ELSEWHERE

Reuters can't do arithmetic: With reference to the poor showing of Tony Blair's Labour Party in the EU elections, Reuters says: "Voters punished the prime minister for waging war in Iraq". They also report that Labour got 23% of the vote, Conservatives got 27% and the Independence Party got 16%. But ALL THREE of those parties are in favour of the Iraq war. So 66% of Britons voted for pro-war parties! Very different from the lies peddled by Reuters! But it is what we have come to expect of Reuters, of course.

I am still steaming a little about the Leftist claim (summarized recently by Oliver Kamm) that Reagan's antinuclear stance made him a Leftist. At least in part, that denial springs from the conceit that only the Left are "antiwar" or "antinuclear". So if Reagan was antinuclear he must have been a Leftist. That is a total misrepresentation of conservatism and really is the most offensive arrogance. No person in his right mind, Left or Right, wants war, particularly a nuclear war. The only difference between Leftists and Rightists over the issue was the means adopted to avoid war. Conservatives had the guts to believe that there was some alternative to surrendering to tyranny and undertook the arduous task of deterring war through strength -- which in the end brought about the marvellous achievement for all humanity of both destroying the threat of nuclear war and destroying the world's most threatening tyranny as well. The only idea that Leftists had in the matter was surrender -- or "unilateral disarmament", as they called it. They probably rather fancied themselves as Soviet Commissars in a Communist State anyway. I have put up a fuller account of the defects in the Leftist claim here

A former deputy Prime Minister of Sweden says that European anti-Americanism and ant-Zionism are just the modern versions of old-fashioned Jew hatred. See here

Pammy Anderson backs PETA: "Pam went on the attack today with nothing in her corner but words -- and the letterhead of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. 'When you take a multimillion-dollar endorsement from a company,' she wrote Earnhardt (in a letter released to the media), 'you must also take some responsibility for the company's practices.' We could make the same point -- and a few others -- about Pammy's relationship with PETA. Anderson's Hollywood handlers might want to advise her that hooking up with a group that funds violent extremists, consistently opposes life-saving medical research, and cavalierly traumatizes millions of children might not be as good a career move as she thinks."

No free speech in Britain! "A 71 year old man has been banned from driving for warning other motorists of a speed trap up the road -- even though he wasn't in his car at the time! He was also ordered to pay 364 pounds in costs. Stuart Harding stood on the A325 near Farnborough [UK] with a sign saying 'Speed Trap -- 300 yards ahead.' He had stood there on previous occasions warning motorists to slow down because of a car boot sale up the road which generated a lot of pedestrian traffic. Police however took exception when Harding warned of their speed trap."

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never outgrown the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

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