Yesterday and Today (a list)

By Evan Sayet

"At the end of the previous administration we were in a recession. Today we are in what is known as a "Golidlocks" economy -- "just right" for sustained, longterm growth.

At the end of the previous administration America was still reeling from murderous attacks on our embassies, buildings and warships -- with 9/11 already planned and moving into place. Today America has gone almost four years without a single successful attack on America -- or an American interest outside the Middle East!!!

At the end of the previous administration taxes were high across the board. Today everyone who pays taxes keeps more of their income.

At the end of the previous administration Afghanistan was ruled by the vicious Taliban and was home to the terror training camps and organizational center of al Qaeda. Today Afghanistan is a democratic ally fighting and defeating the terrorists.

At the end of the previous administration Syria was continuing its vicious occupation of Lebanon. Today Lebanon is free.

At the end of the previous administration the horrific terror tactics of the Palestinians was devastating the tiny democracy of Israel. Today terror against our democratic ally is down by over 90 percent.

At the end of the previous administration Pakistan was a nuclear armed enemy of the United States, aiding and abetting the Islamic fascist terrorists behind 9/11 and other murderous attacks upon our civilians. Today Pakistan is an ally of the United States fighting and defeating the terrorists.... "

Much more here

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ELSEWHERE

Oh Dear! IQ is not only real but we are now finding where it is in the brain: "Highly intelligent people use slightly different brain circuitry to solve IQ test problems than their less gifted peers, some new studies have found.... "Where in the brain is intelligence? Are we getting close to an answer?" Richard J. Haier of the University of California at Irvine, who has conducted many studies on individual differences in intelligence, asked rhetorically. "I think we are." One new study has found that although people show increased activity in several brain regions while taking IQ tests, gifted people show even greater activity in these regions. This difference was especially pronounced in a zone called the posterior parietal cortex, at the top-back of the head, the researchers found, suggesting further study of this area might give insights into how intelligence works. The researchers-Kun Ho Lee at Seoul National University in Korea, and others at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and other institutions-published the findings in the Aug. 22 early online edition of the research journal Neuroimage.... However, at least one previous study did find a special role for this region, as Lee did. Also, Lee and colleagues noted, this area was enlarged in Einstein's brain.... One variable that has confounded IQ-test studies is that some of them actually find lower, not higher, brain activation among gifted people. This fits neatly with a hypothesis proposed by Haier-that more intelligent brains work more efficiently, so that brain circuits unnecessary for the task at hand aren't used".

Astounding news: "Scientists have created "miracle mice" that can regenerate amputated limbs or damaged vital organs, making them able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals. The experimental animals are unique among mammals in their ability to regrow their heart, toes, joints and tail. And when cells from the test mouse are injected into ordinary mice, they too acquire the ability to regenerate, the US-based researchers say. Their discoveries raise the prospect that humans could one day be given the ability to regenerate lost or damaged organs, opening up a new era in medicine. Details of the research will be presented next week at a scientific conference on ageing titled Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, at Cambridge University in Britain. The research leader, Ellen Heber-Katz, professor of immunology at the Wistar Institute, a US biomedical research centre, said the ability of the mice at her laboratory to regenerate organs appeared to be controlled by about a dozen genes. Professor Heber-Katz says she is still researching the genes' exact functions, but it seems almost certain humans have comparable genes".

Hugo Chavez meets Katrina and the waves: "Two nights ago the Discovery Channel broadcast a segment on the recent 'Si' vs. 'No' referendum concerning Venezuela's Marxist President Hugo Chavez. From a production point of view the show was excellent. Journalistically it was balanced to a high degree of fairness. Of course as one might expect, those opposing Chavez stood in the light, while Chavez's supporters were sometimes misguided and even violent. They wore red -- the colors of North Korea, North Vietnam, COSATU, Red China and the now defunct Soviet Union. They said things like, 'There are only two possibilities in this election. Chavez stays or there will be war.' So much for democracy and pluralism; this is the face of fascism, red style."

Chez Joel has found some really strange stuff on a site devoted to Hugo Chavez, that great revolutionary hero of Venezuela.

Amazing good news on the U.S. economy. Could GWB be doing something RIGHT?: "The nation's unemployment rate dipped to a four-year low of 4.9 percent in August as companies added 169,000 jobs, a sign that the labor market continued to gain traction before Hurricane Katrina struck."

Logical Meme says that new layers to the “Bush-Caused-Katrina” meme and the “Bush-Doesn’t-Care-If-Blacks-Die” meme are taking shape within the MSM. The unfolding events, and the inevitable Congressional Hearings to follow, provide an excellent opportunity to watch how media bias, the politicization of a hurricane, and the conspiratorial grievance mindset of the "civil rights movement" unfold.

The Hurricane: In 1977, during Jimmy Carter's presidency, environmentalist lawsuits sank a 25-year plan designed to protect New Orleans from a Cat 5 hurricane. So it's Bush's fault. See here and here for lots of background.

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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