ELSEWHERE

I think this article proves that mathematicians should not try to inject politics into their work. Popular mathematician Keith Devlin has decided in his wisdom to call some types of mathematical proof Right-wing and other types Left-wing. And no prizes for guessing which type of proof is derided. He says: "What is a proof? The question has two answers. The right wing ("right-or-wrong", "rule-of-law") definition is that a proof is a logically correct argument that establishes the truth of a given statement. The left wing answer (fuzzy, democratic, and human centered) is that a proof is an argument that convinces a typical mathematician of the truth of a given statement." I would have thought that any knowledge of political history would have shown him that both his sets of labels in fact describe conservatives. Conservatives do believe in the rule of law and that there is a difference between right and wrong but they are also fuzzy, democratic and human-centred. It is Leftists who have strict and simplistic formulas and moulds that they most want to fit us all into by force of law or by just plain force. How "fuzzy" and "human-centred" is that? Whereas from Edmund Burke on it is always conservatives who have stood up for democracy and humanity against Leftist revolutions and tyranny. At a time when the indisputably Leftist French revolution was -- in its "human centred" way -- guillotining people wholesale it was Burke who said that nothing in politics is simple and insisted on the wisdom of fuzzy, evolutionary democracy versus the bloodthirsty oversimplifiers and tyrants of the French revolution. And Stalin sure was a "human centred" guy too, wasn't he? And what a democrat he was! And it was really "fuzzy" the way he threw people into his Gulag at the drop of a hat wasn't it? And you've got to admire the guy for the way he rejected that boring old rule of law and made his own whim the only authority in Russia!

Seablogger is most naughtily cynical about the recurrent Greenie claim that Australia's coral reefs are dying and that ratifying the nonsensical Kyoto "global warming" treaty would fix it.

Australia's beloved "Middle-Easteners" again: "Up to seven shots were fired into a car yesterday morning during a dramatic road-rage incident in Sydney's southern suburbs. Several shots were fired, with three bullets lodging in the driver's side of the Honda. Police described the shooter as a male of Middle Eastern appearance". Great that Australia's strict gun-control laws keep guns out of their hands!

An outbreak of common-sense: "A study released last week by market research firm Heartbeat Trends concludes modern women no longer have a problem making it to the top of the corporate ladder if they want, but most opt to put more time and energy into their family instead". How the radical feminists must be fuming!

Martha McCarthyism: "Stewart is being tried not for her crimes (though crimes there may have been) but for who she is - rich, famous, and abusive to the help."

Is Europe becoming irrelevant? "Europe has lost its leverage in all the places that matter. The EU's star is faint in America, Russia and the Middle East" And Germany's major news-magazine thinks Germany has become a laughing stock too -- and asks: "Are we a nation of failures, not fit for the future, governed by bungling amateurs?" Need I say more? As a lover of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart etc., I am an instinctive Germanophile but from Hitler to Schroeder, socialism has been a recurrent disaster for Germany.

An American military strategist points out that GWB's pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein was not only good conservative caution but something that has good precedent in American military history: "Times have changed. The events of September 11, 2001 were a mere appetizer for the potential buffet of almost unimaginable violence that could befall the United States from enemies not bound by conventional restraints... In response, the President of the United States has proclaimed the Bush Doctrine.... The Bush Doctrine defines the enemy threat as a horrible combination of radicalism and technology that is not vulnerable to Cold War concepts of deterrence and containment. That is, terrorist groups and rogue states, who are unrestrained by the prospect of mutually assured destruction, create a new threat that demands an unprecedented response. To wait until they attack, as we might have historically preferred, is a far greater risk then can be justified. As President Bush warned at West Point, "If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long"."

Daniel Pearl's widow says the "Wall Street Journal" has done nothing to see that his muderers are punished. They haven't even hired lawyers in Pakistan. What does it take? Are their reporters expendable?

According to this British school teacher, British schools are so preoccupied with getting students to behave -- now that most disciplinary measures have been outlawed -- that learning anything at all comes a distant second.

I have just put up some more lively postings from Chris Brand -- including the good news that Britain seems to be about to recognize different abilities in different students in its schools.

There is a VERY funny act of revenge on a Nigerian scamster here. Note that, unlike a blog, it is NOT in last-date-first format. Via Agitprop

Blogarama is a useful site. They must be: They have got this blog listed at the top of their Right-wing politics section.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Another example of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries!

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