"MASS TRANSIT" -- ANOTHER STUPID ANTI-INDIVIDUAL IDEA

Boring, inconvenient, slow old buses and trains are still boring, inconvenient, slow old buses and trains no matter what you call them. And the "liberals" who advocate them ride around in SUV's, funnily enough. At least they mostly seem to have given up calling it "Rapid Transit", as rapid is exactly what it wasn't most of the time

"The new transportation bill, currently working its way through Congress, will provide more than $52 billion for mass transit.... There are just two problems with mass transit. Nobody uses it, and it costs like hell. Only 4% of Americans take public transportation to work. Even in cities they don't do it. Less than 25% of commuters in the New York metropolitan area use public transportation. Elsewhere it's far less--9.5% in San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, 1.8% in Dallas-Fort Worth. As for total travel in urban parts of America--all the comings and goings for work, school, shopping, etc.--1.7 % of those trips are made on mass transit.

Then there is the cost, which is--obviously--$52 billion. Less obviously, there's all the money spent locally keeping local mass transit systems operating. The Heritage Foundation says, "There isn't a single light rail transit system in America in which fares paid by the passengers cover the cost of their own rides." Heritage cites the Minneapolis "Hiawatha" light rail line, soon to be completed with $107 million from the transportation bill. Heritage estimates that the total expense for each ride on the Hiawatha will be $19. Commuting to work will cost $8,550 a year. If the commuter is earning minimum wage, this leaves about $1,000 a year for food, shelter and clothing. Or, if the city picks up the tab, it could have leased a BMW X-5 SUV for the commuter at about the same price".

More here:

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A good article here showing that capitalism in fact ended slavery rather than being founded on it. Excerpt: "I pointed out that slavery had been an ever-present institution throughout human history until just about 200 years ago. Why didn't slaveholders of 2,000 years ago in Europe or 500 years ago in Asia accumulate wealth that triggered economic growth comparable to ours? Why is Latin America so much poorer today than the United States, given that the Spaniards and Portuguese who settled that part of the world were enthusiastic slavers? Indeed, the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery was Brazil -- in 1888, a quarter-century after U.S. abolition. By American and western European standards, Brazil remains impoverished. And why, having abolished slavery decades before their Southern neighbors, were Northern U.S. states wealthier than Southern states before the Civil War? .... The fact is that slavery disappeared only as industrial capitalism emerged. And it disappeared first where industrial capitalism appeared first: Great Britain. This was no coincidence. Slavery was destroyed by capitalism".

"The poor" -- in what sense? "Wealthier is healthier -- and more educated, more equal for women, more electrified, automotive, and computer-literate. So the conventional wisdom in development economics has long been that to boost the prospects of the world's poor, one needs to boost their incomes. This is still true, but as World Bank economist Charles Kenny points out in a provocative article titled 'Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging,' income growth does not tell the full story. Even though some of the world's poorest people are not earning much more than they were two generations ago, they're still living much better than they were. In fact, many quality of life indicators are converging toward levels found in the richer countries."

It's true about male flight attendants: "Most studies of gays stem from a sample of convenience because the universe of the homosexual population is unknown. The flight attendants were chosen for study due to the large population of gay adult men within the profession. Men in the profession of male flight attendants are considered to be members of an underrepresented social-political group and are reported to be stigmatized. Until 1972 when men first entered the profession, flight attendant jobs were traditionally staffed by women. The findings reported in this dissertation research project indicate that the men's job selection of flight attendant reflected a choice to integrate their needs as gay men with work. The job of flight attendant was reported by many of the men as a vehicle for movement into a large group of gay men with some hope of finding companionship, sexual relationships, and in some cases, a long-term partner. The job of flight attendant was also sought as a means of escape from either family, a community, or a job that stifled being gay. Many of the participants reported that both before and after taking the job, the working atmosphere of a flight attendant was perceived as being safe for a gay man"

Consensual sex = abuse? "A bill that seeks to overhaul Missouri's child abuse reporting laws could require teachers, doctors, nurses and others to report sexually active teenagers and children to the state's abuse hot line.... Perhaps the most controversial provision of the bill is one that many say would require educators, medical personnel and other professionals to report "substantial evidence of sexual intercourse by an unmarried minor under the age of consent." Critics say the language would, in essence, require child abuse reports even of cases of consensual sex between two teens. Byrd claims the bill seeks only to target sex by children under the age of 15".

The "Arab street" turns out to be pro-democracy: "Middle Easterners in general have every reason to be inspired by what the so-called "Arab street" can accomplish. Military support from a superpower isn't necessary always and everywhere. It's only really required in countries like Iraq, where a Stalinist political system makes revolution impossible. In weaker "merely" authoritarian countries it's now a demonstrable fact that people-power can work. Right now we're seeing two revolutions at once: a literal revolution by the "Arab street" against a dictatorship, and an intellectual revolution in the West about what "Arab street" means in the first place.... The "Arab street," said the propaganda ministries of these same despicable tyrannies, was supposed to rise up against America, against the West in general, and against any so-called "moderate" pro-Western Middle East governments in particular. What else would you expect them to say? They want nothing more than to channel the rage of their own brutalized subjects toward anyone but themselves. But that's not what happened. Surprise, surprise. The Arab street -- at least in one country -- took its cue not from Osama bin Laden's jihad but from Ukraine's Orange Revolution instead".

