ELSEWHERE

A good comment from The Times: "This time of year captures, perhaps better than any other, the defining characteristic of Americans in the modern world — their lack of cynicism and scepticism, their enduring hope and faith in themselves, their country and even the world around them".

How French! "Police suspect a French prosecutor of paying a prostitute with a stolen credit card just hours after addressing a conference on ethics, a Justice Ministry source says."

Jim Bennett has just put up a long but excellent article that looks at the likely futures of the EU and the USA: A good Christmas read for the times in between eating and drinking. Bennett does not think much of the prospects for the EU. I liked this quote: "[German author Gersemann addresses] the "yes, but..." arguments made by Europeans and their admirers when addressing the visible GDP gaps between America and Continental Europe. These run "Yes, America has a substantially lower unemployment rate ... but that's because so many Americans are in prison", or "America makes more jobs, but they are low-wage, service-sector 'McJobs.'" (Gersemann characterizes the latter argument as "We can't actually make any jobs, but if we did, they would be good ones.") Gersemann systematically and persuasively rebuts such arguments". Details about the Anglosphere institute (founded principally by Bennett) are here. I have just joined, myself.

Iranians are turning in droves to Christ: "This phenomenon didn't take place through the efforts of foreign missionaries, Afshar said, because after the country's Islamic revolution of the late 1970's, all foreign missionaries were expelled from Iran. Much of the evangelism of Muslims in Iran, Afshar said, has been done through shortwave radio and satellite television programs by Iranians who came to know Christ while outside their own country. "With the revolution there also came a mass exodus of almost 6 million Iranians out of Iran to various countries around the world," Afshar said. "It was there that for the first time many of these exiles were exposed to the gospel, and eventually a great number of them became followers of Jesus-50,000 by some estimates. It is because of these exiled believers and other faithful ones who never left Iran that (this) phenomenon is unfolding."

There is a good short summary here of some of the important facts that American High School history textbooks routinely leave out.

Like a lot of Australians with military connections, I have always been a great fan of the Salvation Army so I am delighted to hear that Wal-Mart has taken over where Target left off. And I am betting that it won't do Wal-Mart's bottom-line a bit of harm. (Link via Carol Platt Liebau).

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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