SOME ECONOMICS
The real farm subsidy scandal: "The most enduring political illusion is that farm subsidies are necessary to maintain the small family farmer. ... Small family farmers are not the primary dollar recipients of federal subsidies, however. According to the subsidy watchdog Environmental Working Group, 71 percent of farm subsidies go to the top 10 percent of subsidy beneficiaries, almost all of which are large farms. In 2002, 78 farms, none small or struggling, each received over a million dollars in subsidies. The bottom 80 percent of recipients average only $846 per year."
The never-ending war on protectionist ignorance: "By the late 1990s, the protectionists --now rechristened "anti-globalizers" to reflect the expanded scope of their agenda-- seemed to have recovered some of their lost ground. Their newfound vocalism made headlines during the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Seattle in 1999. Today, however, advocates of globalization are gaining the upper hand again. Bhagwati's strikingly successful defense of open markets in his recent book In Defense of Globalization has been bolstered by another influential pro-globalization voice, that of Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. Wolf's weekly columns have already established him as one of the world's most respected economic journalists. Now his ambitious new book, Why Globalization Works, offers a patient and persuasive refutation of many of the arguments most frequently marshaled by critics of trade liberalization".
In defence of price gougers: Imagine a system that could instantly respond to a calamity like Hurricane Charley by mobilizing suppliers to speed urgently needed resources to the victims. Imagine that such a system could quickly attract the out-of-town manpower needed for cleanup and repairs, while seeing to it that existing supplies were neither recklessly squandered nor hoarded. Imagine that it could prompt thousands of men and women to act in the public interest, yet not force anyone to do anything against his will. Actually, there's no need to imagine. The system already exists. Economists refer to it as the law of supply and demand. Unfortunately, too many journalists and politicians call it by a more pejorative and destructive name: "price-gouging."
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Saturday, August 28, 2004
ELSEWHERE
From John Kerry's interview with GQ magazine: "GQ: You've never seen a therapist? JK: No. I had some nightmares when I came home, which is not unusual. GQ: Like what? JK: I can't say. To me Vietnam is an old place, an old memory. It is old history, it's gone, it's past. The less I have to talk about it, frankly, the happier I am." He must be the most miserable man alive if that's the case!
Peg Kaplan points out that only 6 out of 100 pages of Kerry's military records have been released and that his discharge was delayed for 6 years. Highly suspicious.
Hold the Mayo has lots on Kerry -- including comments on his old antiwar book that he is now trying to suppress. Lots of documentation here too.
Good comment from a reader: "Kerry's reaction to the Swift Boat Vets (censorship, lawsuits, threats) reminds me of Stalin or Hitler. If Kerry had their power I don't think there is much doubt that he would send his secret police to arrest the vets and throw them in the Gulag or the concentration camp".
Political censorship is a reflex for the Left: "I got an e-mail from a person who identified herself as Melissa Salmanowitz with a group called Media Matters for America. It supposedly is a watchdog on conservatives, and she was wanting me to write about her group's effort to get chain book stores to quit selling Unfit for Command due to accuracy problems. So I e-mailed Salmanowitz and told her that I'd write about their cause to quash the book's examination of John F. Kerry's military record and anti-war activities if they'd make the same appeal to the movie theaters to stop showing Michael Moore's documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. ... if Democrats and liberals nationally are going to dish it out, they should accept the consequences. They can't cheer the smear by Michael Moore, Whoopi Goldberg and Moveon.org, then try to silence the Swift Boat vets. That's too hypocritical, even for presidential politics."
People still escaping the socialist paradise: "A Cuban woman tucked herself inside a wooden crate the size of a small filing cabinet and had herself shipped from the Bahamas to Miami aboard a cargo plane. The woman, whose name was not released, will be allowed to stay in the United States. A cargo crew found her curled up inside the crate after unloading it late Tuesday at the Miami airport. 'Certainly she's lucky to be alive,' said Zach Mann, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. Under the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy, Cubans who reach U.S. soil are usually allowed to stay, while those who are picked up at sea are sent home. Federal officials released no information on how the woman got from Cuba to the Bahamas. The 180-mile route is flown by a third-party contractor for the delivery service DHL, which said it was investigating."
From a Dennis Prager interview: "I believe that if I took a thousand evangelical ministers... and I took a thousand professors in the liberal arts, I would bet every penny I have that the moral acuity of the thousand evangelical ministers would dwarf the moral acuity of a thousand liberal arts professors. For which reason Lawrence Summers, for example, the president of Harvard, announced two years ago that the seat -- the seat -- of anti-Semitism in America had shifted to the university. The university had also been the seat of support for Stalin. The university in Germany was the seat of the place to get Nazi philosophers."
Dumb Canadians: "A July 2004 study by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, Paying, More, Getting Less, concluded that after years of government control, the Canadian medical system is badly injured and bleeding citizens' hard-earned tax dollars. The institute compared health care systems in the industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and found Canada currently spends the most, yet ranks among the lowest on such indicators as access to physicians, quality of medical equipment, and key health outcomes. One of the major reasons for this discrepancy is that, unlike the countries in the study that outperformed Canada--Sweden, Japan, Australia, and France, for example-- Canada outlaws most private health care".
"The left takes its vision seriously -- more seriously than it takes the rights of other people. They want to be our shepherds. But that requires us to be sheep." -- Thomas Sowell
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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
Comments? Email me or 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.
********************************
From John Kerry's interview with GQ magazine: "GQ: You've never seen a therapist? JK: No. I had some nightmares when I came home, which is not unusual. GQ: Like what? JK: I can't say. To me Vietnam is an old place, an old memory. It is old history, it's gone, it's past. The less I have to talk about it, frankly, the happier I am." He must be the most miserable man alive if that's the case!
Peg Kaplan points out that only 6 out of 100 pages of Kerry's military records have been released and that his discharge was delayed for 6 years. Highly suspicious.
Hold the Mayo has lots on Kerry -- including comments on his old antiwar book that he is now trying to suppress. Lots of documentation here too.
Good comment from a reader: "Kerry's reaction to the Swift Boat Vets (censorship, lawsuits, threats) reminds me of Stalin or Hitler. If Kerry had their power I don't think there is much doubt that he would send his secret police to arrest the vets and throw them in the Gulag or the concentration camp".
Political censorship is a reflex for the Left: "I got an e-mail from a person who identified herself as Melissa Salmanowitz with a group called Media Matters for America. It supposedly is a watchdog on conservatives, and she was wanting me to write about her group's effort to get chain book stores to quit selling Unfit for Command due to accuracy problems. So I e-mailed Salmanowitz and told her that I'd write about their cause to quash the book's examination of John F. Kerry's military record and anti-war activities if they'd make the same appeal to the movie theaters to stop showing Michael Moore's documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. ... if Democrats and liberals nationally are going to dish it out, they should accept the consequences. They can't cheer the smear by Michael Moore, Whoopi Goldberg and Moveon.org, then try to silence the Swift Boat vets. That's too hypocritical, even for presidential politics."
People still escaping the socialist paradise: "A Cuban woman tucked herself inside a wooden crate the size of a small filing cabinet and had herself shipped from the Bahamas to Miami aboard a cargo plane. The woman, whose name was not released, will be allowed to stay in the United States. A cargo crew found her curled up inside the crate after unloading it late Tuesday at the Miami airport. 'Certainly she's lucky to be alive,' said Zach Mann, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. Under the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy, Cubans who reach U.S. soil are usually allowed to stay, while those who are picked up at sea are sent home. Federal officials released no information on how the woman got from Cuba to the Bahamas. The 180-mile route is flown by a third-party contractor for the delivery service DHL, which said it was investigating."
From a Dennis Prager interview: "I believe that if I took a thousand evangelical ministers... and I took a thousand professors in the liberal arts, I would bet every penny I have that the moral acuity of the thousand evangelical ministers would dwarf the moral acuity of a thousand liberal arts professors. For which reason Lawrence Summers, for example, the president of Harvard, announced two years ago that the seat -- the seat -- of anti-Semitism in America had shifted to the university. The university had also been the seat of support for Stalin. The university in Germany was the seat of the place to get Nazi philosophers."