Pretty accurate: "Liberals, and the left in general, are parasites on human society. Without the power to compel others to materially support them the members of the left would be compelled either to become rational and productive beings or literally die off".

Astute Blogger has a good post on "ignorance, arrogance and the Left"

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Engels was paranoid about the Slavs. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" deals with the Greenie influence among evangelicals.

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

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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.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

Consumer confidence and consumer spending equal twaddle Every day in some paper or other an economics commentator will solemnly write about the state of consumer confidence or spending
Australian economy: how high must interest rates go to stop the boom? The policy of unleashing an avalanche of credit into the economy triggered off an inflationary boom which eventually forced interest rates to rise
Keynesianism and interest rates Still lurking in the Keynesian woodshed is the myth that interest is a monetary phenomenon that is artificially keeping capital scarce
The myth of the neutral interest rate policy It is widely accepted that by means of suitable monetary policies the US central bank can navigate the economy towards a growth path of economic stability and prosperity. This view is false.
Phillip Adams: keeping the red flag flying and other media delights The far left's most embarrassing spruiker, Phillip Adams, is entering a twilight state of advanced, ossified senility

Details here

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Surprise! Leftist intellectuals back Cuba: "About 200 intellectuals, activists and artists from Latin America and elsewhere issued a letter Monday urging the top United Nations human rights watchdog to side with Cuba in an expected battle over the communist country's rights record..... Nobel Peace Prize laureates including Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina and Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala signed the letter, as did South Africa's Nadine Gordimer and Portugal's Jose Saramago, both recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Among American signatories were actor Danny Glover, author Alice Walker and historian and activist Howard Zinn." [Leftists like Castro because when they meet him he sounds just like them. And he sounds just like them because he IS like them. The only difference is that he is in power]

Non-existent airline security again: "Federal agents arrested 27 illegal immigrants at the Piedmont/Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina. What were these guys doing when they were arrested? They were working on commercial jet airliners! You know, like the ones that al Qaeda terrorists flew into the Twin Towers on 9-11. This strikes me as a pretty lax approach to national security. These 27 men originally came from a variety of countries, including Sudan, Chile, Peru, Zimbabwe, the Philippines, Venezuela, Mexico, and Laos. But they had one thing in common: they almost all possessed valid North Carolina driver's licenses - as well as other documents including airplane-repair licenses, phony Social Security documents, counterfeit green cards, and even a falsified passport".

Border security bill added to war spending plan: "The House today added a bill aimed at tightening border security to the $81.3 billion war spending package, a politically charged measure that has drawn criticism from Mexico but praise from some lawmakers for thwarting terrorism. By voice vote, the House attached the bill that would require states to verify they aren't giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses, would give judges broader power to deport political asylum seekers whom they suspect may be terrorists and would allow the completion of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border."

Another female columnist comments on Estrich: "Take Susan Estrich, the fiftysomething American feminist law professor and commentator, and her battle with Michael Kinsley, opinion page editor of the Los Angeles Times.... Entertaining as it is, the now-famous email exchange (at http://www.dcexaminer.com) exposes two things: that Estrich doesn't deserve a column in the Los Angeles Times because she can't write coherently; and that what "popped her cork", to use Kinsley's phrase, was actually a Los Angeles Times opinion piece ... written by a woman. Only it was the wrong sort of woman, a conservative. The catalyst for Estrich's rage was an article, headlined, "Feminist Fatale: Where are the great women thinkers?", which claimed that ideological feminism had "ghettoised and trivialised the subject matter of women's writing" and "tried to systematically shut out - and shout out - dissent". The article was by Charlotte Allen, an elegant writer who edits the inkWell weblog for the Independent Women's Forum, an American pro-woman organisation run by women, established "to combat the women-as-victim, pro-big-government ideology of radical feminism".... Estrich wanted a column in the Los Angeles Times and thought she could bully her way into one. Her brand of feminism is reserved only for women like her, which is probably why it has lost its appeal".

Peace freak: "A member of an evangelical church that preaches non- violence pulled a gun at a weekly service and fatally wounded seven parishioners before killing himself. The man, identified as Terry Ratzmann, 45, shot 11 people as he walked down the aisle through the 80-person congregation of the Living Church of God at a suburban Sheraton hotel on Saturday, then turned the gun on himself.... Neighbours said that Ratzmann was a computer programmer and avid gardener who had built a garage, a greenhouse and a filtration system that collected rainwater for fish tanks, in which he raised trout. One neighbour described him as so gentle that when rabbits got through his fence, he snared them in humane traps and drove miles to release them. "He was the quietest guy in the world, the nicest," he said".

