ELSEWHERE

A current campaign by PETA is to get clothing stores to boycott clothing made with Australian wool. The "sex sells" crowd at Abercrombie & Fitch seem suddenly to have discovered morality -- or at least the PETA version of it -- and have fallen into line. This article has a good idea: Boycott Abercrombie & Fitch. I'm guessing that there are a lot more Americans who approve of Australia than approve of PETA. If it all happened it could really spike the guns of PETA for a long time.

There is an excellent article here on the Buttiglione affair -- where a devout Cathoic was denied a position in the adminstration of the EU because of his beliefs -- even though he made clear that his beliefs would have no influence on how he did his job. If he had been a Muslim, of course, they would have given him the job by acclamation. The article defines "secularist" as a religious skeptic who is intolerant of religion. I like that definition. It does make it clear that we were dealing with bigotry in the Buttiglione affair. I am myself an atheist but I am always pleased to deal with Christians. I think that having God in charge of quality control is a distinct advantage to me.

The famously Bush-hating Jonathan Chait has an article in which he defends the overwhelming Leftist bias in academe. He rejects the notion that underrepresentation implies bias, though he realizes that Leftists like himself normally make the opposite argument where blacks are concerned. That does rather highlight the difficulties that the dishonesty of Leftists gets them into. Chait in fact is forced to admit that conservatives are right and that lack of proportionality does not imply bias! A major backdown for a Leftist, it seems to me. He also has a point in saying that academe is not a natural career choice for a conservative, though I disagree with his reasons. Academe is a stuffy bureaucracy and conservatives prefer the more free-wheeling and wide-open business world. I was in academe for many years and I am in no doubt that most of my colleagues would not last 5 minutes in business. My own combination of actual success in both academe and business is certainly extremely rare. There are however many conservatives with academic ambitions and Chait ignores what almost every one of those people could tell him -- that you virtually cease to exist in academe once your conservative views are known. Like most conservatives who do make it into academe, I got an academic job before my political views were known but once they were known, the roadblocks put up to my further progress in academe were almost amusing in their compulsiveness and violation of academic principles. Chait is just not acknowledging the facts, which is what I expect from Leftists. I have more on the Leftist nature of academe here and Prof. Bainbridge also gives Chait a serve.

Soviet Britain: You can have as much free speech as you like in Britain as long as it is within prescribed bounds. Joe Stalin would agree. "Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, has been released on bail after his arrest in connection with an investigation into inciting racial hatred. It follows a television documentary exposing the extent of alleged racism in the organisation. Earlier it was revealed that the party's founding chairman John Tyndall had been held on Sunday."

There have been a few articles lately about how the Left is breeding itself out of existence. here is a summary.

At last! A bureaucracy dies: "State government rarely shrinks, but last week California's 3-year-old public power authority disappeared. Created by Democratic lawmakers in the tumultuous days of blackouts and price spikes, the agency sputtered to a halt after Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed its funding. ..."

Tom Barrett: "I have long believed that the United Nations is the most dangerous organization on our planet. The corruption that has been revealed there over the last few years has only reinforced my opinion. Now it is becoming apparent that the rampant corruption at the UN starts at the very top. More than any thing, the UN is a savagely anti-United States propaganda outlet. It is made up primarily of nations that hate or are jealous of the US..... "

There is an interesting contrast here between the way two poor countries -- India and Indonesia -- deal with Muslim violence. The terrorists mostly get a free pass in Indonesia but India prosecutes energetically. The British origins of India's legal system no doubt have a lot to do with it.

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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