of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) between 1982-90. Animal welfare campaigners rejected the idea as "morally unjustifiable".

The British Labour government at work: "If the government really wants to do something to improve the lot of companies which create the wealth and jobs, it should immediately sack industry minister Margaret Hodge. As business writers point out, she has no ability or knowledge of the subject whatsoever, and seems to regard it as her job to impose a politically correct agenda dreamed up by her NGO friends to burden business with ever more costly regulations. The DTI, once there to better the prospects of British business, has become predator and parasite, inflicting real economic damage on both the business community and the country."

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

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

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

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

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30 October, 2006

Brookes News Update

Economic growth and the credit myth : At least monetary cranks can be excused as economic illiterates but what are we to make of the great majority of economists who believe that central banks can promote economic growth by manipulating interest rates and the money supply?
Can a budget surplus really lower taxes?: Contrary to the conventional wisdom, a budget surplus i.e. a monetary surplus, doesn't automatically make room for lower taxes
Unions, capital and living standards: The continual increase in living standards is entirely due to capital accumulation, not unions or interfering politicians. In fact, politicians can exercise a malign influence on economic growth
The mid-term elections and the Colorado canary: The best outcome we can hope for is that the GOP dodges the bullet, barely, which then demoralizes the Dems so much they turn their anger against each other in recriminations
Fidel Castro's anti-Semitism : It turns out that Fidel Castro, "Hollywood's Favourite Dictator" and a media darling, is an anti-Semitic fanatic who tortures and murders his opponents, sponsors international terrorism and admires Adolf Hitler
Green fanatic wants to impose wealth destroying policies: Cathy Zoi, a former Clintonista, is another graphic example of the greens' shoddy intellectual standards. If this genius had her way we would all wind up in rags
Hillary Clintons treasonous record on national defence: Does anyone really believe Hillary Clinton has changed? Does anyone think that if she were president she would not bring in the same ratbag America-haters as before with all that that entails

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ELSEWHERE

Realism in Canada: "Canada, an immigration-hungry nation, has ruled out amnesty for an estimated 200,000 illegal aliens within its borders because of the unfairness of such a policy. According to a letter obtained by the Toronto Globe and Mail, Canadian officials have decided it would not be fair to those immigrants who have applied legally and are waiting in line. Allowing illegal workers to stay would likely "encourage more illegal immigration," noted Linda Arseneau of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's ministerial enquiries division in a letter to the Universal Workers Union."

Vietnamese capitalism working: "In the three decades since Vietnam has gone from communism to a form of capitalism, it has begun surpassing many neighbors. It has Asia's second-fastest-growing economy, with 8.4 percent growth last year, trailing only China's, and the pace of exports to the United States is rising faster than even China's. American companies like Intel and Nike, and investors across the region, are pouring billions of dollars into the country; overseas Vietnamese are returning to run the ventures. In the latest sign of Vietnam's economic vitality, trade negotiators from around the world are preparing, after more than a decade of talks, to put the finishing touches on an agreement, possibly by Oct. 26, for Vietnam to join the World Trade Organization."

A "study" to find the obvious: "Politicians should think twice about allowing some flood-prone areas of the U.S. Gulf coast to be redeveloped in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a top research group said after studying floods around the world. The U.S.-based RAND Corporation looked at four 20th century floods in the states of Oregon and Mississippi, on the Yangtze River in China and in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands to see what lessons could be learned for the Gulf coast and New Orleans. "It has been the experience of history that sometimes you are better off conceding land to the water (because flooding will likely reoccur)," James Kahan, author of the RAND report, told Reuters on Tuesday."

How interference with trade makes us all poorer: "No one denies that international trade has unpleasant consequences for some workers. They have to find other jobs that might not pay as much, but should we protect those jobs through trade restrictions? The Washington-based Institute for International Economics has assembled data that might help with the answer. Tariffs and quotas on imported sugar saved 2,261 jobs during the 1990s. As a result of those restrictions, the average household pays $21 more per year for sugar. The total cost, nationally, sums to $826,000 for each job saved. Trade restrictions on luggage saved 226 jobs and cost consumers $1.2 million in higher prices for each job saved. Restrictions on apparel and textiles saved 168,786 jobs at a cost of nearly $200,000 for each job saved. You might wonder how it is possible for, say, the sugar industry to rip off consumers. After all, consumers are far more numerous than sugar workers and sugar bosses. It's easy. A lot is at stake for those in the sugar industry, workers and bosses. They dedicate huge resources to pressure Congress into enacting trade restrictions. But how many of us consumers will devote the same resources to unseat a congressman who voted for sugar restrictions that forced us to pay $21 more for the sugar our family uses? It's the problem of visible beneficiaries of trade restrictions, sugar workers and bosses, gaining at the expense of invisible victims -- sugar consumers. We might think of it as congressional price-gouging."

Prominent Democrat defends sexual harasser: "A former Oakland City Hall employee injected herself into the race for state attorney general on Thursday by charging that Mayor Jerry Brown "enabled" one of his former top aides, Jacques Barzaghi, to repeatedly sexually harass her and other women in the mayor's office.... She told reporters she sought a written reprimand of Barzaghi from Brown, but the mayor pooh-poohed her allegations, leading her to ultimately file a complaint against the city of Oakland in 2001.... Barzaghi, a quixotic and quirky friend of Brown's for more than 30 years, was fired by Brown in July 2004 after Barzaghi's sixth wife called police alleging domestic abuse. Lopez-Bowden's complaint was settled by the city for $50,000 in 2001. Barzaghi was suspended for three weeks without pay and ordered to attend counseling and sexual-harassment training. "I absolutely think it merited firing. He should have had no role in public service," Lopez-Bowden said. Before settling, the city hired an outside lawyer specializing in sexual-harassment cases to conduct an investigation. He interviewed 19 women who had worked with Barzaghi. The conclusion: Barzaghi had a pattern of harassing women other than just Lopez-Bowden. In a 2003 interview in the East Bay Express, Brown said he didn't think complaints by other women about Barzaghi were true. "There are different sides to the story," he said.

Oil tax insanity in California: "Now, as Californians debate the merits of Proposition 87, Clinton and Gore have forgotten their old personas to shill on television and at rallies for a clunker of a left-wing initiative that would hurt the economy, waste taxpayers' money and use Perot-style it's-that-simple arguments to claim there are easy answers to tough energy questions. The measure would tax in-state oil production to raise $4 billion for alternative-energy research. Its TV ads are beyond dishonest, asserting in baldly contradictory fashion that increasing the cost of domestic oil production would somehow lower gasoline prices and reduce dependence on foreign oil. They also imply that little alternative-energy research is under way, when in fact there is more such research than ever."

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

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

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

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

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29 October, 2006

RACE IS A LEFTIST OBSESSION

So many people are racists, it's hard to keep up! Let's take a look at this week's charges of racism, which come from the Left. They focus on two ads in the Tennessee Senate race. This race features Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Harold Ford, Jr. Corker is a white, former mayor of Chattanooga, and owner of a successful construction business. Ford is a black Congressman from a prominent political family in the state.

Here's the TV ad in question. Go ahead and watch it. I'll be here when you get back. The alleged racism lies in the fact that a white, blonde woman says, "I met Harold at the Playboy party," and entreats him to call her at the end of the ad. The theory of those crying racism is that the idea of a white woman fraternizing with a black man was meant to conjure up some good Old South feelings about interracial dating.

It's a serious reach to assume that was the intent of the Republican National Committee. Had they featured a black woman asking him to call her, I'm sure there would have been some coded message there as well, like, "Harold Ford should stick to his kind." I don't know how the liberal mind works, but I've gotta believe if it weren't this racial overreach, it would have been another one.

People disagree with me on this. Republicans disagree with me on it. Ken Mehlman said he understands the other side's point of view and Corker disavowed the ad on the grounds that it was "tacky." Others have told me it was a Republican gaffe, racist or not, because it could be read as racist. Well, frankly, if we limit our political advertising things that won't offend liberals, we will have no political advertising.

Try the other one on for size. It's a radio ad, once again anti-Ford. Listen to it, here. Now, the "racist" story behind this one is that there are drums as soundtrack to the parts of the ad that talk about Harold Ford. Liberal blogs have referred to them as "tom-toms" and "jungle drums," and suggested that they're meant to evoke images of Africa, the Dark Continent, thus turning off lily white Southern voters. Of course, it's hard to make the argument that the anti-Ford ad is accentuating Ford's ethnic "savagery" when the ad copy refers to his prep-school education and Northeastern roots.

Is it just me or does it feel more likely that the people who see and hear these innocuous ads and immediately jump to accusations of racism are the ones with the racial hang-ups, not Republican Southerners?

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Some interesting evidence here showing that use of pornography DECREASES rape attacks. So the anti-porn warriors have a heavy load of guilt to bear.

Silver-tongued but still dumb: "Harold Ford, a handsome 36-year-old from Tennessee, has become one of the sensations of the mid-term elections in the US and a reason why Democrats are a good chance of winning back control of the US Congress for the first time in 12 years. But if Mr Ford, already a US congressman, wins his bid to become a more powerful senator, Australia had better watch out. Because according to Mr Ford, Australia has an interest in nuclear weapons and is part of the broader nuclear threat to the US."

Leftist judges thwart justice: ""People in the good state of Missouri need photo identification to cash a check, board a plane or apply for food stamps. But the state Supreme Court has ruled that a photo ID requirement to vote is too great a burden on the elderly and the poor. Go figure. Public polls consistently show that an overwhelming majority of Americans-regardless of age, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status-favor voter ID laws. And nearly half of the nation's states have passed them. Yet a string of recent court decisions has blocked their implementation in some places, thus siding with Democrats and liberal special interest groups who would rather turn a blind eye to voter fraud... Showing ID is an incidental cost of voting, like having to buy a postage stamp for an absentee ballot, or feed the parking meter when you go to the polling booth."

Danish court rejects cartoons suit: "A Danish court has rejected a civil lawsuit against a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The 12 cartoons sparked violent protests around the world after Jyllands-Posten published them in 2005. Seven Muslim organisations launched the lawsuit against the newspapers' editors, alleging defamation. But the City Court in Aarhus said there was not enough reason to believe the cartoons were intended to be insulting or harmful to Muslims. The organisations brought it in March after the Danish attorney-general's decision not to make criminal charges against the newspaper under racism and blasphemy legislation."

Some good things!: "All this focus on government and its misdeeds throughout the ages and around the globe can give the wrong impression. It is as if nothing good happened anywhere. But that is to confuse government with the rest of society. And in most societies there is ample good going on. Most human relations apart from government are pretty decent, even admirable. All the creativity and productivity we have around us -- those activities that enhance efficiency, those that contribute to beauty and comfort, those that heal and cure -- come not from government but from individuals cooperating in society. (I hesitate to call it the 'private' sector because strictly speaking these social undertakings are not private but very much cooperative.)"

Still in the market for reforms : "A year ago, Central Europe seemed like an example for others to follow. Today, it is a region marked by growing extremism and political instability. Some blame liberal reforms, claiming that capitalism concentrated too much money and power in the hands of the few. In fact, reforms did not go far enough. The business sector is overregulated and governments spend too much money. This fuels corruption and public dissatisfaction with the democratic process."

Giving chase in cyberspace: "In the debate over identity theft and online security, commentators often note that markets and private actors are better equipped than regulators to counter cybersecurity breaches and instances of copyright infringement. This paper considers an extreme instance of cybersecurity self-help: that of attacking the attackers. Internet vigilantes are already at work: The 419 Flash Mob, for example, works to disable and report to authorities the websites of 'phishers' who trick users into entering their information on phony websites made up to look like those of real banks and merchants."

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

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

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

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

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28 October, 2006

Are Leftists Men Without Chests and Women Without Breasts?



The second picture above is of an Australian conservative politician. Below is an excerpt from Gagdad Bob which is probably meant to be metaphorical as much as literal but I kind of doubt that Leftists and Rightists are in general physically differentiated in the way he says -- though I have little doubt that physical unattractiveness is ONE of the motivations for Leftism:

Even--or especially--if you are a moonbat who hates the classical liberalism embodied in the conservative movement, you will no doubt agree that it espouses scary masculine virtues such as competition, maintaining the rule of law, standards over compassion (i.e., not changing the rules for members of designated liberal victim groups), delayed gratification, and respect for the ways of the father--that is, conserving what has been handed down by previous generations of fathers, and not just assuming in our adolescent hubris that we know better than they.

Contemporary left-liberalism, on the other hand, has come to represent the realm of maternal nurturance--compassion over standards (i.e., racial quotas), idealization of the impulses (just as a mother is delighted in the instinctual play of her child), mercy over judgment (reduced prison sentences, criminal rights, etc.), cradle-to-grave welfare, a belief that we can seduce our enemies in a feminine way and not have to defeat them with manly violence, and the notion that meaning, truth and values are all arbitrary and subject to change (which is true of the fluid world of emotions in general).

Now, I am not one of those modern space age a go-go people who imagine that gender is irrelevant to our destiny. But nor do I think that our destiny can be reduced to gender. Rather, our destiny is influenced by several archetypal factors that go into our "blueprint" and inform who we are: sex (for each sex emphasizes different divine qualities), age (i.e., season of life), intellect (not its content, but its height, depth and breadth), temperament (e.g., Jung's useful system), caste (e.g., priest, warrior, menial/intellectual laborer, merchant, etc.), and even zodiacal type (in the archetypal sense, not the debased "predictive" variety found in newspapers and most books on the topic).

Now the feminist movement of the 1960's and 70's had very little to do with comprehending, much less honoring, divine femininity, but generally degraded and devalued it. In the long run, it represented nothing more or less than the flight from a temporary or at best "pseudo problem" in exchange for a real and abiding one. It largely became a vehicle for the expression of female envy, giving existentially angry and maladjusted women license to imitate the men they envied. After all, few women are less feminine than the typical NOW activist.

Nor are they masculine, however. A woman cannot actually become a man, but can only become a monstrous blending of male and female. They become "women without breasts," except perhaps for plastic ones. (If you ever want to hear the archetypal voice of a woman without breasts, try listening for a few moments to Randi Rhodes on Air America. If you have ears to hear, you will know in an instant what Petey is talking about. Woe to her luckless child and, one assumes, luckily ex husband. Only a man with no chest at all could have survived in such a shrill atmosphere.) (Importantly, this is not to even remotely suggest that a woman cannot develop her masculine side or a man his feminine side. What we are talking about is a complete nullification of sexual polarity, a kind of magical, self-imposed blindness, so that these critical differences are effaced.)

Because they have disassociated their own devalued femininity, these women without breasts will try to locate them elsewhere. In the deepest layers of the unconscious explored by psychoanalysis, the breast is associated with the source of life and of being itself. How could it not be? The infantile mind does not separate breast, milk, love, life, being, or mother into separate existential categories. Rather, these categories will only gradually emerge from the harmoniously mixed-up intersubjective diad of mother-baby. But not always. The primordial edenic memories of the perfect breast-paradise remain.

For some, these dreams of a non-friction life with unlimited abundance are transferred onto an inanimate object called the government, which becomes the great existential teat for all of us. It will heal us when we are sick, rescue us from hurricanes, take care of us when we're old, educate us, and generally shield us from the vicissitudes of fate.

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ELSEWHERE

Two-faced Arab intellectuals: "The Arab intellectual behaves like a despotic father. No internal family matter may be exposed to the outside world; regardless of what the reality may be, a facade of unbroken unity must be maintained. This is especially evident with respect to such matters as relations with Israel, the scandal over the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the attacks of 9/11, the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, or the recent war in Lebanon. In private talks with such people, one hears opinions that are radically different from what they publish in the newspapers the next day. It is as if the views propounded in the Arab media are not based on independent thinking, but formulated as opportunistic statements for public consumption."

Illegals bad for blacks? "Immigrants have been accused of debasing our culture, overcrowding our schools and hospitals, and lowering our wages. Now a Harvard professor is blaming them for sending African-Americans to jail. George Borjas of Harvard University, a Cuban immigrant, writes in his latest National Bureau of Economic Research paper that "As immigrants disproportionately increased the supply of workers in a particular skill group, we find a reduction in the wage of black workers in that group, a reduction in the employment rate, and a corresponding increase in the incarceration rate." The story goes as follows. Low-skilled immigrants arrive in America and take jobs away from African-Americans. Due to the lack of job opportunities, African-Americans are drawn into illegal activities, get arrested, and are then put in prison."

The great pension swindle: "Our employer-based savings system is a mess. Everywhere you look, you see mismanagement, malfeasance, and meltdown. Collectively, private-sector pension funds are underfunded to the tune of $450 billion. State and local pension funds are short some $800 billion. That's $1.25 trillion in total! This situation didn't happen by accident. The federal government, with its own $11 trillion unfunded Social Security liability, has condoned the underfunding of private pensions for decades. It's also encouraged pension funds to invest in risky assets to cover their funding shortfalls. Those gambles generally haven't paid off. And it has sat silent as state and local governments turned pension underfunding into an art form."

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

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

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

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

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

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



27 October, 2006

THE PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE

(He is so out of touch he must be the partridge in the pear tree)

Thanks to Keith Burgess Jackson, I have come across another post by the amusing Leftist "philosopher" Ernest Partridge. I have commented on the philosophical one's vast ignorance previously. I note that he is still harping on his amusing contention that "progressives" are really "conservative". I pointed out some of the peculiarities of his claim about that in my previous post. A few of his latest gems:

"Soros, for example, has commendably donated billions to "promote democracy" in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. How about a few million of a billionaire's pocket change to defend - better, restore - democracy in the U.S. of A? ...

The regressive right, taking careful note of this, has consolidated and muffled the mainstream media (with a few honorable and courageous exceptions), and the GOP presidents since Nixon have packed the courts with like-minded judges....

The only available way for a disapproving public to halt this headlong rush into Fascism is to vote for the Democrats.

So the USA has ceased to be a democracy. Why is everybody bothering about that non-event on Nov. 7th, then? Obviously, America as a whole has not yet benefited from the wisdom of the man in the pear tree. And conservatives have muffled the media? I guess the New York Times does not get delivered up pear trees. I am inclined to agree with him about the headlong rush into Fascism, though. The GOP seem to be only slightly slower than the Donks at expanding the size of the State. And we know that Mussolini famously defined the State as the be-all and end-all of Fascism: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato". It's unlikely that you will ever get force-fed castor oil for criticizing George Bush, though.

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ELSEWHERE



In Duke rape case, justice relies on jurors: "On Sunday on CBS's '60 Minutes,' the key witness against the three Duke University students accused of rape flatly contradicted the story their accuser gave to police. Prosecuting District Attorney Mike Nifong now has exculpatory DNA tests, a solid alibi for one defendant, a string of contradictions from the accuser, an irredeemably tainted police identification and a witness who benefits the defense. Nevertheless, charges are unlikely to be dropped in the immediate future -- at least not until the election for D.A. is concluded. Politics, not justice, will be done."

Past Union Threats Now Cause Retirees Harm: "The folks hurt that are now getting hurt are those that said, "give it to us or we will strike". Well, they got it, they didn't strike, now the companies are getting their revenge-killing off pension plans and health care benefits for the retirees. But they have no choice, cut the plans or go bankrupt. These folks counted on the pensions and health care-now most will get little or nothing. The alternative is to pay these folks that threatened to strike, pay them off, and then close the businesses and thrown tens of thousands of current employees out of a job."

Another violent peacenik: "A smirking peace activist who left a rising rock star fighting for his life after a row over his girlfriend was jailed for eight months today. Christiaan Briggs, 30, attacked 19-year-old singer Billy Leeson and left him in a coma, after Mr Leeson asked him to stop staring at his girlfriend on a late night number 29 bus. After punching the teenager Briggs, who went to Iraq as a peace activist in 2003, walked away "smirking". Mr Leeson fell into a coma when he hit his head in the pavement and the judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court said: "It was obviously a miracle that he lived." .... New Zealand-born Briggs, a technician at a major firm of chartered surveyors who turned himself in to police following publicity about Mr Leeson's injuries, had previously acted as a human shield in Iraq in 2003 in the hope of warding off a US attack. He pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodly harm when he appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London on September 25. The East London court heard Briggs was staring at Mr Leeson's girlfriend and was confronted by the musician on June 22 last year.... William Leeson was walking away when, without warning, the defendant punched him on his left cheek. He walked off and was described by two witnesses as smirking as he walked away." Mr Leeson crashed to the pavement "with a really loud crack" and was in a coma by the time a London Ambulance arrived."