That "diverse" old Philadelphia: "Police and prosecutors concerned with a spate of killings in the city begged the public for more help identifying murderers. District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham vowed that her office will protect witnesses, even if it means sending a moving van to their home to take them to safety the day they come forward. "We cannot only move you out of the city, we can move you out of the state; we can move you across the country," Abraham said. Within the past eight days there have been 21 homicides in Philadelphia, including three in the late-night and early morning hours after the prosecutor made her appeal Monday. The latest deaths brought Philadelphia's 2005 murder total to 78, up from 66 at the same point a year ago, police said. Homicide Capt. Richard Ross said police have had to solve most of the crimes without the public's help."

Abortion: Britain's Conservative leader has come out saying that he wants abortion to be more restricted than it now is (One in four London pregnancies now end in abortion). He has won the endorsement of the Catholic Church over his remarks but whether he will have the guts to campaign on it in the forthcoming election remains to be seen. Details here

Israeli cabinet minister and former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky is very popular in the White House so the Left loathe him. Steven Plaut has the story.

Michael Darby has re-emerged with lots of information about the state of play in disastrous Zimbabwe plus other posts on China, East Timor and slavery. See here (PDF).

The Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of reading.

My latest posting on MarxWords shows Marx's contempt for Disraeli. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" deals with the "missing" resurrection appearances in Mark.

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

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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.

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On behalf of all my Irish ancestors, a happy Pat's day to all!




WHAT IS CONSERVATISM?

I am always amused at how well Disraeli's propaganda has lasted. Although the idea was not original to him, it is mainly Disraeli whom we have to thank for rebranding the British Tories in the 19th century as the "Conservatives". And the reason Disraeli did that is a very modern one. Under his leadership, the Tories became a great party of reform. It was Disraeli who introduced some of Britain's first worker protection laws and who extended the vote to many working class people who had never had it before. So he named his party according to what it WASN'T in order to confuse his opponents and reassure his allies. Communists do the same thing when they label their governments as "Democratic".

So why did Disraeli lead the Tories so far down the road of reform? Because he saw that the pressure to give the vote to the workers would in the end be irresistible. There had long been agitation for it and that agitation was getting ever more energetic. So what he wanted to do was to avoid another French Revolution. He wanted the transition to majority rule to be peaceful, orderly, non-destructive and non-tyrannical. He succeeded brilliantly. He succeeded in moving the Tories away from being a party of the rich to being a party for all Englishmen and he rightly saw that working class Englishmen could be relied on for patriotism and good sense just as well as more prosperous Englishmen could be. And that is true to this day.

So while it is true that Disraeli wanted to conserve what was best from the past, conserving anything was for him no more than a means to an end. And if that end needed reform to achieve it, that was fine too. So what was he aiming at achieving by his reforms? Unlike Leftists, he was not aiming at equalizing everybody or creating the worker-led tyranny that his contemporary, Karl Marx, was advocating. He was aiming at the opposite of that. He wanted to preserve civility and avoid tyranny. He wanted people to be free to get on with their lives without interference from other people or from the State. He was part of that great tradition in English politics that values individual liberty and suspects the State. And that tradition goes back a long way in England -- right back to the time when Britannia became England about 1500 years ago. The advocates of the individual versus the collectivity have not always been called conservatives but in England they have always been there -- as I set out at length here

Even conservative intellectuals these days still sometimes fall for Disraeli's old propaganda trick (see e.g. here) and assume that the prime aim of conservatives is to conserve -- but in so doing they simply show their ignorance of history. Liberty for the individual is the prime aim of conservatives -- everything else is secondary to that. And present day politics are much like the politics of Disraeli's day. Conservatives don't want to conserve our disastrous educational and social welfare systems, they want to reform them. And they want to reform them by empowering the individual -- just as conservatives have always done.

The most loved and most influential conservative leader of the 20th century knew what conservatism was about, of course. He said: "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism..... The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom". And if Ronald Reagan did not know what conservatism is, who would?

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Why liberty is necessary for morality: "A sad result of so explaining the merits of a free society is that it begins to look like liberty is the enemy of morality. And it is just this way that a good many people have understood the Western tradition of liberalism. They have come to believe that if you accept the Western idea of a free society, you must not care about morality at all. Indeed, arguably a great many enemies of the West hold such a view. Love the West, reject morality; love morality, reject the West. Yet this is completely wrong. In point of fact precisely the opposite is true. The reason the Western idea of a free society makes a great deal of sense is that unless people make their moral choices and act on them freely, there cannot be anything morally praiseworthy in what they do."

