ELSEWHERE

There are a couple of news reports here and here of the demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in Manhattan at the moment. There is a good report from the conservative counter-demonstrators here. I am told that some of my readers were there.

Peg Kaplan reports a prescription for Black success that would undoubtedly work. A very similar prescription works fine for Asians.

62% of US Senators are attorneys. Their average number of years in elected office is 24; and 97 of the 100 Senators are career politicians. "We keep sending the same old people to the Senate, year after year. They debate the same old topics, and come up with the same old, tired conclusions ... and we wonder why our Social Security System is on the verge of bankruptcy.why there is still no immigration policy that is fair to all.why a great public education is a thing of the past." But it's not the Senators' fault - it's our fault for sending the same old people to the Senate year after year. Many of them had their last fresh thought twenty years ago. Most have never worked for a living, so they have no clue what you and I go through every work day. They exist in their plush ivory tower where their every whim is catered to because WE allow it.

One reason for the African IQ problem: "Western experts tend to tiptoe around the issue of how malnourishment makes people less intelligent, but local experts sometimes do not. "If your brain is stunted when you are young, that affects the decisions you make in later life. If you can't do simple arithmetic, you won't invest wisely. The cost of that will be very high," says Tomaida Msisika, a consultant on food security in Malawi. Sam Chimwaza, an analyst for Malawi's Famine Early Warning Systems Network, says that the reasoning ability of people in rural areas has been affected by malnutrition and it is hard for them to execute simple instructions. "They can work as servants in the city for two or three years and still not figure out how to adjust the temperature on an iron," he says."

In response to an idea from one of my readers, I have just started a new blogspot site (not really a blog) called SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. It is just a place where I have gathered together just about all of my past posts on the subject so people can see how the "compassion" behind socialized medicine works out in real-life. (Hint: The compassion is basically non-existent). I will keep posting to it periodically as relevant news items come up but I foresee the principal usefulness of the site as a standing resource for use in any discussions of socialized medicine that my readers might get into. Links, submissions and suggestions for the site are of course very welcome. I also of course have another such narrowly focused site in LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS.

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

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The vast hatred of President Bush coming from the Left seems to focus almost entirely on his Iraq policy and a claim that it is "stupid" or dishonest. Yet the world's most successful and influential Leftist intellectual -- the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom -- is a vigorous supporter of that policy. It shows that everything said to justify the Leftist hatred of Bush is mere camouflage. What they really hate is someone non-Leftist wielding great power. The hatred is purely emotional and envious -- with only the slightest pretense to reasoning tacked on. As usual, principles have nothing to do with it.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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