ELSEWHERE

Michael Tremoglie says that labor unions have brought their problems on themselves.

More Leftist eugenics: Australia's (Left of centre) Leader of the Opposition is always reminding us of (some of) the thoughts of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but when Holmes wasn't telling us that 'taxes are the basis of civilization' he was ordering compulsory sterilizations of the mentally ill: Yet another forgotten American inspiration for Adolf.

Trust Leftists not to be able to see the difference between a voluntary program and one enforced by the State: "To its critics, Project Prevention or Crack -- an American organisation which pays drug addicts and alcoholics to be sterilised - - is a terrifying throwback to the neutering of 'defectives' during the 20th Century. But the woman who runs this not-for-profit programme believes she is offering a service to everyone: the drug addict, the taxpayer, the child who has not yet been born, and if she has her way -- will never be born."

Former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia and a critic of the NATO and Canadian intervention there, has pointed out some of the contradictions of the opponents of the Iraq war, who supported 'humanitarian intervention' in Kosovo. Apparently if there is a national security concern intervention is bad. Only do-gooder interventionism is ok!

This map shows something I have been nagging people about for years -- the way English-speakers customarily misname other countries (Scroll down to "Other Follies" here). Pity the Hellenes (Greeks) most of all, though. Other people have been calling their country "Greece" (which they themselves call "Hellas") for over 2,000 years.

I like the Sikhs so this is a very sad story for me: "A[n Arizona] man accused of fatally shooting an Indian immigrant four days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was acting out of a rage fueled by prejudice... [Frank Silva] Roque is accused of killing gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year-old who wore a beard and turban as part of his Sikh faith. Sodhi was neither Muslim nor from the Middle East, as the terrorist hijackers had been."

The Supreme Court again has institutionalized the second-class citizenship of African Americans with a strange twist on the old segregationist policy of reserving some privileges for "whites only." Only, this time around, the court seems to be saying that high standards in education are permissible only for white people.

If the old Leninist Left was buried politically in the rubble of the Berlin wall, the literary-academic intelligentsia disappeared morally in the ashes of the 9/11 ground zero.

"A science fiction author. A cashier at Wal-Mart. A pair of libertarian writers. All decry what they see as an increasing trend: appeasement of the less worthy; a pandering to the 'weaknesses and vices of others;' appealing to the self-righteously dependent and unproductive. And for what? Where is the 'profit' involved in this degradation?" More here

Good if it happens: GWB says that his new education law aims at raising the bar for student achievement "The law sets a clear goal for American education: Every child, in every school, must perform at grade level in reading and math, which are the keys to all learning." The initiative "seeks to improve achievement, particularly among poor students, through expanded testing, tougher quality requirements for teachers, yearly monitoring of student progress and sanctions for schools that fail to improve."

Bruce Bartlett says Bush isn't controlling domestic spending, Reagan did a better job of it under much tougher circumstances -- reducing Federal spending from 4.7% of national income to 3.1%. -- "Ronald Reagan had his faults, but he never conceded the principle that government should be as small as possible to do what it has to do".

Some things are so obvious that even the blind can see them: "European Union foreign ministers on Saturday denounced the political wing of Hamas as a terrorist organization following the group's claim of responsibility for a truce-shattering bomb attack in Jerusalem."

The Wicked one notes the big growth in government under GWB and says: "Bring back Clinton".

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