FROM BROOKES NEWS
US economy and current account deficit fallacies If those who claim that the strength of the US economy is driving the current account deficit were right then the dollar would not be falling. But what can one expect when from January 2001 to December 2004 M1 grew by 27 per cent?
Mistaken identities & the Paddy McGuinness fiasco 'Well I never! Guess what? Media Watch sprung that old fool Paddy McGuinness. Old Paddy got himself in hot water by publicly accusing Ali bin Ramsey of not doing what he himself did not do
China's economy is a stunted giant It will be a great many years before China can pose a real military threat to the US, unless Americans do something incredibly stupid like handing both Houses and the Oval Office over to the Democrats
Four myths of the Asian economic crisis The depth and suddenness of the economic crisis that swept through the Asian economies took most economists and investment advisers by complete surprise. It shouldn't have
Louisiana Governor swoons over Castro Observe the moralizing and humbug by U.S. political and business hucksters when they visit Cuba
The state creates the black market What is the connection between the various methods used by the many crime gangs and paramilitary forces to enrich themselves?
Details here
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Saturday, March 26, 2005
ELSEWHERE
I must say that I am disturbed that Google News is no longer indexing what it calls "hate-speech" sites. Leftist sites are full of hate for conservatives, Christians etc so are we going to see them censored too? I suspect not. What has happened, in other words, is that Leftist agitation has caused extremes of political incorrectness to be censored -- with no guarantee at all that lesser levels of political incorrectness will not in time be censored too. It does in fact look like bad news for Google. There is already an alternative search service called "All the Web". It may get a lot more users if people get sick of Google's arbitrary censorship. I have myself for some time been finding that Clusty.com finds stuff that Google does not so Google may now have passed its peak.
David Horowitz: "What I've shown is that there are only a couple of degrees of separation between anybody on the left and the terrorists -- and that includes people in the Democratic Party, even those who are anti-terrorist. For example, the coalition of civil liberties groups that attacked the USA Patriot Act are thoroughly penetrated by pro-terrorist radicals based in organizations like the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights. This doesn't mean that every Democrat or every Republican who opposes the USA Patriot Act is a "useful idiot." ... But it does mean that they need to be more mindful of the arguments they are being presented with and supporting".
Another bloated bureaucracy: "The agency responsible for child welfare in Washington state has overspent its budget by $12 million.... The Children's Administration, with a $450 million annual budget, oversees foster care and child protection in Washington. It's part of the Department of Social and Health Services. Uma Ahluwalia, director of the Children's Administration, blamed the budget busting on lack of spending controls, inaccurate cost projections, higher telecommunication costs and years of unpredictable financial management. She was appointed to lead the agency 18 months ago and said she has seen widely varied DSHS budgets even in that short time..... The foster care system has been troubled by tragedies, including the recent deaths of several children in state care. Last summer, the state promised to make improvements as part of the settlement of a class-action lawsuit over inadequacies in foster care."
Bad brains: "Last month the Supreme Court ruled that teenagers under age 18 who commit premeditated murder cannot be executed. The court based its ruling in part on recent studies that found that the frontal lobes of teenagers were not sufficiently developed, making them not fully responsible for their actions. ... Naturally, death penalty opponents and child advocacy organizations hailed the court's decision. But this diminished capacity argument could well play out in disturbing ways. Already the immature teen brain argument has been used by legislators to impose various restrictions on teenage drivers .... Progressives who applauded the Supreme Court's decision with regard to imposing the death penalty might not be so happy when conservatives turn around and use that decision to justify imposing moreparental consent laws on teenage women who are seeking an abortion."
Pejman on saving the marriage: Conservatism and libertarianism: "A few years ago, I wrote an article discussing the ways in which libertarians and conservatives have common cause on a number of policy issues -- and how the Blogosphere can work to bring libertarians and conservatives closer together. Along somewhat similar lines, we have seen articles by people like Kenneth Silber who have discussed the fusion between libertarian and conservative ideas, and Stephen Stanton, whose analysis of 'South Park Republicans' helps further identify people who are comfortable as libertarian-conservatives -- people like me. My status as a libertarian-conservative is why I took interest in a recent debate concerning whether the libertarian-conservative marriage that has existed since the Cold War could be saved."
Corrupt bureaucracy: "Russell Redenbaugh, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member who unexpectedly resigned this week, said he isn't sure the panel even has a purpose anymore, adding that its very design is resistant to accountability and reform. 'It's not the people, it's the missing process, the missing accountability,' he said Wednesday, a day after he sent a resignation letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist [R-TN]. Republicans in Congress appointed him to the commission post 15 years ago. 'Previously, I was blind to the fact that we have a structural problem here,' he said. 'If you don't report to anybody, you aren't accountable to anybody. The commission can't act any better than a trust fund casualty. The money is going to come anyway, so it's no surprise the kids turn out that way.' Redenbaugh is referring to what some commissioners call a fiscal 'hole,' created by 12 years of near-secret bookkeeping."
Getting serious on bureaucracy reform: "Bureaucracy reform may be the original oxymoron, but amazing progress is being made against inefficient civil service rules and regulations, against lifetime employment with guaranteed raises no matter how poorly one performs. President George W. Bush is absolutely revolutionizing federal work force procedures. The Department of Homeland Security has already put into effect its new system of pay-for-performance, expedited personnel appeals and consultation rather than endless bargaining with unions over work rules. ... Pay for performance is not only the efficient way, it is the only right way to pay employees. Those who do the best work and contribute most to the public good should be rewarded better. Incentives should be given for good performance but, practically, if the best workers are not paid more, they will leave for more money in the private sector."
I have just transferred here Chris Brand's posts for the month so far -- replete as usual with political incorrectness about race, IQ etc.
My RECIPE BLOG has just undergone a temporary revival. I have posted there a recipe for an unusual dessert from India -- almond rice.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at the Day of Judgment as described by Jesus.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
I must say that I am disturbed that Google News is no longer indexing what it calls "hate-speech" sites. Leftist sites are full of hate for conservatives, Christians etc so are we going to see them censored too? I suspect not. What has happened, in other words, is that Leftist agitation has caused extremes of political incorrectness to be censored -- with no guarantee at all that lesser levels of political incorrectness will not in time be censored too. It does in fact look like bad news for Google. There is already an alternative search service called "All the Web". It may get a lot more users if people get sick of Google's arbitrary censorship. I have myself for some time been finding that Clusty.com finds stuff that Google does not so Google may now have passed its peak.
David Horowitz: "What I've shown is that there are only a couple of degrees of separation between anybody on the left and the terrorists -- and that includes people in the Democratic Party, even those who are anti-terrorist. For example, the coalition of civil liberties groups that attacked the USA Patriot Act are thoroughly penetrated by pro-terrorist radicals based in organizations like the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights. This doesn't mean that every Democrat or every Republican who opposes the USA Patriot Act is a "useful idiot." ... But it does mean that they need to be more mindful of the arguments they are being presented with and supporting".