A too-late admission: "New York Times ombudsman Byron Calame has initiated what we can only hope will be a trend in America's holier-than-thou media -- that overwhelming and influential part of our nation's news business that feigns objectivity, fairness and interest in our national well-being while relentlessly pursuing partisan and destructively anti-American agendas. Calame, in the throes of some inexplicable crisis of conscience, has admitted his newspaper was wrong to reveal a secret U.S. government program to monitor bank transactions of terrorists, and that he was not only wrong but hypocritical to defend it".

Debtors prison: "On the campaign trail, I get a lot of quizzical looks when I tell people that the Federal government should use the same accounting standards that it requires of business. Last August, USA TODAY detailed the difference between the keeping books for business and the Federal government. Instead of a $318 billion budget deficit in 2005, under the government's accounting rules, the Federal budget deficit as measured by business accounting rules was actually $3.5 trillion for that single year."

Economic progress: "As the U.S. population crossed the 300 million mark sometime around 7:46 a.m. Tuesday (according to the U.S. Census Bureau), the typical family is doing a whole lot better than their grandparents were in 1967, the year the population first surpassed 200 million. Mr. and Mrs. Median's $46,326 in annual income is 32% more than their mid-'60s counterparts, even when adjusted for inflation, and 13% more than those at the median in the economic boom year of 1985. And thanks to ballooning real estate values, average household net worth has increased even faster. The typical American household has a net worth of $465,970, up 83% from 1965, 60% from 1985 and 35% from 1995. Throw in the low inflation of the past 20 years, a deregulated airline industry that's made travel much cheaper, plus technological progress that's provided the middle class with not only better cars and televisions, but every gadget from DVD players to iPods, all at lower and lower prices, and it's obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Median are living the life of Riley compared to their parents and grandparents."

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

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

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

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

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26 October, 2006

STRANGE ATTITUDES TOWARDS ISRAEL

Excerpt from Arlene Peck

In retrospect, frankly, I think that the last time I trusted the "powers that be" was when Yitzhak Shamir was running Israel . Now, I shake my head in amazement at the mentality or lack of it that is seemingly running things. For instance, Gaza is once again receiving massive amounts of anti-tank missiles to be used against Israel. If that weren't enough, the Hamas terror organization recently ordered and received Soviet-made SA-7 surface-to-air missiles. What are the Israelis going to do? Wait until they fall onto a Tel Aviv dicso before doing something? Now would be the time to have an offensive but, naw..they'll wait. In the meanwhile, the terror group Hezbollah are busy little bees using their broadcaster TV station, Al Manar, to recruit homicide bombers, have fund-raising campaigns to gather money for terrorist operations, conduct pre-attack surveillance and oh, did I mention, incite violence in various ways. Hamas is not far behind. However, who in the liberal media is paying attention to any of this? Do they even care? ....

Hell, I "almost" don't even have the energy to say I told you so with issues like "the security wall" that Israel built to the tune of raging protest and resolutions in the United Nations and the EU and voices against them in The Hague. That topic has died down though. Not because it was instrumental in stopping homicide bombers from entering their malls, restaurants, busses and schools to kill Jewish children. Why? Because we, in the United States, are chomping at the bit to start building a fence on our Southwestern border to stop the onslaught of illegal aliens invading our country into Arizona and California every day. China has already erected a massive fence along its border with North Korea India on its borders with Pakiastan, Saudi Arabia next Yemen and so on. You probably didn't even know about those though, as not even anyone from the liberal left are out there protesting.....

Jews, a minuscule dot in the world census, have made and continue to make an enormous contribution to the benefit of humankind as reflected by the dozens and dozens of Noble Prizewinners. We excel in medicine, arts, science, and political science, among others, yet are blind to the dangers that face us. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush's mouthpiece, made a speech at the American Task Force of Palestine's inaugural dinner in Washington . The world clapped when she stated, "There could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state." This, folks, gives me shivers when the so-called Palestinians go all out to prove themselves to be the most overtly pro-jihad, terrorist society in history and no one in our government is willing to see reality for what it is. These "people" are clearly evil, genocidal and terrorists, whether active in Fatah, Force 17, or a supporter . Yet Dubya and Condi see no evil and hear no evil but speak evil. It brings back shades of Neville Chamberlain. Yet, where are the cries from either the Jewish or the Christian communities (other than the Zionist Organization of America), for that matter fighting against what is the beginning of the end of the Jewish State?

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ELSEWHERE



Scottish disgrace: "We must thank the University of St Andrews for that rare opportunity - the chance to employ with a straight face the clich, "it's like Caligula appointing his horse as consul". How so? Because Scotland's oldest university has decided to award an honorary doctorate of law to former President Khatami of Iran "in recognition of his efforts to encourage interfaith dialogue". I kid you not. No less a person than Sir Menzies Campbell, the university's Chancellor, will bestow the accolade on the acceptable face of violent, arbitrary clerical rule. It will come to be seen as one of the most shameful days in the university's history - on a par with the honorary degrees granted by the University of Edinburgh to Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, or the Central London Polytechnic to Elena Ceaucescu, of Romania. They, too, were once fashionable items among the appeasing classes, of which Sir Menzies is the contemporary personification."

Lessons from the poor: "Nobel Peace Prizes are not supposed to go to those who believe the poor can fend for themselves. Yet this year's worthy winner, the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, is essentially a commercial operation and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, has clearly spelled out politically incorrect views regarding poverty: 'Grameen believes that charity is not an answer to poverty. ... It creates dependency. ... Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty.' The bank lends tiny amounts of money to village-dwellers so they can start small businesses. The scale can be so modest as to involve the purchase of a cow in order to sell milk. Since no collateral or credit history is required, the system works on the basis of trust and peer pressure: Lenders are placed in groups of five, with part of the group guaranteeing the loans of the rest. If a loan is not repaid, the community shuns the borrower."

EU crooks crying foul: "The European Commission will today launch a pre-emptive strike against the EU auditor, accusing it, on the eve of publishing its opinion on the EU's 2005 accounts, of being "unfair". The European Court of Auditors' review is expected again to qualify its opinion in relation to large areas of EU spending, but the European Commission will criticise the auditor's procedures and methodology. The Commission will also call on member state governments to take more responsibility for their role in handling the majority of EU financial transactions. Anger is mounting in Brussels over the ECA's annual reports, which every year provoke widespread criticism of the Commission's handling of its finances that are widely believed to be vitiated by error and fraud."

Bush bad, Putin good: "To push the sales of his new book, former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder - now with Gazprom Inc. - made a number of interviews with German media outlets. He calls Putin "a flawless democrat", draws a link between the policies of President Bush and the faith based political system of Islamic states and describes as "pre-democratic" criticism of his decision to start working for a foreign company immediately after his departure from German politics."

Arizona ranked dumbest in US: "Arizona has the dubious distinction of being the dumbest state in the Union, according to an independent research and publishing company in Kansas. The finding quickly made the rounds of morning talk shows and Internet postings, but a closer look at the methodology used for the survey suggests the rankings deserve more serious scrutiny. Morgan Quitno Press, which compiles state- and city-ranking publications, used a variety of measurements to create their list, including money spent on students, standardized test scores, graduation rates, teacher salaries and teacher/student ratios. It is, in short, a comparison of the education systems in the 50 states and not a measure of a state's intelligence."

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

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

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

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

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25 October, 2006

GOOGLEBOMB

Don't take too much notice of the post below. As you may or may not know, Leftist Chris Bowers from MyDD is organizing a massive Googlebomb for the 2006 elections. The sad reality is that is an effort that could, at least in a few close races, move a few hundred votes away from a Republican candidate to a Democrat. So, in an effort to level the playing field, John Hawkins has put together a list of 45 key races that right-of-center bloggers can Googlebomb as well. So, in the interests of to achieving Googlebomb parity with our comrades on the left in the search engine arms race, I have posted the links he recommends below:

Senate

Connecticut: Ned Lamont
Maryland: Ben Cardin
Michigan: Debbie Stanbenow
Missouri: Claire McCaskill
Montana: Jon Tester
New Jersey: Bob Menendez
Tennessee: Harold Ford
Virginia: James Webb

Democrat Held Seats

(CO-03): John Salazar
(GA-03): Jim Marshall
(GA-12): John Barrow
(IA-03): Leonard Boswell
(IL-08): Melissa Bean
(IL-17): Phil Hare
(IN-07): Julia Carson
(NC-13): Brad Miller
(PA-12): John Murtha
(WV-01): Alan Mollohan

Republican Held Seats

(AZ-08): Gabrielle Giffords
(CT-04): Diane Farrell
(CT-05): Chris Murphy
(CO-07): Ed Perlmutter
(IA-01): Bruce Braley
(IL-06): Tammy Duckworth
(IN-02): Joe Donnelly
(IN-08): Brad Ellsworth
(IN-09): Baron Hill
(FL-13): Christine Jennings
(FL-16): Tim Mahoney
(FL-22): Ron Klein
(KY-03): John Yarmuth
(NC-01): Heath Shuler
(MN-06): Patty Wetterling
(NM-01): Patricia Madrid
(NY-20): Kirsten Gillibrand
(NY-24): Michael Arcuri
(NY-26): Jack Davis
(OH-15): Mary Jo Kilroy
(OH-18): Zack Space
(PA-06): Lois Murphy
(PA-08): Patrick Murphy
(PA-07): Joe Sestak
(PA-10): Chris Carney
(VA-02): Phil Kellam
(WI-08): Steve Kagen

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Liberals: Opposites of Themselves

Most agree that liberals are the opposite of conservatives, but in many respects, liberals are the opposite of themselves. This was recently demonstrated, once again, at Columbia University when left-wing students demonstrated their "tolerance" and respect for "free speech" when they stormed the stage and shut down a speech by Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist. Defenders of those that disrupted the speech claimed, "The Minutemen are not a legitimate voice in the debate on immigration." Say what? Who gets to decide which voices are "legitimate" in a policy debate? Apparently the liberals that disagree with position of the Minutemen believe they get to decide. So much for free speech.

Liberals love diversity. The more "different" people they can put together the better. Well, as long as those "different" people are all alike - espousing a liberal ideology. Conservatives need not apply to such diverse groups - there isn't any need to be that diverse.

Liberal politicians, the champions of the "little guy" and the "downtrodden" continually advocate policies that hurt those very people. A good example is the minimum wage. An increase in the minimum wage costs jobs, is inflationary and doesn't, in the long run, provide any benefit to those it is designed to help.

Liberals also say one thing and do another is when it comes to tax policy. If the examples of the past are not enough to convince liberals that high taxes hurts the economy while low taxes boost economic activity, the current state of the economy should be quite illustrative. Unemployment is at 4.7% and the stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones is at a record high.

The left is confounded as to how federal tax receipts can be pouring in at record levels despite the President's tax cuts that only favored "the rich." Maybe these rich people pay taxes too, do you think? Hint - the rich (who don't have to be all that wealthy to meet the left's definition of "rich") pay the lion's share of taxes. Left (no pun intended) to their own devices, liberals would raise taxes, not only because tax cuts "cost" the government too much, but to provide even more programs and entitlements destined to fail, only to be left wondering why the economy slows, tax receipts decline and unemployment increases. How does that help the "little guy?"

The left attacks the NSA wiretapping program but has constantly criticized the administration for not doing more to prevent the attacks of 9/11. The left assailed the administration for acting "unilaterally" in Iraq (even thought that wasn't the case), but some on that side of the aisle are now calling for one-on-one talks with North Korea instead of the six-party talks (not that talking will do any good, but that's for another column).

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Newsweak does it again. They have done an extraordinarily bad poll from which they blithely conclude: "Two weeks till midterms, the NEWSWEEK poll shows Republicans in danger of losing a big chunk of their base. And a growing consensus for a bread-and-butter Democratic agenda". For what the poll REALLY shows, see STACLU

Muslim brutality in Britain: "Hundreds of young girls in Britain are suffering genital mutilation at the hands of women paid to come to Britain by their families. African immigrants are clubbing together to pay for practitioners to fly to Britain and circumcise their daughters in highly secretive rituals. Police believe that the trend has developed among parents who do not have passports or cannot afford to return to their home countries to have their daughters circumcised, a brutal practice that remains commonplace throughout Africa. The procedure is generally performed by elderly women, in unsterilised conditions with no anaesthetic. Children as young as five have parts or all of their clitoris or labia removed. Some have their vaginas sewn up or the flesh shrunk with corrosives... The procedure is highly dangerous and leaves many of its victims with health problems throughout their lives. Infections and cysts are commonplace, as are complications during childbirth, endangering both mother and baby. Women who have suffered genital mutilation are twice as likely to die in childbirth and three times as likely to give birth to a stillborn child. Despite the dangers, many African Muslim communities prize the ritual and ostracise women who are not circumcised. It is common in a band stretching from Senegal in West Africa to Somalia on the East coast and in many areas uncircumcised women cannot find a husband.

And the French claim they know best!: "On a routine call, three unwitting police officers fell into a trap. A car darted out to block their path, and dozens of hooded youths surged out of the darkness to attack them with stones, bats and tear gas before fleeing. One officer was hospitalized, and no arrests made. The recent ambush was emblematic of what some officers say has become a near-perpetual and increasingly violent conflict between police and gangs in tough, largely immigrant French neighborhoods that were the scene of a three-week paroxysm of rioting last year. One small police union claims officers are facing a "permanent intifada." Police injuries have risen in the year since the wave of violence... On Sunday, a band of about 30 youths, some wearing masks, forced passengers out of a bus in a southern Paris suburb in broad daylight Sunday, set it on fire, then stoned firefighters who came to the rescue, police said. No one was injured. Two people were arrested, one of them a 13-year-old"

Britain closes the door slightly: "Tough curbs banning tens of thousands of unskilled workers from Bulgaria and Romania coming to Britain are to be unveiled by ministers this week. The move comes as new government figures show that four out of every five existing east European immigrants earn little more than the minimum wage and pay on average half the amount Britons pay in taxes. The report claims they may not be as much of a boon to the economy as some have suggested"

More German anti-Americanism: "The war in Iraq is unlikely to be resolved by a US administration committed to a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint, according to former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose memoirs stoke his four-year feud with US President George W. Bush.... In extracts from his newly published memoirs to be published in Der Spiegel magazine, he explains what went wrong and why it will be difficult for Mr Bush to make peace. "Again and again in our private talks it became clear how God-fearing this president was and how ruled he was by what he saw as a higher power," Mr Schroeder says in the memoirs, Decisions: My Life In Politics. "The problem begins when political decisions seem to result from a conversation with God. We rightly criticise that in most Islamic states there is no clear separation between religion and the rule of law. "But we fail to recognise that in the US, the Christian fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible have similar tendencies. If both sides claim to be in possession of the only valid truth, then there is no room for manoeuvre."

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

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

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

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

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24 October, 2006

Are conservatives less "open"?

I guess I should note the latest echo of an old refrain -- a paper by John Jost titled "The End of the End of Ideology". I reproduce the abstract below:

"The "end of ideology" was declared by social scientists in the aftermath of World War II. They argued that: (a) ordinary citizens' political attitudes lack the kind of stability, consistency, and constraint that ideology requires; (b) ideological constructs such as liberalism and conservatism lack motivational potency and behavioral significance; (c) there are no major differences in content (or substance) between liberal and conservative points of view; and (d) there are few important differences in psychological processes (or styles) that underlie liberal versus conservative orientations. The end-of-ideologists were so influential that researchers ignored the topic of ideology for many years. However, current political realities, recent data from the National Election Studies, and results from an emerging psychological paradigm provide strong grounds for returning to the study of ideology. The liberalism-conservatism distinction remains a pervasive and parsimonious means of organizing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (for both laypersons and social scientists). Studies reveal that there are indeed meaningful political and psychological differences that covary with ideological self-placement. Situational variables-including system threat and mortality salience -and dispositional variables- including openness and conscientiousness- affect the degree to which an individual is drawn to liberal vs. conservative leaders, parties, and opinions. A psychological analysis is also useful for understanding the political divide between "red states" and "blue states."

The last few sentences above reflect the familiar claim (going back to at least 1950) from Leftist psychologists that conservatives are in some sense psychologically inferior or disabled. I have been rebutting such tripe for over 30 years so I cannot work up enough enthusiasm to go to the library and look up the full article but it seems from the abstract to be just another rehash of an earlier collaborative article by Jost that I have already demolished here. Jost and his colleagues don't even know what a conservative is so there is NO chance of their findings having any real-world significance.

Dr Helen has however given us an extract from the latest article by Jost in which the claim is made that Leftists are more "Open" in various ways. I wonder has Jost taken account of the findings of Van Hiel? Van Hiel is a Leftist psychologist but he works unusually hard to get data from real-world Leftists and Rightists -- as distinct from the usual practice of handing out a bunch of questionnaires to your students. And, as I point out here, Van Hiel actually found in one study that it was conservatives who were more open and in another study found that openness was not politically polarized.

As Dr Helen also points out, that real-world data can be pesky stuff!

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THE REVOLUTION THAT SORTED OUT THE IDEALISTS FROM THE HATERS

A former British Communist reflects on the Hungarian revolution:

As I walked back from the podium to my seat in the audience, screams of `Trotskyist!' hit me from all sides. Communist Party comrades who had been my friends hurled abuse at me, their faces screwed up with hatred. By the time I got back to my seat I was shouting back, telling them that, like the AVO (Hungarian secret policemen) who were then swinging on lamp posts as a result of people's anger, their time on the end of a rope was nearing. I would not recommend this as a way to win political arguments.

The scene was the old Liverpool Stadium in 1956; the Liverpool District Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain had organised a meeting to discuss the Hungarian uprising. In my intervention I had called for the Soviet troops to get out of Hungary, and demanded we pledge our full support for the Hungarian workers and students in their attempt to replace Stalinism. On returning to my seat I heard a member of the District Committee describe me from the platform as a Trotskyist provocateur. The shepherd had spoken and the witless sheep responded as the followers of Stalin, myself included, had always done in the past. The magic word was Trotsky, the revolutionary bogeyman of Stalinism.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Leftist blogger MYDD is organizing a Googlebombing campaign against GOP candidates in the upcoming election: "The utilization of Google Adwords and simultaneous, widespread embedded hyperlinks in order to drive as many voters as possible toward the most damning, non-partisan article written on the Republican candidate in seventy key US Senate and House races. The campaign will run from Tuesday, October 24th until Tuesday, November 7th. [Can an article can be both damning and non-partisan? Dubious logic there.]

In memoriam: "Ideas shape the world. Last week a very important promoter of ideas, Ralph Harris, died at the age of 81. The liberal economic ideas that he popularised in the 1960s and 1970s became the basis of the Conservative reforms of the 1980s, and have remained the accepted basis of the Blair administration. No other British propagandist of ideas in the second half of the 20th century had anything like the same influence on national policy. Lord Harris of High Cross taught Margaret Thatcher. He converted a whole generation of politicians and journalists to the free-market ideas in which he believed; he converted most economists as well. [I knew Ralph Harris myself]

Would most of the "young people" mentioned in this report be black or Muslim? "Britain is becoming a nation increasingly afraid of its young people and this trend is causing problems for children as they grow up, according to a report released overnight. Britons are far less likely than their European counterparts to stop young people committing antisocial behaviour, because of fears of reprisals, being attacked, or verbal abuse, the study by the Institute of Policy Research (IPPR) found.... The IPPR said that 1.5 million Britons now thought about moving away from the area they lived in because of "young people hanging around". It said 1.7 million people avoided going out after dark because of their worries about antisocial behaviour which the vast majority blamed on a "lack of discipline".

Will this survive appeal? " A Detroit woman says a judge forced her to choose between her small-claims case and her religious conviction. Devout Muslim Ginnnah Muhammad was contesting a charge of more than $2,700 from a rental-car company to repair a vehicle after it was broken into. Hamtramck district Judge Paul Paruk told her she needed to remove a head veil that covered everything but her eyes so he could judge her truthfulness. The 42-year-old kept the veil on and the case was dismissed. Paruk says many Muslims who have appeared before him wearing the veil do not consider it a religious symbol. Dawud Walid is the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He says the judge violated Muhammad's civil rights.

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

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

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

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

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23 October, 2006

SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

A report released on Wednesday on the political views of faculty members accuses professors of liberal "groupthink," a stance that the report says puts them at odds with the beliefs of most Americans on national and international issues. The report, by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, was based on an online, nationally representative survey of 1,259 professors at four-year colleges and universities in the spring of 2005. It found that, in general, professors are critical of American business and foreign policy and are skeptical of capitalism. Among other findings, the report, "A Profile of American College Faculty: Volume 1: Political Beliefs & Behavior," says that:

* Professors are three times as likely to call themselves "liberal" as "conservative." In the 2004 presidential election, 72 percent of those surveyed voted for John Kerry.