Scientists still prefer to work in America: "As a result, scientists once again are headed to the United States. "If you are talking about the applied sciences, like semiconductors or computing, the employment opportunities are generally considered much better in the United States because there are relatively few companies doing that kind of research work in Europe," Lynch told United Press International. The pay also is better in the United States, agreed experts who talked to UPI. "There are big pay differentials; there are (job) security, tenure-type differentials. If you are talking about pure academics then the big problem in Europe is often that the positions offered to young academics are a year long, no more. And that means, again, they have a real difficulty with having any sort of security of the position," Lynch said. That makes it difficult for young professionals who want to start a family, he added.... The higher pay reflects a more positive American view of science, Lynch said, a part of a larger world of possibilities that attracts skilled scientists and engineers to the United States. "There is a can-do attitude in the U.S. which is very positive and very encouraging to the scientific mindset".

Leftist union backs down: "It's amazing what a lot bad publicity can accomplish in less than 24 hours. On Sunday, the Scribe Journal noted that the Detroit News released a statement from the UAW in reference to Marine Reservists using their parking lot. The UAW banned the Marines if the drove a foreign car, or supported President George W. Bush. That was a very poor choice and must driven the unions' image into the dirt very quickly. Monday night, another statement was released by the UAW reversing the ridiculous policy. It was penned by UAW President Ron Gettelfinger".

Canadian taxes drive out investment: "Canadian direct investment in tax havens and other offshore financial centres has soared eight-fold since 1990 to $88-billion in 2003, says a report that has renewed calls for lower taxes to spur investment in this country.... "From 1990 to 2003, Canadian enterprises invested substantial and growing amounts in countries known as 'Offshore Financial Centres,' many of them in the Caribbean," StatsCan said. "These centres include countries that are often referred to as 'tax havens,' as well as those which have important financial sectors, such as Switzerland, but also Ireland."... John Williamson, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said yesterday the inclusion of Ireland among the top five should send Ottawa a message. "That is a country that Canada could learn so much from. They pursued a policy of lower taxes to stimulate economic growth and have succeeded to the point that not only is their economy strong, but it is attracting Canadian capital," he said."

My latest posting on MarxWords shows again that Marx, like Hitler, saw war as being beneficial. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" deals with the two stories of creation in Genesis.

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

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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.

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THE READER'S DIGEST

I bought my first subscription to the Reader's Digest out of my pocket-money in 1956 when I was 13 so I appreciate the truth of the comments below. The only downside is that I am still getting mail from them!

"Imagine, if you will, someone who read only Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman," said the late Susan Sontag in 1982. "Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?"

These were surprising words, spoken by a surprising source. Supposedly high-brow intellectuals such as Sontag weren't supposed to credit the supposedly low-brow Reader's Digest with anything - and especially not moral clarity. Indeed, Sontag's remarks ignited a firestorm of controversy on the Left, whose guardians of political correctness usually viewed condemnations of Soviet totalitarianism as provocative and suspicious.

Sontag's remarks were possible because her enemies were right, and Reader's Digest was a bastion of anti-Communism during the Cold War. Friedrich Hayek once credited the popular success of his book The Road to Serfdom to the fact that the Digest had published a condensed version of it.

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ELSEWHERE

Sometimes American conservatives can be utterly ignorant. Jim Kalb insults all conservatives who are not religious: "Can there be a secular conservatism? My answer is no, at least if conservatism is to be more than the view of a few comfortable intellectuals. "Conservatism" can mean many things, but it always involves a sense that in the most basic ways life can't be understood or controlled. At bottom, we have to accept and cooperate with things as they have been given us by God, nature, history or chance". [How then does he explain that Australia is at once one of the world's most irreligious countries and also one of the world's most conservative countries?. More on this issue here]

The New York Times rediscovers race: "Last fall, the prestigious journal Nature Genetics devoted a large supplement to the question of whether human races exist and, if so, what they mean. The journal did this in part because various American health agencies are making race an important part of their policies to best protect the public - often over the protests of scientists. In the supplement, some two dozen geneticists offered their views. Beneath the jargon, cautious phrases and academic courtesies, one thing was clear: the consensus about social constructs was unraveling. Some even argued that, looked at the right way, genetic data show that races clearly do exist. The dominance of the social construct theory can be traced to a 1972 article by Dr. Richard Lewontin, a Harvard geneticist, who wrote that most human genetic variation can be found within any given "race." ... Three decades later, it seems that Dr. Lewontin's facts were correct, and have been abundantly confirmed by ever better techniques of detecting genetic variety. His reasoning, however, was wrong."

Hot climates cause poverty? Groan! Nobody told the Singaporeans or Northern Australians: "Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent US economist and a special adviser to the UN secretary general, argues in a new book that extreme poverty could be eradicated by 2025.... Professor Sachs is the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the head of the UN's Millennium Project, formulating anti-poverty goals. In an excerpt from his book published in Time magazine, he says there is little evidence that corruption has been the main obstacle to development in Africa, where extreme poverty is concentrated. Rather, he blames the geographical and climatic conditions that have contributed to drought and disease..."