Another bloated bureaucracy: "The agency responsible for child welfare in Washington state has overspent its budget by $12 million.... The Children's Administration, with a $450 million annual budget, oversees foster care and child protection in Washington. It's part of the Department of Social and Health Services. Uma Ahluwalia, director of the Children's Administration, blamed the budget busting on lack of spending controls, inaccurate cost projections, higher telecommunication costs and years of unpredictable financial management. She was appointed to lead the agency 18 months ago and said she has seen widely varied DSHS budgets even in that short time..... The foster care system has been troubled by tragedies, including the recent deaths of several children in state care. Last summer, the state promised to make improvements as part of the settlement of a class-action lawsuit over inadequacies in foster care."
Bad brains: "Last month the Supreme Court ruled that teenagers under age 18 who commit premeditated murder cannot be executed. The court based its ruling in part on recent studies that found that the frontal lobes of teenagers were not sufficiently developed, making them not fully responsible for their actions. ... Naturally, death penalty opponents and child advocacy organizations hailed the court's decision. But this diminished capacity argument could well play out in disturbing ways. Already the immature teen brain argument has been used by legislators to impose various restrictions on teenage drivers .... Progressives who applauded the Supreme Court's decision with regard to imposing the death penalty might not be so happy when conservatives turn around and use that decision to justify imposing moreparental consent laws on teenage women who are seeking an abortion."
Pejman on saving the marriage: Conservatism and libertarianism: "A few years ago, I wrote an article discussing the ways in which libertarians and conservatives have common cause on a number of policy issues -- and how the Blogosphere can work to bring libertarians and conservatives closer together. Along somewhat similar lines, we have seen articles by people like Kenneth Silber who have discussed the fusion between libertarian and conservative ideas, and Stephen Stanton, whose analysis of 'South Park Republicans' helps further identify people who are comfortable as libertarian-conservatives -- people like me. My status as a libertarian-conservative is why I took interest in a recent debate concerning whether the libertarian-conservative marriage that has existed since the Cold War could be saved."
Corrupt bureaucracy: "Russell Redenbaugh, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member who unexpectedly resigned this week, said he isn't sure the panel even has a purpose anymore, adding that its very design is resistant to accountability and reform. 'It's not the people, it's the missing process, the missing accountability,' he said Wednesday, a day after he sent a resignation letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist [R-TN]. Republicans in Congress appointed him to the commission post 15 years ago. 'Previously, I was blind to the fact that we have a structural problem here,' he said. 'If you don't report to anybody, you aren't accountable to anybody. The commission can't act any better than a trust fund casualty. The money is going to come anyway, so it's no surprise the kids turn out that way.' Redenbaugh is referring to what some commissioners call a fiscal 'hole,' created by 12 years of near-secret bookkeeping."
Getting serious on bureaucracy reform: "Bureaucracy reform may be the original oxymoron, but amazing progress is being made against inefficient civil service rules and regulations, against lifetime employment with guaranteed raises no matter how poorly one performs. President George W. Bush is absolutely revolutionizing federal work force procedures. The Department of Homeland Security has already put into effect its new system of pay-for-performance, expedited personnel appeals and consultation rather than endless bargaining with unions over work rules. ... Pay for performance is not only the efficient way, it is the only right way to pay employees. Those who do the best work and contribute most to the public good should be rewarded better. Incentives should be given for good performance but, practically, if the best workers are not paid more, they will leave for more money in the private sector."
I have just transferred here Chris Brand's posts for the month so far -- replete as usual with political incorrectness about race, IQ etc.
My RECIPE BLOG has just undergone a temporary revival. I have posted there a recipe for an unusual dessert from India -- almond rice.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at the Day of Judgment as described by Jesus.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
Friday, March 25, 2005
A CONSERVATIVE FEMALE NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD:
Last month, when syndicated columnist Susan Estrich went public with her feud with Los Angeles Times Editorial Page Editor Michael Kinsley for not running enough columns by women and local writers, she put the gender card back on the table. Credit Estrich for getting the pack journalists to find a big story in a phenomenon any rube can see. Stop the presses: Most opinion writers are men.
Estrich may say she wants to promote diversity of opinion as well as gender diversity, but I've been watching the diversity game for some years. In journalism, diversity is a club the left uses to increase the hiring of lefties. Feminists say they want more female columnists when what they really want are only more liberal female columnists. Or, in their lingo, they want "authentic" women. So when the left pushes for more diversity in a profession that is overwhelmingly liberal already, it really is pushing for less diversity of ideas.
Why are there fewer female opinion-page columnists than men? It's funny: Opinion mavens -- who can chime in on everything from steroids to farm policy -- suddenly can't quite figure it out. Kinsley told his paper he can't explain it. New York Times Editorial Page Editor Gail Collins told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, "There are probably fewer women, in the great cosmic scheme of things, who feel comfortable writing very straight opinion stuff." (Note: If Harvard University President Larry Summers had said what Collins said, feminist professors would be demanding one of his body parts.).
When I speak in public, there are two questions people invariably ask: One is, "Why is journalism so overwhelmingly liberal?" Recently a Bay Area journalism professor actually told me that conservatives shouldn't be journalists because conservatives are less likely to question the status quo. I disagreed with his definition, but I responded that this region is filled with liberals, so if you want reporters who will question the status quo, you should push Bay Area media to hire more conservatives. To this, he said nothing, and then left the room. There went his noble reason for muzzling the opposition.
(Excerpts only above. The rest is here. Michael Kinsley, the original target of Ms Estrich, has some rather amusing recent comments on it all too.)
******************************
Last month, when syndicated columnist Susan Estrich went public with her feud with Los Angeles Times Editorial Page Editor Michael Kinsley for not running enough columns by women and local writers, she put the gender card back on the table. Credit Estrich for getting the pack journalists to find a big story in a phenomenon any rube can see. Stop the presses: Most opinion writers are men.
Estrich may say she wants to promote diversity of opinion as well as gender diversity, but I've been watching the diversity game for some years. In journalism, diversity is a club the left uses to increase the hiring of lefties. Feminists say they want more female columnists when what they really want are only more liberal female columnists. Or, in their lingo, they want "authentic" women. So when the left pushes for more diversity in a profession that is overwhelmingly liberal already, it really is pushing for less diversity of ideas.
Why are there fewer female opinion-page columnists than men? It's funny: Opinion mavens -- who can chime in on everything from steroids to farm policy -- suddenly can't quite figure it out. Kinsley told his paper he can't explain it. New York Times Editorial Page Editor Gail Collins told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, "There are probably fewer women, in the great cosmic scheme of things, who feel comfortable writing very straight opinion stuff." (Note: If Harvard University President Larry Summers had said what Collins said, feminist professors would be demanding one of his body parts.).