* Almost one-third of professors cite the United States as among the top two greatest threats to international stability -- more than cited Iran, China, or Iraq.

* Fifty-four percent of professors say U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is partially responsible for the growth of Islamic militancy.

* Sixty-four percent say the government's powers under the USA Patriot Act should be weakened.

Professors, says the report, are at the "forefront of the political divide" over U.S. foreign policy that has developed since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Faculty members have "aligned themselves in direct opposition to the political philosophy of the conservative base voting for the prevailing political power" in America, it says. Unlike most Americans, it adds, faculty members "blame America for world problems" and regard U.S. policies as "suspect."

The report labels the faculty's overall stance as liberal "groupthink," and says it is dangerous because faculty members "are supposed to provide a broad range of ... approaches to addressing problems in American society and around the world." Professors are role models for students and frequently are called upon to act as "pundits" by the media and as experts on foreign policy, it adds.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

For what slight interest it may have, I have just put up another post on my personal blog -- under the unlikely title of "Donizetti and the 39 articles". See here or here. It might be an interesting post for Christians to read.

France waking up? "Authorities at Charles de Gaulle airport have stripped several dozen employees _ almost all of them Muslims _ of their security badges in a crackdown against terrorism, a government official said Friday. Four baggage handlers who lost their clearance filed a joint discrimination complaint this week, alleging they had been unfairly associated with terrorism because they are Muslims, their lawyers said. Some had been in their jobs for up to five years."

Sense at last in Sweden: "The latest media darling of Scandinavian politics is not only black, beautiful and Muslim; she is also firmly against the wearing of the veil. Nyamko Sabuni, 37, has caused a storm as Sweden's new integration and equality minister by arguing that all girls should be checked for evidence of female circumcision; arranged marriages should be criminalised; religious schools should receive no state funding; and immigrants should learn Swedish and find a job. Supporters of the centre-right government that came to power last month believe that her bold rejection of cultural diversity may make her a force for change across Europe. Her critics are calling her a hardliner and even an Islamophobe."

Charismatic polling: "Now numbering over 500 million, and probably the fastest growing religious movement in the world, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians are transforming the global religious demographic, especially in Latin America and Africa. They comprise nearly half of Brazil's population, and 25 percent of the United States is Pentecostal or Charismatic. Are these religious, social conservatives replicating in the Global South political trends that are present among Republican-oriented evangelicals in the United States? A new study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life tries to answer just this question."

Family time: Myths and realities: "According to critics of American capitalism the modern family is spending more and more time working and less and less time with one another. Yes, they argue, capitalism is destroying the family. Odd, actually since the old Left critique was that the family was evil and was created by capitalism. Never mind the inconsistency for now. But what about the current crop of myths spread by the Left. (Who are, as far as I can tell, as deluded as the Right.) A group of sociologist, normally a dangerous configuration, recently did a study on how men and women today spend their time compared to the 1960s. The University of Maryland researchers were shocked to find that the typical parent today spends much more time with their children."

Theo-panic! "In the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell governed England with a cadre of major generals, establishing a kind of low-church Protestant theocracy. Catholic priests were chased from the country, and Anglican clergy were suppressed. Censorship and blue laws were tightened. What does Cromwell's rule have to do with contemporary American political life? If your answer is anything other than 'nothing,' you are probably in the grip of the 'theo-panic' that is sweeping precincts of the American commentariat. They warn that America is beset by raging theocrats seeking to overturn our liberal democracy."

Don't fear the trade deficit: "The United States on track for a record capital surplus! Sounds great, right? Now consider this: the United States is on track for a record trade deficit! It doesn't sound so good, but the two mean pretty much the same thing. Whichever way you choose to say it, neither statement should be a cause for worry or celebration."

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

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

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

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

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22 October, 2006

THE PARTY OF COMPASSION, THE PARTY OF DIVERSITY

Another good comment from Boortz below:

There is a particular strain of liberal viciousness that is reserved for one particular type of individual, that being any black American who runs for political office as a Republican. If there is "treason" to a liberal, this would be it. No holds are barred, no language is forbidden, when demonizing a black person who has strayed from the Democrat leftist straight-and-narrow.

As you may (or should) know, there's quite a race going on in Maryland for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Paul Sarbanes. Maryland's Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele is running for the seat, as is Congressman Ben Cardin. Steele is black. This hasn't made Democrats happy. This means he's as close to a traitor as one can get in the mind of a leftist.

So along comes Maryland Democrat Congressman, and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer. Hoyer is campaigning for Cardin, and since Cardin's opponent is a black Republican, all bets are off. Hoyer tells a campaign audience .. a largely black campaign audience .. that Michael Steel "slavishly" supports the Republican Party. This is pretty much par for the course for Hoyer. Four years ago he referred to Steele as a "token." Then we got one of those "out of context" excuses from Hoyer. This time we're getting an apology. Hoyer says "I should not have used those words." Yeah, right. But he did -- and the damage was done. A black campaign audience heard that the Republican candidate for Senate was acting pretty much like a slave .. and those words have grave impact in the black voting community.

If Steele is a slave, he is a runaway. He has committed the unpardonable sin .. .he has fled the Democrat plantation. Now he must be punished. Today's runaways are punished with scorn and words like "Uncle Tom," "Oreo" and others. This from the party that tells us how much it appreciates diversity. Diversity of color? Maybe. Diversity of thought? Not on your life.

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ELSEWHERE

Last July, I did a brief book review of Only In America by Paul Oreffice, an Italian-Jewish refugeee from Mussolini who went on to become head of Dow Chemical. I liked the book a lot but didn't have time to say a lot about it, so I passed it over to a friend who is a political centrist for comment. He has now done his own review of the book which I have put up here. He makes some good points.

Muslim news management: "Press conferences in Indonesia tend to be catered affairs. Journalists usually receive a take-away box of food, and underneath is often slipped a brown envelope. Inside the envelope will be a wad of banknotes, in appreciation of their attendance and expectation of a positive story. They call it "envelope journalism", a custom not only practised by flash lawyers and dodgy developers: big corporations, government agencies and even charities regularly distribute cash to the local media. On a couple of occasions gifts have been given to foreign journalists but they have handed them back. This week two government ministries admitted they continued to hand out envelopes of cash to journalists who attended press events, despite President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's campaign to eradicate corruption."

Destructive regulation in France: "French cafes and restaurants may be forced to shrink their already limited opening hours after a court decision on working time that has dismayed owners, waiters and the Government. Owners of the country's 200,000 eating and drinking establishments have been ordered to apply the 35-hour week that guarantees most French workers Europe's shortest working time. The bosses must also pay retroactive overtime for the past 22 months. The decision by the Conseil d'Etat, the highest civil court, was greeted with horror by owners and many of the trade's 800,000 employees amid warnings that it could force small establishments out of business. They appealed for state action to soften the impact. Under a 2004 accord, catering workers were allowed to work a 39-hour week. This had already led to restaurants cutting costs by such measures as turning away lunchtime customers who arrive after 1.30pm. The court has annulled the accord. Applying the 35-hour week could force restaurants to close three days a week or refuse a second dinner sitting, owners said.... Steep payroll charges and tight regulations have caused a shortage of waiters and cooks in the catering establishments that help France to attract more visitors than any other nation".

GOP Failure "If voters are unhappy with Republicans, it's because the party hasn't lived up to its own principles... A few Supreme Court appointments and tax cuts aside, Republicans have largely abandoned the reform agenda that swept them to power in 1994. Their zeal has instead been directed at retaining power, which explains the earmarking epidemic and the Abramoff corruption that followed. Reform of Medicare and Social Security, the death tax, immigration, health care-all fell off the map."

North Korea a U.N. disgrace: ""How to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korean rogue state, mad and bad both, is not easily addressed. The US understandably does not want to go it alone with a military option, given the way members of the Security Council played politics over the need to remove Saddam Hussein and are ducking and diving on how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. But diplomacy does not work with the North Koreans... [T]he North Koreans have continued to up the ante, taking all the aid on offer while continuing to try to build a bomb, and a missile to deliver it. There is no doubting that the diplomacy of containment has failed. But rather than blame the Americans-imagine the outcry if the US went it alone in blockading North Korea's coasts or bombed its nuclear facilities-it is time to hold the Security Council to account. The very existence of the North Korean regime is an affront to everything the UN is supposed to stand for. Millions are thought to have died in the last famine and malnutrition is a way of life. The country is ruled by hereditary dictator Kim Jong-il, one part buffoon to many parts Big Brother. And its export income depends on running drugs and counterfeit currency and selling weapons. It is time for the permanent members of the Security Council to stop pussyfooting... The whole world is watching for a sign that the UN can do more than talk."

So-called "record" deficit is one-third below historic average: "Apparently pioneering the adage that 'you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to regain political power,' liberal politicians and commentators constantly allege a 'record' budget deficit. For instance, the House Democratic Budget Committee's website explicitly asserts 'record deficits,' and Virginia's Democratic Senate candidate James Webb attempts to parlay deficit claims into an excuse to raise taxes. Don't buy it for a second."

Wal-Mart now helping even more of the poor: "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Thursday said it would begin selling $4 generic prescriptions in 14 additional states, including New York and Texas, speeding up the roll-out of a plan that has put pressure on rival retailers. Wal-Mart said the $4 program covers a 30-day supply of 143 different drug compounds, representing nearly 25 percent of the prescriptions it currently dispenses in pharmacies nationwide. The program, initially launched in Florida last month, will be available in an additional 1,264 stores throughout Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Vermont".

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

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

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

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

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21 October, 2006

Brookes News Update

Hillary Clinton's treasonous record on national defence: Does anyone really believe Hillary Clinton has changed? Does anyone think that if she were president she would not bring in the same ratbag America-haters as before with all that that entails
Medieval booms and historical and economic amnesia: According to Alan Wood of The Australian Robert Shiller has discovered what causes the boom-and-bust cycle. Its newspapers! Unfortunately for Mr Shiller and his media admirers booms and busts were also a feature of late Medieval Europe long before the appearance of newspapers
How Edmund S. Phelps, Nobel Prize winner, got it wrong on stagflation: Phelps chose to stick to the current bankrupt economic framework on stagflation. Contrary to orthodox economic thinking we suggest that his amendments have done nothing to further our understanding of such economic conditions as stagflation
Monopsony v labour: our rightwing lets us down again: Once again our rightwing screws up the case for deregulated labour markets. Incredible as it may seem, they actually supported the unions claim that the market place keeps wages and employment lower than they would otherwise be. Therefore unions should be allowed to correct this situation
Allah is dead: Islam is so debased that it is irretrievable. Christianity will survive and triumph because the nexus between God and Man is Mans Essence, that which makes him both human and in the image and likeness of God his capacity for reason and rational self-examination
Mark Foley scandal reveals Democrats double standards: Republicans caught in sex scandals either resign or are voted out of office. Democrats caught in sex scandals stay in office and are re-elected time and time again by their constituents. In the case of Mel Reynolds, he got a get out of jail free card from Clinton
Deconstructing Bill Clinton: Clinton knows that he is an intellectual and moral sham and that there are moral absolutes

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ELSEWHERE



Ayn Rand prize. Note that entries for the Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize close on 19th November 2006. Contestants are invited to submit essays under the title "The Achievements of Ayn Rand". Essay Length: 2000 words excluding notes. The prize will be 1000 pounds. The winner will be announced at the Libertarian Alliance Conference, which will take place in London this coming 25-26 November 2006 at the National Liberal Club in London: Send entries by e-mail to sean@libertarian.co.uk

UK Muslim veil row teacher loses case: "A British tribunal ruled that a Muslim teaching assistant had not been discriminated against when the school where she worked asked her to remove her veil. The case of 24-year-old Aishah Azmi against Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire, northern England, has attracted nationwide interest after former foreign minister Jack Straw said Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations difficult."

Government benefits boost French fertility: "While falling birthrates threaten to undermine economies and social stability across much of an aging Europe, French fertility rates are increasing. . . . France heavily subsidizes children and families from pregnancy to young adulthood with liberal maternity leaves and part-time work laws for women. The government also covers some child-care costs of toddlers up to 3 years old and offers free child-care centers from age 3 to kindergarten, in addition to tax breaks and discounts on transportation, cultural events and shopping."

More Democrat dishonesty: "Democrats in Congress bristle when Republicans accuse them of wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq. But in terms of the politics of the war, that's exactly what they're doing. Democrats have decided the Iraq conflict is one ugly baby, and they're right. But from their rhetoric and short memories, you'd never know they were directly involved in its conception. That became evident when Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, sat down for a meeting with the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. When asked what might happen in Iraq if Democrats reclaimed the House of Representatives next month, and possibly the White House in 2008, Davis tried to temper expectations by blaming Republicans for botching the war effort. "Well," she said, "you know, it's always difficult to clean up someone else's mess." Let's recap. A majority of Democrats in Congress voted to give President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq in 2002, and then voted -- more than once -- to continue to fund the effort.

Courts soft on terrorism: "The Democrats claim they want to treat terrorism as a criminal law problem, but when we give them an American citizen convicted of aiding terrorists -- as happened this week -- a Democrat judge gives her a slap on the wrist. Or he was going to give her a wrist slap until someone told him that wrist-slapping was banned under the Geneva Conventions, so he let the wrist off with a warning. Last year, a New York jury found Lynne Stewart guilty of helping her former client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with his Egyptian-based group of murderous terrorists, appropriately known as "the Islamic Group." The blind sheik needed to instruct his followers to abandon a truce and resume murdering innocents, but he couldn't get the message through because, by sheer coincidence, he was in prison for conspiring to murder innocents here in America by plotting the first World Trade Center bombing. So Stewart and a "translator" met with her former client in prison and took his messages for transmission to his followers in Egypt. With the full constitutional protections Democrats want for terrorists in Guantanamo, Stewart was convicted by a New York jury last year. This week, Judge John Koeltl -- appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1994 -- spurned the prosecution's request for a 30-year sentence and gave Stewart 28 months for being a terrorist's mule. Now she'll clog up the criminal justice system with endless appeals for the next several years -- using procedures that liberals also want for Guantanamo detainees."

BBC wastes public money: "The BBC's 18 million pound contract with Jonathan Ross is an indefensible use of licence-fee money, a leading talent agent said yesterday. Unjustifiable pay deals are creating an inflationary spiral among talent, according to Anita Land, who represents BBC presenters such as Jeremy Paxman and Louis Theroux. Mrs Land is the sister of Michael Grade, the BBC chairman. She is a showbusiness veteran with a reputation for tough bargaining and her decision to speak out over top broadcasters' pay will infuriate fellow agents. It also heaped more pressure on the BBC, which has been criticised for demanding an above-inflation licence-fee increase while paying commercial rates to retain star talent. Mrs Land wrote about Ross's 18 million deal - a three-year exclusive contract signed this year - in Shooting Stars, a compilation of essays about television talent. "It is difficult to justify such large sums," she said. "Frankly, I don't think Jonathan does deserve it; nobody in his position could deserve it. I am amazed the BBC managed to get away with it without landing more flak." Paxman earns about 100 pounds a minute for presenting Newsnight, where he enjoys a three-day week, and about 7,500 for each edition of University Challenge."

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

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

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

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

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20 October, 2006

A NICE PIECE OF SARCASM FROM BOORTZ:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is now claiming that there is a rise in anti-Muslim harassment and whatnot across the country, and it's all because of the Internet and talk radio! Now CAIR has launched a campaign that is "designed to counter anti-Muslim hate on radio talk shows." They're calling their campaign "Hate Hurts America"

Yeah ... right. It's all talk radio. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that in 50 different countries around the world you have Muslims involved in some sort of a shooting war with non-Muslims. Additionally, while it can certainly be said that not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists do seem to be Muslims.

Would you like to know a little bit more about this group ... CAIR ... that is calling out talk radio? Well, WorldNetDaily provided us with some interesting information last week. Just a few items from that story:

The CAIR board chairman is Omar Ahmad. In 1998 a California newspaper quoted Ahmad as declaring that the Quran should be America's highest authority. That would put the Constitution where? Second place? Third?

Ibrahim Hooper is the chief mouthpiece for CAIR. You'll see him on television from time to time. In 1993 the Minneapolis Star Tribune interviewed the loving, peaceful Ibrahim Hooper. During that interview Hooper is quoted as saying that he wants to see America become a Muslim country. Here's your quote:

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the paper. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

How nice. Well, that's what talk radio is doing, Mr. Hooper. Educating. Sorry you find that so troubling.

AND I GUESS THIS WAS TALK RADIO'S FAULT TOO:

Another story about the wonderful, loving, peaceful religion of Islam. This one from Australia's Gold Coast. It seems that Dr. Muhammad Hussain got just a little bit less than loving and peaceful when he learned that his 17-year-old daughter was going to convert to Christianity. Well, according to this story from the Herald Sun, when a son or daughter does something that is wrong for a Muslim, it is the child's mother who is automatically at fault. So, Dr. Hussain, a wonderful, peace-loving Muslim if ever there was one, took a knife and stabbed the girl's mother to death.

Now I'm sure that if CAIR were to go to Australia and investigate this incident they would find that some Australian radio talk show host was actually behind the entire bloody incident. The Quran does, by the way, state that anyone who leaves the Muslim faith must be killed. My guess is that part was written by a radio talk show host.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Stupid immigration bureaucracy: "Loling Song is one of thousands of immigrants each year whose permanent residency applications are held up because of FBI background checks. But in her case, that delay has consequences that go beyond a life held in limbo: Song, who was born in China, is a scientist at Harvard Medical School, and the recipient of a $750,000 grant for breast cancer research from the National Cancer Institute. Unless her application for permanent residency is approved by Nov. 30, Harvard Medical School will lose Song's research funding. The biophysicist sued officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI in US District Court in Boston last week to try to bring a successful conclusion to her quest for a green card, which began in April 2004."

Paying to be coerced: "Would you be outraged if you knew your taxpayer dollars were being used to lobby for more government subsidies and higher taxes? Well you should be, because that is exactly what is happening. Over the years there have been many cases of government agencies lobbying Congress for more funds and/or higher taxes. As a result of earlier abuses, Congress prohibited this misuse of taxpayer money but, unfortunately, the practice has not gone away."

End the farm dole once and for all: "A new program to require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay the cost of inspecting meat from emus and ostriches. A plan to spend $200 million to buy surplus cranberries, black-eyed peas, and other crops. A $100 million proposal for payments to producers of cottonseed. At this writing (June), these were among a bundle of agricultural subsidy schemes either passed by or under serious consideration in both houses of the U.S. Congress.... A funny thing happened on the way to a free market in farming. Commodity prices on world markets took a dip, farm-state interests started agitating again for bailouts, and our courageous Congress blinked. In 1999 federal payments to American agriculture soared to a record $22.7 billion-no less than three times what the figure was when the Freedom to Farm Act was passed in 1996. Quotas on foreign sugar already translate into a sugar tax of about $1 billion annually, paid for by every American consumer."

Permission to travel: "Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship? ('Mother, may I?')The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including charter flights, air taxis, fishing vessels, etc. -- be required to get individual permission ('clearance') from the DHS for each passenger on all flights or ocean voyages to, from, or via the USA. Unless the answer is 'Yes' -- if the answer is 'no' or 'maybe,' or if the DHS doesn't answer at all -- the airline wouldn't be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane."

Spinimum wage: "The blogger Max Sawicky has highlighted a letter being sent to economists. The letter asks them to sign and affirm the desirability of raising the minimum wage. Sad to see such an obviously bright gentleman pushing such profoundly silly economic nostrums. Raising the minimum wage is precisely and exactly what should not be done -- due both to predictable ill-effects and to the questionable morality of such an action."

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

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

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

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

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19 October, 2006

THOSE WHO WILL NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY.....

We read:

"Ned Lamont uses it in his Connecticut Senate race. President Clinton is scheduled to speak on the idea in Washington this week. Bob Casey Jr., Pennsylvania candidate for Senate, put it in the title of his talk at The Catholic University of America - then repeated the phrase 29 times. The term is "common good," and it's catching on as a way to describe liberal values and reach religious voters who rejected Democrats in the 2004 election. Led by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think-tank, party activists hope the phrase will do for them what "compassionate conservative" did for the Republicans. "It's a core value that we think organizes the entire political agenda for progressives," said John Halpin, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress."

What would Hitler have to say about that? We don't need to guess. The term can be translated into German as "Gemeinnutz" and that lovable German-speaking rogue used the term a lot -- as encapsulating what HE stood for: "Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz!" was one of his great slogans ("Common use before personal use!", literally).

And who preceded Hitler in such ideas? Friedrich Engels (Karl Marx's co-author) at one stage ran a publication called Gemeinnuetziges Wochenblatt ("Common-use Weekly"). The Democrats sure make it clear where they fit into history.