VAWA ignores epidemic of violent women: "In the past few weeks newspapers all over the country have been brimming with accounts of women who engaged in monstrous crimes. To avoid giving offense, I provide only the sketchiest of details here: Dena Schlosser severed off both of her daughter's arms with a knife. Nathshay Ward starved her three children to death. Kim Tran mutilated her boyfriend in a gruesome act of revenge. These women don't exist, and these gruesome crimes never happened. At least that's what the Violence Against Women Act would have us believe."

"DEAth" for disabled pain-sufferers: "Question: What is the greatest barrier to proper healthcare for most people suffering from chronic pain or debilitating injuries? Answer: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Picture if you will: You were born with some genetic malformations [and] bad hereditary traits. ... Then, from your late teens into your early thirties, you've [had] excruciating headaches and other pains, and have spent your life since mostly searching for some relief for either. [Y]ou finally discover a pain-management specialist truly worthy of the name. ... Enter the DEA: Your doctor can only prescribe so large a dose, [or] be ... investigated for 'drug-trafficking'! ... Moreover, all your prescriptions are tightly controlled ... each two-week/one-month period they may not be refilled until the day after the previous ones run out. If there is any delay in [procuring them] ... you must go without until it (or they) arrive(s)."

The Palestinian pathology: "Terrorism is a Palestinian tradition that must end. But in order to bring about this desperately needed change, not only must the Palestinian people cease to show sympathy with their indigenous terrorist organizations, so too must Westerners, both in Europe and in the United States. Sympathy with the Palestinian people is in order, but not sympathy for the institution that has held them back from all progress toward a genuinely responsible civic polity. For that is what terrorism has become among the Palestinians -- it is their peculiar institution, the way slavery was the peculiar institution of the American South in the nineteenth century. For, like the slave system, terrorism, deployed as a means of achieving political goals, ends by poisoning the society that permits it to flourish in its midst".

Hollywood dummos as heroes: "Arguably, the biggest problem in American culture today is the fact that mere entertainers are its heroes.... Prior to the rise of American popular culture, entertainers could never even dream of being the most important members of a society, engaged as they were in a frivolous past-time that helped the folks escape their solemn responsibilities for a short time. In our time, however, the incredible has happened. The court jester has become the king. Those who play the heroes have become the culture's actual heroes. Those who direct fantasy movies are directing the direction of our youth. And with entertainers as the principal people we look up to, so much of our society has become silly and trivial..... The consequences for the elevation of people who perform inconsequential tasks to the center of national attention are enormous. Even if our Hollywood celebrities were not the most damaged people in our society - drugged up, divorced, with even their kids in rehab - the results would still be tragic. By making fashion models our role models, Hollywood heroines our heroes, and singers into saints, we have created a shallow and vain society, distinguished not by sacrifice, but by indulgence. We have created a culture known not for virtue, but for vanity."

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx despised even his fellow Germans. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" has more on the day of judgment.

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

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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.

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TUESDAY ROUNDUP

Once again I pick out what I think are my best posts for the week:

On Dissecting Leftism I take apart the Leftist claim that American Christians are "Nazis".

On Political Correctness Watch I note the self-contradictory nature of the "precautionary principle".

On Greenie Watch I note one example of Greenies losing a round.

On Leftists as Elitists I note that the Leftist academic elite is getting challenged

On Socialized Medicine I note that Britain's public hospitals have big dangers that private hospitals do not

On Education Watch I note that Harvard has in effect joined the USSR

On Gun Watch there are some lessons from the death of a Texas hero

On A Scripture Blog I look at two views of the afterlife

On MarxWords I note that, like Hitler, Marx saw war as a healthy influence.

On Majority Rights I explain neo-Nazi thinking

On Blogger News I point out that the recent slayings in an Atlanta courthouse were the result of political correctness

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ELSEWHERE

Good one! "A nationally syndicated columnist who is openly homosexual is offering what he calls "a truly radical step" to curb unsafe sex -- forcing HIV-positive homosexual men who knowingly or negligently spread the virus to be financially accountable to their affected sexual partners"

Leftist journalists let themselves off the hook: "Media coverage of the Iraq war by the American media was not biased in favour or against the war, according to new research, despite claims the coverage was generally biased and negative. The Project for Excellence in Journalism, a Washington think tank affiliated with Columbia University's school of journalism, looked at more than 2000 stories in newspapers and on television and websites. Most were "straight" news reports, according to the survey's director, Tom Rosenstiel, with 25 per cent of the stories positive and 20 per cent negative. The rest could not be classified one way or the other". But some things were too blatant to be glossed over: "The report also looks at coverage of the presidential election campaign last year. It found 36 per cent of stories on Mr Bush were negative compared with 12 per cent for John Kerry, with 20 per cent of stories positive for Mr Bush, compared with 30 per cent for Senator Kerry. Mr Rosenstiel said these figures did not necessarily reflect bias"