When I speak in public, there are two questions people invariably ask: One is, "Why is journalism so overwhelmingly liberal?" Recently a Bay Area journalism professor actually told me that conservatives shouldn't be journalists because conservatives are less likely to question the status quo. I disagreed with his definition, but I responded that this region is filled with liberals, so if you want reporters who will question the status quo, you should push Bay Area media to hire more conservatives. To this, he said nothing, and then left the room. There went his noble reason for muzzling the opposition.
(Excerpts only above. The rest is here. Michael Kinsley, the original target of Ms Estrich, has some rather amusing recent comments on it all too.)
******************************
ELSEWHERE
Looks good: "Kyrgyzstan's opposition looked to have seized control of the Central Asian country on Thursday after days of violent protest but there was no word on the whereabouts of President Askar Akayev, the man it wants to oust. Rumours flew that Akayev had fled the mountainous country which appears likely to become the third ex-Soviet state in two years to see its entrenched leadership fall to popular protests after disputed elections, following Ukraine and Georgia". [Looks like another Muslim country going democratic. More egg on the face for the Leftists and more kudos to GWB]
The Alien People's Republic of Berkeley: "Parents, students and teachers at Berkeley's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School will soon vote on whether to rename their school because the nation's third president was a slave owner. The question of whether to rename the school has been debated for more than two years -- since several teachers, including an African American mother of three former Jefferson students, said Jefferson's moniker offended them and suggested a name change. On Monday, Principal Betty Delaney released a list of potential new names -- one nominated by a student, the rest by adults. Parents, students and teachers must first vote on a new name, then take a second vote on whether to replace Jefferson with the new name. The school board must officially approve any name change."
The British solution to illegal immigration: Make it legal: "Britain has cut asylum claims - by handing out tens of thousands of work permits, it emerged last night. Applications for asylum fell from 60,047 in 2003 to 40,402 last year. But the figures are dwarfed by the 240,000 a year who swarm into Britain as legal migrants - that's almost equal to the combined populations of Portsmouth and Cambridge. Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch UK said: "The number of asylum claimants has been cut to about 40,000 but this is now just one fifth of the immigration total. This is partly because the number of work permits has been quadrupled from 42,000 in 1997 to 156,000 in 2004. The issue for Britain is the total immigration - and that has substantially increased." Another issue is the slow removal rate of illegal immigrants, barely one in five of whom are sent home
A nasty one for the opponents of free-trade: "A funny thing happened on the way to dollar devaluation -- America, apparently, has become a source of cheap labor -- at least in currency exchange-rate terms. According to a report from Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Japan's Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., will begin producing Quest minivans for export to -- get this -- China. Ha! And Nissan isn't even the first Japanese automaker to be producing cheap goods in the new Third World, for export abroad. Toyota and Honda are playing this game as well, producing thousands of cars in the U.S. for export to Europe, every year".
Doomed by special rights: "Consider that employment among disabled people had reached a high in 1989, after years of economic expansion, rising in compassion for the disabled, and advances in technology that permitted their more thorough integration into the workforce. Then something awful happened: the government granted the disabled special rights (the ADA) and thereby made them more expensive and dangerously litigious to hire. What followed was a human rights disaster: the longest slide in disabled employment ever recorded, according to five different measures used to record unemployment among the disabled."
Stefan Karlsson explains as simply as it can be explained that America's huge current trade deficit is not a problem of itself. The real problem is high U.S. government spending. High deficits actually mean that foreigners like investing in the country concerned.
Asbestos phobia: "Officials in the town of Asbestos, Quebec are considering changing the name of their town because nobody likes asbestos anymore. Sure it saved untold thousands from death because of its fireproof properties, but it's killed a bunch of people too. So the word "asbestos" is now on the politically correct hit-list. Never mind that the town was named for its primary product, that it exists basically because the stuff was under the ground, that it reflects their proud history."
I have got a few postings up on GUN WATCH about the recent school shooting.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at what happens to the earth after 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
**************************
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.
********************************
Looks good: "Kyrgyzstan's opposition looked to have seized control of the Central Asian country on Thursday after days of violent protest but there was no word on the whereabouts of President Askar Akayev, the man it wants to oust. Rumours flew that Akayev had fled the mountainous country which appears likely to become the third ex-Soviet state in two years to see its entrenched leadership fall to popular protests after disputed elections, following Ukraine and Georgia". [Looks like another Muslim country going democratic. More egg on the face for the Leftists and more kudos to GWB]
The Alien People's Republic of Berkeley: "Parents, students and teachers at Berkeley's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School will soon vote on whether to rename their school because the nation's third president was a slave owner. The question of whether to rename the school has been debated for more than two years -- since several teachers, including an African American mother of three former Jefferson students, said Jefferson's moniker offended them and suggested a name change. On Monday, Principal Betty Delaney released a list of potential new names -- one nominated by a student, the rest by adults. Parents, students and teachers must first vote on a new name, then take a second vote on whether to replace Jefferson with the new name. The school board must officially approve any name change."
The British solution to illegal immigration: Make it legal: "Britain has cut asylum claims - by handing out tens of thousands of work permits, it emerged last night. Applications for asylum fell from 60,047 in 2003 to 40,402 last year. But the figures are dwarfed by the 240,000 a year who swarm into Britain as legal migrants - that's almost equal to the combined populations of Portsmouth and Cambridge. Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch UK said: "The number of asylum claimants has been cut to about 40,000 but this is now just one fifth of the immigration total. This is partly because the number of work permits has been quadrupled from 42,000 in 1997 to 156,000 in 2004. The issue for Britain is the total immigration - and that has substantially increased." Another issue is the slow removal rate of illegal immigrants, barely one in five of whom are sent home
A nasty one for the opponents of free-trade: "A funny thing happened on the way to dollar devaluation -- America, apparently, has become a source of cheap labor -- at least in currency exchange-rate terms. According to a report from Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Japan's Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., will begin producing Quest minivans for export to -- get this -- China. Ha! And Nissan isn't even the first Japanese automaker to be producing cheap goods in the new Third World, for export abroad. Toyota and Honda are playing this game as well, producing thousands of cars in the U.S. for export to Europe, every year".
Doomed by special rights: "Consider that employment among disabled people had reached a high in 1989, after years of economic expansion, rising in compassion for the disabled, and advances in technology that permitted their more thorough integration into the workforce. Then something awful happened: the government granted the disabled special rights (the ADA) and thereby made them more expensive and dangerously litigious to hire. What followed was a human rights disaster: the longest slide in disabled employment ever recorded, according to five different measures used to record unemployment among the disabled."
Stefan Karlsson explains as simply as it can be explained that America's huge current trade deficit is not a problem of itself. The real problem is high U.S. government spending. High deficits actually mean that foreigners like investing in the country concerned.
Asbestos phobia: "Officials in the town of Asbestos, Quebec are considering changing the name of their town because nobody likes asbestos anymore. Sure it saved untold thousands from death because of its fireproof properties, but it's killed a bunch of people too. So the word "asbestos" is now on the politically correct hit-list. Never mind that the town was named for its primary product, that it exists basically because the stuff was under the ground, that it reflects their proud history."