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"655,000 DEAD IRAQIS" FOLLOW-UP

Iraq Body Count have responded to the Lancet "survey" of Iraqi deaths. Excerpt: "Between January and June 2006, there were 91 violent deaths recorded by the Lancet survey. This would correspond to over 180,000 deaths in the first 6 months of 2006, and an average rate of 1,000 per day. The daily death rate over the same period based on UN reports (which sum Baghdad morgue and Ministry of Health data) is 80 violent deaths per day. Cumulated media reports provide a somewhat lower figure. If the Lancet extrapolation is sound, this would imply a further 920 violent deaths every day (1000 minus 80) which have been recorded by neither officials nor the media. As these are averages, some days would see many more deaths, and others substantially fewer, but in either case, all of them would remain unnoticed."

There is also an article by survey professional Steven Moore in the WSJ which points out how very strange the Lancet study was. Those guys were not even trying to do real research. It was just a propaganda circus. I strongly support Moore's point about the survey's lack of demographic information. That is so unthinkable in survey research that the article would never have been published in an academic journal that knew anything about survey research. The Lancet should stick to medicine.

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ELSEWHERE



If you don't believe that the above is a real situation, read this

Doug Ross has some good graphs on the effects of the Bush tax cuts. They sure gave job-creators (investors) a lot more confidence -- as the stockmarket graph below shows:



Wal-Mart does China: "America's Wal-Mart Stores has agreed to acquire a Chinese supercentre chain for about $US1 billion ($1.33 billion) in a move that would give the world's largest retailer the biggest food and department store network in China, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The deal is for the 100 Chinese supercentres owned by Trust-Mart, a Taiwanese company, the paper reported in its online edition. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman declined to comment. If approved by Chinese regulators, the deal would push Wal-Mart past Carrefour for the most supercentres in China. Supercentres, also known as hypermarkets, are giant shops that sell a wide range of general food and merchandise.... Wal-Mart has made no secret of its ambitions in China. The retailer has said that its operations there could be as big as its US business in 20 years. Wal-Mart has more than 3700 US stores but only about 60 in China."

Political theatre: "Pennsylvania Republican congressional candidate Raj Peter Bhakta, demonstrated what a joke border security is by riding an elephant across the Rio Grande - with a mariachi band! (see his Fox News interview here.) Sure it's a stunt, but stunts matter, like the College Republican affirmative-action bake sales or Horowitz's "reparations are racist" ads. The Left has been better than us at political theater for a long time; maybe we're starting to catch up."

Leftist voting fraud in Britain: "Britain is to be investigated for the first time by the Council of Europe for alleged human rights breaches because of concerns over postal voting fraud. Scandals arising from Tony Blair's strategy to improve turnouts by giving everybody the right to vote by post risk placing Britain in the same league as newly toppled dictatorships. Bridget Prentice, the Constitutional Affairs Minister who has just steered an anti-fraud Bill through Parliament, reacted angrily, saying that the move was unnecessary, unwarranted and unfair... The final straw for Britain was the decision by a judge last year that widespread voterigging by Labour in Birmingham's local elections "would disgrace a banana republic".

More Leftist deceit: "Never play poker against Claire Shipman. Anyone who can keep a straight face while claiming that 'Women's Voices. Women Vote' is "non-partisan" could surely bluff you out of a pot while sitting on a busted flush. On this morning's Good Morning America, Shipman [or shall we call her 'DC Slim'?] narrated a segment spotlighting WVWV's efforts to get single women voters to the polls. Since it is obvious that single women lean heavily Dem, voting for Democrats by a more than 2/3 margin as Dem pollster Celinda Lake acknowledged, my BS-detector started screeching when I saw a straight-faced Shipman slip in her claim that WVWB is "non-partisan.".... The clincher? WVWV is a project of The Tides Foundation, the organization founded to promote a variety of leftist causes whose driving financial force is . . . Teresa Heinz Kerry. Some further digging reveals that WVWV is directly promoting leftist politics. On its FAQ page, WVWV suggests that people who want to get involved "download the National Council of Women's Organizations voter's guide." I did, and found a predictable compendium of leftist position-mongering on everything from affirmative action to abortion. Query whether promoting a partisan voter's guide bring's WVWV's non-partisan tax-exempt status into question."

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

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

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

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

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



18 October, 2006

FABULOUS! LEFTIST DISHONESTY ON PROUD DISPLAY

Selectivity about the facts is the hallmark of Leftist discourse. They wax hysterical over things they think they can get mileage out of and ignore everything that undermines their false and simplistic accounts of the world.

There was a marvellous example of that in the world of global warming research recently. When a study came out which suggested that the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic was slowing down and that this might lead to disastrous cooling in Britain and North America, the media were all over it. (In the weird world of the Greenhouse religion, a slowdown of the Gulf stream proves global warming). But when two better studies came out recently which showed clearly that there had been NO slowdown in the Gulf stream, there was a deathly silence about it. The Left-leaning MSM did not want to know about it, even though they had covered the contrary story extensively. For all the general public are to know, they are all still in danger of freezing due to global warming (!).

And now in my own humble corner of the world I observe another instance of a Leftist ignoring anything that does not suit him. My post of 16th about the alleged 655,000 Iraqi deaths directly challenged a blogger at "Liberal Avenger" to respond because he has blogged extensively on the matter. He claims to show that all the criticisms of the study are insubstantial. So I sent him a link to my post to make sure that he knew of it.

The result? Deathly silence! An argument that upsets your views is ignored, not taken account of, in the heavily fortified mental fortress that is needed to sustain Leftism.

"Liberal Avenger" is however a group blog and one of the other bloggers there (probably the one I crossed swords with previously) HAS commented. He left a comment on the copy of my blog that I put up on Mens News Daily -- in which he directs attention to his own post on the matter. And his own post is VERY humble about the 655,000 claim! So it seems clear that the other would-be "Avenger" has actively chosen to ignore facts that do not suit him. Psychologists refer to such behaviour as the "Denial" defence-mechanism: Very maladaptive.

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ELSEWHERE

Lawsuit to stop illegals? "A federal judge has ruled that workers can file a class-action suit against Tyson Foods Inc. for depressing wages by hiring illegal aliens. Howard W. Foster, a Chicago lawyer for the Tyson employees, described the ruling in Winchester, Tenn., as a "very big step," allowing him to seek damages for thousands of workers at eight plants -- including one in Glen Allen, Va. -- instead of just the four original plaintiffs. The case, filed in 2002 under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), is one of a growing number across the nation challenging illegal aliens in the workplace. In August, a temporary agency in California sued its competitors under the state's unfair-competition laws. Mr. Foster has represented U.S. citizens seeking damages for wage depression caused by employment of illegal aliens in other cases, including one against Mohawk Industries and a class-action case against Zirkle Fruit Co., which has been settled."

Studds Had to Die to Get NBC to Recall His Sex with a Teen Page: "Gerry Studds had to die for NBC Nightly News to inform viewers of how the former Democratic Congressman had a sexual relationship with 17-year-old male congressional page, misconduct for which the House in 1983 censured him, but did not prompt Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill and other leaders to force his resignation -- nor raise calls for O'Neill's resignation. Despite the Democratic hypocrisy given their current calls for Speaker Hastert's resignation and investigations of who knew what and when about Mark Foley, Saturday night -- two weeks into the media-fueled scandal -- was the first time, according to Nexis, any NBC News program mentioned Studds' name."

An Islamic car!: "But perhaps most remarkable, given Iran's tumultuous relationship with the world in the past 25 years, is that its car industry has survived at all in a sector dominated globally by the same American behemoth that's sanctioned Iran since the US embassy siege in Tehran in 1979. Iran's car industry, employing 150,000 Iranians and comprising 4 per cent of its GDP, has survived, but it hasn't progressed. Indeed, there's a distinct retro air to Iranian traffic, where half the vehicles are jerry-built versions of the "National Car", the Paykan, a boxy knock-off of a 1960s Hillman Hunter in production for almost 40 years - with the emission standards of that era to boot.... Once proud symbols of progressive Islamic commerce, the [manufactuers have] become pariahs reduced by sanctions to scrounging parts to keep their 1970s era plants operating, with restricted access to markets, their cars a joke. "Paykan" is Farsi for arrow but it's hardly apposite. It splutters along Iran's snarled roads, lucky to reach 80kmh. It guzzles petrol at an appalling rate, about three kilometres a litre, though that's not much of an issue in a country where juice costs one-third the price of drinking water. Paykan exhaust has made Tehran one of the world's most polluted cities. Rare is the journey where a Paykan isn't seen hood-up with Iranian heads disappearing beneath the bonnet, or one being pushed to the side of the freeway"

Insane bureaucracy: "Federal safety rules are preventing wider use of a major advance in firefighting -- a jumbo jet modified to drop 10 times more flame retardant than the typical air tanker. The DC-10 first flew this fire season, opening its belly and releasing torrents of pink liquid in a spectacular string of sorties that helped halt blazes threatening state land in California and Washington. The aircraft is all but prohibited from federal land, however, meaning it cannot be dispatched over vast swaths of the West -- 50,000 square miles in California alone. The reason for the no-fly rule: The plane has not passed an extra U.S. Forest Service safety check. Federal officials say they are not sure when it will, because they have not received important performance data from the plane's private owners. ``What a horror story to see fires burning out of control and knowing that the aircraft aren't available,'' said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach".

Wal-Mart to take on NY: "After a number of false starts, Wal-Mart Stores is planning to launch in New York City--the five boroughs, and especially the juicy, consumer-driven world of Manhattan. "I think New York will be good for us, and we will be good for New York," says H. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO. And Philip Serghini, a company spokesman, says the nation's largest retailer is actively looking for sites in the five boroughs."

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

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

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

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

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17 October, 2006

NEW POLL: IMMIGRATION KEY ISSUE IN CONTESTED RACES

Public Wants Illegals to Go Home, Enforcement, No Immigration Increase

A new poll, using neutral language, finds intense voter concern over immigration in 14 tight congressional races. The surveys were conducted by the polling company inc. for the Center for Immigration Studies. In addition to a national survey, detailed polling on immigration was conducted in four contested Senate races: Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Montana; and in 10 contested House races: Arizona 5th, Connecticut 4th, Indiana 8th, Kentucky 4th, Pennsylvania 6th, Texas 17th, Louisiana 3rd, Georgia 8th, Colorado 7th, and Ohio 6th. The complete results are online at www.cis.org. Among the findings:

* Immigration is a big issue throughout the country. Of likely voters nationally, 53 percent said immigration was either their most important issue or one of their top three issues, while just 8 percent said it was not at all important. With the exception of CT-4th, in races surveyed only about 10 percent of voters said it was not important at all.

* When told numbers, voters want less immigration. When told the actual number of immigrants here (legal and illegal) and the number coming (legal and illegal), and asked to put aside the question of legal status, 68 percent of voters nationally thought immigration was too high, 21 percent about right, and just 2 percent thought it was too low. In every congressional race surveyed, the share who said overall immigration was too low was in the single digits.

* Voters less likely to vote for immigration-increasing candidates. Experts agree that the bill passed by the Senate earlier this year would at least double future legal immigration, yet 70 percent of voters said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who wanted to double legal immigration. Overwhelming majorities in every battleground race feel the same way.

* Voters reject both extremes -- legalization or mass deportations. Some previous polls have shown support for legalizing illegal immigrants. But those polls have given the public only a choice between large-scale deportations or ''earned legalization,'' and not the third choice of across-the-board enforcement, causing illegals to go home. This third option, which is the basis of the bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, is voters' top choice.

* House immigration plan by far the favorite. Enforcement approaches with no increase in legal immigration were the most popular policy option -- 44 percent wanted enforcement that causes illegals to go home, the House approach, and another 20 percent wanted large-scale deportations. Just 31 percent supported legalization of illegal immigrants.

* Intensity greater among enforcement supporters. Nationally, 32 percent of voters said they would be much more likely to vote for a candidate who would enforce the law and cause illegals to go home, compared to just 15 percent who said they would be much more likely to vote for a candidate who supports legalization. This same pattern holds in battleground House contests.

* Voters skeptical of need for unskilled immigrant labor. More than 70 percent of voters nationally agreed that there were ''plenty of Americans to do low-wage jobs that require relatively little education, employers just need to pay higher wages and treat workers better to attract Americans,'' compared to 21 percent who said we need immigrants because there were not enough Americans to do all such jobs. The results were very similar in all the contested states and districts surveyed.

* Voters think lack of enforcement is reason for illegal immigration. Three out of four voters in the nation agreed that the reason we have illegal immigration is that past enforcement efforts have been ''grossly inadequate.'' Voters strongly reject the argument that illegal immigration is caused by overly restrictive legal immigration policies. Strong majorities in every battleground contest surveyed felt this way.

* Numbers make a difference. One key finding is that when told the scale of immigration (legal and illegal), voters overwhelmingly thought it was too high. Also, when told how much the Senate bill would increase legal immigration, voters tended to reject it. This would seem to undermine the argument that voters are only concerned about illegality and not the level of immigration. The levels of immigration used in the questions are those widely agreed upon by experts based on government data.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



China Hand has just put up some photos of spectacular scenery in China. Remarkably beautiful.

Leftist eugenics lives on: "The North Korean regime's obsession with racial purity has led to the killing of disabled infants and forced abortions for women suspected of conceiving their babies by Chinese fathers, according to a growing body of testimony from defectors. The latest description of Kim Jong-il's policy of state eugenics came from a North Korean doctor, Ri Kwang-chol, who escaped last year and told a forum in Seoul that babies with deformities were killed soon after birth. "There are no people with physical defects in North Korea," Dr Ri said. Such babies were put to death by medical staff and buried quickly, he claimed. He denied ever committing the act himself."

More on the religion of peace: "About one in 10 Indonesian Muslims support jihad and justify bomb attacks on Indonesia's tourist island of Bali as defending the faith, a survey shows. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, with 220 million people, 85 per cent of whom follow Islam, giving the Asian archipelago the largest Muslim population of any nation in the world. "Jihad that has been understood partially and practised with violence is justified by around one in 10 Indonesian Muslims," the Indonesian Survey Institute said in a statement."

FEMA is itself a disaster: "Two West Virginia University economics professors are drawing national attention for their recent research suggesting a link between natural disasters and political corruption. "Natural disasters create resource windfalls in the states they strike by triggering federally provided natural disaster relief," write Peter T. Leeson and Russell S. Sobel in their paper titled "Weathering Corruption." "Like windfalls created by the `natural resource curse' and foreign aid, disaster relief windfalls may also increase corruption," they say. When the Federal Emergency Management Agency sends relief funds of $1 per capita into a state, it boosts corruption in that state by nearly 2.5 percent, according to the research, which was published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Washington. Eliminating all FEMA relief funds, the authors found, would cut corruption by more than 20 percent in a typical state, they say... The biggest boondoggles unfolded after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A new study by the federal General Accountability Office estimates that $1 billion was stolen - nearly 19 percent of the $5.4 billion in funds FEMA sent to Gulf Coast states... Their statistical analysis showed other government funds flowing into a state did not have the same effect. "Both non-FEMA-related state discretionary spending and federal spending are insignificant. Only FEMA relief impacts public corruption."

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

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

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

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

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16 October, 2006

A NEW HOLE IN THE "655,000 DEAD IRAQIS" CLAIM

I have not yet commented on the latest Lancet report of huge post-invasion mortality ("about 655,000" extra deaths) in Iraq as it seemed perfectly obvious from the outset to me and to many others that it was just a piece of agitprop that would have done the old Soviets proud. You would have to be a Leftist to believe that nobody else noticed 655,000 corpses. I have googled up quite a few comments on the study now, however, and I have not so far found anybody who has noticed the really glaring defect in the study.

None of the comments I saw appeared to be by people who are experienced users of cluster sampling -- the method used for the Lancet study. I am a VERY experienced user of cluster sampling -- with many of my academic publications based on it. And the glaring error which rather explains why the study appeared in a medical journal rather than a more statistically sophisticated journal is that there was NO VALIDATION of the survey results. That your survey-takers might just sit down under a tree and "make up" their "interview" results is a routine peril and it is routine to take precautions against it -- usually by going back on a later occasion and checking with the alleged respondents a proportion of all interviews handed in. Just the awareness that a sample of the respondents will be re-interviewed tends to keep the interviewers honest -- though not always so, regrettably. So the results reported in the Lancet study have no credibility at all and must be regarded as garbage.

It is astounding that the authors of the study were so naive. Perhaps they WANTED their interviewers to "fudge" the results -- making clear what the desired results would be, of course.

Another oddity in the Lancet article that suggests something peculiar about the authors is the claim that their interviewers were all DOCTORS -- and not just any doctors but doctors bilingual in Arabic and English. I have never seen the like of that before. Experienced interviewers of some kind were what was needed and that is what is usually used, not doctors. Can we really believe that a whole corps of these rare doctors abandoned their medical duties for so long in order to do something outside their normal expertise? If true it certainly suggests a heavy political committment on the part of the doctors concerned -- exactly what one would NOT want in a study claiming to be objective. To me the whole claim seems like the sort of "gilding the lily" that con-men engage in.

Other critics have noticed other vast implausibilities in the results reported -- the amazingly high (98%) success-rate at getting people to consent to an interview, for instance --- garbage, garbage garbage. And the lie about the death certificates actually shows how bogus the results were.

I wonder what my old friend the Liberal Avenger will make of this post? He is firmly convinced that no sound criticism of the Lancet study can be made. I predict much huffing and puffing from him. I know the sort of thing he will say: That doctors ARE experienced interviewers, for instance. He has however never been door-to-door if he thinks people respond to doorstep callers the way they respond to a doctor they go to.



SOME LEFTIST AMERICAN JEWS ARE TRYING TO WEAKEN ISRAEL

It's that poisonous Leftist hate of success in others again

Perhaps most upsetting is the central role that a tiny minority of American Jews has played in souring ties between Jerusalem and Washington. That minority has undermined support for Israel in the Democratic Party and now seeks to undermine Israel's position in the US in general. The Democratic Party's sharp turn leftward in recent years has been a major factor in weakening the US-Israel alliance. The ideological transformation of the party is the fruit of a collaborative effort by leading financiers, radical-leftist ideologues and political activists. Together these forces built organizations that dictate the party's agenda; finance the campaigns of politicians who embrace this agenda; and work to defeat conservative Republicans and Democrats who disagree with their agenda.

MoveOn.org is the most influential organization of this type established in recent years. Its principal financiers are American Jewish billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis. MoveOn.org first gained national prominence during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. Howard Dean, a previously undistinguished governor of Vermont, was an eminently forgettable also-ran with a reputation among the few who knew of him as a political moderate who was hawkish on national security. Then he was discovered by MoveOn.org.

As the group began pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign,Dean veered to the left and began roundly condemning the war in Iraq. Caught off-balance by Dean's challenge, all but one of the other candidates shifted left as well and joined him in criticizing the war. For his principled refusal to disavow the war in Iraq, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman earned the enduring enmity of MoveOn.org.

This summer, MoveOn.org played a central role in Lieberman's defeat in the Democratic primary for his Senate seat. It contributed funds to Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, and its Web site served as a clearinghouse disseminating anti-Lieberman propaganda. Propaganda posted on the Web site was laced with blatant anti-Semitic attacks. Postings repeatedly referred to Lieberman as "the Jew Lieberman," and "ZioNazi Lieberman." These attacks were by no means unusual. Indeed, anti-Semitic slurs against Israel and Jewish Americans, and belittlements of the Holocaust, appear regularly in MoveOn.org Web forums....

According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report, Soros and his wealthy Jewish American friends have now decided to aim their fire directly at Israel. Soros has invited Lewis and other North American Jewish plutocrats like Charles and Edgar Bronfman to join forces with him and leftist Jewish American organizations including American Friends of Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and the Reform movement's Religious Action Center to form a political lobby that will weaken the influence of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Source

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CANADIAN JEWS ARE LEARNING

One of the most significant phenomena in current Canadian politics - i.e. the growing shift of Canada's Jewish community from the Liberal to the Conservative Party - took a major stride last week when the top contender for the Liberal leadership accused Israel of committing a war crime.

Michael Ignatieff, a longtime Harvard authority on human rights and international law who came back to Canada two years ago to seek the Liberal leadership, seemed to stumble into the accusation. In an interview with the Toronto Star last August, he was asked about the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese town of Qana during the Israel-Lebanon war. He replied that it was a "dirty war," and he wasn't "losing sleep" over Qana. But when this remark was condemned in Quebec as heartless, Ignatieff backtracked, saying he had erred in making it. Asked last Sunday on Quebec's top-rated talk show for further explanation, he landed himself in hotter water: "I demonstrated a lack of compassion. It was a mistake. And when you make a mistake like that you have to admit it. And I admit it because I was a human rights professor, and I'm a professor of the laws of war, and what happened at Qana was a war crime."

