ELSEWHERE

What utter unscientific garbage! "A medical student who has worked for an abortion rights group and the director of a clinic that provides abortions were among authors of a report on the highly charged issue of fetal pain published Wednesday. The report, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that fetuses probably don't feel pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy". Premmie babies born long before that stage are complete human beings!

Dr Weevil has a nice put-down of that vast ego known as Brian Leiter. In case anybody misses it, the curculionidaceous one (Weevil) heads his post "Hybris in action". "Hybris" (more usually rendered in English as "hubris") is ancient Greek for "overweening pride" or "the pride that comes before a fall" -- pretty apt for Leiter. Keith Burgess-Jackson generally describes Leiter more simply -- as "nuts". Both descriptions have much truth in them.

Bush gives in (maybe) to pressure over illegal migrants: "The Bush administration has signalled a big policy reversal on illegal immigration, telling a worried public that it is "rightly distressed" about the nation's porous borders. The homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, made what amounted to a U-turn on immigration policy after months of rising pressure from congressmen and law enforcement officials.... Announcing a series of measures, Mr Chertoff said he would build camps for illegal migrants, speed up deportations by providing more judges and lawyers and raise the number of officers tracking down fugitives ignoring expulsion orders.... Most polls indicate that more than 80 per cent of Americans believe border protection is too lax.... The American immigration system is close to collapse. This year, the federal authorities have caught almost 500,000 illegal migrants, with 142,000 from countries other than Mexico. That has forced officials to release many before they reach deportation hearings.

Vast British muddle: "Islamic extremists boasted of how they would never be thrown out of Britain yesterday as a promised crackdown by the Government turned into a shambles. The hardliners taunted Home Secretary Charles Clarke after he promised action 'within days' to start deporting dozens of foreign preachers of hate living in the UK... Al-Siri's defiance came as Mr Clarke's plans were attacked by leading lawyers and moderate Muslims. They warned the deportations policy would breach international law, create massive confusion and turn Muslims against the Government.... Mr Clarke said the measures were necessary to counter the 'real and significant' terrorist threat facing the country after the suicide bombings in London on July 7. But legal experts said that, under human rights laws, he could not send anybody back to countries where they could face torture or death.... The deportations are likely to be tested in the Court of Appeal, House of Lords and, ultimately, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in a process lasting up to three years. Ten extremists rounded up by officials ten days ago have already lodged appeals."

What Israel needs to do: "Anyone who thinks that more Israeli concessions comprise the magic way to peace should look carefully at the experience of the past 12 years... We agree with Mr. Sharon's argument that the defense resources spent on protecting outlying Gaza settlements could be better allocated to protect the country against terrorism. Israel should adopt a policy of relentless and massive deterrence, guaranteeing that Gaza-based terrorists will be hit very hard every time they fire rockets into Israel. For such a deterrence policy to work, it is essential that Washington support Israel when it defends itself against terror."

I am a bit slow off the mark on this story but note this offensive NYT article from a so-called historian: "The United States now has a mercenary army. To be sure, our soldiers are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries. But like those Hessians, today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits". And see the article thoroughly taken apart by someone who DOES know his history.

A heartening story here of how the blogosphere helped at least one member of the U.S. military.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big selection of blogospheric reading.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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