I have got a few postings up on GUN WATCH about the recent school shooting.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at what happens to the earth after 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
**************************
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.
********************************
Thursday, March 24, 2005
HITLER AGAIN: MYTHS VERSUS FACT
Nazism was a popular, working-class movement but it was Green/Left, not "Rightist"
The fact that the recent Minnesota school massacre was done by a young admirer of Hitler will of course have the Leftist bloggers frothing at the mouth and trying to prove that conservatives are to blame -- because Hitler was "Rightist", you see. The fact that Hitler's most unrelenting opponent was the arch-Conservative Winston Churchill and the fact that Hitler started out his war in alliance with the Communist Stalin will not be mentioned of course. Leftists have no trouble ignoring even the most basic facts of history. And it has always been a mystery how Leftists can call "conservative" a man who imposed such vast changes on Germany -- considering that Leftists define conservatism as "opposition to change"!
What the media is notably ignoring is that, although he was no conservative, Hitler WAS a Greenie -- and the Hitler-admiring groups that the shooter was linked to were environmental extremists.
That Hitler was far closer to Communism than conservatism and that he shared almost all of his ideas with Marx & Engels is also rarely acknowledged. When Henry Ford said that "history is bunk" he could well have been describing history as it is generally taught in the schools today. But little bits of information do leak out to the public occasionally. The latest comes in the form of a book recently released in Germany. Excerpt from a review of it:
In saying "most Germans saw Nazism as a "warm-hearted" protector", the author in fact tells only half the story. As anybody who has read much of Mein Kampf should be aware, the whole book is essentially a love-song to the German people. Hitler loved his German nation and was deeply troubled by the big political divisions among them -- until he "discovered" that the divisions were not the fault of Germans themselves but rather the fault of Jewish agitators who were misleading many of them. Since many of the Communist agitators in Hitler's Vienna immediately after World War I do in fact appear to have been Jewish, his explanation had some plausibility. So Hitler told the German people that they were wonderful (a Herrenvolk or "master people"), that he would fight their enemies (the Jews), and that he would look after them in the usual paternalistic socialist way. So the German people loved him back and fought to the death for him. Simple, isn't it? There is nothing conservative about it, though. Collectivism and treating people primarily as members of groups is Leftist. Conservatives stand for individualism.
The last desperate scream of the Leftist history teachers in trying to portray Nazism as "rightist" is their accusation that Nazism was not working-class but rather "bourgeois" (middle class). I have always found this claim amusing. As Heiden (1939) and others point out at length, Hitler was a hobo until 1914 so how does a hobo get to lead a middle-class movement? And both Roberts (1938) and Heiden (1939) -- prewar anti-Nazi writers -- portray Hitler as widely revered and popular among the Germans of their day. As Heiden (1939, p. 98) put it: "The great masses of the people did not merely put up with National Socialism. They welcomed it". And Madden (1987) presents modern-day scholarly evidence derived from archival research to show that Nazis came from all social classes in large numbers. Perhaps most useful is the work of Fischer (1978), who looked at the class composition of the most active and committed Nazi group -- the members of the Sturm Abteilung (S.A., Stormtroopers, Brownshirts). He found that "the workers are over-represented in the S.A." (p. 140). In fact, in the 1933-1934 period, 69.9% of the S.A. were working class compared to 53.2% in the overall German population of that time. The Marxist claim is, then, utter nonsense and, as usual, the opposite of the truth. Mussolini, too, found supporters and adversaries in all social classes (De Felice, 1977, p. 176). And particularly in the early years of Fascism, Mussolini often attacked the bourgeoisie in his speeches!
And as Von Mises wrote in 1940:
It is in fact Communist movements that always have bourgeois leaders and mostly bourgeois supporters. The workers usually vote for more moderate Leftists. So once again we see Leftists projecting onto others things that are really true of themselves.
References:
De Felice, R. (1977) Interpretations of Fascism Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P.
Fischer, C.J. (1978) The occupational background of the S.A.'s rank and file membership during the depression years, 1929 to mid-1934. In: Stachura, P. The shaping of the Nazi state. London: Croom Helm.
Heiden, K. (1939) One man against Europe Harmondsworth, Mddx.: Penguin
Madden, P. (1987) The social class origins of Nazi party members as determined by occupations, 1919-1933. Social Science Quarterly 68, 263-280.
Roberts, S.H. (1938) The house that Hitler built N.Y.: Harper.
(I put up an earlier version of this post on Blogger News)
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Nazism was a popular, working-class movement but it was Green/Left, not "Rightist"
The fact that the recent Minnesota school massacre was done by a young admirer of Hitler will of course have the Leftist bloggers frothing at the mouth and trying to prove that conservatives are to blame -- because Hitler was "Rightist", you see. The fact that Hitler's most unrelenting opponent was the arch-Conservative Winston Churchill and the fact that Hitler started out his war in alliance with the Communist Stalin will not be mentioned of course. Leftists have no trouble ignoring even the most basic facts of history. And it has always been a mystery how Leftists can call "conservative" a man who imposed such vast changes on Germany -- considering that Leftists define conservatism as "opposition to change"!
What the media is notably ignoring is that, although he was no conservative, Hitler WAS a Greenie -- and the Hitler-admiring groups that the shooter was linked to were environmental extremists.
That Hitler was far closer to Communism than conservatism and that he shared almost all of his ideas with Marx & Engels is also rarely acknowledged. When Henry Ford said that "history is bunk" he could well have been describing history as it is generally taught in the schools today. But little bits of information do leak out to the public occasionally. The latest comes in the form of a book recently released in Germany. Excerpt from a review of it:
"A well-respected German historian has a radical new theory to explain a nagging question: Why did average Germans so heartily support the Nazis and Third Reich? Hitler, says Goetz Aly, was a "feel good dictator," a leader who not only made Germans feel important, but also made sure they were well cared-for by the state. To do so, he gave them huge tax breaks and introduced social benefits that even today anchor the society. He also ensured that even in the last days of the war not a single German went hungry. Despite near-constant warfare, never once during his 12 years in power did Hitler raise taxes for working class people. He also -- in great contrast to World War I -- particularly pampered soldiers and their families, offering them more than double the salaries and benefits that American and British families received. As such, most Germans saw Nazism as a "warm-hearted" protector, says Aly, author of the new book "Hitler's People's State: Robbery, Racial War and National Socialism" and currently a guest lecturer at the University of Frankfurt"
In saying "most Germans saw Nazism as a "warm-hearted" protector", the author in fact tells only half the story. As anybody who has read much of Mein Kampf should be aware, the whole book is essentially a love-song to the German people. Hitler loved his German nation and was deeply troubled by the big political divisions among them -- until he "discovered" that the divisions were not the fault of Germans themselves but rather the fault of Jewish agitators who were misleading many of them. Since many of the Communist agitators in Hitler's Vienna immediately after World War I do in fact appear to have been Jewish, his explanation had some plausibility. So Hitler told the German people that they were wonderful (a Herrenvolk or "master people"), that he would fight their enemies (the Jews), and that he would look after them in the usual paternalistic socialist way. So the German people loved him back and fought to the death for him. Simple, isn't it? There is nothing conservative about it, though. Collectivism and treating people primarily as members of groups is Leftist. Conservatives stand for individualism.