With that, the roof fell in. Susan Kadis, a Toronto-area MP and co-chairman of his leadership campaign, resigned: "Michael is an intelligent person and I would think that he would have a better handle on the Middle East, given his years of experience on human rights and international law. I find his comments very troubling, since the Israeli response came in the light of the unprovoked brazen kidnapping by Hezbollah of Israeli soldiers." The Canada-Israel Committee expressed "profound concern" and demanded "clarification." If clarification was not forthcoming, they added, they "would feel obliged to convey that message to our constituency."

Ignatieff hastened to provide a somewhat confusing explanation. He described himself as "a lifelong friend of Israel," and went on to say that "war crimes were committed in the war in Lebanon. I don't think there's any question about it, and war crimes were visited on Israeli citizens and on Lebanese citizens." His conclusion: "We've got to be determined, as Canadians, to do whatever we can to make sure that military solutions are not sought in this conflict, because the consequences are more civilian deaths."

This did not satisfy the Canada-Israel Committee, and the Israeli ambassador to Canada called the statement "upsetting and disappointing." Bob Rae, Ignatieff's leading opponent for the leadership, commented that it was "not wise" for him "to rush into such judgments." But this was not the first time leaders in the Canadian Jewish community have jumped into the leadership campaign. Heather Reisman, boss of Indigo Books and chairwoman of the Liberal Party's national policy committee in the 1980s, announced in August that she was leaving the party to support Stephen Harper and the Tories. Her announcement followed a similar statement by film producer Robert Lantos that he was taking off his "lifelong Liberal hat." Ms. Reisman e-mailed a friend: "I'm right there alongside Robert. After a lifetime of being a Liberal, I have made the switch. It feels strange, but it is totally and unequivocally right."

Her husband, Gerry Schwartz, head of the giant Onex Corporation, another senior Liberal and a confidant of ex-Prime Minister Paul Martin, followed the same path. He and his wife's were among eight signatories to an ad in a Cornwall, Ontario, newspaper warmly supporting the Tories. Also in August, another senior Liberal, Sen. Gerry Grafstein, publicly criticized Liberal house leader Bill Graham for his attack on Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper over Harper's outspoken pro-Israel policy. Harper has reversed Canada's 50-year record as a neutral "broker" in the Middle East, said Graham. But neutrality on Israel is not Canada's historical record, Grafstein tartly commented.

This exodus of Jews from the Liberal Party is an historic switch. All through the 20th century the dominant Liberals could count on strong Jewish support. While there were certainly some Jewish Conservatives, the community as whole tended leftward, as did Canadian academe. Within the last decade, however, Canada's socialists have increasingly opposed Israel, much to the consternation of their long-time Jewish allies. Meanwhile, it was not immediately apparent how seriously the Ignatieff incident might damage his leadership prospects at the convention in early December. A delegate count earlier this month gave him 30 percent of the committed convention delegates and Rae 20 percent, with the other six candidates ranging from 1 percent to 17 percent.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

There is a good video of "The DNC song" here -- in music-hall style.

Ted Turner as Neville Chamberlain: "Thirteen months before North Korea exploded a nuclear bomb, CNN founder Ted Turner predicted that such an event would never happen. "I think we can put the North Korea and East Asia problems behind us," Turner confidently proclaimed in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer back on September 19, 2005. Referring to the North Korean regime's claim they were "committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs," Turner, having just returned from a trip to North Korea, found those promises to be 100 percent credible. "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere," he told an incredulous Blitzer on The Situation Room."

Islamic hackers fail: "Islamic computer hackers tried to disrupt the Vatican web site earlier this week, but failed, according to a report in the ANSA news service. In an online forum for militant Muslims, a group announced plans for an assault on the Vatican computer network, which was said to be a form of retribution for Pope Benedict's criticism of Islam in his Regensburg speech. Police later confirmed that there had been a concerted effort by hackers to penetrate the Vatican site, but computer-security experts were able to detect and repel the attack"

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

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

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

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

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15 October, 2006

IDEOLOGY MASQUERADING AS HISTORY

Three recent books about the "fiasco" in Iraq - "Cobra II" by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward and just plain "Fiasco" by Tom Ricks - have attracted a lot of attention, and sales. All three well-written exposes repeat the now well-known argument that our government's incompetence and arrogance have nearly ensured America's failure in birthing democracy in Iraq.

It's worth noting, though, that many of the authors' critical portraits rely on private conversations and anonymous sources. The most damning informants in these books are never identified and so can't be questioned.....

In "Fiasco," often verbatim quotations are not cited with specific attribution, but only vaguely noted in the text as "said a Bush administration official" or "recalled one officer." Among the endnotes in "State of Denial," we are apprised, "The information in this chapter comes primarily from background interviews with seven knowledgeable sources." But who are these "seven knowledgeable" sources? Since Woodward so far won't name them, how do we really know that they are "knowledgeable" or even "primarily" used? Is the answer because they talked to Woodward (and not to others?), or were pre-selected because they happened to agree with his own views?

In "Cobra II," we wonder why one "former Centcom planner" would talk while others (more numerous?) choose not to. And in "Fiasco," is the talkative but unnamed "Bush administration official" getting even at his rivals by offering only his interpretation of shared past conversations?

There are a number of other things wrong with all this gossip. First, note the disturbing pattern in this resorting to anonymity. Usually the unidentified source supports the author's critique - and thus is almost always critical of the present policy in Iraq. Rarely do these journalists quote unnamed sources who dissent from their own views, although there are surely pro-U.S. Iraq policy candid voices among the thousands of retired generals....

These past couple of weeks, current and former officials have been protesting that they were unfairly characterized in Woodward's book - and have argued that conditions in Iraq are not as bad as alleged by anonymous sources. And while there have been on-the-record critics of all three books, none of the unnamed accusers cited in them has come forward.

These virtual histories all allege a "state of denial" and lack of accountability on the part of government officials. Perhaps - but how odd then that the authors of "Cobra II," "Fiasco" and "State of Denial" have used the very secrecy and subterfuge they claim to deplore in their targets.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Israel ramps up Gaza offensive: "Israel stepped up its offensive in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least four people in a series of attacks throughout the coastal area. The fighting brought the death toll in the offensive to 13 Palestinians, including a young girl, since Thursday. The army has been carrying out an offensive throughout Gaza since June, when militants linked to the ruling Hamas militant group tunneled into Israel and captured an Israeli soldier. The soldier remains in captivity. After a recent lull, the fighting has picked up in recent days. Israel TV said the operation in Gaza Friday was the largest there in weeks."

Attack ads are good for you!: "Negative campaigning is an issue across the country this fall, in campaigns from Massachusetts to Hawaii and in races down the ballot from U.S. senator to county assessor. As wounded politicians whine that such speech is out of bounds, it's time to stand up in defense of the much-maligned attack ad. In this age of instantaneous information via blogs, round-the-clock cable coverage, and other media, political attacks can be swiftly countered. Any opinion offered about a candidate, no matter how mean, vile, or sinister, can be rebutted immediately and globally. Thanks to such exchanges, voters this year will know a lot about prospective elected officials if they are willing to process multiple sources of information and draw their own conclusions."

The communitarian conundrum: "The great moral difficulty with communitarianism is that, if taken to extremes, it treats individuals as though they were little more than cells of a larger organism. Just as when doctors kill cells to prevent cancer from spreading, communitarianism readily justifies state intrusion into the private sphere in the name of some communal good. Worse yet, communitarian societies require a standard of behavior more demanding than most members of an unredeemed society are unable or unwilling to meet most of the time, and that all are unable to meet all of the time. Hence, it is hardly surprising that world history is littered with the failures of communitarian utopia."

America, 300 million strong: "One day this month an immigrant will arrive or, more likely, a baby will be born who will make the United States a nation of 300 million. This demographic milestone has prompted hand-ringing among environmentalists on the left and immigration opponents on the right, all of whom are misguided. Passing the 300 million mark should be cause for celebration: Never in the history of mankind have so many people lived such free and prosperous lives in one country."

"Wal-Mart Laws" harm black communities: "The 'big-box ordinance' passed on July 26 by the Chicago City Council would require national retail chains such as Wal-Mart and Target to pay their Chicago employees at least $9.25 an hour plus $1.50 in benefits, to increase to $10.00 an hour and $3.00 in benefits by the year 2010. The law would apply only to retail stores with at least 90,000 indoor square feet, owned by national companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more. ... Advocates of the ordinance, both black and white, claim it will help poor black Americans. But support for this ordinance did not begin in the black community, nor would its effect be to benefit blacks."

Christians and big government: "There was a day when social conservatives were united with economic conservatives in the belief that small, limited government was not only good for our economy and the prosperity of American families, but essential to protect traditional family values. We all fought for a limited federal government -- a government that had the decency to respect the American people by staying out of their lives. Small government meant that all Christians could practice their faith as they saw fit. Big government violates those rights by meddling in our lives, misusing our hard-earned money, and dictating cultural norms to us."

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

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

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

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

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14 October, 2006

What Does a Liberal Believe?

(Excerpt below from here)

Sometimes it is really hard to tell. I thought they abhorred gay-bashing, but look at Mark Foley. Fortunately, the Chicago Tribune offered us Geoffrey Stone's proposed definition of "what it means to be a liberal" in a recent op-ed.... Here are his ten principles, most of which almost anybody would aspire to, and which in Stone's estimation are predominantly adhered to by liberals. My responses include reference to material from the op-ed that further elucidates what he means by his principles.

1. "Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others".

Does Stone have a clue about the current political climate on college campuses? The hostility towards critics of affirmative action, defenders of Israel, supporters of George Bush, proponents of gun control, opponents of identity politics and a host of liberal sacred cows is palpable. It may be true that if conservatives were in the majority in academia they would behave the same way. But there is no way to find out, since the few that are there have mostly closeted their views.

2. "Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference."

He claims that liberals, and by implication liberals alone, continue to support the civil rights movement and affirmative action. But the civil rights movement of the sixties was not dealing with the same issues. In fact its purpose is very well summarized by President Kennedy's speech of June 11, 1963 where he declared, in response to a month of pro-integration demonstrations in Birmingham, "race has no place in American life." There is no way that the civil rights movement that ended legally enforced segregation was aimed at anything less than ending the practice of defining people by race. Much of what falls under the name of affirmative action, multiculturalism or diversity is aimed at putting it back.

3. "Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who support the expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting, "one person one vote", limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign reform; and a more vibrant form of free speech".

This is a selective reading of recent events. Certainly liberals are championing the cause of felons voting, opposing the use of picture identification on voter registration cards and making it easier for aliens to vote. These represent groups of voters who they have identified as likely to support their candidates. But they have also opposed the counting of absentee ballots of soldiers when it was in their interest and have of course aimed their voter registration drives primarily at groups of voters from whom they expect support. As for gerrymandering, one of the favorite liberal projects was the creation of majority African American congressional districts. The creation of these districts did in fact increase the number of African American members of Congress but also created more racial polarization and resulted in a net gain for the Republicans in Congress, a reason why Republicans were only too happy to go along with the racial gerrymandering.

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind."

One of the rights that he asserts are supported primarily by liberals is the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. While it may be true that liberals are more strongly pro-abortion, there are plenty of conservatives who support it as well. Furthermore, his statement begs the question at the center of the abortion debate, namely, at what point does a fetus become a life? Professor Stone has nothing to say about that point. And there is nothing in his implicit dismissal of the pro-life opinion that a fetus is a human being that indicates that liberals have a great deal of respect for the opinions of others.

5. "It is liberals who believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people."

Sure, unless of course the accused are College Republicans, Duke Lacrosse players, Scooter Libby, a conservative candidate for tenure or a college faculty member accused of insensitive speech. For liberals, DNA testing is conclusive if it voids the convictions of minority accused felons but irrelevant if it exonerates privileged white students from dubious accusations of rape made against them. Liberals are also the champions of speech codes that make rules taking sides in disputes that involve people of different genders, race, ethnicity, abledness, sexual orientation, etc. Such rules stake out a group of protected classes and leave it to the imagination to presume that the others are unprotected classes. What do such laws have to do with the "equal protection of all people"?

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ELSEWHERE

Good U.S. economic news: "The federal deficit fell to a four-year low in the budget year that just ended, a result President Bush pointed to Wednesday in claiming Republicans are better stewards of the economy than are Democrats. The administration said the deficit dropped to $247.7 billion - welcome news for Republicans struggling to keep control of Congress. Bush boasted he had made good on a 2004 campaign promise to cut the deficit in half over five years. "These budget numbers are proof that pro-growth economic policies work," Bush said.... The administration credits its tax cuts for the improving economy, contending they helped the nation withstand the 2001 recession, the terrorist attacks and corporate accounting scandals. The deficit narrowed sharply because revenues climbed by 11.8%, outpacing a 7.4% increase in spending. Administration officials said the actual 2006 deficit is down to 1.9% of the gross domestic product. They said that is below the 40-year average deficit of about 2.3% of the GDP"

Those damn WAMs: "White American Males make up about 1.6% of the world's population, but they are 6 for 6 in the Nobels this year. They just keep coming up with lots of good ideas, undermining the self-esteem of everybody else. Don't they know how insensitive that is?"

Rushdie: Veils for Muslim women "suck": "British author Salman Rushdie Tuesday joined the delicate debate about face veils for Muslim women saying they 'suck' and weakened a woman's position. The writer, who was the subject of a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran in the late 1980s over his novel, The Satanic Verses, said he regarded the veil as a way of taking power away from women. Speaking in a BBC interview, Rushdie supported the position of Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secreatry, who last week sparked controversy with his comment that the veil was a 'visible statement of difference and separation. ... He (Straw) was expressing an important opinion which is that veils suck -- which they do,' the Indian-born author said."

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

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

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

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

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13 October, 2006

ESKIMOS, FAT AND FOOD SUPERSTITIONS

As most readers here will be aware, the extraordinary degree of misinformation about food and health that we read in the MSM has caused me to do a daily blog on the latest health scares and enthusiasms. It is extraordinarily sad how much energy many people put into going along with the nonsense they read. The longevity studies all tend towards showing that NOTHING in the way of diet or lifestyle change will lengthen your life but many people don't want to believe that so they follow any pied piper who comes along with a promise to lead them to the promised land of longer life. And the media simply pander to that.

One of the most persistent themes that you read in health advice these days is that animal fat is bad for you. A diet rich in animal fat is said to doom you to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. I was rather persuaded of that myself at one stage as there seemed to be some epidemiological evidence for it. Now that I am a health blogger, however, I do a bit more background reading in these things than I used to do and something I found while doing such reading was sufficiently amusing for me to put it up here rather than on my more specialized blog.

The eskimos are of course renowned for eating large amounts of meat and fat. They once ate little else (vegetables don't grow well in the Arctic!) and to this day that remains the mainstay of their diet. And the eskimos have always had a shorter life expectancy than inhabitants of less dangerous climates. But is that shorter life expectancy due to their diet? There is much to say that it is not. They have extraordinarily high rates of suicide, smoking and other behavioural pathologies, for instance.

The interesting thing about Eskimos, however, is WHAT they die of. With their huge intake of animal fats they should be dropping like flies of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, according to the conventional wisdom. But that is precisely what they do NOT die of. They have always had very LOW rates of those diseases. No doubt there is much more that could be said about the matter but when the facts on the ground are the OPPOSITE of what the conventional wisdom would predict, should it not make us just a little skeptical about the conventional wisdom?

I did not keep any links from my reading in the above matters but it should be no trouble to google up lots on the subject.

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ELSEWHERE

Heaven on earth: "Joshua Muravchik was a 'red-diaper' baby. He was born into a family that had close connections with radical Marxism and socialism for several generations. Perhaps it is this historical connection that brought about his book "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism". Socialism can be discussed on many levels. It can be seen as a philosophy or discussed as an economic system, or as Mises more rightly noted the negation of an economic system. Socialists tend to prefer to discuss socialism as an abstract future paradise. But Muravchik, in this book,discusses it as a historical series of events. Instead of engaging socialism on the basis of what it promises to do he discusses where it came from, where it was tried and what were the results. In the cold light of reality socialism loses much of the glamour that attracts so many intellectuals to it. Many people forget that socialism predates Marxism. Plymouth Plantation in the US was run on socialist principles when it was founded and the colony starved. When this experiment was replaced with private property and a market system the colony thrived and could feed itself -- an event still celebrated in the American holiday of Thanksgiving though few seem to know the actual reasons for it."

Partitioning: The way out of Iraq: "The Kurds and their militias have their own quasi country in which the Iraqi government does not govern and the Iraqi flag does not fly. Many of the Shi'ite areas are governed by militias, which have also infiltrated the Iraqi police and army. In Sunni areas, guerrillas effectively control many towns. U.S. forces have been unable to disarm any of these armies. The civil war will intensify if these regions are not allowed to govern themselves."

Blood on whose hands? "Capital punishment proponents often feel reflexively tentative and apologetic in discussing the issue. After all, abolitionists have sanctimoniously characterized proponents as "mean-spirited" and "hard-hearted" in defending the practice... It is abolitionists, however, not proponents, who must shoulder the heavy burden of persuasion... It is they whose policies would spill innocent blood....consider the number of murders committed by convicted killers who have not been executed. The sad truth is that unexecuted murderers often continue to kill, whether on Death Row while awaiting execution or amongst the general prison population. Their victims include prison guards, ministers, staff and other prisoners. Additionally, unexecuted murderers occasionally escape from prison to commit additional murderers. Imprisonment, even life imprisonment, is simply insufficient to protect innocent life from these murderers. Abolitionists cannot justify the innocent blood spilled by convicted murderers who were luckier in escaping execution than their victims. Third, many forget that a moratorium on executions actually existed between the years 1967 and 1976. During that period, approximately twice as many murders occurred as during the preceding ten-year period."

Remember this! "This week marks the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's bold stand against trading missile defense for an arms treaty. Recalling the lessons of the Reykjavik is key to winning the global war on terror. At least one house of Congress may be taken over by a Democratic leadership committed to cutting and running from Iraq. And in Iran, a terror regime is trying to pull the wool over the world's eyes about its nuclear program. What better time to recall the late, great President's nerve?... History proved the critics all wrong-including the scores of scientists who knew so much better than this simpleton who somehow landed in the White House. For all the times Reagan was derided as a mere movie star, his `doing a John Wayne' in the Iceland summit was exactly what the cause of freedom demanded... This President simply refused to let us down. The result was that in several years Gorbachev was gone. After seven decades of genocide and expansionism, the Soviet Union found itself overwhelmed by a free world choosing to defend itself. Gennady Gerasimov, senior Soviet foreign ministry spokesman in the 1980s, said at the time of Reagan's death that `Reagan's SDI was a very successful blackmail.' Today, U.S. interceptor missiles that can stop incoming nuclear warheads in space-Teddy Kennedy's `physical and technological impossibility' -are an operational reality."

A Muslim doctor gets it: "Americans must be wary of political leaders who accept the propaganda explanations. To win the war on terror, America's leaders must recognize the powerful role of the Islamic religious principle of jihad, Islam's belief that it must conquer the world, which derives from the above hadith. Belief in jihad is what causes so many Muslims worldwide to cheer terrorist acts such as 9/11, European subway bombings, and Hezbollah and Hamas attacks against Israel. Allowing jihadist teaching to continue is like allowing cancer cells to survive in a human body. The human immune system demonstrates that nurturing normal cells and respecting their variance sustains life. A healthy body nourishes cell diversity. A healthy body politic, similarly, must value respect for different beliefs. At the same time, if an immune system shows any tolerance whatsoever for cancer cells, the latter will terminate that body's life. The immune system of a body politic must have a similar zero tolerance for beliefs that incite violence against its citizens."

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

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

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

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

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12 October, 2006

Dynamic Capitalism: Entrepreneurship is lucrative--and just

Excerpt from an article by Prof. Edmund Phelps, America's latest Nobel prizewinner



There are two economic systems in the West. Several nations--including the U.S., Canada and the U.K.--have a private-ownership system marked by great openness to the implementation of new commercial ideas coming from entrepreneurs, and by a pluralism of views among the financiers who select the ideas to nurture by providing the capital and incentives necessary for their development. Although much innovation comes from established companies, as in pharmaceuticals, much comes from start-ups, particularly the most novel innovations. This is free enterprise, a k a capitalism.

