ELSEWHERE

South America's lurch to the Left now seems to be just about complete with the election of a new Leftist government in Uruguay. But that's democracy. If people want to make stupid choices that is up to them. Anyone these days who thinks that socialism leads anywhere must be a bit missing somewhere, though. Perhaps Latinos really are stupider on average.

Nathan Tabor has a quarrel with General Motors. If GM keep selling junk, more and more people will want to "outsource" their vehicle purchases to overseas companies.

Maureen Dowd sure gave me a laugh with this gem: ""We are torturing people, we're outsourcing torture, the administration is trying to throw journalist in jail and basically trying to replace the whole press corps with ringers, including male escorts."

The magic of monarchy: "The allure of rubbing shoulders with royalty was too much to resist even for some of Sydney's best-know republicans yesterday as the city's great and good turned out for lunch with Danish Crown Princess Mary and her husband, Prince Frederik. Republican NSW Premier Bob Carr played host as Princess Mary and Prince Frederik sat at the same table as Gough and Margaret Whitlam - both firm republicans. The 140 hand-picked guests at the lunch at Sydney's Governor Macquarie Tower also included Sydney's republican archbishop, George Pell. Mr Carr told guests it was not surprising the 33-year-old princess had married into a royal family, given her home state's support for the monarchy at the 1999 republic referendum".

Dutch deserting their sinking ship: "Leave this stable and prosperous corner of Europe? Leave this land with its generous social benefits and ample salaries, a place of fine schools, museums, sports grounds and bicycle paths, all set in a lively democracy? The answer, increasingly, is yes. This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims."The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure cooker atmosphere," Mr. Hiltemann said..... There are no precise figures on the numbers now leaving. But Canadian, Australian and New Zealand diplomats here said that while immigration papers were processed in their home capitals, embassy officials here had been swamped by inquiries in recent months.... "When I grew up, this place was spontaneous and free, but my kids cannot safely cycle home at night," said Mr. Konings, 49. "My son just had his fifth bicycle stolen." At school, his children and their friends feel uneasy, he added. "They're afraid of being roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids..... Immigrant youths now make up half the prison population. More than 40 percent of immigrants receive some form of government assistance, a source of resentment among native Dutch".

But the Dutch ARE cracking down on Muslims at last: "The consensus has shifted across the board. In a country that can still seem a parody of itself - a magistrate ruled recently that an armed robber was entitled to a tax rebate on the cost of his gun as a tool of his trade - even the leader of the Green party has called for it to be illegal for Muslims to import spouses through arranged marriages. Integrated teams, drawn from the police, social welfare and housing offices, are used to locate and arrest illegals. Social welfare knows who is drawing benefit, housing offices have addresses, and police check for criminal records. The number of asylum seekers has been slashed from 43,000 to 10,000 a year, nine-tenths of whom have their applications rejected".

Keith Burgess Jackson is pretty cheesed at the way abusive commenters on his blogs hide behind anonymity. He calls them cowards.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Engels said that government exists only to oppress political enemies. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" notifies a possible hiatus.

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

**************************

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"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

********************************