I TURN 61 TODAY

I've got the key of the door.
Never been 61 before...
or something....




SOME RECENT BUT FORGOTTEN HISTORY

From a reader: "Leftists seem to have very selective memories about the Clinton Administration. The truth is that it was more of a Republican Administration after the 1994 Congressional elections. The 1994 elections did two things. They placed Clinton on notice that he would be trounced in 1996 if he continued along the same path and it unshered in a Republican Congress that was truly revolutionary in its desire to make changes for the better. The State of the Union address in January 1995 when Clinton announced that the "era of big Government to be over"was forced on him even if he didn't really mean it. Prior to the elections Clinton did a few things that really got the electorate angry with him. He raised taxes after he said he wasn't going to. He tried to usher in the Hillary health care reform that was despised by the American people and he introduced some silly changes in the military brought forward by the feminist lobby.

Up until 1994 Clinton was talked about as a one term president because his tax increases had again belted the economy around and growth was pretty enemic. Similarly bond rates had also gone up and the stock market was depressed. It was the Republican Congress which ushered in a welfare reform and introduced spending cuts and host of other things. Clinton took credit for these reforms and while the economy was turning around managed to triangulate these issue for himself. Jobs grew during the Clinton tenure because the Congress introduced sweeping welfare reforms, cut spending and stopped Leftist policies in their tracks. Up until 1995 the economy was sluggish, described as a jobless expansion. If Leftists like the growth rates of the 90's, someone needs to ask them what part of the Republican 10-point "contract with America" do they like?"

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CALVINISM

I must admit to being a bit surprised at this post. A blogger is boasting of being a Calvinist. Although a born-and-bred Presbyterian myself, I thought that nobody these days identified as a Calvinist. The fact that Calvin burnt the brilliant scientist Servetus at the stake would make most people hesitant about mentioning Calvin these days, I would think. The Calvinists actually denounced Servetus to the Spanish Inquisition but when he escaped the Spaniards, the Calvinists burnt him themselves. Amazing. He was arrested while attending church in Geneva, convicted of heresy and blasphemy against Christianity, and burned at the stake on October 27, 1553.

And what was Servetus's great sin? He reported the circulation of the blood in 1553, among other things -- long before William Harvey reported it in 1628. Servetus's biggest blunder, however, was to point to what a lot of gobbledegook that great theological compromise known as the doctrine of the Trinity is. Although the doctrine originated as a solution to battles among the Christian fanatics of old Byzantium around the year 300 A.D., Calvinists still believe it (or try to) to this day. I did a post on the most distinctive doctrine of Calvinism on June 11th.

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ELSEWHERE

Keith Burgess-Jackson has recently told his readers what sort of music he likes so maybe (seeing it's my birthday) I should do that too. Pretty simple really: Bach and Mozart at the top of the tree with other strong contenders being Haendel, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Monteverdi, Beethoven, Elgar, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky ... and Philip Glass. Boffin-stuff, I know. But they really do great things for me. Bach transports me into another world.

Democrat hypocrisy is well summed up in a list on Front Page Magazine. Excerpt: "Clinton spends $77 billion on war in Serbia - good... Bush spends $87 billion in Iraq - bad. Clinton awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Yugoslavia - good... Bush awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Iraq - bad. Clinton allows UN weapons inspectors to be kicked out of Iraq - good... Bush does not allow UN weapons inspectors to search Iraq for eternity - bad. Clinton imposes regime change in Serbia - good... Bush imposes regime change in Iraq - bad."

The pot calling the kettle black: "Three countries -- India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey -- voted to refer the Israeli security fence to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion, even though they had themselves built barriers in areas contested by their neighbors, write David Makovsky and Ben Thein of the Washington Institute. * India is just completing a 460-mile barrier in contested Kashmir to halt infiltrations supported by Pakistan. * Within the last two years, Saudi Arabia built a 60-mile barrier along an undefined border zone with Yemen to halt smuggling of weaponry. * Turkey built a barrier in an area that Syria claims as its own."

The NEA: "Of course, the NEA's focus isn't on children's success. It's on money for itself and its members. After all, it's a labor union. And as Albert Shanker, the former president of the NEA's main rival, the American Federation of Teachers, once said, 'I'll start representing kids when kids start paying union dues.'"

The weirdness of Nader: "On June 28 in Washington, D.C., Candidate/Citizen Ralph Nader gave a speech under the auspices of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Nader skips blithely over the murderous events of September 11. Not a word does he devote to the nineteen Muslim jihadists who captured American civilian airliners and piloted them into the Trade Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, VA, a bloody field in Pennsylvania. But, he has room for this: We should remember the crusades. We should remember over 200 years between 1095 and the following 200 years. Armies from Christendom moved in to Asia Minor, slaughtering as they went. In one conflict, the Christian generals took out 2500 Muslim prisoners and beheaded them--just one conflict."

Saudi Arabian socialized medicine no good either: "Huda Baghaffer had suffered a heart attack on the beach and relatives found no medical staff at the North Obhur clinic.. In a complaint filed with the Ministry of Health, the victim's sister, Hind Baghaffar, describes what happened. "We were all at the beach when my sister fell unconscious, which we later discovered was a result of a heart attack. We rushed her to the nearest medical facility, which was the North Obhur clinic. When we arrived, there weren't any doctors or nurses in the emergency room except for three Bangladeshi workers who refused to let us in," she said. "They said the nurses had left ten minutes earlier and that the doctor was at the supermarket".

Cowardly British cops: "Neighbours want to know why two women were left to bleed to death while police with machine guns carried out a 'risk assessment' from four miles away." All British cops know these days is political correctness. The real police are long gone.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of reading -- interspersed with a lot of stuff about rock music.

Chris Brand has a new lot of his exceedingly incorrect postings up.

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

I have a new rubric below.

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Puzzle 1: Leftists always say that human nature is fundamentally good and that people can be trusted. So why do they say that whilst at the same time wanting to regulate everybody to death and take as many decisions and choices out of the hands of the individual as they possibly can? Easy: They say that about human nature because, if it is true, then THEY are good at heart and can be trusted -- and, given their destructive deeds, they need all the propaganda help they can get in that regard.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

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