Dumb Canadians: "A July 2004 study by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, Paying, More, Getting Less, concluded that after years of government control, the Canadian medical system is badly injured and bleeding citizens' hard-earned tax dollars. The institute compared health care systems in the industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and found Canada currently spends the most, yet ranks among the lowest on such indicators as access to physicians, quality of medical equipment, and key health outcomes. One of the major reasons for this discrepancy is that, unlike the countries in the study that outperformed Canada--Sweden, Japan, Australia, and France, for example-- Canada outlaws most private health care".
"The left takes its vision seriously -- more seriously than it takes the rights of other people. They want to be our shepherds. But that requires us to be sheep." -- Thomas Sowell
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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
Comments? Email me or 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.
********************************
Friday, August 27, 2004
JOHN KERRY: PSYCHOPATH
Sometimes little things can tell you a lot and John Kerry's totally implausible story about his dog is an example of that. It is a classic psychopathic lie -- something said which earns momentary acclaim but which is uttered without any thought of its being found out as false.
It is highly comparable to Bill Clinton's lie that his wife was named after Sir Edmund Hillary when in fact Sir Edmund was an unknown New Zealand farmer at the time of her birth. Kerry's lack of any consistency in what he says from occasion to occasion has always seemed suspiciously psychopathic but I think this seals the diagnosis.
Given the chronic lying of psychopaths, this story also begins to makes sense. It claims that the details of his war record posted on the net by John Kerry are fraudulent: "I looked at that Web site and the first thing I looked at was Kerry's Silver Star citation. Guess what? It is for an action that took place in 1969, but it is signed by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. Strangely, Lehman was secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987,"
I am also beginning to see why Kerry made his outrageous claims about American war crimes as soon as he got back from Vietnam. The sampan incident and various others incidents indicate that Kerry himself was something of a war criminal and it seems to be a reflexive Leftist strategy to accuse others of what are in fact their own faults (Freudian "projection").
Anyway, America survived the psychopathic Clinton reasonably well so it should be able to survive a President Kerry. It could even work out in an amoral sort of way. A psychopathic President would have no compunction about nuking Mecca if that seemed like a good idea at the time (remember Clinton bombing the Serbs) and that could save as many American lives as the atrocity that another Democrat President committed over Hiroshima.
In case anybody thinks I am talking through my hat about psychopathy, I should perhaps point out that I have had a couple of academic journal articles published on the subject of psychopathy in non-clinical populations (See here and here or here and here ).
****************************
Sometimes little things can tell you a lot and John Kerry's totally implausible story about his dog is an example of that. It is a classic psychopathic lie -- something said which earns momentary acclaim but which is uttered without any thought of its being found out as false.
It is highly comparable to Bill Clinton's lie that his wife was named after Sir Edmund Hillary when in fact Sir Edmund was an unknown New Zealand farmer at the time of her birth. Kerry's lack of any consistency in what he says from occasion to occasion has always seemed suspiciously psychopathic but I think this seals the diagnosis.
Given the chronic lying of psychopaths, this story also begins to makes sense. It claims that the details of his war record posted on the net by John Kerry are fraudulent: "I looked at that Web site and the first thing I looked at was Kerry's Silver Star citation. Guess what? It is for an action that took place in 1969, but it is signed by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. Strangely, Lehman was secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987,"
I am also beginning to see why Kerry made his outrageous claims about American war crimes as soon as he got back from Vietnam. The sampan incident and various others incidents indicate that Kerry himself was something of a war criminal and it seems to be a reflexive Leftist strategy to accuse others of what are in fact their own faults (Freudian "projection").
Anyway, America survived the psychopathic Clinton reasonably well so it should be able to survive a President Kerry. It could even work out in an amoral sort of way. A psychopathic President would have no compunction about nuking Mecca if that seemed like a good idea at the time (remember Clinton bombing the Serbs) and that could save as many American lives as the atrocity that another Democrat President committed over Hiroshima.
In case anybody thinks I am talking through my hat about psychopathy, I should perhaps point out that I have had a couple of academic journal articles published on the subject of psychopathy in non-clinical populations (See here and here or here and here ).
****************************
ELSEWHERE
There is an article from GQ here that says GWB's record in the Air National Guard is a bit murky because he was engaged in undercover work at that time. It gives a lot of detail and argument to support the claim. Excerpt: "Bush was serving his country elsewhere, in a clandestine military unit: the Special Undercover Missions Service (SUMS), an elite air-force agency specializing in national security and acts of espionage"
"Even if Kerry's Vietnam record is every bit as heroic as he presents it, the notion that this makes him fit to be president is ludicrous. The man spent four months in combat as a junior officer; he's not exactly Eisenhower." -- James Taranto
That wonderful "public" (free-rider) medicine: "Los Angeles County, which has lost six emergency rooms in a little over a year, is on the brink of a far more serious problem, facing more closures that could jeopardize emergency care for tens of thousands of residents, according to public officials and independent analysts".
An interesting article here on the close convergence between Australian and U.S. policy -- with a suggestion that U.S. interest in reducing income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax may have been sparked by the successful Australian introduction of just such a change.
Currency Lad has a good reply to the charge that Australia's present conservative government has made Australia "racist": He quotes famous anti-Asian remarks from two of Australia's most prominent Leftist leaders. He also has this delightful story of George Bush Senior trusting and welcoming a young woman purely because she was Australian! Good man!
Michael Darby is on the web again with a few new posts -- in particular he takes on the accusation that Australian conservative politicians are "chickenhawks" by listing the considerable number who have military connections.
Laugh at liberals has a comprehensive demolition of most of the dumb Leftist accusations that are routinely hurled at GWB.
I came across this good Reagan quote on the website of the dynamic Prodos: ""How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." Lots of other good stuff there too.
Squander Two has an amusing article about British customer service. Everything he says is true with knobs on.
A new blog by a physicist who describes himself as a "warmongering neo-conservative, NRA life member, and professional laser-weapon designer... Supporter of nuclear power, the militarization of Space, and Microsoft's Freedom to Innovate" seems to be shaping up well.
One blog that I think might have a rather small "market" is a Catholic blog devoted to chastity, yes, chastity -- an apparently outmoded concept even among the Catholic clergy, to judge by their behaviour. But this post on sexual equality as a cause of fertility decline is interesting.
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual big range of blogospheric reading.
Wicked Thoughts has a good John Kerry joke.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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
Comments? Email me or 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.
********************************
There is an article from GQ here that says GWB's record in the Air National Guard is a bit murky because he was engaged in undercover work at that time. It gives a lot of detail and argument to support the claim. Excerpt: "Bush was serving his country elsewhere, in a clandestine military unit: the Special Undercover Missions Service (SUMS), an elite air-force agency specializing in national security and acts of espionage"
"Even if Kerry's Vietnam record is every bit as heroic as he presents it, the notion that this makes him fit to be president is ludicrous. The man spent four months in combat as a junior officer; he's not exactly Eisenhower." -- James Taranto
That wonderful "public" (free-rider) medicine: "Los Angeles County, which has lost six emergency rooms in a little over a year, is on the brink of a far more serious problem, facing more closures that could jeopardize emergency care for tens of thousands of residents, according to public officials and independent analysts".
An interesting article here on the close convergence between Australian and U.S. policy -- with a suggestion that U.S. interest in reducing income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax may have been sparked by the successful Australian introduction of just such a change.
Currency Lad has a good reply to the charge that Australia's present conservative government has made Australia "racist": He quotes famous anti-Asian remarks from two of Australia's most prominent Leftist leaders. He also has this delightful story of George Bush Senior trusting and welcoming a young woman purely because she was Australian! Good man!
Michael Darby is on the web again with a few new posts -- in particular he takes on the accusation that Australian conservative politicians are "chickenhawks" by listing the considerable number who have military connections.
Laugh at liberals has a comprehensive demolition of most of the dumb Leftist accusations that are routinely hurled at GWB.
I came across this good Reagan quote on the website of the dynamic Prodos: ""How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." Lots of other good stuff there too.
Squander Two has an amusing article about British customer service. Everything he says is true with knobs on.
A new blog by a physicist who describes himself as a "warmongering neo-conservative, NRA life member, and professional laser-weapon designer... Supporter of nuclear power, the militarization of Space, and Microsoft's Freedom to Innovate" seems to be shaping up well.
One blog that I think might have a rather small "market" is a Catholic blog devoted to chastity, yes, chastity -- an apparently outmoded concept even among the Catholic clergy, to judge by their behaviour. But this post on sexual equality as a cause of fertility decline is interesting.
