ELSEWHERE

Some interesting history: The Pledge of Allegiance was originally a socialist idea designed to thwart Federalism. I am an atheist so people are welcome to pledge or not to their heart’s content as far as I am concerned. I wouldn’t bother anybody about it one way or the other. I was however a Christian fundamentalist in my teens and used to refuse to utter the daily pledge of allegiance to Queen and country that was then customary in Australian schools. As far as I was concerned at that time, my only allegiance was to God. But nobody really bothered me about it. They just thought I was a nut. A reader recently made a good point to me when he said that a lot of the opposition to the U.S. pledge is probably coming from atheists who are insecure in their atheism. I think the main motive for the opposition is just the usual Leftist attention-seeking, however. If they can upset ordinary people they will.

In response to my post yesterday about the “Do not call” list, one reader had an interesting response: “Not everyone who claims to hate telemarketers actually refuses to buy from or donate to them when called. The fact that the telemarketers oppose the list tells me the success rate with people on the list is high enough that it is profitable to keep calling them”.

Government “protection” being useless as usual: "Five undercover agents of the US Department of Homeland Security posing as passengers last week carried weapons through several security checkpoints at Logan International Airport without being detected. ... [A] source who works in security at Logan said the undercover agents, who work for the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, brought knives, a bomb, and a gun in carry-on baggage through several checkpoints at different terminals without being stopped."

Australia: "Victoria's hate laws were thrown into question yesterday when a judge said they might be in conflict with the Australian constitution. ... The constitution does not explicitly guarantee freedom of speech, but in two recent cases -- involving former New Zealand prime minister David Lange and animal rights activist Laurie Levy -- the High Court has ruled on rights to political free speech."

This writer thinks that sexual liberation has made it too easy for guys and too hard for women.

Here’s a lesson that GWB seems slow to learn: Free Trade can be a potent weapon against terrorism.

Chris Brand has answered some of the attacks made on a Danish psychologist who recently called for a VOLUNTARY eugenics program.

In my latest academic upload I take just one page to shoot down a claim by a Leftist Canadian psychologist that Australians are particularly “authoritarian” (see here and here). In his reply to my article, he admitted that he had made up (in his words “estimated”) a key statistic that he had used. Why am I not surprised? For more on the way Leftist academics make “facts” up see Windschuttle’s work and the Bellesiles affair. But the slightest hint of anything irregular in research that conservatives quote causes instantaneous condemnation of all concerned, as Chris Brand notes about the “Burt Affair”. Burt was in fact remarkably accurate in his once-disputed conclusions.

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

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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