TUESDAY ROUNDUP

Once again I list what I think were the best posts on my various blogs in the preceding week. My three big postings of the week about happiness research are obviously the bit of writing I am most pleased about. I posted them both here and on "Blogger News". The list of all my recent postings on "Blogger News" is here. I have also combined my three postings on happiness research into a single, slightly revised, article, which you can find here or here. Other than that:

On Dissecting Leftism I note the strange birth-order theories of Frank Sulloway. Birth order can be linked to various things but Sulloway thinks it dictates our politics.

On Greenie Watch I note that methane is a far better candidate than CO2 for a gas that is altering our climate

On Political Correctness Watch I note that businesses run by women make lower profits

On Education Watch I note that only about half of this year's U.S. high school graduates have the reading skills they need to succeed in college

On Gun Watch I note that New Mexico State University's mascot, Pistol Pete, is to lose his pistol

On Socialized Medicine I note how people can be dying from superbugs in public hospitals with nobody in officialdom being very concerned.

On Leftists as Elitists I note the high life lived by Leftist intellectuals at taxpayer expense.

On Tongue Tied I explain the recent minor drama in Australia about banning the word "Mate"

On Majority Rights I note the joke that is American border control

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ELSEWHERE

The usual Leftist hypocrisy: "How DARE you imply that we hate freedom?" That's what red-faced Liberals say, even as they protest against the war for freedom in Iraq and call our President a war criminal. Liberals are such hypocrites, and I for one am sick of it.... Conservatives, on the other hand, truly love freedom - so much so that when necessary, they are willing to fight to preserve and protect it, as well as to export it around the world and extend it to other peoples less fortunate than we are".

An excellent quote from the Gipper: ""I think the so-called conservative is today what was, in the classic sense, the liberal. The classical liberal, during the Revolutionary time, was a man who wanted less power for the king and more power for the people. He wanted people to have more say in the running of their lives and he wanted protection for the God-given rights of the people. He did not believe those rights were dispensations granted by the king to the people, he believed that he was born with them. Well, that today is the conservative."

Strip the federal courts of their power: "Congress is guilty of enabling judicial activism. Just as Congress ceded far too much legislative authority to presidents throughout the 20th century, it similarly has allowed federal judges to operate wildly beyond their constitutional role. In fact, many current members of Congress apparently accept the false notion that federal court judgments are superior to congressional statutes. Unless and until Congress asserts itself by limiting federal court jurisdiction, judges will continue to act as de facto lawmakers. The congressional power to strip federal courts of jurisdiction is plainly granted in Article III, and no constitutional amendments are required. On the contrary, any constitutional amendment addressing judicial activism would only grant legitimacy to the dangerous idea that social issues are federal matters."

Meet Christopher Hitchens' other half : "For most American liberals, the name Hitchens is enough to draw blood -- to the face. But for Sunday newsreaders in Britain, it is another Hitchens who has been riling audiences with his blistering polemics: Christopher's younger brother, Peter. Winner of the Columnist of the Year at the 2005 British Press Awards, Peter Hitchens is an authentic conservative, rooted in the classic liberal values of the Enlightenment era. But he wasn't always this way. A former Marxist, Hitchens famously told his university tutor, upon being late for class, 'I am sorry -- I was trying to start the revolution.' It is from the vantage point of a former leftist that he feels he understands his opponents better than most conservatives."

France creeping in the right direction: "France's commitment to economic liberalism will be tested today when the French Government begins to assess bids for the 12 billion euro privatisation of the country's toll motorway network. Deeply held feelings of patriotism in France are sure to create clashes as pressure builds on the country to adopt the kind of free-market economics widely favoured in Britain and North America".

A good post: "I actually felt myself become a Republican today. It was around 10am, when I read the latest update of the Cindy Sheehan saga in CNN.com. I then shot over to read some blogs about it, and perused the comments in some of them, which was nothing but a long series of petty (albeit entertaining) partisan bickering. Then it happend. The good little Democrat in me tied the little noose around his neck and jumped off the stool. He just couldn’t take it anymore. Take what? The whining. The constant whining by the extreme left about the reasons for war, the incompetence of this administration, and how we’ve all been lied to, and how we should pull out of Iraq immediately, because, *gulp* our soldiers were in danger. Guess what folks….they signed up to join the Army, not the boy scouts....."

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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