The last desperate scream of the Leftist history teachers in trying to portray Nazism as "rightist" is their accusation that Nazism was not working-class but rather "bourgeois" (middle class). I have always found this claim amusing. As Heiden (1939) and others point out at length, Hitler was a hobo until 1914 so how does a hobo get to lead a middle-class movement? And both Roberts (1938) and Heiden (1939) -- prewar anti-Nazi writers -- portray Hitler as widely revered and popular among the Germans of their day. As Heiden (1939, p. 98) put it: "The great masses of the people did not merely put up with National Socialism. They welcomed it". And Madden (1987) presents modern-day scholarly evidence derived from archival research to show that Nazis came from all social classes in large numbers. Perhaps most useful is the work of Fischer (1978), who looked at the class composition of the most active and committed Nazi group -- the members of the Sturm Abteilung (S.A., Stormtroopers, Brownshirts). He found that "the workers are over-represented in the S.A." (p. 140). In fact, in the 1933-1934 period, 69.9% of the S.A. were working class compared to 53.2% in the overall German population of that time. The Marxist claim is, then, utter nonsense and, as usual, the opposite of the truth. Mussolini, too, found supporters and adversaries in all social classes (De Felice, 1977, p. 176). And particularly in the early years of Fascism, Mussolini often attacked the bourgeoisie in his speeches!
And as Von Mises wrote in 1940:
"Unless we are utterly oblivious to the facts, we must realize that the German workers are the most reliable supporters of the Hitler regime. Nazism has won them over completely by eliminating unemployment and by reducing the entrepreneurs to the status of shop managers (Betriebsfuehrer). Big business, shopkeepers, and peasants are disappointed. Labor is well satisfied and will stand by Hitler, unless the war takes a turn which would destroy their hope for a better life after the peace treaty. Only military reverses can deprive Hitler of the backing of the German workers.
The fact that the capitalists and entrepreneurs, faced with the alternative of Communism or Nazism, chose the latter, does not require any further explanation. They preferred to live as shop managers under Hitler than to be "liquidated" as "bourgeois" by Stalin. Capitalists don't like to be killed any more than other people do"
It is in fact Communist movements that always have bourgeois leaders and mostly bourgeois supporters. The workers usually vote for more moderate Leftists. So once again we see Leftists projecting onto others things that are really true of themselves.
References:
De Felice, R. (1977) Interpretations of Fascism Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P.
Fischer, C.J. (1978) The occupational background of the S.A.'s rank and file membership during the depression years, 1929 to mid-1934. In: Stachura, P. The shaping of the Nazi state. London: Croom Helm.
Heiden, K. (1939) One man against Europe Harmondsworth, Mddx.: Penguin
Madden, P. (1987) The social class origins of Nazi party members as determined by occupations, 1919-1933. Social Science Quarterly 68, 263-280.
Roberts, S.H. (1938) The house that Hitler built N.Y.: Harper.
(I put up an earlier version of this post on Blogger News)
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ELSEWHERE
A disgraceful story: "A Southern Illinois woman was arrested last week after trying to intervene on behalf of her 14-year old daughter's effort to have an abortion. The girl was allegedly taken to an abortion clinic by the mother of the man allegedly to have impregnated the 14-year old".
Hey! I have just found out what the word "Soros" means (as in Leftist billionaire George Soros). It is ancient Greek for "coffin". Rather fitting when you think of the way socialism killed millions in the 20th century.
Arnie cracks down on cheats: "To the outrage of advocates for the elderly and disabled, the Schwarzenegger administration is trying to declare an emergency so the state can immediately start collecting more of the assets of Medi-Cal recipients after they die. Federal law requires the state to recoup the cost of Medi-Cal benefits provided to the low-income elderly who die leaving assets, but courts have said California's collection policies are inconsistent. In proposed emergency regulations filed last week, officials in the Department of Health Services said they wanted to start seeking repayment from the heirs of Medi-Cal recipients who shelter their homes in life estates. Life estates allow people to transfer ownership of their houses while they are still alive. Administration officials also said they would start demanding that heirs of Medi-Cal recipients repay the state for the cost of home-care services. The administration also wants to charge heirs 7 percent interest on the amount owed to the state if they are unable to pay off the entire bill at once"
Christina Hoff Sommers documents what a band of bigoted feminist viragos are the accusers of President Larry Summers at Harvard.
The truth will out: "The Minister for Economic Reform, Michael Costa, has triggered alarm for the Carr Government by stating up to 20 per cent of the state's 340,000 public servants might be surplus to requirements.... Late yesterday, a spokesman for Mr Costa strongly denied the minister had made any such observation, but half an hour later said the minister now did not wish to make any comment on private discussions about the fate of displaced workers "as a matter of principle". However, three separate accounts have been obtained by the Herald from people who attended the meeting. They say Mr Costa became inflamed when energy union officials pressed the Government to find jobs for the handful of Pacific Power workers who had yet to find new positions after the utility was dissolved two years ago. One witness said: "In the middle of the meeting, Costa just let fly that he had 340,000 workers in NSW and that maybe 20 per cent were surplus to requirement and it would be him who would do something about it.""
Carnival of the Vanities is up again. A bumper issue this time.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at what Paul means when he talks of a spiritual "body".
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
**************************
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.
********************************
A disgraceful story: "A Southern Illinois woman was arrested last week after trying to intervene on behalf of her 14-year old daughter's effort to have an abortion. The girl was allegedly taken to an abortion clinic by the mother of the man allegedly to have impregnated the 14-year old".
Hey! I have just found out what the word "Soros" means (as in Leftist billionaire George Soros). It is ancient Greek for "coffin". Rather fitting when you think of the way socialism killed millions in the 20th century.
Arnie cracks down on cheats: "To the outrage of advocates for the elderly and disabled, the Schwarzenegger administration is trying to declare an emergency so the state can immediately start collecting more of the assets of Medi-Cal recipients after they die. Federal law requires the state to recoup the cost of Medi-Cal benefits provided to the low-income elderly who die leaving assets, but courts have said California's collection policies are inconsistent. In proposed emergency regulations filed last week, officials in the Department of Health Services said they wanted to start seeking repayment from the heirs of Medi-Cal recipients who shelter their homes in life estates. Life estates allow people to transfer ownership of their houses while they are still alive. Administration officials also said they would start demanding that heirs of Medi-Cal recipients repay the state for the cost of home-care services. The administration also wants to charge heirs 7 percent interest on the amount owed to the state if they are unable to pay off the entire bill at once"
Christina Hoff Sommers documents what a band of bigoted feminist viragos are the accusers of President Larry Summers at Harvard.
