ELSEWHERE

Polipundit has also now weighed in on how the public opinion polls are being "cooked" to make GWB look less popular than he is. Again it is mainly being done by including more Democrats in the sample. I mentioned that caper previously on 24th.

Jeff Jacoby favours term limits on judges: "Alexander Hamilton described the judiciary as the ''least dangerous branch," since it had no authority to appropriate funds and no way to enforce its decisions. But federal courts today exercise powers the Framers never gave them. They overturn laws passed by legislators, constitutionalize rights not enumerated in the Constitution, even determine the outcome of a presidential election. And if that doesn't make them potent enough, federal judges hold their jobs for life. They are unelected, unaccountable -- and enormously influential. Is it any wonder that judicial appointments are fought over so fiercely? So much is riding on the outcome. Ultimately, the only way to reduce the acrimony is to make the judges less powerful. That could be accomplished by eliminating judicial review or enacting limits on the courts' jurisdiction. But there is an easier and more realistic approach: Do away with lifetime tenure".

The truth about the Crusades: "The real beginning came in the century following the death of Muhammad in 632. During that incredible hundred years, Muslims spread their religion by force throughout Arabia, and into the modern Middle East, including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, as well as into Egypt, north Africa, and Spain... It is easily forgotten that some of these territories had been heavily Christian when the Muslims took them over. No one today thinks of Syria and Egypt as Christian centers, but in the seventh century they certainly were. The ancient city of Antioch had been home to a school of Christian thought second only to that of Alexandria, and Egypt had been the birthplace of Christian monasticism.... When the Seljuk Turks conquered Palestine in the early eleventh century they at first carried out atrocities against Christians, destroying churches and killing some of the faithful. Although this approach was soon abandoned, the internal divisions of the Seljuk Turks translated into instability in the Holy Land, where Christian pilgrimages to the city's holy places became perilous. Thus the crusade called by Urban would try to ease some of the pressure from the troubled Byzantines, but also set its sights on liberating the once-Christian Holy Land from the hands of the Muslims. At no time did the crusaders come anywhere near Arabia, the heart of Islam"

Signs of a swing towards conservatism among German youth: "Politically at least, Germany does indeed appear to be in the midst of a shift back to the right, although there are plenty who argue that it is not so much the conservative Christian Democrats who are rising in popularity as the left-of-center Social Democrats who have fallen out of favor. But this generation of young Germans has a decided lack of interest in the political issues of their society, and are much more interested in themselves than anything else".

Cuba: "Faced with crippling power outages and a grumbling public, Cuba's President Fidel Castro has made an urgent televised appeal for energy thrift, even demonstrating the relative merits of Chinese-made pressure cookers. "Exceptional measures are being taken" to cope with the crisis, Castro, 78, said in an hours-long appearance on state television late Thursday, as the crunch has begun to yield more blackouts, and longer ones, as Cuba heads into the hottest summer months".

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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers 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.

Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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.

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