MISSED ANNIVERSARY!

As almost any woman will tell you, most men are very bad at remembering anniversaries, birthdays, etc. Wise women just issue lots of reminders. I am a particularly bad case of poor memory for such things. And I can now prove that it's not ill-intended. I forgot to note the anniversary of this blog when it occurred over a month ago! -- on July 10th. So I have now been blogging for just over two years. It actually feels like I have been blogging forever. And I think I can by now say that there is no chance of me suffering from "burnout", as many bloggers do after a while. I am quite taciturn in everday life but I never find any shortage of things to blog about. I am a sort of Marcel Marceau in reverse. Marceau is famous for not speaking on stage but is/was apparently quite a chatterbox when not on stage.

That reminds me: I started out blogging on a different address from this and I have in the past used quite a number of blogspot sites to put up stuff -- most of which I have now deleted in favour of simple files here or here. I notice however that some kind soul has taken over one of my abandoned blogspot addresses and reposted there some selections from my writings. If he wants to contact me, I might be able to give him something more recent to post.

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THE TURKISH CONUNDRUM

Hmmm... I have mixed feelings about this one: The Vatican opposes Turkey's accession to the EU on the apparent grounds that it wants to keep Europe Christian. A number of thoughts spring to mind: 1). Europe is now much more post-Christian than Christian so is it not a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted? 2). Who cares what the EU does? 3). As the only genuine Islamic democracy, Turkey needs all the encouragement it can get; 4). Turkey would probably be better off out of the highly bureaucratic EU anyway. But on the other hand I can see the Vatican's point that a common culture is important in fostering social harmony -- a point that even Leftist intellectuals such as Kojeve have occasionally perceived. And there is no doubt that Muslim traditions and values are very different from values and traditions formed by Christianity.

More importantly, however, Turkey's accession would mean a virtually uncontrolled flood of Muslims from throughout the Middle East into Europe. If I were a European, I think I would most certainly oppose that. Allowing Muslims who have made a godawful mess of their own countries to import their destructive ways into Europe seems madness to me. And I cannot see that we can expect Turkey to exert any effective border control over its long borders with many other Middle Eastern countries when even the USA cannot control its border with Mexico. So once Turkey was in the EU, half the Middle East would in time end up as EU residents and thus be free to move to any other part of the EU if and when they chose. Lots of lovely Iraqis and Syrians and Iranians for Britain!

And how could Turkey possibly be accepted as a good European citizen when it is already holding down by military force a large part of another European country (Cyprus) that it seized only a few decades ago? It should withdraw its army from Cyprus before discussions even begin!

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ELSEWHERE

Der Spiegel ("The Mirror") is a major German newsmagazine. It is frantically anti-American. David's Medienkritik shows how utterly deceitful is the account it gives of Larry King's interview with President Bush. David's Medienkritik also has a good laugh about the effects of the planned big withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany.

On 8th., I put up a brief extract from an excellent article by Eric Alan Beltt which contends -- as I do -- that Leftism is a psychological state rather than any coherent political philosophy or set of ideas. The article was originally published on his blog and received a lot of comments. His answers to the comments make a very useful extension to the original article and are well worth reading. See here.

Political pretenders: "Sometimes little things can tell you about big things. While Sen. John Kerry and his running-mate Sen. John Edwards were recently photographed at lunchtime at Wendy's, to show what regular guys they are, their real lunch was from a local yacht club, which is more their speed in real life. There is nothing wrong with eating lunch from or at a yacht club. What is wrong is being phony -- and thinking the American people need to be conned. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president four times while never pretending to be anything other than what he was, a born member of the elite class."

"Racist like me": "One reason for bigotry's maddening intractability is that a determination -- however knee-jerk, superficial, or unthinkingly made -- that something or someone is racist ends the discussion, as happened with my friend. The verdict is 'guilty' and the only punishment is forfeiture of the right to consider yourself a decent human being. Better to be a necrophiliac than an admitted bigot. Yet if we are to evolve on the issue of race, the notion that you, or someone else, is racist ought to function as the beginning of the attainment of full humanity, not the proof that you've relinquished it."

Blogging while black: "Right-of-center black bloggers, in fact, seem to be entering that public eye almost daily. That shouldn't be a surprise, given statistics on growing Internet usage among black Americans, and the revelation that a quarter of young blacks consider themselves conservative .... the Internet is suddenly full of great black writers whose views aren't monolithic -- you'll find almost-daily disagreements about affirmative action, President Bush or the morality of gangsta rap -- but instead offer a vibrant, hip-hop generation alternative to the broken record of the civil-rights establishment."

"The world of celebrity and the world of the Democratic Party are now joined at the hip. They are one. Their interests, presumably, coincide.... Isn't it becoming harder by the day to take the Democrats seriously as the party of the common man and the left-out? Besides these people, the party's primary sources of support have become trial lawyers and Wall Street financiers. It is becoming a party run by a new class of elites who make fast money--$25 million for 30 days work on a movie, millions (even billions) winning lawsuits against doctors or asbestos users, millions to do arithmetic for a business merger. But they're all running against "Halliburton." ... The days when in the same breath you said AFL-CIO, blue-collar and Democrats are gone. The industrial unions, which connected the party to its authentic roots, are downstairs and out of sight of the nouveau arriviste Democrats."

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH leads off with a pretty horrific story today.

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

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Leftists acclaim "diversity" yet say "All men are equal". Figure that one out.

Why can those who claim to understand the dangers of meddling with a complex ecosystem like the natural environment, not understand that government interference with a complex system like the economy is perilous too?

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

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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