British disgrace: "The British military "tolerates" bullying in its ranks, a long-awaited report said today following an investigation triggered by the deaths of four young army recruits. The report by a parliamentary defence committee said the military - particularly the army - failed to block abuse of its soldiers and called for an independent commission to evaluate future complaints of bullying and harassment.... The inquiry was launched in November after new allegations emerged over abuses at the Deepcut training camp in Surrey, southeast England, where four recruits, aged 17 to 20, died from gunshot wounds in mysterious circumstances between 1995 and 2002. A police inquiry released last year into their deaths revealed more than 100 claims of gang rape, sexual harassment, racism and systematic bullying at Deepcut.... it slammed the "lack of transparency in the investigative process" following the deaths, and said that military and police investigators should "think murder" instead of writing off some deaths as suicides. Relatives of the Deepcut four have rejected army explanations that the soldiers killed themselves - one recruit suffered two bullet wounds to the head - while police have said no evidence of murder could be found."

Nathan Tabor is continuing his campaign of using the internet for consumer protection. All libertarians will approve. Nashville, Tennessee is the problem spot today.

More attention-seeking behaviour "Those fish-lovers at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have added Vice President Dick Cheney to the public figures on their most-wanted list. Just a few weeks after they asked former President Jimmy Carter to turn in his rod and reel, they are urging Cheney to give up fishing. "We hope," says PETA's Karin Robertson , "that you will agree that tormenting these sensitive animals is a pastime that belongs in the past.""

Logical Meme has some good comments about a recent study that seems to show that watching TV makes you more conservative! I think that watching TV probably does have some tendency to make reality more vivid and reality is certainly the enemy of Leftism. People would still believe in Communism if they didn't know how it pans out in reality. No wonder Leftists keep trying to tell us that there is no such thing as reality!

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx welcomed economic depression. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" has a few more comments on the NT teachings about the day of judgment.

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

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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.

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NEO-NAZIS AS OUT-OF-FASHION THINKERS

I have already pointed out at length elsewhere that Hitler was a Leftist in terms of the Leftism of his day and that practically all of his thinking was prefigured in the thinking of Marx & Engels.

If he was so Leftist, however, how come that Hitler's few remaining admirers in at least the Anglosphere countries all seem to be on the political far-Right? This tiny band even refer to themselves as "The Right", in fact. How do I know that? I know that because I in fact happen to be one of the very few people to have studied neo-Nazis intensively. And I have reported my findings about them in the academic journals -- see here and here.

Initially, however, I must point out that the description "Far-Right" is a great misnomer for the successors of Hitler in modern-day Germany. As I have pointed out elsewhere, modern-day German neo-Nazis are demonstrably just as Leftist as Hitler was. So are American, British and Australian neo-Nazis also Leftist in any sense?

The answer to that is a simple one: They are pre-war Leftists, just as Hitler was. They are a relic in the modern world of thinking that was once common on the Left but no longer is. They are a hangover from the past in every sense. They are antisemitic just as Hitler was. They are racial supremacists just as Hitler was. They are advocates of discipline just as Hitler was. They are advocates of national unity just as Hitler was. They glorify war just as Hitler did etc. And all those things that Hitler advocated were also advocated among the prewar American Left.

That does however raise the question of WHY such thinking is seen as "Rightist" today. And the answer to THAT goes back to the nature of Leftism! The political content of Leftism varies greatly from time to time. The sudden about-turn of the Left on antisemitism in recent times is vivid proof of that. And what the political content of Leftism is depends on the Zeitgeist -- the conventional wisdom of the day. Leftists take whatever is commonly believed and push it to extremes in order to draw attention to themselves as being the good guys -- the courageous champions of popular causes. So when the superiority of certain races was commonly accepted, Leftists were champions of racism. So when eugenics was commonly accepted as wise, Leftists were champions of eugenics -- etc. In recent times they have come to see more righteousness to be had from championing the Palestinian Arabs than from championing the Jews so we have seen their rapid transition from excoriating antisemitism to becoming "Antizionist".

But the thinking of the man in the street does not change nearly as radically as Leftists do. Although it may no longer be fashionable, belief in the superiority of whites over blacks is still widespread, for instance. Such beliefs have become less common but they have not gone away. They are however distinctly non-Leftist in today's climate of opinion so are usually defined as "Rightist" by default. So the beliefs of the neo-Nazis are Rightist only in the default sense of not being currently Leftist. They are part of the general stream of popular thinking but that part of it which is currently out of fashion. I say a little more on that elsewhere.

And so it is because the old-fashioned thinking of the neo-Nazis is these days thoroughly excoriated by the Left that they see themselves as of the Right and reject any idea that they are socialists. I can attest from my own extensive interviews with Australian neo-Nazis (see here and here) that they mostly blot out any mention of Hitler's socialism from their consciousness. The most I ever heard any of them make out of it was that, by "socialism", Hitler was simply referring to national solidarity and everybody pulling together -- which was indeed a major part of Hitler's message and which has been a major aim of socialism from Hegel on. And things like autarky (national self-sufficiency) and government control of the whole of society were attractive to them too so they were in fact far more socialist than they would ever have acknowledged. They don't realize that they are simply old-fashioned Leftists. Since most of the world seems to have forgotten what pre-war Leftism consisted of, however, that is hardly surprising.