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual big range of blogospheric reading.
Wicked Thoughts has a good John Kerry joke.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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
Comments? Email me or 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.
********************************
Thursday, August 26, 2004
FROM BROOKES NEWS
John Kerry media jackals go after swift boat veterans Deeply worried that the swift boat veterans' ads are damaging John Kerry his media pals intensified their smear campaign to destroy the credibility of these veterans
John Kerry and his anti-American IPS playmates John Kerry collaborated with the infamous pro-Castro Institute for Policy Studies in undermining the military and sabotaging the CIA
Don't forget 'The John Kerry Committee' John Kerry used his Senate position to help Nicaragua's Marxist-Leninists stay in power
The consumption fallacy: another lesson for the US economy Consumption does nothing to improve the US economy because it does nothing to increase productivity
Scott Peterson trial: Don't you cry for Amber Frey Why the whole Scott Peterson trial is revolting and disgusting within itself
Economic reality and the self-righteous ignorance of the left Our economic meddlers are back in the news with the loopy idea that they can raise living standards by legislating for higher real wages
Details here
****************************
John Kerry media jackals go after swift boat veterans Deeply worried that the swift boat veterans' ads are damaging John Kerry his media pals intensified their smear campaign to destroy the credibility of these veterans
John Kerry and his anti-American IPS playmates John Kerry collaborated with the infamous pro-Castro Institute for Policy Studies in undermining the military and sabotaging the CIA
Don't forget 'The John Kerry Committee' John Kerry used his Senate position to help Nicaragua's Marxist-Leninists stay in power
The consumption fallacy: another lesson for the US economy Consumption does nothing to improve the US economy because it does nothing to increase productivity
Scott Peterson trial: Don't you cry for Amber Frey Why the whole Scott Peterson trial is revolting and disgusting within itself
Economic reality and the self-righteous ignorance of the left Our economic meddlers are back in the news with the loopy idea that they can raise living standards by legislating for higher real wages
Details here
****************************
ELSEWHERE
Jeff Jacoby: "With the exception of the Fox News Channel, the liberal tilt of the mainstream media - the major newspapers, the networks, National Public Radio, the news magazines - has long been a fact of American life.... Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek, put it plainly last month: "Let's talk a little media bias here," he said on the PBS program "Inside Washington" on July 11. "The media, I think, want Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards . . . as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there's going to be this glow about them that is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points.""
Oil. Letter excerpted from the Letters column of the Pasadena Star News, Pasadena, California, August 20: "What happened to the voices who said that President Bush had a deal with the Saudis to lower oil prices just before the election? Seems that conspiracy theory went out the window now didn't it? But I don't hear any of the Democrats who had this "knowledge' coming out and saying they were wrong. So I will. They are wrong again, but that won't matter, I'm sure they will have a new theory soon".
An excellent spoof by Rand Simberg. Excerpt: "Sixty years after Paris was seized by the "Allies," and the beginning of the American occupation, France remains a failed nation, mired in political corruption and beset by vast pockets of Muslim extremism and anti-semitism, into which the gendarmerie fear to tread. The economy continues to struggle under economic policies driven by failed ideologies"
Some Leftist propagandist has got into sports writing and asserts that because ONE white man won a sprinting event at the Olympic games, therefore blacks in general are not better at sprinting. Only a Leftist would bother with such non-logic. The writer also refers to that old Marxist propagandist, Stephen Jay Gould as an authority on race. Here is just one comment pointing out what a klutz Gould was. And for an exhaustive scientific refutation of Gould by an expert in the field, see here. Gould's distortions of the facts really are quite breathtaking.
Democrat principles on display: "Some 46,000 New Yorkers are registered to vote in both the city and Florida, a shocking finding that exposes both states to potential abuses that could alter the outcome of elections, a Daily News investigation shows. Registering in two places is illegal in both states, but the massive snowbird scandal goes undetected because election officials don't check rolls across state lines. The finding is even more stunning given the pivotal role Florida played in the 2000 presidential election, when a margin there of 537 votes tipped a victory to George W. Bush.... Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68% are Democrats, 12% are Republicans and 16% didn't claim a party".
"Darfur is a remote part of Sudan -- itself remote from cosmopolitan centres of Europe and North America. There, in the arid deserts of the eastern Sahara, where living is a bitter daily struggle against sand and sun, a genocide is unfolding, with nary a whimper from the folks at the UN and sophisticates in cosmopolitan centres who remain outraged over American "imperialism" dismantling brutal rogue regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.... Here, the contrast between the Arab treatment of blacks, irrespective of whether they are Muslims or not, and the Israeli assimilation of black Jews of Ethiopia, known as Falashas, cannot go unnoticed."
Mike Tremoglie has a tremendous demolition of the Woodstock myth -- showing that it was in fact an ineptly run business venture that would have starved its patrons except for assistance from the establishment it condemned.
After a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court, a horde of sex perverts were released from prison and the media is giving the story bare mention. Details here. Excerpt: "According to this report, over 500 rapists, child molesters and other sexual offenders have been released from prison and taken up residence in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County within the past year".
Wayne Lusvardi reports another case where Leftist authorities resort to their usual kneejerk tax-and-regulate strategies when faced with what they see as a housing "crisis". All just to create further problems, of course.
Peg Kaplan has a couple of prize examples of one-eyed Stalinist thinking up at the moment.
Donald Luskin's latest demolition of Leftist hate-merchant Paul Krugman really pulls out the stops.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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
Comments? Email me or 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.
********************************
Jeff Jacoby: "With the exception of the Fox News Channel, the liberal tilt of the mainstream media - the major newspapers, the networks, National Public Radio, the news magazines - has long been a fact of American life.... Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek, put it plainly last month: "Let's talk a little media bias here," he said on the PBS program "Inside Washington" on July 11. "The media, I think, want Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards . . . as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there's going to be this glow about them that is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points.""
Oil. Letter excerpted from the Letters column of the Pasadena Star News, Pasadena, California, August 20: "What happened to the voices who said that President Bush had a deal with the Saudis to lower oil prices just before the election? Seems that conspiracy theory went out the window now didn't it? But I don't hear any of the Democrats who had this "knowledge' coming out and saying they were wrong. So I will. They are wrong again, but that won't matter, I'm sure they will have a new theory soon".
An excellent spoof by Rand Simberg. Excerpt: "Sixty years after Paris was seized by the "Allies," and the beginning of the American occupation, France remains a failed nation, mired in political corruption and beset by vast pockets of Muslim extremism and anti-semitism, into which the gendarmerie fear to tread. The economy continues to struggle under economic policies driven by failed ideologies"
Some Leftist propagandist has got into sports writing and asserts that because ONE white man won a sprinting event at the Olympic games, therefore blacks in general are not better at sprinting. Only a Leftist would bother with such non-logic. The writer also refers to that old Marxist propagandist, Stephen Jay Gould as an authority on race. Here is just one comment pointing out what a klutz Gould was. And for an exhaustive scientific refutation of Gould by an expert in the field, see here. Gould's distortions of the facts really are quite breathtaking.
Democrat principles on display: "Some 46,000 New Yorkers are registered to vote in both the city and Florida, a shocking finding that exposes both states to potential abuses that could alter the outcome of elections, a Daily News investigation shows. Registering in two places is illegal in both states, but the massive snowbird scandal goes undetected because election officials don't check rolls across state lines. The finding is even more stunning given the pivotal role Florida played in the 2000 presidential election, when a margin there of 537 votes tipped a victory to George W. Bush.... Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68% are Democrats, 12% are Republicans and 16% didn't claim a party".
"Darfur is a remote part of Sudan -- itself remote from cosmopolitan centres of Europe and North America. There, in the arid deserts of the eastern Sahara, where living is a bitter daily struggle against sand and sun, a genocide is unfolding, with nary a whimper from the folks at the UN and sophisticates in cosmopolitan centres who remain outraged over American "imperialism" dismantling brutal rogue regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.... Here, the contrast between the Arab treatment of blacks, irrespective of whether they are Muslims or not, and the Israeli assimilation of black Jews of Ethiopia, known as Falashas, cannot go unnoticed."
Mike Tremoglie has a tremendous demolition of the Woodstock myth -- showing that it was in fact an ineptly run business venture that would have starved its patrons except for assistance from the establishment it condemned.
