ELSEWHERE

That old Marxist fraud, Theodor Adorno, still gets lots of respect in Leftist cultural circles so Denis Dutton's review of Adorno's book about astrology is a welcome corrective: "Karl Popper's famous critique of pseudoscience lumps Freud, astrology, and Marxism together. The difficulty with these theories, Popper said, is not that they don't explain enough, but rather that they explain too much. There is no imaginable human event which they cannot seize upon and place neatly in their theoretical scheme; they are unfalsifiable by experience. Despite my deep sympathy with Adorno's contempt for the occult, there is something similar going on here. If Adorno doesn't like something, no matter how inane or innocuous, it isn't long before he begins to detect in it the seeds of fascism." An amusing story: Theodor's original surname was "Wiesengrund" -- after his father -- but he obviously disliked such an obviously Ashkenazi name and adopted his dancer mother's Spanish stagename as his surname. So, translated into English, he went from being Theodor Meadowland to being Theodor Ornament: About as nutty as his theories. Adorno still has his disciples in psychology too. I have just put up (here or here) one of my published articles demolishing one such disciple.

This article says that public language has become full of waffle and obscurity these days. It's true. But you will find all straight talk on this blog. Even in my academic journal articles I always tried my best to put things simply and plainly and other academics often used to say to me things along the lines of: "We mightn't agree with you but at least we understand what you are saying".

French antisemitism: "During demonstrations in May 2002 organized by France's mainstream antiracist organizations, protesters shouted anti-Semitic slogans and tried to attack a couple of passers-by whom they believed to be Jewish... Since then, the Chirac government has made the crackdown on anti-Semitism a top priority. It has taken a series of emergency steps, from tighter policing of Jewish sites to quicker investigation and prosecution of hate crimes to proposing a heightened focus on the Holocaust in the public school curriculum." It should be noted thyat the Chirac government is a conservative one in French terms and that it was the preceding socialist government that did nothing about antisemitism.

France being such a hotbed of antisemitism, I can see their point on this one: "French cinema chains are refusing to distribute or screen Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ because of fears that it may spark a new outbreak of anti-Semitism."

No freedom of religion on the Left coast: "A Roman Catholic charitable organization must include birth control coverage in its health care plan for workers even though it is morally opposed to contraception, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday."

A statistical fluke if ever there was one: "Research from the University of Chicago's Centre on Ageing shows that daughters born to fathers in their late 40s or older live, on average, three years less than other women, yet their brothers are not affected."

Sending call-centre jobs to India: "It is inevitable in a networked world that our economy is going to shed certain low-wage, low-prestige jobs. To the extent that they go to places like India or Pakistan -- where they are viewed as high-wage, high-prestige jobs -- we make not only a more prosperous world, but a safer world for our own 20-year-olds."

Homosexual "marriage": "How about government simply getting out of the marriage-license-granting business? (Ditto for government licenses necessary to cut hair, drive a taxi, open a business or enter a profession.) Leave marriage to non-governmental institutions, like churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship or private institutions. Adultery, although legal, remains a sin subject to societal condemnation. It's tough to legislate away condemnation or legislate in approval. Those who view same-sex marriage as sinful will continue to do so, no matter what the government, the courts or their neighbors say."

VD Hanson: "Preemption is a concept as old as the Greeks. It perhaps was first articulated in the fourth book of Thucydides's history... What is new is the absolutist, blanket condemnation of the strategy altogether. In short, preemption is now a politicized, debased word. It is part of the anti-Bush lexicon and has lost any real meaning for the foreseeable future of its usage. The same may be true of "multilateralism" and "unilateralism... The Left's problem is not our embrace of the concept of "unilateralism" per se - or it would have attacked Clinton's U.N.-be-damned use of force in Iraq, Kosovo, and Haiti. No, the rub is something altogether different. A Christian, southern-accented, conservative Republican president, coming off a disputed election, has chosen to preempt. "

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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.

Three more examples 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! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

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