Brookes News Update

Labour market reform comes under attack and the Liberal Government flounders : The left have launched a fierce assault against the Liberal Government's labour market reform policy. As expected, the Liberal Party's brilliant elite failed dismally to counterattack
A bigoted journalist slimes President Bush, US and the market: Martin Flanagan is another sickening example of the mainstream media's hatred of President Bush and loathing of free markets
Hussein's media collaborators use anthrax lie to slander the US: The London Times and The Australian published a story accusing the US of aiding Hussein's biological-weapons program, even though they knew the story was false
Los Angeles Times libels Israel, and enough is never enough: The anti-Semitic Los Angeles Times libels Israel over Palestinian living standards. What is it about the lefty media that drives them nuts about Israel -- or should I say Jews?
Econometric models - what are they all about? : Econometric models are clumsy and expensive extrapolative devices which have nothing in common with real economies
Labour market reform and the costs argument: How the concept of costs was used to try and discredit the idea of free labour markets
Free labour markets and a leftwing academic's propaganda: The mere mention of free markets is enough to drive left-wing academics like John Legge into a frenzy. In a truly educated climate Legge's economic views would, at best, be the subject of some amusement. Unfortunately, many journalists and politicians share his deplorable economic ignorance
Free markets, science, technology and conservation: Free markets drive technology, not self-important bureaucrats, arrogant academics or ignorant politicians

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ELSEWHERE

Disturbing if true. There's nothing worse than a dummy with a gun: "Further evidence that the war in Iraq is wrecking the U.S. Army: Recruiters, having failed to meet their enlistment targets, are now being authorized to pursue high-school dropouts and (not to mince words) stupid people. This year the Army set a goal of recruiting 80,000 active-duty soldiers, but it wound up with just 73,000 -- almost 10 percent short. As a result, the Army Times reported this week, the Pentagon has decided to make up the difference by expanding the pool -- by letting up to 10 percent of new recruits be young men and women who have neither graduated high school nor earned a General Equivalency Diploma. More than that, the Los Angeles Times reports today that 4 percent of recruits will be allowed to score as low as in the 16th to 30th percentile -- a grouping known as 'Category IV' -- on the U.S. Armed Forces' mental-aptitude exam."

FEMA gets even nuttier: "The Phoenix Fire Department's Urban Search and Rescue team has been suspended from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for deploying armed police officers to protect firefighters in violation of the agency's rules. As a result, Phoenix officials now are threatening to refuse some of the most dangerous deployments in the future or possibly even pull out of the federal agency altogether, unless the rules are changed to allow teams to bring their own security, even if that means police with guns. FEMA has been the target of widespread criticism for its perceived slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Assistant Phoenix Fire Chief Bob Khan said his department also is questioning the federal agency's ability to manage working conditions, security and communications. 'Our priority has to be the safety of the firefighters we're sending,' Khan said."

No mention of how many died violently: "The search for Hurricane Katrina victims has ended in Louisiana with a death toll at 964, but more searches will be conducted if someone reports seeing a body, a state official said Monday. State and federal agencies have finished their sweeps through the city, but Kenyon International Emergency Services, the private company hired by the state to remove the bodies, is on call if any other body is found, said Bob Johannessen, a spokesman with the state Department of Health and Hospitals."

The heirs of the Soviets like Fascism: How unsurprising: "Russia has caught World War II fever 60 years after the war's end, but the books and DVDs flying off store shelves are far from patriotic. They contain Nazi themes and often offer Nazi ideology. 'It's already a fashion,' said Sergei Stepanich, an expert on fascist literature at the Center for Human Rights. Nestled among pornographic DVDs at kiosks at Leningradsky Station are numerous discs offering original Nazi propaganda from the 1940s. The DVDs carry the original newsreels that were shown in German cinemas. A DVD on the Nazi SS has a blurb on the back of the box that talks about the troops' 'genuine professionalism.'"

Sounds reasonable: "Republican Gov. George Pataki has ordered state officials to keep some sexual predators locked up after their prison sentences are up, despite objections from those who say it may not be legal. Pataki, who is eyeing a run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, issued the order Sept. 12 after failing for years to persuade lawmakers to pass legislation authorizing civil confinement for sex offenders. The order extends the state's involuntary commitment law, normally used for the mentally ill, to sexual predators. It requires offenders nearing the end of their sentences undergo an evaluation to determine if they are a public safety risk."

Rather encouraging: "Orthodox priests chanted prayers and believers lighted candles as Patriarch Alexy II led reburial rites yesterday for Gen. Anton Denikin, who fought against the Red Army during Russia's civil war and is now cast as a patriot. The ceremony was Russia's latest attempt to close a bitter chapter in its history, when the country was divided into communists and their foes. The reconciliation seeks to give respect to all Russians who fought for their nation".

Typical Leftist elitism: "The man once known as the most trusted journalist in America no longer trusts Americans to vote for their own leaders, saying average citizens are just too ignorant to cast their ballots wisely. "We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders," CBS News legend Walter Cronkite told the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication last week".

Daniel Pipes has an amusing article about the incredible stupidity of many Muslim terrorists.

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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