After a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court, a horde of sex perverts were released from prison and the media is giving the story bare mention. Details here. Excerpt: "According to this report, over 500 rapists, child molesters and other sexual offenders have been released from prison and taken up residence in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County within the past year".
Wayne Lusvardi reports another case where Leftist authorities resort to their usual kneejerk tax-and-regulate strategies when faced with what they see as a housing "crisis". All just to create further problems, of course.
Peg Kaplan has a couple of prize examples of one-eyed Stalinist thinking up at the moment.
Donald Luskin's latest demolition of Leftist hate-merchant Paul Krugman really pulls out the stops.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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
Comments? Email me or 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.
********************************
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
SOME REFLECTIONS ABOUT AUSTRALIA
I have just been reading the thoroughly sensible things that Ambra, a black blogress, says about black English and standard English. She rightly says that being at ease in standard English is essential if you wish to communicate widely and easily with others. I note however that she seems to have no regrets about not speaking black English. I must say that I greatly regret my inability to write in broad Australian on this blog. I would love to refer to Leftists as "drongoes", "galahs", "ratbags" and "big-noters" and say that they are not "fair dinkum" or "ridjy didj" but I know that I would just not be understood outside Australia. Even many younger Australians might not understand. I grew up in the country before the age of TV so acquired a full measure of traditional Australian slang but the TV generation in Australia probably knows American slang better than they do their own vivid linguistic heritage. I also try to avoid obscure academic words such as "arcane" and "lacunae" and "orthogonal" but I slip up sometimes.
Australia must have the world's worst internet service provider. Our erstwhile telecoms monopoly, Telstra, runs an internet service that they call "Bigpond" and lots of people I know have been suckered in to signing up with them. So I have been sending emails to Bigpond addresses for years now. And Bigpond regularly "bounces" (fails to deliver) emails sent to it. They have been doing it for years, have allegedly spend hundreds of millions of dollars on "fixing" the problem but they still cannot get it right. One person I email regularly is in fact a Telstra techie but they are still randomly bouncing emails to him too. They are at least 100 times worse than any other ISP I know. Anybody with a Bigpond address is missing a lot of mail. The only way I can be sure my techie friend gets what I send is to copy everything to his Yahoo address as well. Those emails are never bounced, though they can occasionally be held up for a few hours. Government-owned bureaucracies just don't know how to be efficient.
******************************
ELSEWHERE
GWB as Not Kerry: Nothing that Bush has done, or will do, has anything whatsoever to do with John Kerry's truthfulness, his character or his mental stability. Humans are not a zero-sum game."
Abandonment of conservatives may cost Bush the election: "The latest presidential election polling data should be giving President Bush's campaign staff a lot of concern. The most recent Zogby poll released earlier this week shows the Democratic presidential ticket of Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, leading President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney by a seven point margin at 50-43% which is the largest lead that Kerry has ever had over Bush since the man that conservative talk-show host, Rush Limbaugh, has described as America's most accurate pollster, John Zogby, began polling when Kerry became the de-facto nominee back in February."
A huge cost everyone pays: "Federal government regulators issued 4,148 new rules in the 71,269-page Federal Register in 2003, 19 fewer than they did in 2002. The cost of those rules appears nowhere in the federal budget. In his fiscal year 2005 federal budget, President Bush proposed $2.4 trillion in discretionary, entitlement, and interest spending. Although that figure fully expresses the on-budget scope of the federal government, there is considerably more to the government's reach. Federal environmental, safety and health, and economic regulations cost the economy hundreds of billions of dollars every year on top of official federal outlays."
The marvels of socialized medicine in New Zealand: "Hundreds of Hawke's Bay people are waiting for gastroenterology procedures as the health board desperately appeals for general surgeons to help with the hospital's sole specialist's gruelling workload. Hawke's Bay Regional Hospital's only gastroenterologist and part-time general physician, Malcolm Arnold, said there were 458 patients were on his waiting list alone, with 180 still awaiting a definite time to have their procedures performed... Those with highest priority included patients with bowel cancer or cancer of the oesophagus".
An interesting article here on the neurological evidence that Leftists are driven more by emotion than by reason. I have been pointing out for years that Leftism is substantially genetic.
Drug terrorists: "A guns-drawn raid at a high school last year did not violate civil rights laws and the case is closed, the U.S. Justice Department said. The decision means there will be no criminal charges, said Andy Savage, a lawyer for officers in the sweep at the Goose Creek high school. Fifteen officers entered Stratford High School's main hallway and ordered 130 students to the floor November 5 of last year. They used plastic ties to handcuff 18 students and school officials opened and searched 17 book bags using a drug dog. Police found no drugs or weapons, but the raid frightened children, provoked marches and lawsuits and brought national media attention and the resignation of the school's longtime principal."
Bitchy feminists: "The Los Angeles, California chapter of the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood has been the subject of several recent complaints of racism and discrimination by both African-American and Latino employees which were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well as the California Fair Employment & Housing Administration. The complaints by the Planned Parenthood employees allege that the group is led by Caucasian women who have created a hostile working environment for men as well as minorities. In one sworn affidavit, an African-American employee said a female manager with Planned Parenthood looked directly at him and called him a 'nigger. ... I am African and was shocked by her cultural insensitivity,' the employee wrote in his affidavit and asked not to be identified."
Californian business-people are voting with their feet: ""Legislators don't seem to get it that businesses have far more options now. They can open another factory in another state, send manufacturing offshore, go into the cash economy, or even go out of business," says Mr. Kyser. "How they deal with the reforms will have serious consequences on states around us for years." Business raiders from Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas have been eager to welcome frustrated California businesses, and developers can barely suppress smiles over new home sales generated by newly arrived California families.... Partly because of California's housing costs, higher taxes, more regulation, and higher utility rates, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada are all faring better than California from job growth to personal income."
There is an interesting blog here from a conservative atheist medic with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Beat that!
GUN WATCH has an Oldie but Goldie up today. If it isn't true it ought to be. New rubric below today too.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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 Great Britain -- 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 hated 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
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.
********************************
I have just been reading the thoroughly sensible things that Ambra, a black blogress, says about black English and standard English. She rightly says that being at ease in standard English is essential if you wish to communicate widely and easily with others. I note however that she seems to have no regrets about not speaking black English. I must say that I greatly regret my inability to write in broad Australian on this blog. I would love to refer to Leftists as "drongoes", "galahs", "ratbags" and "big-noters" and say that they are not "fair dinkum" or "ridjy didj" but I know that I would just not be understood outside Australia. Even many younger Australians might not understand. I grew up in the country before the age of TV so acquired a full measure of traditional Australian slang but the TV generation in Australia probably knows American slang better than they do their own vivid linguistic heritage. I also try to avoid obscure academic words such as "arcane" and "lacunae" and "orthogonal" but I slip up sometimes.
Australia must have the world's worst internet service provider. Our erstwhile telecoms monopoly, Telstra, runs an internet service that they call "Bigpond" and lots of people I know have been suckered in to signing up with them. So I have been sending emails to Bigpond addresses for years now. And Bigpond regularly "bounces" (fails to deliver) emails sent to it. They have been doing it for years, have allegedly spend hundreds of millions of dollars on "fixing" the problem but they still cannot get it right. One person I email regularly is in fact a Telstra techie but they are still randomly bouncing emails to him too. They are at least 100 times worse than any other ISP I know. Anybody with a Bigpond address is missing a lot of mail. The only way I can be sure my techie friend gets what I send is to copy everything to his Yahoo address as well. Those emails are never bounced, though they can occasionally be held up for a few hours. Government-owned bureaucracies just don't know how to be efficient.
******************************
ELSEWHERE
GWB as Not Kerry: Nothing that Bush has done, or will do, has anything whatsoever to do with John Kerry's truthfulness, his character or his mental stability. Humans are not a zero-sum game."
Abandonment of conservatives may cost Bush the election: "The latest presidential election polling data should be giving President Bush's campaign staff a lot of concern. The most recent Zogby poll released earlier this week shows the Democratic presidential ticket of Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, leading President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney by a seven point margin at 50-43% which is the largest lead that Kerry has ever had over Bush since the man that conservative talk-show host, Rush Limbaugh, has described as America's most accurate pollster, John Zogby, began polling when Kerry became the de-facto nominee back in February."
