ELSEWHERE

I am rather surprised that Australia is getting heavily involved with the North Korean problem. Korea is a long way from Australia. But we DID take part in the Korean war alongside the USA of course. And arms-carrying ships from Korea to the Middle East do have to pass fairly close to Australia.

Left-wing racism in The Guardian: "I have developed a habit when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I tend not to read it."

Any idea of a World Parliament is a pipedream, fortunately. It would be a socialist and bureaucratic nightmare otherwise. Socialists would love us to have yet more government but lots of us can see that we have far too much government as it is. But lots of prominent U.S. "liberals" (such as THE senator from New York) are supporting the world parliament nightmare. Most of the world cannot govern itself sensibly. Why would we want them governing us?

"A news release from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) claims a 'New Look at Satellite Data Supports Global Warming Trend.' But the NCAR result is based on the wishful thinking of well- known global warming promoters, rather than on solid science. ..."

The rich are already paying their fair share: "[T]he richest of the rich paid more and everyone else paid less, explains Bartlett. This information is not surprising to those who know that the top 1 percent of taxpayers have increased their tax share almost annually, from 19 percent in 1980 to 27 percent in 1988, despite the Reagan tax cuts, and to 37 percent in 2000. Interestingly, the same pattern holds in other countries.... In the United Kingdom, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 23 percent of income taxes this year."

The fatwa against fat: One of my regular readers has got very droll. He writes: "Following from recent postings about "the fat wars" and the left's fatwa against fast food, these two older articles here and here provide an interesting alternate take on this expanding issue."

Amazing: Lasagna is a British invention. They even called it that back in the 14th century.

The latest Carnival of the Vanities is here

China Hand seems satisfied with my view that Hong Kong's economic success traces back to its free market system rather than the virtues of Hong Kongers.

The Wicked one is dubious about how beneficial the contraceptive pill has been.

In my academic posting here (or here) I give a very thorough explanation and justification of the way I measure materialistic ambition.

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