And the neo-Nazis are assisted in their view of themselves as Rightist by Hitler's anticommunism. The falling-out among the Nazis and the Communists was in Hitler's day largely a falling-out among thieves but the latter half of the second world war made the opposition between the two very vivid in the public consciousness so that opposition has become a major part of the definition of what Nazism is. And Marxism/Leninism was avowedly internationalist rather than racist. Lenin and the Bolsheviks despised nationalism and wished to supplant national solidarity with class solidarity. Given the contempt for Slavs often expressed by Marx & Engels, one can perhaps understand that Lenin and his Russian (Slavic) Bolsheviks concentrated so heavily on Marx & Engels's vision of international worker solidarity and ignored the thoroughly German nationalism also often expressed by Engels in particular.

That class-war was the best way to better the economic position of the worker was, however, never completely obvious. The Fascists did not think so nor did most Leftists in democratic countries. Nonetheless, the internationalist and class-based (rather than race-based) nature of Communism did have the effect in the postwar era of identifying Leftism with skepticism about patriotism, nationalism and any feeling that the traditions of one's own country were of great value. The result of this was that people with strong patriotic, nationalist and traditionalist feelings in the Anglo-Saxon countries felt rather despised and oppressed by the mostly Leftist intelligentsia and sought allies and inspiration wherever they could. And Hitler was certainly a great exponent of national pride, community traditions and patriotism. So those who felt marginalized by their appreciation of their own traditional values and their own community must have been tempted in some extreme cases to feel some sympathy for Hitler.

And if anybody thinks that all this talk about Hitler is harking back to a past that is now so distant as to be irrelevant, just look at what the book of the month is in Turkey! Islamic thinking is lost in the past too.

(An earlier version of this post appeared on Blogger News)

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ELSEWHERE

The Leftist embrace of racism continues: "The proposed legislation would ordain a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity cobbled together by Native Hawaiians meeting a threshold of Native Hawaiian blood. The Entity would negotiate with the United States and the State of Hawaii for lands, natural resources, civil and criminal jurisdiction, and other matters within the customary purview of a sovereign. It would be a race-based state within a state: a government of Native Hawaiians, by Native Hawaiians, for Native Hawaiians"

What a disgrace in Atlanta! Several people had to die because of political correctness. A big black male prisoner is unhandcuffed and escorted by a little old female "guard". Was that asking for trouble or not? Here is what happened: "Brian Nichols, 34, is taken from the Fulton County Jail in northwest Atlanta to Fulton's new Justice Tower downtown. The tower backs up to the old courthouse. In a holding cell, Nichols' handcuffs are removed so he can change from his jail uniform to civilian clothes for his rape trial before Barnes. Sheriff's Deputy Cynthia Hall, 51, of Jonesboro is escorting him..... In or near the holding cell, Nichols attacks Deputy Hall. They struggle for at least three minutes. Nichols slams the deputy into the wall, takes her handgun and shoots her in the head. He flees with her weapon. Nichols crosses the 8th-floor skybridge linking the Justice Tower to the old courthouse. He takes three people hostage and enters the judge's private chambers. He rips out the telephone and searches the three for cell phones. He pops in and out of the office, returning with another deputy at gunpoint. He has taken the deputy's gun. Nichols handcuffs the deputy and pulls him into a closet. He then leaves. Moments later, shots are heard by his three captives. Witnesses say Nichols entered the courtroom from a door behind Judge Barnes' bench and shoots the judge in the back of the head. He then shoots court reporter Julie Ann Brandau of Snellville. Neither survive". [Because of "diversity" some of the guards have to be female of course and age cannot be mentioned. How "correct"! Because of "respect" for criminals, he was not handcuffed when taken into court. How "sensitive"!]

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx thought war was a healthy influence. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at two views of the afterlife.

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

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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.

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CASTRO: NEW BOOK FROM REGNERY

Castro is the "charming and idealist" dictator loved by Hollywood, academia, and the liberal media. However, what The New York Times doesn't tell you is that behind his charisma lies a merciless dictator and mass murderer who outnumbered the Nazi prewar incarceration and murder rate during his first three months in power. In Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant, journalist, acclaimed author, and Cuban emigre Humberto Fontova shatters the myths and exposes the truth about the liberal elites' love affair with Castro-revealing the propaganda of media inaccuracies of the past forty-three years.

Fidel is a shocking confirmation of how one dictator has murdered, impoverished, and tyrannized a country that once had the eleventh highest living standard in the world-yet remains American liberals' favorite dictator. In hundreds of interviews with former Castro regime officials, anti-Castro freedom fighters, and Castro's political prisoners, Fontova reveals the truth about "Cuba's President." Fidel discloses horrific tales of the Castro regime, including his failed terrorist plot on New York City, atrocious human rights record, and blood-drenched Cuban Revolution.