The other system--in Western Continental Europe--though also based on private ownership, has been modified by the introduction of institutions aimed at protecting the interests of "stakeholders" and "social partners." The system's institutions include big employer confederations, big unions and monopolistic banks. Since World War II, a great deal of liberalization has taken place. But new corporatist institutions have sprung up: Co-determination (cogestion, or Mitbestimmung) has brought "worker councils" (Betriebsrat); and in Germany, a union representative sits on the investment committee of corporations. The system operates to discourage changes such as relocations and the entry of new firms, and its performance depends on established companies in cooperation with local and national banks. What it lacks in flexibility it tries to compensate for with technological sophistication. So different is this system that it has its own name: the "social market economy" in Germany, "social democracy" in France and "concertazione" in Italy.

The American and Continental systems are not operationally equivalent, contrary to some neoclassical views. Let me use the word "dynamism" to mean the fertility of the economy in coming up with innovative ideas believed to be technologically feasible and profitable--in short, the economy's talent at commercially successful innovating. In this terminology, the free enterprise system is structured in such a way that it facilitates and stimulates dynamism while the Continental system impedes and discourages it.

More here. You can find a free-marketeer's evaluation of Phelps here

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ANOTHER PESKY GENETICS FINDING:

Will feminists like being told that women are more apelike than men?

Basically, the point is that, in crossing the little evolutionary distance that exists between chimps and humans, most of the changes occurred in males. In other words, what differentiates us from our mammalian relatives is changes that have occurred in the male of the species.

Actually, this is not news. Evolutionary anthropologists have long been aware of it. As far back as 1972, Elaine Morgan, a feminist, writing in The Descent of Woman, noted that in fact the role of females hadn't changed much from chimp to human. Mothers nurse and care for their offspring in basically the same way chimps do. In terms of social role, there really isn't much difference between human females and other animals.

What has changed is the role of males. Among chimps, males hang out in groups, form alliances, forage together, and do a lot of bickering over status. They do not participate at all in child rearing. By the time hunting-and-gathering tribes arrive, however, men have been folded into the family. Monogamy predominates and both parents participate in child rearing. The extraordinary innovation is "fatherhood," a role that doesn't really exist elsewhere in nature.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Boycott Porsche: "Prejudices against America are common among German elites in politics, business and the media. America is considered a country devoid of culture, with a capitalistic economic system that shows no regard for "social values". So it's not surprising to hear a CEO of a major German company repeat such trash. What is surprising, though, is the fact that this CEO heads a company deriving most of its sales and profits from catering to the rich in - America. The name of the company is Porsche, and the CEO is Wendelin Wiedeking."

Islamic insanity in Australia: "A religious feud between a Muslim father and his teenage daughter may have sparked a bloody domestic dispute on the Gold Coast which left the man's wife dead and him fighting for life in hospital. Police are investigating suggestions the violence erupted after the 17-year-old girl told her father she wanted to opt out of the Islamic faith and convert to Christianity. The girl's mother is believed to have stepped in to protect her daughter, only to be fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife. Neighbours reported hearing "blood-curdling" screams before the hysterical girl ran half-naked from their Southport home unit covered in scratches. Police later found the body of the girl's mother, 41, inside the blood-smeared unit. Her husband was taken to the Gold Coast Hospital with a stab wound to the chest. He was last night in a critical condition under police guard."

A wise move: "The Pope is taking steps to revive the ancient tradition of the Latin Tridentine Mass in Catholic churches worldwide, according to sources in Rome. Pope Benedict XVI is understood to have signed a universal indult - or permission - for priests to celebrate again the Mass used throughout the Church for nearly 1,500 years. The indult could be published in the next few weeks, sources told The Times. Use of the Tridentine Mass, parts of which date from the time of St Gregory in the 6th century and which takes its name from the 16th-century Council of Trent, was restricted by most bishops after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). This led to the introduction of the new Mass in the vernacular to make it more accessible to contemporary audiences. By bringing back Mass in Latin, Pope Benedict is signalling that his sympathies lie with conservatives in the Catholic Church. One of the most celebrated rebels against its suppression was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who broke with Rome in 1988 over this and other reforms. He was excommunicated after he consecrated four bishops, one of them British, without permission from the Pope. Some Lefebvrists, including those in Brazil, have already been readmitted. An indult permitting the celebration of the Tridentine Mass could help to bring remaining Lefebvrists and many other traditional Catholics back to the fold."

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

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

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

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

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11 October, 2006

Brookes News Update

Deconstructing Bill Clinton: Clinton knows that he is an intellectual and moral sham and that there are moral absolutes
The Australian Council of Trade Unions gets it wrong on labour market deregulation: The refusal of Australia's free market club to use economic theory and economic history to explain the benefits of deregulated labour markets has given the Australian Council of Trade Unions the moral and political high ground
The Australian economy, the trade deficit and the lessons of gold: A basic understanding of the gold standard is extremely helpful in gaining an understanding of what really lies at the root of our trade deficit
Ernesto Che Guevara: 39 years of hype: Guevara was a cowardly sadist who wantonly murdered men, women and children. Despite his well documented crimes the media, academics and the likes of Robert Redford and Christopher Hitchens still defend this psychotic thug
Lefty journo pushes green solar scam: Greenie journos have successfully deceived millions into thinking that solar generated electricity is a realistic alternative to power stations. It is not
Removing Iraq's training wheels: Neither the Iraqi nor the American publics will stand much longer for an indefinite commitment. The deadline should be flexible, but a deadline should be set. The Iraqis aren't ready to stand on their own yet, but at some point the training wheels must come off
Terrorism in San Francisco: Call a spade a spade: Last March, an Iranian immigrant drove an SUV into a crowd of people at the University of North Carolina, running over nine people, boasting that Allah had given him permission to murder infidels. Nevertheless, the media and the police asserted there was no religious motivation

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ELSEWHERE

Prudent Bear has some interesting thoughts on limitations to economic growth in China and India. He rightly warns against straight-line projections of recent trends but probably underestimates the entrepreneurial zeal of Indians and Chinese.

Sad when the Arts writer of The Times of London does not know the difference between a canon and a cannon. It's an interesting article on John Mortimer ("Rumpole of the Bailey") though.

Two cheers for the Welches: "In their BusinessWeek column of October 9, 2006, Suzy and Jack Welch make a valiant effort to debunk the stakeholder theory of corporate ethics. This is the view that managers do not owe service first and foremost to shareholders or owners of a company but, rather, to anyone who has an 'interest' in the company's activities. The idea has also been dubbed the CSR thesis, whereby the first duty of business managers is their so-called 'corporate social responsibility.' The Welches do a fine job of affirming the idea that what company managers ought to be doing is improving the value of the firm for their employers, the stockholders or owners."

Another confirmation of IQ genetics: "Head growth in foetal life and infancy is associated with later intelligence, new research hints. And catch-up increases do not appear to compensate for poor early growth. "Brain growth in early life may be important in determining not only the level of peak cognitive function attained but also whether such function is preserved in old age," the study team writes in the journal Pediatrics. "Older people with a larger head circumference tend to perform better on tests of cognitive function and may have reduced risks of cognitive decline and of Alzheimer's disease." Several studies in children have shown that those with larger brains, measured with imaging studies or as head circumference, tend to score higher on tests of cognitive function. Similar associations have been found in adults."

The religion of peace: "In an horrific incident of Christian persecution on September 1, some unidentified militants slew two children of a missionary couple who is working with At Any Cost Jesus Mission, a underground ministry evangelizing to the Muslim nations. A press release sent via e-mail to ANS by Any Cost Jesus Mission said that the assailants torched the dead bodies of teenaged children Shalom, 15 and Sharon 14 after murdering them brutally in the northern district of Pakistan. The teenaged victims according to the press release were secondary school students. “Shalom and Sharon were kidnapped along with their missionary parents and two other younger sisters 10 days before the murder. The militants asked them to convert to Islam but they refused,” said the press release. “So the militants killed Shalom first. Then they raped the girl and cut one of her breasts in front of her parents. She too died”, the press release quoted another underground missionary, Habel who it said broke the news to Any Cost Jesus Mission from a hidden place. “Police and the military forces are backing the militants".

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

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

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

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

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



10 October, 2006

A GREAT DECEPTION

The finger is pointed cleverly. It's difficult to blame Israel for the genocide in Sudan or for the civil war in Algeria. How is it done? Dozens of publications, articles, books, periodicals and websites are dedicated to one purpose only: Turning Israel into a state that ceaselessly perpetrates war crimes. In Jakarta and in Khartoum they burn the Israeli flag, and in London, in Oslo and in Zurich hate articles are published, supporting the destruction of Israel....

The tragedy is that in Arab and Muslim countries a massacre is happening. A genocide protected by the silence of the world. A genocide protected by a deception that is perhaps unparalleled in the history of mankind. A genocide that has no connection to Israel, to Zionism or to Jews. A genocide of mainly Arabs and Muslims, by Arabs and Muslims.

This is not a matter of opinion or viewpoint. This is the result of factual examination, as precise as possible, of the numbers of victims of various wars and conflicts that have taken place since the establishment of the State of Israel up till this time, in which the massacre continues. It is, indeed, death on a massive scale. A massacre. It is the wiping out of villages and cities and whole populations. And the world is silent. The Muslims are indeed abandoned. They are murdered and the world is silent. And if it bothers to open its mouth, it doesn't complain about the murderers. It doesn't complain about the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity. It complains about Israel.

This great deception, that covers up the real facts, endures and even grows because of one reason only: The Media and Academia in the West participate in it. In endless publications, books, periodicals and websites Israel is portrayed as a state that perpetrates "war crimes", "ethnic cleansing", and "systematic murder". Sometimes it is because this is fashionable, sometimes it is mistakenly, sometimes it is the result of hypocrisy and double standards. Sometimes it is new and old anti-Semitism, from the left and from the right, overt and covert. Most of the classic blood libels were refuted not long after they came into being. The blood libel of modern times, against the state of Israel, continues to grow. Many Israelis and Jews are accessories to the nurturing of the libel.

Much more here

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ELSEWHERE



Feeble attempt to dispute Leftist bias in the news media: "The debate has raged for two decades now. Starting with the 1983 publication of Ben Bagdikian's The Media Monopoly, and continuing with Bernard Goldberg's 2001 bestseller Bias, the issue is still hotly contested. Does media bias exist? If so, is it conservative or liberal? In his new book, What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News (Basic Books), Eric Alterman attempts to answer these questions definitively... Alterman never comes to grips with the fact that the people who cover the news are overwhelmingly liberal. In 1996, for example, half of the 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents surveyed by the Roper Center called themselves Democrats, 37 percent independents, 9 percent "other," and only 4 percent Republicans. In the same survey, 61 percent called themselves liberal or liberal to moderate; 30 percent moderate; and only 9 percent conservative or moderate-to-conservative. In 1992, an astonishing 89 percent of Washington correspondents and editors voted for Bill Clinton. .. On a good night during peacetime, Fox News Channel has a little more than 1 million viewers, compared to 40 million or so for the New York Times - following broadcast network news programs.... In fact, Alterman acknowledges midway through the book that there might be some merit to his opponents' arguments: "the overall flavor of the elite media reporting favors gun control, campaign finance reform, gay rights and the environmental movement," he writes. These are distinctly liberal stances and this admission, by itself, pokes a gaping hole into Alterman's argument"

Real do-gooders: "If you wanted to become really rich, yet at the same time help your fellow man, what would you do? There is no contradiction. The answer is -- start a business -- where you provide employment to others and also provide a new or improved good or service, or an existing good or service at a lower price. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, and hundreds of other things that made life far better for his fellow citizens."

Petronoia: "As the price of oil and gas rose to 1970s oil crisis levels over the past year, pundits flew out of the woodwork that this represented a permanent change in the way of the world. Now that the price of gas is tumbling it seems appropriate to revisit those assertions. Perhaps the most influential commentator to address the issue was Thomas Friedman. In an essay in Foreign Policy magazine he drew attention to a strong correlation between the price of oil and the level of freedom worldwide, as measured by various indices of freedom."

Frogs break the rules on protectionism: "THE European Commission is threatening to take France to court for trying to ringfence key sectors of its economy from hostile foreign takeovers. The prospect of legal action will be raised on Thursday as part of a wider Commission clampdown on governments that ignore the European Union's increasingly extensive rulebook. Paris first launched its challenge to Brussels regulators last year when it identified 11 sectors that it argued were of strategic importance and should be protected from foreign predators. The list includes sensitive industries such as weapons production and research, dual civil- military technologies and computer security systems, and also casinos and private security firms."

Stupid Feds again: "When the first of the dozen or so federal agents arrived Wednesday about 9:30 a.m. at Growers Express in Salinas, equipped with sidearms and search warrants, some employees initially thought it was some kind of sick joke. It wasn't. The FBI and Food and Drug Administration agents spent the next six hours meticulously sifting through paper and computer records looking for evidence of violations of federal law that might have led to an E. coli outbreak in bagged spinach that has now led to two confirmed deaths. ... Growers Express doesn't process any fresh bagged spinach, the only product found to have E. coli contamination. And the company says the small amount of bagged spinach it markets is purchased from processors not connected to the recent recall."

Appeals court blocks voter ID law: "A federal appellate court has blocked the enforcement of an Arizona law that requires voters to show identification before casting a ballot and submit proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday came a month before the Nov. 7 general election, and just before Monday's deadline to register. The law had already been used for the Sept. 12 primary and in some municipal elections."

For what slight interest it may have, I have just put up one of my occasional entries on my personal blog. See here or here.

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

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

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

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

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9 October, 2006

MEDIA COVER UP FOR RACIST LEFTIST



At this particular time in history, it is a matter of note that Congress is about to re ceive its first Muslim member. Keith Ellison, currently a Minnesota state representative, is poised to succeed 14-term incumbent Democrat Martin Sabo in the Fifth District, which includes the city of Minneapolis. Ellison's endorsement by the Demo cratic-Farmer-Labor party is tantamount to his election in what is one of the safest Democratic seats in the country. Thus, at age 43, Ellison stands positioned not only to win that office but also to hold it as long as he chooses.

Ellison's Muslim faith has generated no controversy in the campaign. On the contrary, it has served to insulate aspects of his public record from close scrutiny in a city whose dominant news organ, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, is a paragon of political correctness. With the exception of columnist Katherine Kersten, the Star Tribune has scrupulously avoided examining Ellison's long train of troubling associations, foremost among them his ties to the Nation of Islam.

Ellison's record also includes a multitude of embarrassments of the traditional kind. He fell afoul of the IRS after failing to pay $25,000 in income taxes; he ignored fines that he had incurred for parking tickets and moving violations so numerous that his driver's license was suspended more times than he can remember; he was fined for willful violation of Minnesota's campaign finance reporting law. It amounts to a striking pattern of lawbreaking since he undertook the practice of law in 1990.

But it was the link to the Nation of Islam that stood as the most serious impediment to Ellison's primary campaign. He addressed it in a letter to the local chapter of the Jewish Community Relations Council following his endorsement by the DFL in May. In the letter, Ellison asserted that his involvement with the Nation of Islam had been limited to an 18-month period around the time of the Million Man March in 1995, that he had been unfamiliar with the Nation of Islam's anti-Semitic views during his in volvement with the group, and that he himself had never expressed such views. The Star Tribune has faithfully parroted these assertions as facts.

As a result, the three assertions have become the cornerstone of Ellison's campaign, securing him the support of prominent Minneapolis Jews and the endorsement of the Minneapolis-based American Jewish World newsweekly. Nevertheless, a little research reveals each one of them to be demonstrably false. Ellison's activities on behalf of the Nation of Islam continued well beyond any 18-month period, he was familiar with the Nation of Islam's anti-Semitic views, and he himself mouthed those views.

Much more here

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ELSEWHERE

Muslims Riot after Woman Rejects Man: "Muslims rioting in northern Nigeria have devastated a Christian community in Jjgawa state. At least 18 churches have been destroyed in the city of Dutse. And the Voice of the Marytrs reports that 5,000 Christians have fled the area. There were also reports of injuries, but no fatalities. Scores of Christian homes and businesses were destroyed. The riots started after a Christian woman reportedly rejected the advances of a Muslim man. She was also accused of insulting the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

Europe waking up? "After years of dithering over political correctness with Muslims and Islam, Europe is waking up to a different morning. A three-week tour of Italy, France, and Britain last month was enough for me to conclude that Western Europeans have moved way beyond dialogue. Confrontation, indeed even provocation, is their preferred approach to the Muslims in their midst. Long before Pope Benedict XVI's scathing comments in mid-September on the fallacy of phony Muslim-Christian dialogue, signs of hardening European views toward current Islamic values were plentiful on the Continent.... Europeans now see a need not to massage the Muslim ethos but to remove it. One can talk forever of the necessity for Islam to reform itself, but that fails to resonate within Muslim societies, Europeans tell me. My European tour made it eminently clear that Western Europeans - if not their more liberal, compromised ruling and business elites - believe that for Muslims living in the West, it's either Western ways or the highway.... Europe is no longer dithering. Every other week, parliaments are restricting the freedom of expression of Muslim fundamentalists, preachers, and madrassas, and questioning every value that militant Islam has attempted to sneak into the Continent over the past 20 years."

Border fence hypocrisy: "No sooner did Congress authorize construction of a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border last week than lawmakers rushed to approve separate legislation that ensures it will never be built, at least not as advertised, according to Republican lawmakers and immigration experts. GOP leaders have singled out the fence as one of the primary accomplishments of the recently completed session. Many lawmakers plan to highlight their $1.2 billion down payment on its construction as they campaign in the weeks before the midterm elections. But shortly before recessing late Friday, the House and Senate gave the Bush administration leeway to distribute the money to a combination of projects -- not just the physical barrier along the southern border. The funds may also be spent on roads, technology and "tactical infrastructure" to support the Department of Homeland Security's preferred option of a "virtual fence." What's more, in a late-night concession to win over wavering Republicans, GOP congressional leaders pledged in writing that Native American tribes, members of Congress, governors and local leaders would get a say in "the exact placement" of any structure, and that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would have the flexibility to use alternatives "when fencing is ineffective or impractical."

Muslims encourage polio: "It's hard to imagine that anyone could object to a campaign to eliminate polio - a disease that maims, paralyzes, and even kills its victims, who are mostly children. Yet, in one of the more bizarre confrontations between Islamic fundamentalists and the modern world, a tiny group of clerics in India is doing just that - and giving new life to a deadly disease.... India seemed to be on the verge of eliminating polio last year, when it reported just 66 cases of the disease, down from 1600 in 2002. This year, however, things have gone horribly wrong with India's polio elimination campaign; 325 cases have been reported already, and at least 23 of them have been fatal. What's caught people's attention is that 70% of those infected with polio this year are Muslim, even though Muslims account for only 13% of India's population. What's even stranger, and frightening, is the reason: some Muslims believe that the polio drops are part of a conspiracy to sterilize their children, and are refusing to let them be vaccinated."



Waste: Government subsidizes small-town air service: ""Hoping for an empty seat beside you on your next flight? No problem -- just schedule a trip to someplace like Kingman, Ariz.; Brookings, S.D.; or Pueblo. They are among more than 100 locales around the country that receive federally subsidized airline service, and the average number of passengers on each flight is about three."

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

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

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

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

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8 October, 2006

CALIFORNIA: STEVE FRANK REPORTS ON LEFTIST DISCOMFORT WITH THE TRUTH

Steve has been debating again:

Then I had a 6:45pm debate on Prop. 85, sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women. If you want to know their ideology, their speaker on October 18 is Senator Sheila Kuehl talking about her universal (socialist) health care bill. Then they will have Laurie David speak on the environment, on how to save it from corporations and bad governments. You get where they are headed.

I debated the Executive Vice President of Los Angeles Planned Parenthood, with Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg as the listed moderator. I spoke about the need for parental notification, that government should not interfere with the relationship between parents and daughters. I told the group about the court waiver (Katie Short, in the audience gave a more precise exclamation of it, since she is the one who wrote it for the initiative--very nice person and dedicated to the cause of Life!). I felt support of 85 is in support of parents, opposition is in support of government and strangers--all the while, should an abortion occur, it is the parents that must take care of the emotional and medical needs of the daughter, not knowing what is really wrong.

Then I discussed the fact that rapists use abortion to hide their deeds--and that the abortion clinics don't turn in the rapists. I asked everyone in the room, "if you had evidence of a rape, would you turn it in?" Everyone raised their hands. Then I noted that the Attorney Generals of both Indiana and Kansas are suing Planned Parenthood for refusing to turn over evidence of rapes. Instances in several other states were being noted, when the "moderator", Jackie Goldberg, stopped me and said we are talking about California, I should only give examples of what happens in California, and that I had "finished" my answer. Would you turn in evidence of rape--why is it so hard for so many Planned Parenthood affiliates to do so?