The truth will out: "The Minister for Economic Reform, Michael Costa, has triggered alarm for the Carr Government by stating up to 20 per cent of the state's 340,000 public servants might be surplus to requirements.... Late yesterday, a spokesman for Mr Costa strongly denied the minister had made any such observation, but half an hour later said the minister now did not wish to make any comment on private discussions about the fate of displaced workers "as a matter of principle". However, three separate accounts have been obtained by the Herald from people who attended the meeting. They say Mr Costa became inflamed when energy union officials pressed the Government to find jobs for the handful of Pacific Power workers who had yet to find new positions after the utility was dissolved two years ago. One witness said: "In the middle of the meeting, Costa just let fly that he had 340,000 workers in NSW and that maybe 20 per cent were surplus to requirement and it would be him who would do something about it.""
Carnival of the Vanities is up again. A bumper issue this time.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at what Paul means when he talks of a spiritual "body".
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
**************************
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.
********************************
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
SHOCK, HORROR! THE NYT MENTIONS RACE AND INTELLIGENCE IN THE SAME ARTICLE
But only obliquely. It refers to IQ as "test scores". Tests of how high you can jump, perhaps? Tests of what a good shot you are? Tests of how good you are at picking stockmarket winners? They don't say. They obviously think you would KNOW which test scores are being referred to
Roland G. Fryer Jr. is 27 years old and he is an assistant professor of economics at Harvard and he is black....
When he presents a paper, Fryer is earnest and genial and excitable, sometimes carrying on like a Southern preacher. While he denies that his work is united by a grand thesis -- he is a scientist, he explains, devoted to squeezing truths from the data, wherever that may lead -- he does admit to having a mission: ''I basically want to figure out where blacks went wrong. One could rattle off all the statistics about blacks not doing so well. You can look at the black-white differential in out-of-wedlock births or infant mortality or life expectancy. Blacks are the worst-performing ethnic group on SAT's. Blacks earn less than whites. They are still just not doing well, period.''
To Fryer, the language of economics, a field proud of its coldblooded rationalism, is ideally suited for otherwise volatile conversations. ''I want to have an honest discussion about race in a time and a place where I don't think we can,'' he says. ''Blacks and whites are both to blame. As soon as you say something like, 'Well, could the black-white test-score gap be genetics?' everybody gets tensed up. But why shouldn't that be on the table?'' ....
Glaeser and Fryer, along with David M. Cutler, another Harvard economist, are the authors of a paper that traffics in one form of genetic theorizing. It addresses the six-year disparity in life expectancy for blacks versus whites, arguing that much of the gap is due to a single factor: a higher rate of salt sensitivity among African-Americans, which leads to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke and kidney disease....
So here is Fryer's final anomaly: he is a man who revels in his blackness and yet also says he believes, as DuBois believed, that black underachievement cannot entirely be laid at the feet of discrimination. Fryer has a huge appetite for advocacy but a far larger appetite for science, and as a scientist he won't exclude any possibilities, including black behaviors, from the menu of factors that contribute to the black condition.
(Excerpts only above. More here)
**************************************
But only obliquely. It refers to IQ as "test scores". Tests of how high you can jump, perhaps? Tests of what a good shot you are? Tests of how good you are at picking stockmarket winners? They don't say. They obviously think you would KNOW which test scores are being referred to
Roland G. Fryer Jr. is 27 years old and he is an assistant professor of economics at Harvard and he is black....
When he presents a paper, Fryer is earnest and genial and excitable, sometimes carrying on like a Southern preacher. While he denies that his work is united by a grand thesis -- he is a scientist, he explains, devoted to squeezing truths from the data, wherever that may lead -- he does admit to having a mission: ''I basically want to figure out where blacks went wrong. One could rattle off all the statistics about blacks not doing so well. You can look at the black-white differential in out-of-wedlock births or infant mortality or life expectancy. Blacks are the worst-performing ethnic group on SAT's. Blacks earn less than whites. They are still just not doing well, period.''
To Fryer, the language of economics, a field proud of its coldblooded rationalism, is ideally suited for otherwise volatile conversations. ''I want to have an honest discussion about race in a time and a place where I don't think we can,'' he says. ''Blacks and whites are both to blame. As soon as you say something like, 'Well, could the black-white test-score gap be genetics?' everybody gets tensed up. But why shouldn't that be on the table?'' ....
Glaeser and Fryer, along with David M. Cutler, another Harvard economist, are the authors of a paper that traffics in one form of genetic theorizing. It addresses the six-year disparity in life expectancy for blacks versus whites, arguing that much of the gap is due to a single factor: a higher rate of salt sensitivity among African-Americans, which leads to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke and kidney disease....
So here is Fryer's final anomaly: he is a man who revels in his blackness and yet also says he believes, as DuBois believed, that black underachievement cannot entirely be laid at the feet of discrimination. Fryer has a huge appetite for advocacy but a far larger appetite for science, and as a scientist he won't exclude any possibilities, including black behaviors, from the menu of factors that contribute to the black condition.
(Excerpts only above. More here)
**************************************
ELSEWHERE
An interesting finding about blog readership here: "The top states are nearly if not all Blue States - the bottom clearly Red with a few exceptions". So it looks like Leftists read blogs a lot more than conservatives do. As I pointed out some time ago, Leftist beliefs are so at variance with reality that Leftists are constantly looking for something to prop their beliefs up -- so they turn to the internet in droves for the reinforcement they need. For conservatives, however, it the opposite: Everything about everyday life confirms their beliefs so they don't need to do anything much to reassure themselves of the rightness of their beliefs. I go into all that a bit more here.
German obtuseness: "In a sputtering economy, Niles Werke shows how to get the German locomotive running again. The century-old machine-tool company is at the top of its field. Sales are expected to rise by 10 percent this year. "We expect 2005 to be another good year," says Frank Reichel, director of its Berlin plant. Defying a lagging economy, Germany's flagship engineering sector is booming. But despite plants that hum at capacity, companies like Niles aren't hiring. Its failure to create jobs is miring Germany in a political and economic crisis, making the country ground zero in a growing debate over Europe's economy..... "What we need is flexibility," says Reichel. "Our main problem is the job protection laws and regulation. Sooner or later, business will slow down again and when that happens we can't have too many people on the payroll." The problem, say analysts, is that the government, which is closely allied with labor unions, is unwilling to deregulate the labor market to the extent that economists say is necessary to boost investment and job growth..... German labor laws make it difficult for companies to reduce staff during weak business periods...."
There is a good satire here on the EU and "The Single European Tank". I suspect it's not far from the truth, in fact.