A huge cost everyone pays: "Federal government regulators issued 4,148 new rules in the 71,269-page Federal Register in 2003, 19 fewer than they did in 2002. The cost of those rules appears nowhere in the federal budget. In his fiscal year 2005 federal budget, President Bush proposed $2.4 trillion in discretionary, entitlement, and interest spending. Although that figure fully expresses the on-budget scope of the federal government, there is considerably more to the government's reach. Federal environmental, safety and health, and economic regulations cost the economy hundreds of billions of dollars every year on top of official federal outlays."
The marvels of socialized medicine in New Zealand: "Hundreds of Hawke's Bay people are waiting for gastroenterology procedures as the health board desperately appeals for general surgeons to help with the hospital's sole specialist's gruelling workload. Hawke's Bay Regional Hospital's only gastroenterologist and part-time general physician, Malcolm Arnold, said there were 458 patients were on his waiting list alone, with 180 still awaiting a definite time to have their procedures performed... Those with highest priority included patients with bowel cancer or cancer of the oesophagus".
An interesting article here on the neurological evidence that Leftists are driven more by emotion than by reason. I have been pointing out for years that Leftism is substantially genetic.
Drug terrorists: "A guns-drawn raid at a high school last year did not violate civil rights laws and the case is closed, the U.S. Justice Department said. The decision means there will be no criminal charges, said Andy Savage, a lawyer for officers in the sweep at the Goose Creek high school. Fifteen officers entered Stratford High School's main hallway and ordered 130 students to the floor November 5 of last year. They used plastic ties to handcuff 18 students and school officials opened and searched 17 book bags using a drug dog. Police found no drugs or weapons, but the raid frightened children, provoked marches and lawsuits and brought national media attention and the resignation of the school's longtime principal."
Bitchy feminists: "The Los Angeles, California chapter of the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood has been the subject of several recent complaints of racism and discrimination by both African-American and Latino employees which were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well as the California Fair Employment & Housing Administration. The complaints by the Planned Parenthood employees allege that the group is led by Caucasian women who have created a hostile working environment for men as well as minorities. In one sworn affidavit, an African-American employee said a female manager with Planned Parenthood looked directly at him and called him a 'nigger. ... I am African and was shocked by her cultural insensitivity,' the employee wrote in his affidavit and asked not to be identified."
Californian business-people are voting with their feet: ""Legislators don't seem to get it that businesses have far more options now. They can open another factory in another state, send manufacturing offshore, go into the cash economy, or even go out of business," says Mr. Kyser. "How they deal with the reforms will have serious consequences on states around us for years." Business raiders from Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas have been eager to welcome frustrated California businesses, and developers can barely suppress smiles over new home sales generated by newly arrived California families.... Partly because of California's housing costs, higher taxes, more regulation, and higher utility rates, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada are all faring better than California from job growth to personal income."
There is an interesting blog here from a conservative atheist medic with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Beat that!
GUN WATCH has an Oldie but Goldie up today. If it isn't true it ought to be. New rubric below today too.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
**************************
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 Great Britain -- 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 hated 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
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.
********************************
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
MORE TROOPS FOR IRAQ?
Wayne Lusvardi writes:
I refer to an article in "Foreign Affairs" headed "What Went Wrong With Iraq": The article is a sobering analysis of the Iraq War that makes the case that the main blunder was the lack of troop deployment by the U.S.
As a Vietnam War vet, I question the notion that what has been needed are more troops and a broader coalition with European forces involved. The experience of Vietnam is clear - the more troops you flood the country with, the more reliant the Iraqis will be on them to fight their war for them. This is what happened in Vietnam. The Vietnamese embraced the trappings of modernity (the motor scooters, the crappy American music, the money that comes from various sorts of prostitution and patronage) but, despite some valiant battles, didn't really want to fight their own war. The Iraqis don't even want to embrace modernity let alone fight for anything beyond their tribe. Flooding the country with more outside troops won't solve that. Like big welfare programs, big warfare programs will only make the populace more dependent. The prospect of a partition such as occurred in Korea and Germany is now becoming more apparent. But will Baghdad be in the Iranian camp or in the Iraqi camp?
*************************************
Wayne Lusvardi writes:
I refer to an article in "Foreign Affairs" headed "What Went Wrong With Iraq": The article is a sobering analysis of the Iraq War that makes the case that the main blunder was the lack of troop deployment by the U.S.
As a Vietnam War vet, I question the notion that what has been needed are more troops and a broader coalition with European forces involved. The experience of Vietnam is clear - the more troops you flood the country with, the more reliant the Iraqis will be on them to fight their war for them. This is what happened in Vietnam. The Vietnamese embraced the trappings of modernity (the motor scooters, the crappy American music, the money that comes from various sorts of prostitution and patronage) but, despite some valiant battles, didn't really want to fight their own war. The Iraqis don't even want to embrace modernity let alone fight for anything beyond their tribe. Flooding the country with more outside troops won't solve that. Like big welfare programs, big warfare programs will only make the populace more dependent. The prospect of a partition such as occurred in Korea and Germany is now becoming more apparent. But will Baghdad be in the Iranian camp or in the Iraqi camp?
*************************************
ELSEWHERE
A great letter from a U.S. Marine here: Just one excerpt: "The pre-emptive doctrine of the current administration will continue to be debated long after I'm gone, but one fact stands for itself: America has not been hit with another catastrophic attack since 9/11. I firmly believe that our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are major reasons that we've had it so good at home. Building a "fortress America" is not only impractical, it's impossible. Prudent homeland security measures are vital, to be sure, but attacking the source of the threat remains essential".
This sounds apocryphal but I like it: "T. Bubba Bechtol, part time City Councilman from Pensacola, Florida, was asked on a local live radio talk show the other day just what he thought of the allegations of torture of the Iraqi prisoners. His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to thunderous applause from the audience: "If hooking up an Iraqi prisoner's scrotum to a car's battery cables will save one American GI's life, then I have just two things to say: "Red is positive, black is negative""
I have just been reading Michelle Malkin's brilliant book In Defense of Internment, which rightly says that "everything you have been taught about the World war II "internment camps" in America is wrong". A very minor bonus I got from the book is to note that her real surname is "Maglalang", which is obviously from the Tagalog language. I had always carelessly assumed that her ancestry was Japanese. From the name, it is in fact Filipino. As the WWII internments were the work of America's first socialist President (FDR), no conservative should feel much need to defend them but the facts show that what was done was both reasonable and carried out with overall humanity. And since Left-leaning historians have managed to convince just about everybody that the internments are a blot on America's honour (rather than on FDR's) it is good to find that the whole story about them is a great load of steaming dung. But I will not try to summarize a big book beyond that. Regnery are one of the few commercial publishers of conservative books so, if you are the book-buying type, log on here to read more about the book and perhaps buy it.
More glories of socialized medicine: "The healthcare research group, Dr Foster, reports today in the British Medical Journal that one in every ten patients admitted to NHS hospitals in Britain will suffer at the hands of medical errors. Such errors contribute to the deaths of 72,000 people a year, and are directly blamed for the deaths of 40,000 people. Medical errors in the NHS now constitute the fourth largest cause of death in Britain. The charity Action Against Medical Accidents states that the figures under-estimate total errors by not including those which take place at the primary care level of family doctors, and are based only on reported errors. The figures do not include hospital-acquired infections".
A pretty sensible editorial in USA Today about the importation of cheap drugs from Canada into the USA. If the U.S. administration had given the drug companies more support in their negotiations with foreign governments, the artificially high prices for Americans would never have happened.
There is a good post here pointing out that the Leftist hunger for change often leads to large costs (like death) for the individuals involved. I personally think that hunger for change for change's sake is pretty infantile. I have had a great life with lots of changes in it (including four wives) but I did not need to do anything radical in order to remain interested.