Besides this, I noted that Planned Parenthood was being sued by one of its former finance staff, who was fired. Victor Gonzales claims he was fired because he turned LA Planned Parenthood into the State authorities. He claimed that PP was paying $1 for some contraceptives, then billing the state up to $48 for the products. This gave, according to Gonzales, in the public records, $4 million a year extra. This is now being adjudicated in the courts.

We all know that full disclosure in discussing public policy is important. If you are promoting a bill or a contract with government, you need to disclose you have an interest in it. Have you ever known Planned Parenthood mentioning that the largest, or one of the largest revenues sources for them, is their abortion clinics. I made note of that. Have you ever heard them mention that another major revenue source is government money for "programs" and "services". Since they never mention them, I did.

Well, you would have thought I had just told folks about the biggest State secret ever! The PP executive was "outraged" that I told these negative things about them. I was "slandering" them! If revenues from abortions are a slander, they shouldn't do it. If so many affiliates (an Arizona one was successful sued for withholding evidence) are withholding evidence, that is between them and the law--just because people now know about it, if that is the problem, they should do the right thing and turn in the evidence. If your daughter was raped, how would you feel if Planned Parenthood or some other private organization refused to give the evidence to the Police?

As the debate kept going, questions from the audience were coming. Periodically, Jackie Goldberg didn't like my answers, said so in the microphone and told me I was finished answering the question--even if I wasn't! She did this a few times. Guess she thinks she is still at Berkeley in the 60's shouting "free speech", then not allowing those that disagree with her to speak.

All in all, the day once again showed the shallowness of liberal thought and ideology--more taxes, more expenditures, shut up the opposition, then cry when the truth is told.

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ELSEWHERE

Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against the city of Laguna Beach in California. The city is using tax dollars to help provide jobs for illegal aliens. Guess the city council doesn't understand the concept of illegal--you don't do it. I would prefer the Feds to arrest the City Council for violation of Federal law, and the Attorney General indict them for embezzlement of public funds for corrupt purposes. A copy of the lawsuit is available on Judicial Watch's Internet site, here. See also here

Far-Left teachers' union backs down: "After an outcry by Jewish organizations, the Los Angeles teachers union revoked plans Thursday by one of its committees to hold a pro-Palestinian rally at union headquarters. The Human Rights Committee of United Teachers Los Angeles had announced it would be a co-host of the rally at UTLA headquarters a week from Saturday, and support a boycott against Israel. After meeting with committee members, union President A.J. Duffy issued a statement saying the meeting could not take place at the union's building. "While as educators and union members we encourage a respectful debate on the important issues of the day, this event has provoked very sharp feelings among our members and concerns that this meeting is inappropriate," Duffy said".

California court upholds ban on gay marriage: "Concluding that "courts in this state simply do not have authority to redefine marriage," the California Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld state laws that ban same-sex marriages. The 2-1 decision added California to a growing list of states where appellate courts in the past few months -- in New York, Washington state and Nebraska -- have rejected constitutional challenges to the traditional definition of marriage as a union of man and woman. In 45 states, that tradition has been enshrined in statutes -- as in California -- or the state constitution. But it has come under heavy assault, particularly since the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld the right of same-sex couples to marry in 2003".

California Homosexual Organization Admits HIV/AIDS is "Gay Disease": "The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center has abandoned a long-held homosexual activist contention by declaring on billboards posted throughout Southern California that HIV/AIDS is a "gay disease." According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the Center is trying to address rapidly increasing HIV infection rates among the homosexual population by rallying the gay community to increasing vigilance against exposure to the disease. Activists for the homosexual lifestyle have, until this current development, strongly, and sometimes vehemently refused to admit that the disease is predominantly generated among homosexual men. The ad campaign, which is also running in magazines, is in part a response to the findings of public health officials, who have noted that three out of four cases of HIV infections are found in men who engage in homosexual activity"

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

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

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

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

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7 October, 2006

LEFTIST HATRED OF THE ORDINARY MAN

An excerpt from George Will

Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce - yes, announce - that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by . . . liberals.

Before they went on their bender of indignation about Wal-Mart (customers per week: 127 million), liberals had drummed McDonald's (customers per week: 175 million) out of civilized society because it is making us fat, or something. So, what next? Which preferences of ordinary Americans will liberals, in their role as national scolds, next disapprove? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?

No. The current issue of the American Prospect, an impeccably progressive magazine, carries a full-page advertisement denouncing something responsible for "lies, deception, immorality, corruption, and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses" and for having brought "great hardship and despair to people and communities throughout the world."

What is this focus of evil in the modern world? North Korea? The Bush administration? Fox News Channel? No, it is Coca-Cola (number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week: 2.5 billion).

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THE REALITY DEMOCRATS IGNORE

America's Democrats have failed to face up to the reality of the world that will come if the West's war with militant Islam is lost, if Europe surrenders, if America surrenders, if the Jihad emerges victorious. The world of social, intellectual, religious, and political liberty that America's Liberals and Democrats claim as their own would end with Sharia. America's Democrats, the champions of gay rights and sexual libertarianism, do not face up to the reality that the penalty for homosexuality and extra-marital sex under Sharia is death. They do not face up to the fact that in puritanical Islam, women are not equal. They do not face up to the fact that in puritanical Islam, religious intolerance, discrimination, and bigotry, are ideological imperatives.

America's Democrats, blind drunk on their lust for political power at any price, are blinded to the reality that the price of freedom from the totalitarian barbarians that come in a new guise in every generation, Hitlerian Nazism, Stalinist Communism, and now Islamo-Nazi Jihadism, is the constant willingness to do whatever is necessary to defend our freedoms, and sometimes that price is war. Not surrender, but victory. America's Democrats, chasing the chimerical dream of a world peace that has never been, and will never be, have made themselves the Neville Chamberlains of the 21st Century, who, seeking "peace in our time" at all costs, would rather surrender the Middle East, then Europe, then perhaps America, to the militant threats and demands of Jihadism, rather than fight for the freedom of others, to protect their own.

America will not win or lose the War on Terror, whether fought in Iraq, in Afghanistan, or anywhere else, because its armed forces cannot win. America will ultimately win the War on Terror, if it does, because Americans, Democrats and Republicans, muster up the will to do so. Or America will ultimately lose the War on Terror, if it does, because Americans, Democrats and Republicans, fail to sustain the will to win. America will either choose to win, or America will choose to surrender. By the end of this century, or perhaps by the end of this decade, either Western Civilization, with its freedoms and democracies, will remain, or puritanical Islam, Jihadism, will remain. But not both. One will win, the other will surrender. One will live, the other will die. The one with the greatest will to live, will live.

It may be a stereotype to describe Democrats as "Chardonnay Swilling Surrender Junkies" (which, quite coincidentally, rhymes perfectly with the tag some insensitive souls have pinned on the French as "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys"), but I have a certain image of Liberals, based partly on personal experience, sipping Chardonnay with brie on baguettes, deploring the horror, stupidity, and depravity of George Bush.

But it seems that many, or most, of America's Democrats see the War in Iraq as "another Vietnam." If they regain control of Congress, or the White House, or both, they seem determined to turn that assessment into a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are addicted to the seductive euphoria of the ephemeral "peace" that surrender brings, for a time. They are surrender junkies.

They so covet power for themselves, and the illusion of a "peace" that cannot last, that, rather than join a Republican President, George W. Bush, in a determined war to defeat the anti-Liberal, anti-Democratic, Islamic Jihad, they would rather surrender their own future and freedom, surrender America's future and freedom, and ultimately surrender the entire edifice of Western Civilization, Judeo-Christian Civilization, to an aggressive, intolerant, imperialist, militant, fundamentalist, terrorist Islamic theocracy that will ultimately destroy every freedom Liberal Democrats claim to be for.

More here



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ELSEWHERE

Today's Democrats bungle war: "We're in a war. Something always goes wrong in a war, and our military leaders have made mistakes in Iraq. But quitting and leaving would amount to defeat for the U.S. in the global war on terrorism and create chaos. Quitters never win. Here's the problem: America needs two strong, sound political parties. As far as domestic policy is concerned, it really doesn't make much difference if Democrats or Republicans are in power. Ours is a free, entrepreneurial society where anyone can do anything he or she wants if they have a positive attitude and the desire to work, learn and achieve. Ambitious people come from all over the world to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity. This is one reason our economy is so resilient, continually bouncing back from periodic setbacks, driven by new inventions and achievements. However, when it comes to which party has proved more capable in acting to defend and protect Americans from foreign enemies, there is only one choice. From Johnson to Carter to Clinton, virtually all the defense policies and decisions made by Democratic administrations have been unsuccessful. And in many cases, they have unintentionally but materially increased the danger to our national security and the safety of all Americans."

It's Christians that the Left fear: "Meanwhile, the ecstatically positive reviews that greeted the alarmist documentary film "Jesus Camp" (which explicitly compares an enthusiastic Christian summer program for kids to a terrorist training ground) show the genuine horror of religious revival that pervades much of the secular establishment. In reviewing the film for the New York Times, a horrified Stephen Holden unambiguously equated young Evangelical believers to Communist mass murderers. "It wasn't so long ago that another puritanical youth army, Mao Zedong's Red Guards, turned the world's most populous country inside out," he wrote. "Nowadays, the possibility of a right-wing Christian American version of what happened in China no longer seems entirely far-fetched...."

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

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

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

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

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6 October, 2006

THE BORING "RELIGIOUS" LEFT

Below is an amused comment on a recent Leftist attack on the "Religious Right" from Assistant Village Idiot. He scores himself on being able to predict what the Leftist will say. Excerpt only:

Randall Balmer has an essay in the most recent Chronicle of Higher Education entitled Jesus Is Not A Republican. Balmer is a professor of religious history at Barnard College. The Assistant Village Idiot puts his fingers to his temples and makes some guesses: (Full disclosure: I read the opening one-sentence blurb, so I did see the phrase "drunk on power." Therefore I made no predictions about what would be written about that, figuring I had an unfair hint.)

1. Balmer will use black-and-white rhetoric to decry the black-and-white thinking of the Religious Right. Their approaches will not be criticized for being unwise or inadequate, they will be condemned as completely without merit. Other sides to any religious argument will simply not exist, because he knows the Bible better than you.

Arggh! I missed one right at the beginning: raised as an evangelical. Minus 1 point Otherwise, perfect score (The Bible I read.) 9 out of 10

1A. Oh, and we're closed-minded, too. Perfect 3 bonus points

2. Ballmer will note that God loves the poor. Therefore, we know the Religious Right has perverted the gospel, because they are in favor of cutting the poor off without a farthing. There will be no mention in Ballmer of what conservative evangelicals want to do for the poor, because it is so obviously a sham that it doesn't bear mentioning. The RR doesn't want to do what the liberals want, therefore they don't care about the poor.

Too easy. 10 out of 10

2A. He will believe every liberal spin of economic statistics as if they are unassailable. Tax cuts for the rich and corporate greed will both be mentioned at least twice each. This will prove that the Religious Right hates the poor.

Perfect 3 bonus points

3. He will complain how today's public Christians are rotten, not like the Christians in the Good Old Days when he was a boy, and were involved with the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war protests.

I was pretty much wrong on this one. There are only hints with the McGovern reference. 1 out of 10 points. Ouch

3A. The 50-50 chance of mentioning the abolitionists will rise to 90-10 because he's a religious history professor. "City on a Hill" will be mentioned. perfect 3 bonus points

4. He will explain that the war in Iraq is unjust because it doesn't adhere to "just war" doctrine, by which he will mean "We didn't get final approval from the UN." The extended examinations of Just War doctrine by other Christians who reached different conclusions, such as over at First Things, will not be mentioned. Conveniently, they won't have to be refuted, either. ".would not meet even the barest of just war criteria."

Score! He doesn't mention the UN (I suspect it's in his head though), which keeps me off full credit. 8 out of 10 points

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ELSEWHERE



Florida GOP names replacement candidate: "Disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley sought treatment for alcoholism and 'other behavioral problems' as Republicans on Monday picked a new candidate to salvage the seat Foley abandoned after disclosure of lurid online messages he exchanged with teenage boys. State party leaders chose state Rep. Joe Negron to replace Foley in next month's election. Negron will receive votes cast for Foley, although Foley's name will remain on the ballot in the West Palm Beach district, which is largely Republican."

Partners in plunder: "I keep reading that big business wants government off its back. But that's a myth. Here's the truth: [B]ig business and big government prosper from the perception that they are rivals instead of partners (in plunder). The history of big business is one of cooperation with big government. That's Timothy Carney writing in a recent Cato Policy Report. He's the author of a new book, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money. Carney's book shows that government and business are not antagonists but allies. They've always been allies. Politicians like it that way because they get power and prestige, and businessmen like it because they get protection from competition."

Growth is good: "David Cameron says, 'It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB -- General Wellbeing,' by which he means happiness. With Cameron's endorsement, the cockle-warming politics of happiness has officially become a multi-partisan affair, no longer the property of Labour peer Richard Layard and other social democrats. And why shouldn't it be? Certainly no one disputes that there is more to life than money, or more to politics than the size of the economy. However, Cameron's contrast implies that increased GWB might have to come at the expense of GDP growth and economic liberalisation."

A game plan on gas prices: "As we recover from the summer season gasoline price highs, its time for cooler heads to prevail on U.S. energy policy. Despite a lot of grandstanding from the political class about 'Big Oil' and 'price-gouging,' we have seen little effective action from Washington. The laws of supply and demand still govern our energy markets -- the problem is that our tax and regulatory framework for energy is outdated and even counterproductive. There is so little margin for error in the current system that news of unexpected corrosion in the Alaska pipeline instantly sent global oil prices up 2 percent." The most important thing to understand is that gasoline prices are a signal of market supply and demand; Congress should not attempt to control prices directly but should instead address the underlying tax and regulatory factors that affect prices.... The United States should at least allow motorists and refiners the right to source Brazilian ethanol, which is made from cane sugar, or to refine cane sugar into ethanol here in the America. (Refining ethanol from cane sugar is far more efficient than from corn.) But the federal government charges American consumers a 54 cent per gallon penalty on imported ethanol, largely pricing it out of the market. And entrepreneurs interested in refining cane-sugar into ethanol in the United States. are prevented from doing so by the federal sugar program’s import quotas. Corn and sugar corporate welfare programs should not be allowed to stand in the way of our energy security; these tariffs should be repealed to create a competitive market for ethanol."

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

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

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

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

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



5 October, 2006

The Democrat fantasy-world has some popular appeal

Advertisers of consumer products often structure advertisements to associate their products with a mood or a sense of pleasure, often without providing specifics about the product. Advertisers appear to believe that image, at least in the Baby Boomer world, is everything.

Basing their campaign strategy on the sort of focus-group polling employed by consumer-goods advertisers, Democrats just want voters to associate their party with peace and opposition to anything that might require our military forces to enter dangerous combat. The declared intent of Islamic jihadists to subjugate or destroy all non- Muslim societies must be ignored, as it would conflict with the nebulous image that fighting back is the root cause of terrorism. Appeasement, aka "negotiating" via the UN, is the Democrat's Ned- Lamont socialist answer.

Such was the fantasy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 when he met with Adolph Hitler in Munich to sanction National Socialist Germany's seizure of Czechslovakia's Sudetenland. Mr. Chamberlain happily returned to England, on the eve of World War II, proclaiming, "Peace in our time."

Democrats have convinced themselves that dealing with terrorists is the same as stopping ordinary criminals, with arrests after the fact, public trials, and rehabilitation programs. This follows from another liberal-socialist doctrine: crime and war are the result of unequal distribution of income, which creates aggressive behavior among those deprived of their "constitutional rights" to the same level of income as everyone else.

The Democrats, the party of John Dewey's socialistic pragmatism, resolutely oppose the data of real-life experience and cling to the Darwinian doctrine that the world is a matter of chance, producing a process of social evolution. Yesterday's "truth" (of course, with the exception of socialism and pragmatism) will not be today's or tomorrow's "truth." With everything in a continuous state of flux, according to that theory, there is no truth, merely valid or invalid propositions. If an action works to your advantage, regardless of what happens to others, it is "valid." If their campaign to destroy President Bush succeeds, no matter what happens to our troops around the world or to our nation in the future, the necessary actions are, by Democrats' pragmatic lights, "valid."

Given liberal-socialist control of most of the opinion-forming media - newspapers, magazines, TV, movies - Democrats may win on image without substance. After three quarters of a century of educational indoctrination in the religion of socialism, too few Americans have been given the historical knowledge necessary to distinguish fact from fiction.

More here



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Where'd all the "It's Just Sex" Democrats Go?

The Seattle Times reports "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants the House Ethics Committee to put Republican leadership under oath to find out what they knew about Congressman Mark Foley's inappropriate communications with Congressional pages.". In a statement, Minority Senate leader Harry Reid (D) described the allegations against Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) as 'repugnant.' "Equally as bad," the Nevada Democrat said, "is the possibility that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a Congressional seat this election year."

Now wait a minute... Then-President Bill Clinton had not been sending inappropriate suggestive emails and instant messages to a young intern, an act certainly repugnant no matter the authors' politics. He had reduced the previously revered Oval Office, to just a personal sexually perverted play pen.

Democrats didn't sit silent as the news broke of Clinton's repeated and continuing sexual misconduct, they rushed to his defense with some dreamed up right-wing conspiracy theory intended to misdirect public attention away from Clinton's life-long sex addiction, throwing every person disgusted by his irresponsible conduct under the bus. They were not innocent bystanders, they were actively complicit, even enablers.

As Clinton wagged his finger in the nose of every American, assuring the world that he "did not have sex with that woman", he and his closest advisors knew better. As he sat under oath before a court committing outright perjury before a world-wide audience, Democrats stood firmly at his side, crying foul, insisting that any lie about sex isn't a lie at all really.

Even once Clinton was impeached and disbarred for perjury - Democrats insisted that none of this had anything to do with his ability to hold the highest office in the land. Many of those now seeking to make political hay out of Foley's disgracefully stupid indiscretions once blocked any effort to remove a convicted perjurer from the White House.

Foley certainly screwed up, BIG TIME! But he at least had the decency to resign, a decency neither Clinton himself nor his many Democrat supporters ever demonstrated. Now we are supposed to listen as Democrats try to cash-in on what can only be described as inappropriate sexual activities between consenting adults?

When former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey was busted cheating on his wife and family with a young male office assistant, Democrats again rushed to his side to defend his actions as that of a closet homosexual who did not deserve to be tossed from office on the basis of his sexual misconduct alone.

They kept him in office to avoid the mid-term appointment of a Republican Governor, buying time for the Party to come up with his Democrat replacement. That replacement was Senator John Corzine, who personally bought both his senate seat and the governorship with his own personal wealth.

Democrat Representative Barney Franks didn't get busted sending private messages to his boy friend - he was busted paying a male prostitute for services. He was busted while using his elected position of power to clear his boy friend from his felony past, with convictions for cocaine possession, oral sodomy and "production of obscene items involving a juvenile." Again, Democrats across the country ran to defend Franks and make excuses for his perverted and irresponsible if not bizarre behaviors.

Yet today, we are to believe that these same Democrats are so upset by private email exchanges, that they must have a full-scale FBI investigation into not just Foley's personal misconduct, but every Republican in congress too?

Give me a BREAK!!! We're talking about Democrats here... Democrats! - People who don't know the difference between innocent human life and a stomach tumor. People who declare that ALL sexual perversions be given equal status under the law and equal rights under the time-honored name of Marriage. People who have rushed to demand First Amendment protection of pornography, at the same time claiming that the bible has no such protections... Democrats...!

Any Republican who didn't call for Foley's resignation isn't a conservative. But for Democrats to try to capitalize on a republican SEX SCANDAL is hilarious! I mean we're talking about a Party that idolizes JFK and Clinton on the basis of their sexual prowess. A Party still led by gin-soaked Teddy Kennedy. Come on...

Today's Democrats aren't only shameless... They're STUPID! Believing that they can buy votes with promises from the treasury is one thing. But believing they can capitalize on someone else's sexual misconduct is just plain insane... Are you kidding me???

Foley should be finished... So should any politician looking to cash-in on Foley's follies, especially if they are a Democrat! Get out a here... I really have seen it all now! "I deeply regret and accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused," Foley said. Foley has already begun taking responsibility for his actions. Democrats never have and never will!

