ELSEWHERE

Hooray! The taxpayer wins for a change: "A World Trade Organization decision yesterday saying the U.S. illegally subsidizes its cotton farmers could threaten millions of dollars paid to wheat growers in Washington, and possibly affect other farm subsidies here as well. The case, brought by Brazil, is the first successful challenge to U.S. domestic farm aid under WTO and is likely to spur challenges to support for other crops, analysts said."

LOL: "Atheism as a theoretical position is in decline worldwide," Munich theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg said in an interview. His Oxford colleague Alister McGrath agrees. Atheism's "future seems increasingly to lie in the private beliefs of individuals rather than in the great public domain it once regarded as its habitat," Mr. McGrath wrote in the U.S. magazine, Christianity Today."

There is a good account here of the massive and useless bureaucratic mess that is the CIA. Largely because of Clinton, its only achievement is in being "diverse".

A place for race in medicine? "Ever since the fall of the Nazis, the world has tried to keep the biology of racial disparity under wraps. It has been acceptable to link racial differences to social and cultural factors. One race might underperform another because of upbringing or poverty. But suggesting biology as the cause for those differences -- like 'The Bell Curve' did a decade ago when it looked at academic achievement -- was strictly taboo. Now, a new and unexpected force -- medicine -- is pulling back the covers. By taking a close look at minute differences in people's genetic codes, researchers and drug companies are beginning to create racially based drugs and treatments. Given the prospect of targeting treatment, some scientists argue that the subject at least ought not to be taboo."

Another attack on the military: "A group of more than 50 House members filed a bill yesterday that would reverse the 12-year-old 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in uniform, arguing that the ban against them undermines national security at a time when the military is struggling to recruit soldiers. The bill represents the first major congressional effort to repeal the policy since it went into effect in 1993, under a compromise brokered by President Clinton. It also reflects an attempt by Democrats and gay-rights advocates to reframe the debate over the rights of gays and lesbians, in an era when Republicans have used the controversial same-sex marriage issue as a political club against Democrats. The measure's sponsors argue that national security demands that gay and lesbian soldiers be allowed to serve."

Further paradoxes of full equality: "What would be needed to make everyone equally well/badly off? A police state, that's what. The late Harvard political philosopher Robert Nozick made this point a crucial element of his classic Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Basic Books, 1974). He postulated the aggressive public policy of equalization, combined with the measure of liberty no one can reasonably consider giving up, namely, people spending their left over income -- after the Draconian taxation such equalization would require -- as they choose. So, millions of them would spend a bit on seeing Kobe Bryan play basketball -- or Clint Eastwood direct a movie or Britney Spears perform on stage -- which would immediately create enormous inequalities. To remedy this, what is needed? Nothing less than a massive police operation that removes the unequal wealth from these favorites and redistributes it all on a daily basis."

Saudi terrorism: "The predominance of Saudis in Iraqi terrorism also goes a long way toward explaining the other fact that Western media and government have been reluctant to admit: the role of Wahhabism as an inciter of violence against Shias. Wahhabis hate Shias even more than Christians and Jews, because, as Saudi schools (including those like the Islamic Saudi Academy in the United States) teach, Christians and Jews have their own religions that are openly opposed to Islam, but Shias want to "change Islam," which the Wahhabis consider the personal property of the Saudi rulers. Few in the West seemed to notice earlier this week when 2,000 people assembled in Hilla, near Baghdad, to protest a car bombing that killed at least 125. The demonstrators chanted "No to terrorism! No to Baathism and Wahhabism!"

Leftist lamebrain. Has he noted that Osama is a billionaire? "In the opening address of a University conference on world hunger, former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern urged U.S. officials on Thursday to fight the war on terrorism by feeding the starving people of the world. Speaking to an audience of scholars and students in Dodds Auditorium, McGovern said humanitarianism constitutes a counterterrorism strategy because it eases discontent in developing nations. "Instead of going to war in Iraq and smashing that country," McGovern asked, "would we have done better . . . if we had spent that money on reducing hunger?""

My latest posting on MarxWords notes again what an idealist Marx wasn't. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks again at whether Christ died on a cross.

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

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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