"Spectator" on Go Nuclear: Makes a good case for atomic power but it relies too much on running-out-of-oil ideas: "Rod Liddle says the answer to our energy needs is obvious: cheap and reliable nuclear power. But before we can embrace a sane future we have to overcome the Cold War superstitions of the Green Left"
Gipperism of the week: "..when Reagan was offered a ride on a submersible to get a look at the continental shelf, The Gipper turned it down, cracking, "I get claustrophobia when I draw the curtains." "
Leftist warmongers: "Contrary to the conventional wisdom, American imperialism is, at its roots, a left-wing disorder rather than a conservative impulse. A seemingly ceaseless supply of new books and radio talk-show commentary in support of George W. Bush and his foreign policy give the impression that the only controversy in America worth mentioning involves patriotic Bush supporters and knee-jerk opposition to war by liberals. Two arguments are being made here: that the Iraq War and foreign-policy aggressiveness constitute the self-evidently correct conservative position and that liberals are philosophically and historically squeamish about going to war. The first of these arguments has been addressed at length in these pages. It is the second claim, involving the American Left's alleged aversion to war, that remains to be overturned, for ever since the Spanish-American War of 1898, leftists have more often than not been at the forefront of calls for American military intervention abroad".
Promethean Antagonist is a bit unusual. He not only blogs from Japan but takes astrology seriously. He notes that astrology seems to be mostly Left-leaning but explains why "that aint necessarily so". His account of his trip to Fascist China is more outspoken than we usually hear now that everybody wants to think the best of China's reforms.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
********************************
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 or 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.
********************************
A great letter from a U.S. Marine here: Just one excerpt: "The pre-emptive doctrine of the current administration will continue to be debated long after I'm gone, but one fact stands for itself: America has not been hit with another catastrophic attack since 9/11. I firmly believe that our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are major reasons that we've had it so good at home. Building a "fortress America" is not only impractical, it's impossible. Prudent homeland security measures are vital, to be sure, but attacking the source of the threat remains essential".
This sounds apocryphal but I like it: "T. Bubba Bechtol, part time City Councilman from Pensacola, Florida, was asked on a local live radio talk show the other day just what he thought of the allegations of torture of the Iraqi prisoners. His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to thunderous applause from the audience: "If hooking up an Iraqi prisoner's scrotum to a car's battery cables will save one American GI's life, then I have just two things to say: "Red is positive, black is negative""
I have just been reading Michelle Malkin's brilliant book In Defense of Internment, which rightly says that "everything you have been taught about the World war II "internment camps" in America is wrong". A very minor bonus I got from the book is to note that her real surname is "Maglalang", which is obviously from the Tagalog language. I had always carelessly assumed that her ancestry was Japanese. From the name, it is in fact Filipino. As the WWII internments were the work of America's first socialist President (FDR), no conservative should feel much need to defend them but the facts show that what was done was both reasonable and carried out with overall humanity. And since Left-leaning historians have managed to convince just about everybody that the internments are a blot on America's honour (rather than on FDR's) it is good to find that the whole story about them is a great load of steaming dung. But I will not try to summarize a big book beyond that. Regnery are one of the few commercial publishers of conservative books so, if you are the book-buying type, log on here to read more about the book and perhaps buy it.
More glories of socialized medicine: "The healthcare research group, Dr Foster, reports today in the British Medical Journal that one in every ten patients admitted to NHS hospitals in Britain will suffer at the hands of medical errors. Such errors contribute to the deaths of 72,000 people a year, and are directly blamed for the deaths of 40,000 people. Medical errors in the NHS now constitute the fourth largest cause of death in Britain. The charity Action Against Medical Accidents states that the figures under-estimate total errors by not including those which take place at the primary care level of family doctors, and are based only on reported errors. The figures do not include hospital-acquired infections".
A pretty sensible editorial in USA Today about the importation of cheap drugs from Canada into the USA. If the U.S. administration had given the drug companies more support in their negotiations with foreign governments, the artificially high prices for Americans would never have happened.
There is a good post here pointing out that the Leftist hunger for change often leads to large costs (like death) for the individuals involved. I personally think that hunger for change for change's sake is pretty infantile. I have had a great life with lots of changes in it (including four wives) but I did not need to do anything radical in order to remain interested.
"Spectator" on Go Nuclear: Makes a good case for atomic power but it relies too much on running-out-of-oil ideas: "Rod Liddle says the answer to our energy needs is obvious: cheap and reliable nuclear power. But before we can embrace a sane future we have to overcome the Cold War superstitions of the Green Left"
Gipperism of the week: "..when Reagan was offered a ride on a submersible to get a look at the continental shelf, The Gipper turned it down, cracking, "I get claustrophobia when I draw the curtains." "
Leftist warmongers: "Contrary to the conventional wisdom, American imperialism is, at its roots, a left-wing disorder rather than a conservative impulse. A seemingly ceaseless supply of new books and radio talk-show commentary in support of George W. Bush and his foreign policy give the impression that the only controversy in America worth mentioning involves patriotic Bush supporters and knee-jerk opposition to war by liberals. Two arguments are being made here: that the Iraq War and foreign-policy aggressiveness constitute the self-evidently correct conservative position and that liberals are philosophically and historically squeamish about going to war. The first of these arguments has been addressed at length in these pages. It is the second claim, involving the American Left's alleged aversion to war, that remains to be overturned, for ever since the Spanish-American War of 1898, leftists have more often than not been at the forefront of calls for American military intervention abroad".
Promethean Antagonist is a bit unusual. He not only blogs from Japan but takes astrology seriously. He notes that astrology seems to be mostly Left-leaning but explains why "that aint necessarily so". His account of his trip to Fascist China is more outspoken than we usually hear now that everybody wants to think the best of China's reforms.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
********************************
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 or 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.
********************************
Monday, August 23, 2004
BLACK ON BLACK GENOCIDE IN AUSTRALIA
On 15th., I mentioned here the summary by Windschuttle about the pygmy population that the early settlers of Australia found in the jungles of Far North Queensland. Julian Calendar in his post of 16th. has taken Windschuttle to task over the matter with the claim that the pygmies are not a remnant population but rather an adaptation to jungle life on the part of other black populations. I am no physical anthropologist but the sheer wrongheadedness of the claim seems fairly breathtaking to me -- particularly coming from an Australian. Australia not only has a halo of Melanesian nations (e.g. Papua New Guinea) to its immediate North but part of Melanesia is actually IN Australia (the Torres Strait Islands). And what do we know about Melanesia? We know that the jungles of New Guinea and its surrounding islands are as dense as jungles anywhere -- so they must all be pygmies too? The Melanesians of New Guinea and elsewhere are in fact a fine upstanding race of generally rather big men. The Fiji police force has long made female visitors to Fiji drool! And what about one of the world's most notable pygmy races -- the Bushmen of South Africa?. I suppose the Kalahari desert where they live is a jungle too? What utter rot it all is! Clearly pygmies are earlier races who have sought refuge in inaccessible places to avoid being totally wiped out by bigger and stronger races.
Further notes: Harpending & Eller (PDF) explain why even a low interbreeding rate could over time lead to the observed similarities in appearance between pygmy and surrounding tribes without at the same time wiping out all tribal distinctiveness and the rock-art record suggests a two stage immigration of primitive people into Australia.
************************************
On 15th., I mentioned here the summary by Windschuttle about the pygmy population that the early settlers of Australia found in the jungles of Far North Queensland. Julian Calendar in his post of 16th. has taken Windschuttle to task over the matter with the claim that the pygmies are not a remnant population but rather an adaptation to jungle life on the part of other black populations. I am no physical anthropologist but the sheer wrongheadedness of the claim seems fairly breathtaking to me -- particularly coming from an Australian. Australia not only has a halo of Melanesian nations (e.g. Papua New Guinea) to its immediate North but part of Melanesia is actually IN Australia (the Torres Strait Islands). And what do we know about Melanesia? We know that the jungles of New Guinea and its surrounding islands are as dense as jungles anywhere -- so they must all be pygmies too? The Melanesians of New Guinea and elsewhere are in fact a fine upstanding race of generally rather big men. The Fiji police force has long made female visitors to Fiji drool! And what about one of the world's most notable pygmy races -- the Bushmen of South Africa?. I suppose the Kalahari desert where they live is a jungle too? What utter rot it all is! Clearly pygmies are earlier races who have sought refuge in inaccessible places to avoid being totally wiped out by bigger and stronger races.
Further notes: Harpending & Eller (PDF) explain why even a low interbreeding rate could over time lead to the observed similarities in appearance between pygmy and surrounding tribes without at the same time wiping out all tribal distinctiveness and the rock-art record suggests a two stage immigration of primitive people into Australia.
************************************
ELSEWHERE
Powerline Blog seems to have managed to get into the thick of the Presidential election campaign. They note that political blogs generally are getting a lot more hits lately as people turn to them as an alternative to the pro-Kerry mainstream media. This blog has had a big increase in hits lately too.