More details here

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ELSEWHERE

I am still getting mail about my recent posts pointing out that Hitler was a socialist. Most of it is from Leftists who have obviously not read a single link that I put up in that connection but the following email from a regular correspondent gave me a bit of a laugh: "Your recent post about Leftists not accepting the fact that Hitler was a socialist raises a question that has puzzled me for a long time: just what do socialists think socialism is? In the broadest strokes I think their reasoning is essentially something like this: "socialism is all that is good and lovely. Hitler was not good and lovely. Therefore Hitler cannot be a socialist." Sometimes I think it's no deeper than that, really.... But on a deeper level I think there is something else at work here: the Nazis were too organized and far too snazzy dressers to be contemporary leftists. Contemporary leftists these days seem to have a built-in suspicion of things like cleanliness and order and a weird worship for the criminal, the nutcase, the generally messed-up".

The new bankruptcy bill, which now looks like becoming law, has attracted enemies among both Leftists and Rightists (see e.g. here and here and here and here and here). There seems to be a general view that it is too harsh. I disagree. I think it is not tough enough. I do not see why anybody should EVER be discharged from bankruptcy until they have paid their debts. Why should anybody be legally allowed to thumb their nose at people who have provided them with goods and services in good faith? Debtors should work to repay their debts -- even if it takes years. Though I would exempt debts arising through tort law as such debts are largely random hazards these days and usually arise without any benefit being received by the debtor. One of my readers has written in on this subject too. See here. Bring back personal responsibility!

The usual Leftist substitution of abuse for discussion still seems to be going strong at Columbia University -- where far-Leftists are defending Islamist professors against student attempts to get balance into the classroom.

What a klutz English journalist Simon Jenkins is! He is best known for publishing an article claiming that there was no terrorist threat to Europe just a day or two before the Madrid bombing. Now he has published an article in The Times saying how ignorant and uninformed bloggers are compared to wise print journalists like himself. But he totally undermines his own case by showing his complete ignorance of blogs and blogging. The howlers in his article are innumerable. His article demonstrates exactly the OPPOSITE of what he asserts -- he shows by example that it is the print journalists who are the ignoramuses. Scott Burgess has the sorry details.

Young women yearn for 1950s role as stay-at-home mums: "They are the generation of women who grew up expecting to have it all. No longer forced to choose between children and a career, they were set to embrace superwomanhood by doing both - while holding down a perfect relationship and keeping a spotless home in their spare time. But modern woman has taken a reality check. The average 29-year-old now hankers for a return to the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife. The daughters of the "Cosmo" generation of feminists want nothing more than a happy marriage and domestic bliss in the countryside, according to a survey. Research into the attitudes of 1,500 women with an average age of 29 found that 61 per cent believe "domestic goddess" role models who juggle top jobs with motherhood and jet-set social lives are "unhelpful" and "irritating". More than two-thirds agree that the man should be the main provider in a family, while 70 per cent do not want to work as hard as their mother's generation. On average, the women questioned want to "settle down" with their partner by 30 and have their first child a year later".

Black-white gap in death rate: " Middle-age black men are dying at nearly twice the rate of white men of a similar age, reflecting lower incomes and poorer access to healthcare, a study says. But mortality among black infants is dropping. While overall longevity for both black and whites has improved during the past 40 years, the gap between the races has narrowed little, former Surgeon General David Satcher said in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs ..... One reason for the differences is that gains in healthcare access generally have not included black men unless they were older or disabled, Satcher said. For example, when Medicare became law, the average black man did not live long enough to become eligible, he said. Other factors include the relatively low incomes of black men compared with whites, a rise in gun-related deaths among blacks, their disproportionately high death rate from AIDS, and higher rates of heart disease and diabetes, Satcher said..... ''Strikingly, the homicide rate of black males in the highest education category exceeds that of white males in the lowest education group,'' Jackson and Williams wrote." [Looks like it's not all the fault of whites this time!]

America's Ayatollahs: "It is painfully ironic that we should be promoting the spread of democracy abroad when democracy is shrinking at home. Over the years, the outcomes of our elections have meant less and less, as judges have taken more and more decisions out of the hands of elected officials. Judges have imposed their own notions on everything from school administration to gay marriage, and have ordered both state and federal agencies to spend billions of dollars to carry out policies favored by the judges or have even ordered a state legislature to raise taxes. This naked exercise of judicial power has been covered by the fig leaf of pretense to be "interpreting" laws and the Constitution by stretching and twisting words beyond recognition.... While people in various countries in the Middle East are beginning to stir as they see democracy start to take root in Iraq, our own political system is moving steadily in the opposite direction, toward rule by unelected judicial ayatollahs, acting like the ayatollahs in Iran".

Wayne Lusvardi points out the junk science behind the latest claim that passive smoking causes breast cancer.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx ripped off his own father. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" has a bit more on the Anglican churches.

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

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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.

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