Australian Leftist historians revere Ward Churchill! "In Australia, Churchill is being presented as a scholarly authority on the Aborigines. In the newly released anthology Genocide and Settler Society, editor Dirk Moses of the University of Sydney's history department quotes Churchill's 1997 book A Little Matter of Genocide as one of his main sources on the Tasmanian Aborigines. Churchill compares the fate of the Tasmanians with that of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis..." (Via the Blithering one)
Shifts in Muslim opinion: "In Its final report, the 9/11 commission said that the United States must prevail over a 'radical ideological movement in the Islamic world.' Recent news from Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, shows that this can indeed happen. A poll commissioned by the nonprofit Terror Free Tomorrow found the first substantial shift of public opinion in the Muslim world since the beginning of the war on terrorism. More people in Indonesia now favor American efforts against terrorism than oppose them. In a dramatic turnaround, support for Osama bin Laden and terrorism have dropped significantly, while favorable opinion of the US has increased. The poll, conducted by a leading Indonesian pollster, showed that the reason for this positive change was the American response to the tsunami. Its implications are both broad and profound."
Sex-education classes attract parental opposition: "More than 200 people took part yesterday in an intense, three-hour meeting about teenage sexuality in Montgomery County public schools. The town hall meeting was sponsored by Citizens for Responsible Curriculum, a parent-run group opposed to new sex-education classes in the schools because of what they call 'moral and scientific gaps' in the curriculum. Among the concerns is a video on using a condom and elements of the curriculum that, group members say, portray homosexuality as the moral equal to heterosexuality, and fails to present alternative moral perspectives or full discussions on the health risks posed by homosexuality. 'I am shocked and appalled at what I have seen here today,' said Tonya Wilkerson, mother of a 16-year-old boy. She also said the video's failure to 'at least give equal billing to abstinence' was 'abhorrent.'"
Lost Tooth Society has a good article on the psychological connections between Leftists and Greenies.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at a Leftist claim that Republicans oppose what Christ stood for.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
An interesting finding about blog readership here: "The top states are nearly if not all Blue States - the bottom clearly Red with a few exceptions". So it looks like Leftists read blogs a lot more than conservatives do. As I pointed out some time ago, Leftist beliefs are so at variance with reality that Leftists are constantly looking for something to prop their beliefs up -- so they turn to the internet in droves for the reinforcement they need. For conservatives, however, it the opposite: Everything about everyday life confirms their beliefs so they don't need to do anything much to reassure themselves of the rightness of their beliefs. I go into all that a bit more here.
German obtuseness: "In a sputtering economy, Niles Werke shows how to get the German locomotive running again. The century-old machine-tool company is at the top of its field. Sales are expected to rise by 10 percent this year. "We expect 2005 to be another good year," says Frank Reichel, director of its Berlin plant. Defying a lagging economy, Germany's flagship engineering sector is booming. But despite plants that hum at capacity, companies like Niles aren't hiring. Its failure to create jobs is miring Germany in a political and economic crisis, making the country ground zero in a growing debate over Europe's economy..... "What we need is flexibility," says Reichel. "Our main problem is the job protection laws and regulation. Sooner or later, business will slow down again and when that happens we can't have too many people on the payroll." The problem, say analysts, is that the government, which is closely allied with labor unions, is unwilling to deregulate the labor market to the extent that economists say is necessary to boost investment and job growth..... German labor laws make it difficult for companies to reduce staff during weak business periods...."
There is a good satire here on the EU and "The Single European Tank". I suspect it's not far from the truth, in fact.
Australian Leftist historians revere Ward Churchill! "In Australia, Churchill is being presented as a scholarly authority on the Aborigines. In the newly released anthology Genocide and Settler Society, editor Dirk Moses of the University of Sydney's history department quotes Churchill's 1997 book A Little Matter of Genocide as one of his main sources on the Tasmanian Aborigines. Churchill compares the fate of the Tasmanians with that of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis..." (Via the Blithering one)
Shifts in Muslim opinion: "In Its final report, the 9/11 commission said that the United States must prevail over a 'radical ideological movement in the Islamic world.' Recent news from Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, shows that this can indeed happen. A poll commissioned by the nonprofit Terror Free Tomorrow found the first substantial shift of public opinion in the Muslim world since the beginning of the war on terrorism. More people in Indonesia now favor American efforts against terrorism than oppose them. In a dramatic turnaround, support for Osama bin Laden and terrorism have dropped significantly, while favorable opinion of the US has increased. The poll, conducted by a leading Indonesian pollster, showed that the reason for this positive change was the American response to the tsunami. Its implications are both broad and profound."
Sex-education classes attract parental opposition: "More than 200 people took part yesterday in an intense, three-hour meeting about teenage sexuality in Montgomery County public schools. The town hall meeting was sponsored by Citizens for Responsible Curriculum, a parent-run group opposed to new sex-education classes in the schools because of what they call 'moral and scientific gaps' in the curriculum. Among the concerns is a video on using a condom and elements of the curriculum that, group members say, portray homosexuality as the moral equal to heterosexuality, and fails to present alternative moral perspectives or full discussions on the health risks posed by homosexuality. 'I am shocked and appalled at what I have seen here today,' said Tonya Wilkerson, mother of a 16-year-old boy. She also said the video's failure to 'at least give equal billing to abstinence' was 'abhorrent.'"
Lost Tooth Society has a good article on the psychological connections between Leftists and Greenies.
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at a Leftist claim that Republicans oppose what Christ stood for.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
TUESDAY ROUNDUP
Once again I pick out what I think are my best posts for the week:
On Dissecting Leftism I look at what is conservatism
On Political Correctness Watch I note the Ladies Against Feminism organization
On Greenie Watch I note that where the Greenies have not banned DDT, the socialists have misused it.
On Education Watch I note that Doctorates of education are not what they seem
On Socialized Medicine I note a British hospital so bad that an elderly patient suicided rather than go back there
On Gun Watch I note that the great majority of American airline pilots are still unarmed
On Leftists as Elitists I note the ignorance of the Leftist elite
On Marx Words I give evidence of very similar thinking in Karl Marx, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
On A Scripture Blog I note two stories of creation in Genesis
On Majority Rights I note that the British elite protect Gypsies despite great opposition from ordinary English people
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ELSEWHERE
Confused "thinkers": Some young Democrats have tried to come up with the "principles" of Leftism. This is one of their efforts: "It is the shared responsibility of a nation to ensure each citizen's freedom, security and equality". That is of course an echo of the French Revolution and is equally vicious: How can you have freedom and equality at the same time? Equality can only be enforced by tyranny. People are NOT equal and never will be -- any more than the Left will ever have genuine principles.