Randall Parker has some news that the press seems mostly to have buried: The EU is now building a fence along its Eastern border to keep illegal immigrants from Russia and elsewhere out of the EU. In effect, the Berlin wall is being put up again -- only a lot further East this time. He rightly notes the hypocrisy of the EU in saying that Israel should not build its fence and also thinks America could do with such a fence on its Southern border. If it's good enough for those paragons of virtue in the EU, why is it not good enough for Israel and the USA?
Prominent UK libertarian Sean Gabb has an interesting history of his unusual schooldays here. He had a rough time of it and ended up largely self-taught. I too was largely self-taught (See here) but had none of the traumas he had.
Venezuela's Chavez: "For all Chavez's talk about bringing through a revolution in favour of the poor, his policies have been pretty conservative. There have been a lot of showy attacks on the old elite - he replaced judges, reshuffled executives on the state oil company, and undercut the Senate by establishing a new Constituent Assembly. But even Chavez sympathiser Richard Gott admits that he has been 'pragmatic' with the economy - bringing in an austere and orthodox economic policy, seeking to keep on the right side of international investors. Edgardo Lander, sociology lecturer at Venezuelan Central University, said: 'There has been no real redistribution of wealth, and land reform has been very timid. There's been hardly any private property confiscated...and hardly any changes in the tax structure....' In fact, the radical rhetoric is more a replacement for radical action than an expression of it".
A charming case of media bias in Australia. Sydney "Sunday Telegraph" columnist Diana Simmonds is apparently in Athens for the Olympic games and refers to Australia's Prime minister under the heading "Not a PM in sight" as follows: "I LOVE the Olympic Games -- the cathartic effect of a good bellow and leap up and down, followed by a bit of a snivel and a good blow is just the thing as winter drags on. And on. And on. And, as much as I adored Sydney and wouldn't have been anywhere else for quids, I'm loving Athens even more. Know why? Because there's no need to keep the thumb poised over the "off'' button in case the Kirribilli Squatter leaps into the picture to shower Our Kids with his appreciative spittle". [Kirribilli House is the Sydney home of Australian Prime Ministers]. Quote from p.123 -- not online.
An interesting email from a Canadian reader referring to my third post yesterday: "I am very impressed with the idea of the militants and leftists both embracing the idea of "dhimmi", it makes sense to me; unfortunately some of the people I know here seem psychologically ready to capitulate to Islam, and I wouldn't be surprized if some of the women I know convert in the next few years [they are single and way past the age of marrying] -- when I foresee pressure being put on Canadian municipalities where there is a large Islamic population being pressured to broadcast the call to prayer daily [and silence the church bells at the same time!] Let us hope it is just my paranoia!"
Further to my mention of film-maker Elia Kazan yesterday, there is more on the courage of Kazan here. Excerpt: "But for many of us he will not only be remembered for his art but also as a courageous man who fearlessly stood his ground against La-La Land's undercurrent of Stalinism and its mindless support of anti-American causes".
The policeman is a very funny guy if you like British humour. I do. Example: "I thought I would prepare for the forthcoming terrorist attack by manufacturing some ammunition. Above is a picture of my nine year old son holding the mould, while I filled it with molten lead (don't worry he's wearing gloves). The balls were allowed to cool and then inserted into shotgun cartridges, we later fired the 12-gauge lead balls into a tree trunk as a test. It worked, we are now fully protected from Al-Quaeda and social workers". He has a good cartoon in the same post as well.
Alan McCann responds to my post about St. Thomas Aquinas -- pointing out that NOTHING Thomas said justifies government redistribution of wealth.
I have just transferred here a new lot of Chris Brand's postings. As usual, he has found quite a few chinks in the armour of political correctness.
I have just put up a new post on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS and there is an amusing post on GREENIE WATCH about Greenies contradicting one-another. GUN WATCH has a link to a great speech by Charlton Heston. On POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH there is a post which says that official anti-racist policies in Britain in fact make racism worse.
********************************
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 or 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.
********************************
Powerline Blog seems to have managed to get into the thick of the Presidential election campaign. They note that political blogs generally are getting a lot more hits lately as people turn to them as an alternative to the pro-Kerry mainstream media. This blog has had a big increase in hits lately too.
Randall Parker has some news that the press seems mostly to have buried: The EU is now building a fence along its Eastern border to keep illegal immigrants from Russia and elsewhere out of the EU. In effect, the Berlin wall is being put up again -- only a lot further East this time. He rightly notes the hypocrisy of the EU in saying that Israel should not build its fence and also thinks America could do with such a fence on its Southern border. If it's good enough for those paragons of virtue in the EU, why is it not good enough for Israel and the USA?
Prominent UK libertarian Sean Gabb has an interesting history of his unusual schooldays here. He had a rough time of it and ended up largely self-taught. I too was largely self-taught (See here) but had none of the traumas he had.
Venezuela's Chavez: "For all Chavez's talk about bringing through a revolution in favour of the poor, his policies have been pretty conservative. There have been a lot of showy attacks on the old elite - he replaced judges, reshuffled executives on the state oil company, and undercut the Senate by establishing a new Constituent Assembly. But even Chavez sympathiser Richard Gott admits that he has been 'pragmatic' with the economy - bringing in an austere and orthodox economic policy, seeking to keep on the right side of international investors. Edgardo Lander, sociology lecturer at Venezuelan Central University, said: 'There has been no real redistribution of wealth, and land reform has been very timid. There's been hardly any private property confiscated...and hardly any changes in the tax structure....' In fact, the radical rhetoric is more a replacement for radical action than an expression of it".
A charming case of media bias in Australia. Sydney "Sunday Telegraph" columnist Diana Simmonds is apparently in Athens for the Olympic games and refers to Australia's Prime minister under the heading "Not a PM in sight" as follows: "I LOVE the Olympic Games -- the cathartic effect of a good bellow and leap up and down, followed by a bit of a snivel and a good blow is just the thing as winter drags on. And on. And on. And, as much as I adored Sydney and wouldn't have been anywhere else for quids, I'm loving Athens even more. Know why? Because there's no need to keep the thumb poised over the "off'' button in case the Kirribilli Squatter leaps into the picture to shower Our Kids with his appreciative spittle". [Kirribilli House is the Sydney home of Australian Prime Ministers]. Quote from p.123 -- not online.
An interesting email from a Canadian reader referring to my third post yesterday: "I am very impressed with the idea of the militants and leftists both embracing the idea of "dhimmi", it makes sense to me; unfortunately some of the people I know here seem psychologically ready to capitulate to Islam, and I wouldn't be surprized if some of the women I know convert in the next few years [they are single and way past the age of marrying] -- when I foresee pressure being put on Canadian municipalities where there is a large Islamic population being pressured to broadcast the call to prayer daily [and silence the church bells at the same time!] Let us hope it is just my paranoia!"
Further to my mention of film-maker Elia Kazan yesterday, there is more on the courage of Kazan here. Excerpt: "But for many of us he will not only be remembered for his art but also as a courageous man who fearlessly stood his ground against La-La Land's undercurrent of Stalinism and its mindless support of anti-American causes".
The policeman is a very funny guy if you like British humour. I do. Example: "I thought I would prepare for the forthcoming terrorist attack by manufacturing some ammunition. Above is a picture of my nine year old son holding the mould, while I filled it with molten lead (don't worry he's wearing gloves). The balls were allowed to cool and then inserted into shotgun cartridges, we later fired the 12-gauge lead balls into a tree trunk as a test. It worked, we are now fully protected from Al-Quaeda and social workers". He has a good cartoon in the same post as well.
Alan McCann responds to my post about St. Thomas Aquinas -- pointing out that NOTHING Thomas said justifies government redistribution of wealth.
I have just transferred here a new lot of Chris Brand's postings. As usual, he has found quite a few chinks in the armour of political correctness.
I have just put up a new post on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS and there is an amusing post on GREENIE WATCH about Greenies contradicting one-another. GUN WATCH has a link to a great speech by Charlton Heston. On POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH there is a post which says that official anti-racist policies in Britain in fact make racism worse.
********************************
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 or 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.
********************************
Sunday, August 22, 2004
SOME MORE INTERESTING EMAILS FROM READERS
"I wonder if the current Arab militancy is motivated by the thought that oil will eventually run out, and that their influence and wealth will then cease. If they believe the dire predictions of the Greenies, they might just think that this is their last chance to be a force in the world."