Source

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

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

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

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

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4 October, 2006

THE LEFTIST AGENDA

Liberals hate an armed society. Liberals hate an educated society. Liberals hate a society that says "I can do this on my own." What is the easiest way to defeat a society that is armed, educated, and free? Take away the guarantees of all 3 and you have it. Disarm them and they are no longer citizens, they are subjects. Control the educations system and you no longer have free-thinkers you have state-educated subjects by indoctrination. Slowly erode their rights and you have a collective mass.

If this sounds eerily familiar it should. It was tried before in Communist Russia and Nazi Germany. This experiment has been tried and has failed miserably. The names of the parties from the past have faded away, only to be replaced in this country by a party whose sole purpose is to make these anti-freedom positions a fixture in a free society. Democrat liberals often champion their love for a free society, but by their actions they have defined themselves as enemies of true freedom. They want God to be replaced by the state. They want to experiment again with a test that will result in total failure. Our choice is clear of what must be done to preserve what is merely a shadow of true freedom granted to us by God. Our Founding Fathers did not sacrifice their lives for us to lay down now and not fight for a true government based on constitutional principles...

Liberals have successfully allowed some of these arguments to be discussed where they are allowed to choose the wording. You see, liberals understand they cannot win the arguments by their stance on issues. In order to win, they have to redefine words to make them look as non-threatening as possible. They aren't pro-murder, they are pro-choice of a woman. They aren't anti-American, they are pro-U.N. They are pro-family, meaning gay couples can adopt and get married. They are pro-religion as long as it isn't Christians. Muslims aren't the most dangerous followers of a religion in this country. It's those darn Christians. They must be stopped. We can't allow the 10 Commandments to be displayed!

We just don't understand a liberal's mind because we are one of the masses. We aren't elite enough to lead but rather follow. They know what is best for us. We just need to trust them on this one. Government can solve all of our problems. The Constitution is an outdated document that has no relevance in this 21st century of enlightenment. How can we not see that? Let us put our trust and faith in Hilary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Howard Dean to make us the country that the Founding Fathers envisioned.

More here

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Prudent Bear has a thoughtful column about how the process of EU enlargement is going and what the prospects for future enlargement are.

Nutty Church of England blames Christians, not Muslims for abuse of women: "Misguided and distorted versions of Christian belief have contributed to domestic abuse in Britain, says the Church of England. And the Church itself has not done enough to protect victims. The report, which has been backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says that domestic abuse is as "prevalent among Christians" as among other groups and identifies problem areas in Christian tradition."

Old farts have learnt nothing: "Iraqi war demonstrators in their 60s don't see why today's young people seem so uninterested. The protesters were furious. Occupying the senator's office, they chanted antiwar slogans and demanded an immediate end to the war. The police moved in, warning protesters they would be arrested if they didn't disperse. Most left, but 11 activists were cuffed, charged with criminal trespass, and taken to jail. This model for antiwar activism was perfected in the Vietnam era. Today it is employed to protest the Iraq war. Yet, in accounts of this recent protest in the office of Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Me.), one telling statistic stood out: the youngest protester arrested was 52, and most were in their 60s. Where were the kids? The answer provides insight into a key dynamic happening in the American public sphere. A new generation gap exists. In a perfect inversion of the 1960s generation gap, today's is marked by angry, activist elders and a more quiescent youth."

More media deception: "Friday's Good Morning America featured a segment with Robin Roberts in Memphis with three Southern women, identified as Republicans, who are all supposedly "having second thoughts about their party" and now plan to vote for Democrats. But a quick Internet search found that two of the three have backgrounds which raise questions about their fidelity to the GOP.... while Herbison was Press Secretary to Republican Tennessee Governor Donald Sundquist, best known for a failed effort to enact a state income tax, she was also the Press Secretary for the Tennessee House Democratic Caucus. The other, Robin Rasmussen, who insisted that "I voted Republican in every election since I was 18," appears to be on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood, which doesn't make it impossible for her to be a Republican, but certainly suggests she's long been politically active for a liberal social cause."

Tom Friedman gets this right: "Thanks to pressure from Midwest farmers and agribusinesses, who want to protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry from competition from Brazilian sugar ethanol, we have imposed a stiff tariff to keep it out. We do this even though Brazilian sugar ethanol provides eight times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it, while American corn ethanol provides only 1.3 times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it. We do this even though sugar ethanol reduces greenhouses gases more than corn ethanol. And we do this even though sugar cane ethanol can easily be grown in poor tropical countries in Africa or the Caribbean, and could actually help alleviate their poverty."

Illegals hurt the young: "Over the 2000-2005 period, immigration levels remained very high and roughly half of new immigrant workers were illegal. This report finds that the arrival of new immigrants (legal and illegal) in a state results in a decline in employment among young native-born workers in that state. Our findings indicate that young native-born workers are being displaced in the labor market by the arrival of new immigrants."

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

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

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

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

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3 October, 2006

Unclear and present danger

The public is still not fully aware of the gravity of the threat posed by Islamist extremists, Britain's anti-terror supremo says:

Britain's top counter-terrorist cop has no doubt the nature of the threat has changed dramatically. Peter Clarke, Scotland Yard's 51-year-old head of counter-terrorism, talks with quiet resolution about the challenge of Islamist terrorism and how it has turned British policing upside down. People often say to Clarke how well placed the British authorities must be to deal with Islamist terror given their long experience of Irish Republican Army killers. No, he responds emphatically. It's a whole new ball game with no defined rules of engagement or carefully delineated boundaries. "The current terrorist threat is almost the reverse of all those parameters," Clarke said in Canberra this week. "What we see is global in origin, global in ambition, global in reach. The networks are loose, they are fluid and they are incredibly resilient," Clarke told a security conference.

Defeating the threat demands a level of resources, including sustained surveillance, unprecedented in modern law enforcement. "Unless you have pace and scale on your side, you will fail to deal with these terrorist conspiracies that we are currently seeing," he stressed. Clarke tells Inquirer the threat posed by radical Islamists in Britain is growing in scale and complexity. "I think the only sensible conclusion is that it is ... because if you look at the pace of terrorist activity since 9/11, it's clearly unabated and there appears to be a consistency, almost a regularity, in the attack patterns. "I don't want to sound unnecessarily gloomy, but I don't see many positive signs in terms of it being diminished." He points out that British authorities have managed to foil four or five attacks in the past 12 months. But the "sad probability" is that another attack will get through at some time....

Clarke says Britain's experience of Islamist terror, including last year's London bombings and the recently thwarted plot to blow up airliners flying to the US, is driving far-reaching changes in the way police now operate. It used to be that police would only intervene in the final stages of a terrorist plot, making arrests at or near the point of attack, with the strongest possible weight of evidence to put before a court. However, Clarke says the scale of the threat means "we can no longer afford to wait until that moment". "It's a complete shift in scale. Mentally we have had to completely change our response in terms of interdiction and intervention to prevent an increased risk to the public."

Clarke says earlier action to pre-empt a mass casualty attack also dictates the need to engage closely with local communities as a key element of counter-terrorism strategy. He believes the British public is still not fully aware of the gravity of the threat posed by Islamist terror groups. This is despite the fact there are now 90 people awaiting trial on terrorism charges. "We have a whole series of trials which over the coming months and years will unfold in the UK. When that hard evidence is produced the public are able to see what has been planned over the last months and years, that will contribute to their understanding of the threat."

Clarke warns it is vital that the aviation industry examines the implications of the foiled plot for air travel. The plotters had been planning to smuggle liquid explosives on board several planes. "I can't go into details about the methodology except to say its very innovative. That will give a clue to the fact that now in response ... new protective measures are required. The methodology is such that there must be an enduring threat to air transport." So a serious threat to aviation safety remains which has to be addressed? "Absolutely," comes the reply.

More here

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Some blotted-out history: "It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S's: Slavery, Secession, Segregation and now Socialism. During the civil rights era of the 1960's, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools."

Alabama blacks unhappy with Donks: "Black Democrats will meet today to discuss their future with the state party and if they should support candidates with an "unacceptable agenda," a move one political analyst said could hurt the party in the Nov. 7 general election. The meeting is detailed in a letter by Alabama Democratic Conference Chairman Joe Reed to the leadership of the Alabama Democratic Conference and other party officials. A copy of the Sept. 12 letter obtained by the Montgomery Advertiser states the meeting in Prattville is dedicated to determining the "quality and status" of the group's relationship to the party and "whether it is in our best interest to continue to maintain our present relationship.... Although the letter questions whether the conference should endorse certain Democratic candidates, the meeting has "nothing to do" with the state party granting its nomination to state legislative candidate Patricia Todd, said Jerome Gray, the conference's field director. Todd is white and openly gay. She was chosen over Gaynell Hendricks, a black candidate".

Homosexuals Prey on Young Boys (Comment by Dick McDonald): "Don't give me any crap about the political correctness of my headline. I was reared in West Hollywood, CA and can tell you as a young blonde athlete of the many encounters I had with homosexuals trying to blow me. Luckily my girlfriend's father was the Chief Commander of the Hollywood Police Station and gave me simple hints how to handle their approaches. One of the simplest was to reply to their standard line "I hear there are a lot of fags in Hollywood" to a hitch hiker like me was by emphatically stating "Yeah I turned one in last night" whereupon the car would screech to a halt and the "fellow" would tell me he wasn't going "my way" anymore. He had to turn. So what do we have now? Representative Tom Foley (R), the Co-Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, resigned today with the disclosure of sexually explicit e-mails he sent to a 16 year-old page and the hint that he has a history with other pages as well. Tom wrote the young page to inquire "Do I make you a little horny?" How sick is that? Apparently it was well known in Washington that Foley was light in the shoes. How he got to manage "exploited" children is a mystery; a serious management error by the Republican leadership. If you think about it, it is stranger than fiction. Democrat supporters of gay rights are going to forget their support temporarily, the political advantage is just too delicious."

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

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

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

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

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

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2 October, 2006

HATE IS BASIC TO LEFTISM

Let's face it, when you get right down to it, all of liberalism is fueled by a singular strategy-a strategy which has been continually perfected and relentlessly executed over the past forty years. That strategy is to promote and exploit divisiveness. Everything liberal politicians do is based on this simple principle. Tell the people that are given to hating the most, that they are the ones who are hated. Tell the people who expect the most, that they deserve more. Tell blacks to hate whites. Tell women to hate men. Tell the lazy to hate the motivated. Tell the poor that only conservatives are rich, and then be sure to tell them to hate them for it.

Class warfare, race baiting, name calling and man-hating-all with a singular goal: to get themselves in power by promoting and exploiting divisiveness. Of course, once this divisiveness turns into frenzy, these same people suddenly act as if they actually want to solve a problem that didn't even exist before they did everything they possibly could to create it. To liberals, every issue, every situation is an opportunity to divide. History, religion, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the death of a soldier, a political debate, the hurricane which devastated New Orleans. Every tragedy exploited to divide. Every victory belittled to divide. Every incident, every word, every distorted statistic, every holiday-you name it, they will find some way to divide it.

Unfortunately, it's not just the politicians who promote and exploit divisiveness; it is the people as well. Malcontents, jealous of anyone with any sort of success, come up with any way they can to attack those who are more successful then they are. Someone is rich only because they stole something from them. Certain groups are more successful only because they took advantage of them. Work has nothing to do with it. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. Planning ahead has nothing to do with it. Even luck has nothing to do with it.

And what do these kinds of people view as the solution to this imaginary injustice? Why special rights, privileges and opportunities for themselves, of course. Level the playing field. Get something for nothing. Take from the rich, the white, the male dominated, homophobic society that has already given them everything. Take what they have, what they built, what they earned-whether it be money, property, liberty or opportunity-and find some way, some justification, some cause or some guise to redistribute it to the people who have done nothing to earn it. To people who refuse to compete on merit. To people who insist on taking more out of society than what they put in to it. To people who don't give a damn that their inclusion comes only at the expense of someone else's exclusion. The strategy is simple, really-promote divisiveness and then exploit it for your own benefit.

But differences have given liberals the perfect opportunity to stop any rational discussion dead in its tracks. Differences have led to polarization. Differences have led to countries within a country. Differences have led to the dreaded xist-ism-monger-phobia. Differences have allowed liberals to add any of these four sounds to the end of any word they choose, virtually guaranteeing that they can get away with anything they want.

Worse yet, liberals actually have the nerve to turn around and endlessly accuse conservatives of divisiveness. To them, conservatives- who believe everyone should be held to the same standards-are somehow divisive. To them, conservatives-who believe everyone should have the same rights regardless of the guises used to justify different ones for different people-are somehow divisive. To them, conservatives-who sacrifice their time, money, careers and often their lives to defend the true meaning of freedom and liberty-are somehow divisive.

But the reality is that divisiveness does not come from those who are trying to make some contribution to our society. The reality is that divisiveness does not come from those who expect others to at least try to do the same. The reality is that divisiveness comes from those who are always trying to get something out of a society far beyond what they are willing to put back in. The reality is that divisiveness comes from those who are always trying to get something for nothing.

More here. See also here

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Korea: Test tube on socialism vs capitalism: "Permit me to add something to Secretary Rumsfeld’s observations on the different results in North and South Korea. (Living in South Korea for a year was one of the things that cured me of my youthful leftism.) The Korean people may be the most ethnically homogeneous people on earth. About 60 percent have one of only three surnames: Lee, Kim, and Park. North and South Korea had the same history from the dawn of history until 1945. The Korean peninsula is small, and about 45 percent constitutes the South. At the time of partition through about 1960, I’d say, the economy of the North was more developed than that of the South. The North had a smaller population, but one that was arguably better educated than the South’s. The North had more industry, too. During the 1950s, the South was absolutely destitute, and survived on food donations from the United States. Thus, in 1945, an “experiment of nature” was carried out. Take a small, homogeneous country and divide it arbitrarily more or less in half. Then install one kind of government in the north and another kind in the south. Close the curtain. See what happens. The results speak for themselves, don’t they? Fifty years of Communism produced famine, or near famine. Fifty years of an increasingly free-market system produced prosperity and wider political freedom. What more does anyone need to know about socialism?

New disclosure rules reveal where union bosses spend: "For the first time, federal disclosure rules are shining sunlight upon union spending priorities, and many rank-and-file members won't like what they reveal. Fortunately, they can do something about it. Among other pursuits, unions such as the AFL-CIO and National Education Association (NEA) spent 60% or more of their discretionary dollars on partisan political activities in 2004-2005, compared to 40% or less on actual work-related representation activities."

Increasing freedom increases growth: "States that have lower taxes, smaller government and flexible labor markets tend to have comparatively more economic growth. An annual report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and Canada's Fraser Institute attempts to quantify each state's economic freedom, and then examine what this means for economic growth. This year's report points to good news for all but a few states, most notably New Mexico."

The Antifederalists were right : "September 27 marks the anniversary of the publication of the first of the Antifederalist Papers in 1789. The Antifederalists were opponents of ratifying the US Constitution. They feared that it would create an overbearing central government, while the Constitution's proponents promised that this would not happen. As the losers in that debate, they are largely overlooked today. But that does not mean they were wrong or that we are not indebted to them."

From Far Left to libertarian : "The question of how I became a libertarian ultimately is a question about how I changed my mental model of the political system from one of 'good guys vs. villains' to one of the importance of limited government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. I travelled the route from Far Left to libertarian. I think that quite a few libertarians have travelled that route, and yet I cannot think of anyone who has gone the other direction. This leads me to suspect that: 1. Far Leftists and libertarianism have much in common. 2. Libertarians know something that Far Leftists do not."

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

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

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

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

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1 October, 2006

LEFTISTS NEED CONTROL

One can't exaggerate how large Fox looms in the liberal imagination. They see it as huge and mighty and credit it with almost mythical powers. It is a propaganda channel whose mission it is to destroy the Democratic Party. That's part of why Clintons' performance had such salience. Finally he was standing up to an evil empire. It is odd that they are so spooked. In October America is set to become a nation of 300 million. What a big country. Fox News's average evening prime-time viewership is less than two million. Its average daytime is less than a million. And if my mail is an indication, they're already Republicans. Fox's power is that it is an alternative to the mainstream media. It did not take its shape by deeply inhaling liberalism and slowly breathing it out.

The left sees Fox as a symptom and promoter of anarchy. The old unity, the old essential unity one used to experience when one turned on the TV in 1950 or 1980, has been fractured, broken up. We are becoming balkanized. Fox, blogs, talk radio, the Internet, citizen reporters--it's all producing cacophony, and heralds a future of No Compromise. No one trusts the information they're given anymore, as they trusted Uncle Walter. This is bad for the country.

It is an odd thing about modern liberals that they're made anxious by the unsanctioned. A conservative is more likely to see what's happening as freedom. It isn't that honest and impartial news lost its place of respect, it's that establishment liberalism lost its journalistic monopoly. And it was a monopoly. Not everyone believed Uncle Walter. Uncle Walter, and Chet and David, were all there was. But while they reigned, Americans were buying "Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater, and Reagan was quietly rising way out in California, and Spiro Agnew and Bill Safire were issuing mainstream hits like "effete snobs" and "nattering nabobs." In the time liberals think of as the last great unified era, Americans were rising up.

The new media did not divide us. The new media gave voice to our divisions. The result: more points of view, more subjects discussed, more data presented. This, in a great republic, a great democracy, a leader of the world in a dangerous time, is not bad but good.

More here

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ELSEWHERE



UT: Trio asks court to overturn polygamy ban: "A Utah couple and a woman who wants to become the second wife in their family are asking a Denver-based federal appeals court to overturn Utah's ban on polygamy, saying it violates their rights to religion, association and privacy. A Salt Lake County clerk refused to issue a marriage license in December 2003 when G. Lee Cook and the second woman -- accompanied by Cook's wife -- applied. About a year later, a federal judge dismissed their lawsuit, saying the clerk properly followed state laws and rejecting arguments that those laws violate the rights of people who believe in plural marriage. On Monday, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals formally accepted written arguments submitted earlier this year. There was no indication when they might rule."

Argentina: Pupils to learn Britain "colonised" Falklands: "A new history book describing how Britain illegally 'colonised' the Falkland Islands is to be distributed to every secondary school pupil in Argentina. The book accuses British forces of arriving secretly on the islands in the 18th century and taking it by force from the Spanish. Since then the British have refused offers to discuss the islands' sovereignty with Argentina, the book claims. ... According to the Argentinian version of events, the Falklands became part of Argentina after it declared independence from Spain in 1810. The new Argentinian government 'considered [the Falklands] an integral part of its territory, inherited from Spain by succession,' the book says. The British version of events reads differently. It maintains that an expeditionary force led by the Royal Navy reached West Falkland in 1765 and, on finding it unoccupied, took formal possession of the Falklands."

UK: "Anti-junk mail" postman keeps job: "The rebel postman who became a populist hero when he championed the case against junk mail is to keep his job, it was announced yesterday. Roger Annies, 45, won praise from customers and environmental campaigners when he told householders on his route how to avoid some of the 21 billion pieces of junk mail which are put through Britain's letterboxes each year. Taking matters into his own hands the father-of-one, from Barry, south Wales, designed and circulated a leaflet highlighting Royal Mail's opt-out clause for unsolicited mail. ... Mr Annies was suspended and faced a disciplinary hearing for his intervention. Yesterday, however, a company spokesman said he had been reinstated."

Taxachusetts still very taxing: "Fees and taxes have increased more than $700 million a year under Governor Mitt Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, a leading budget specialist said yesterday. Michael J. Widmer -- president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, which closely tracks state finances -- said the state has raised roughly $740 million to $750 million per year by increasing fees and corporate taxes gained from what the Romney administration describes as 'closing loopholes.' Widmer's figure is about $500 million more than what Romney asserted yesterday when he sharply disputed charges by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deval L . Patrick that the GOP administration had raised millions in taxes. But it is also tens of millions less than the $985 million that Patrick cited."

Arnie vetoes drivers' licence bill: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation Thursday to allow illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses, marking the eighth consecutive year such proposals have died. Senate Bill 1162 was a far weaker proposal than had been pushed in years past, recognizing the string of defeats and bitter political friction over the issue in an election year. The veto marked one of dozens of actions taken Thursday by Schwarzenegger, who is racing to meet a deadline of midnight Saturday to sign or veto about 500 bills remaining on his desk".

Neuro wine in old bottles : "In the September 18 edition of The New Yorker magazine, writer John Cassidy leads a fascinatin-g tour through parts of the new field of neuroeconomics, the study of the neurological underpinnings of economic decision-making. Sadly, a number of the economists Cassidy interviews are stuck in a conceptual quagmire about the relationship between reason, emotion, and paternalistic public policy. Cassidy, a good journalist, inherits their confusion. There is, in fact, nothing in the research Cassidy reviews that helps to justify, in his words, 'a new political philosophy based on the idea of saving people from the vagaries of their limbic regions.'"

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

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

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

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