"I just read an account of Lynddie England's testimony about Abu Ghraib. Apparently, her original testimony was that she dreamed up this stuff by herself with a few friends -- to have fun taking naked photos etc. Not difficult to believe. Of course, after consulting with liberal attorneys who hate Bush, she changed her story to "I was just folllowing orders". The attorneys argued that England simply wasn't smart enough to think of this stuff on her own. Where are the Bra Burners? Isn't this an insult to just about any woman anyhwhere -- that England wasn't smart enough to dream up this scheme of taking dirty pictures without someone else telling her what to do?"
"It is more than obvious to me that the "Dhimmi" idea of Islam rather suits modern Leftists. Both the Muslims and the Leftists want to subjugate other people. Apart from slight modifications and the obvious technological changes of today, the intention at least is to return us all to the mediaeval Dhimmi era. And then what? This Utopian crap is hard to fathom. But both Leftists and Islamists want the new worlds such as America and Australia -- the last frontiers, lands of opportunity, and a chance to a real start in a new life -- to end up the same basket-cases as in Europe and elsewhere."
*******************************
"I wonder if the current Arab militancy is motivated by the thought that oil will eventually run out, and that their influence and wealth will then cease. If they believe the dire predictions of the Greenies, they might just think that this is their last chance to be a force in the world."
"I just read an account of Lynddie England's testimony about Abu Ghraib. Apparently, her original testimony was that she dreamed up this stuff by herself with a few friends -- to have fun taking naked photos etc. Not difficult to believe. Of course, after consulting with liberal attorneys who hate Bush, she changed her story to "I was just folllowing orders". The attorneys argued that England simply wasn't smart enough to think of this stuff on her own. Where are the Bra Burners? Isn't this an insult to just about any woman anyhwhere -- that England wasn't smart enough to dream up this scheme of taking dirty pictures without someone else telling her what to do?"
"It is more than obvious to me that the "Dhimmi" idea of Islam rather suits modern Leftists. Both the Muslims and the Leftists want to subjugate other people. Apart from slight modifications and the obvious technological changes of today, the intention at least is to return us all to the mediaeval Dhimmi era. And then what? This Utopian crap is hard to fathom. But both Leftists and Islamists want the new worlds such as America and Australia -- the last frontiers, lands of opportunity, and a chance to a real start in a new life -- to end up the same basket-cases as in Europe and elsewhere."
*******************************
ELSEWHERE
"Sampan incident" belies Kerry heroic image: "John Kerry invented a 'war hero' persona in his private journals and in the home movies he filmed and staged in Vietnam. Playing the lead role, he developed a past intended to advance his future political ambitions. In reality, Kerry was regarded by his Navy peers as reckless with human life. Although Douglas Brinkley's biography 'Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War' recalls that Kerry used the call sign 'Square Jaw' for a short time, it doesn't mention the sign he actually used for most of his four months in Vietnam: 'Boston Strangler.'
What would Lincoln or FDR have done to someone like John Kerry who undermined the war effort in Vietnam? Answer here.
This article says that Kerry could lose because of the "dirt" associated with passionate New Jersey governor McGreevey.
Non-independence day: "Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his 'War on Poverty' program in 1964. Never had there been such a comprehensive program to tackle poverty at its roots, to offer more opportunities to those starting out in life, to rehabilitate those fallen by the wayside and to make dependent people self-supporting. Its intentions were the best. But we know what road is paved with good intentions. The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society -- and of government programs as the solution to social problems. The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word 'liberal' so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation."
Not only has France banned vending machines from schools, the country also now requires all food companies to include health warnings with their advertisements, or fork over 1.5% of their respective advertising budgets to the French equivalent of HHS.
Self-help: "On July 20th, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) introduced legislation to reform Social Security the right way -- with large personal retirement accounts and without tax increases or benefit cuts. These reform measures would allow all workers the option to invest up to half of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts and harness the impact of compounded interest -- what Einstein called the most powerful force in the universe."
Another triumph for America's Leftist educators: "He said Americans had a reputation for being ignorant of world affairs. The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean".
Marlon Brando's recent death has reminded many of his superb performance in "On The Waterfront". Less well known is that the movie's director Elia Kazan, who blew the whistle on communists operating in Hollywood, used 'Waterfront' to explain why he felt it necessary to expose his former party comrades. (See also here for more on the Hollywood Blacklist and recent findings that there WERE in fact Red operatives in tinseltown)
LOL: An hilarious excerpt here from the latest translation of the Bible -- recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Via Maverick Philosopher). How these alleged Christians hate New Testament Christianity! Although I am the most utter atheist you will ever meet (I don't even think the idea of God is meaningful) I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament -- so it saddens me to see it distorted out of all recognition.
Verbum Ipsum gives some interesting quotes about private property from the great Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (I read a fair bit of Thomas myself in my teens). From my reading of it, Thomas was much more respectful of private property than the present Pope is. Thomas sounds rather a lot like a modern conservative thinker, in fact.
Wicked Thoughts has some good stuff up at the moment: An excellent poem about media bias by a former member of the military and a humorous but thought-provoking projection of the news from the year 2035.
As there seems to be a bit of an oil crisis on at the moment, I have just uploaded a chapter by Milton Friedman from my 1974 book. What he says about the oil crisis of the '70s is still worth bearing in mind today. See here
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
********************************
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 or 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.
********************************
"Sampan incident" belies Kerry heroic image: "John Kerry invented a 'war hero' persona in his private journals and in the home movies he filmed and staged in Vietnam. Playing the lead role, he developed a past intended to advance his future political ambitions. In reality, Kerry was regarded by his Navy peers as reckless with human life. Although Douglas Brinkley's biography 'Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War' recalls that Kerry used the call sign 'Square Jaw' for a short time, it doesn't mention the sign he actually used for most of his four months in Vietnam: 'Boston Strangler.'
What would Lincoln or FDR have done to someone like John Kerry who undermined the war effort in Vietnam? Answer here.
This article says that Kerry could lose because of the "dirt" associated with passionate New Jersey governor McGreevey.
Non-independence day: "Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his 'War on Poverty' program in 1964. Never had there been such a comprehensive program to tackle poverty at its roots, to offer more opportunities to those starting out in life, to rehabilitate those fallen by the wayside and to make dependent people self-supporting. Its intentions were the best. But we know what road is paved with good intentions. The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society -- and of government programs as the solution to social problems. The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word 'liberal' so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation."
Not only has France banned vending machines from schools, the country also now requires all food companies to include health warnings with their advertisements, or fork over 1.5% of their respective advertising budgets to the French equivalent of HHS.
Self-help: "On July 20th, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) introduced legislation to reform Social Security the right way -- with large personal retirement accounts and without tax increases or benefit cuts. These reform measures would allow all workers the option to invest up to half of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts and harness the impact of compounded interest -- what Einstein called the most powerful force in the universe."
Another triumph for America's Leftist educators: "He said Americans had a reputation for being ignorant of world affairs. The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean".
Marlon Brando's recent death has reminded many of his superb performance in "On The Waterfront". Less well known is that the movie's director Elia Kazan, who blew the whistle on communists operating in Hollywood, used 'Waterfront' to explain why he felt it necessary to expose his former party comrades. (See also here for more on the Hollywood Blacklist and recent findings that there WERE in fact Red operatives in tinseltown)
LOL: An hilarious excerpt here from the latest translation of the Bible -- recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Via Maverick Philosopher). How these alleged Christians hate New Testament Christianity! Although I am the most utter atheist you will ever meet (I don't even think the idea of God is meaningful) I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament -- so it saddens me to see it distorted out of all recognition.
Verbum Ipsum gives some interesting quotes about private property from the great Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (I read a fair bit of Thomas myself in my teens). From my reading of it, Thomas was much more respectful of private property than the present Pope is. Thomas sounds rather a lot like a modern conservative thinker, in fact.
Wicked Thoughts has some good stuff up at the moment: An excellent poem about media bias by a former member of the military and a humorous but thought-provoking projection of the news from the year 2035.
As there seems to be a bit of an oil crisis on at the moment, I have just uploaded a chapter by Milton Friedman from my 1974 book. What he says about the oil crisis of the '70s is still worth bearing in mind today. See here
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here
********************************
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 or 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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