And here's an example of REAL Leftist "principles" at work. The principle? Leftists are always right: "Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg demonstrates the twisted logic of the left in her article, "Dying in Iraq Is Not a Job Opportunity." The double standard of the left is evidenced as she describes events at the City College of New York's (CCNY) Job Fair last week, at which a group of about twenty students stood in front of the National Guard table and began chanting anti-war slogans. She writes, "The situation became aggressive when the security officers came in. They looked like they were ready for action.".... Defending the protestors, Weill-Greenberg writes, "They did nothing wrong and the faculty union has demanded that all charges be dropped." ... What hyphen-woman conveniently forgets to mention is that the students were instructed to demonstrate outside the building after they told the administration of their plans. "They were not peacefully protesting," CCNY President Gregory H. Williams said in a telephone interview. "They assaulted two police officers." CCNY's public relations director Ellis Simon said that one security officer went to the hospital after being "beaten up fairly badly." Hyphen-woman. just doesn't seem to understand that recruiters also have rights. The recruiters were there legally and with the permission of CCNY. The students weren't.""
Dems lack not only principles but even ideas: "You can almost see the gleeful anticipation in the eyes of Democrats these days. After being outmaneuvered by Republicans on tax cuts and failing to reach a consensus on Iraq, they now sense a win on Social Security.... Still, over the longer term, they run a risk in challenging Bush without ideas of their own. Social Security requires a fix. It's not the largest or most imminent budgetary crisis the nation faces. That's Medicare. But it's impossible to deny that Social Security will be in a bind as baby boomers retire and live longer than previous generations.... Without a plan, Democrats risk looking unconcerned about future retirees. What's more, they risk ceding to the GOP an issue that they've dominated for 75 years. Democrats need to counter the perception that they are a party without ideas.... But a set of ideas and principles would allow them to put forward a good-faith effort to be part of a solution.... For now, the Democrats' "just say no" strategy reflects poorly on the party".
The frantic distortions of the Leftist MSM about the Schiavo case are ably demolished here. The L.A. Times is Soviet-style in its selective reporting of the facts. And more lies exposed here.
Good! Leftist liars get the chop: "The BBC today announced plans to cut 3,780 jobs to save hundreds of millions of dollars, as the world's biggest public broadcaster undergoes a major shake-up. The BBC said today it would slash 2,050 posts after 1,730 job losses confirmed earlier this month, making a total of 3,780 positions or one in seven jobs. The cuts would bring cost savings of $860 million a year to reinvest in programs -- $85 million more than first targetted by the BBC in December. Among the redundancies announced today would be 420 posts in news, 66 in sport, 150 in drama, entertainment and children's programs, 735 in the regions, 58 in new media and 424 in factual and learning".
A real escape from Islam: "Jesus saves and if you're an illegal immigrant in detention in Australia, he may save you from being sent back to where you came from. The Government's confirmed that it's reviewing the cases of 30 detainees from Iran, who've converted from Islam to Christianity. They argue that if they're forced to return to Iran they'll be persecuted, with some refugee advocates saying they could even face the death penalty".
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" takes a look at paternalistic Leftist Christians.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
Once again I pick out what I think are my best posts for the week:
On Dissecting Leftism I look at what is conservatism
On Political Correctness Watch I note the Ladies Against Feminism organization
On Greenie Watch I note that where the Greenies have not banned DDT, the socialists have misused it.
On Education Watch I note that Doctorates of education are not what they seem
On Socialized Medicine I note a British hospital so bad that an elderly patient suicided rather than go back there
On Gun Watch I note that the great majority of American airline pilots are still unarmed
On Leftists as Elitists I note the ignorance of the Leftist elite
On Marx Words I give evidence of very similar thinking in Karl Marx, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
On A Scripture Blog I note two stories of creation in Genesis
On Majority Rights I note that the British elite protect Gypsies despite great opposition from ordinary English people
****************************
ELSEWHERE
Confused "thinkers": Some young Democrats have tried to come up with the "principles" of Leftism. This is one of their efforts: "It is the shared responsibility of a nation to ensure each citizen's freedom, security and equality". That is of course an echo of the French Revolution and is equally vicious: How can you have freedom and equality at the same time? Equality can only be enforced by tyranny. People are NOT equal and never will be -- any more than the Left will ever have genuine principles.
And here's an example of REAL Leftist "principles" at work. The principle? Leftists are always right: "Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg demonstrates the twisted logic of the left in her article, "Dying in Iraq Is Not a Job Opportunity." The double standard of the left is evidenced as she describes events at the City College of New York's (CCNY) Job Fair last week, at which a group of about twenty students stood in front of the National Guard table and began chanting anti-war slogans. She writes, "The situation became aggressive when the security officers came in. They looked like they were ready for action.".... Defending the protestors, Weill-Greenberg writes, "They did nothing wrong and the faculty union has demanded that all charges be dropped." ... What hyphen-woman conveniently forgets to mention is that the students were instructed to demonstrate outside the building after they told the administration of their plans. "They were not peacefully protesting," CCNY President Gregory H. Williams said in a telephone interview. "They assaulted two police officers." CCNY's public relations director Ellis Simon said that one security officer went to the hospital after being "beaten up fairly badly." Hyphen-woman. just doesn't seem to understand that recruiters also have rights. The recruiters were there legally and with the permission of CCNY. The students weren't.""
Dems lack not only principles but even ideas: "You can almost see the gleeful anticipation in the eyes of Democrats these days. After being outmaneuvered by Republicans on tax cuts and failing to reach a consensus on Iraq, they now sense a win on Social Security.... Still, over the longer term, they run a risk in challenging Bush without ideas of their own. Social Security requires a fix. It's not the largest or most imminent budgetary crisis the nation faces. That's Medicare. But it's impossible to deny that Social Security will be in a bind as baby boomers retire and live longer than previous generations.... Without a plan, Democrats risk looking unconcerned about future retirees. What's more, they risk ceding to the GOP an issue that they've dominated for 75 years. Democrats need to counter the perception that they are a party without ideas.... But a set of ideas and principles would allow them to put forward a good-faith effort to be part of a solution.... For now, the Democrats' "just say no" strategy reflects poorly on the party".
The frantic distortions of the Leftist MSM about the Schiavo case are ably demolished here. The L.A. Times is Soviet-style in its selective reporting of the facts. And more lies exposed here.
Good! Leftist liars get the chop: "The BBC today announced plans to cut 3,780 jobs to save hundreds of millions of dollars, as the world's biggest public broadcaster undergoes a major shake-up. The BBC said today it would slash 2,050 posts after 1,730 job losses confirmed earlier this month, making a total of 3,780 positions or one in seven jobs. The cuts would bring cost savings of $860 million a year to reinvest in programs -- $85 million more than first targetted by the BBC in December. Among the redundancies announced today would be 420 posts in news, 66 in sport, 150 in drama, entertainment and children's programs, 735 in the regions, 58 in new media and 424 in factual and learning".
A real escape from Islam: "Jesus saves and if you're an illegal immigrant in detention in Australia, he may save you from being sent back to where you came from. The Government's confirmed that it's reviewing the cases of 30 detainees from Iran, who've converted from Islam to Christianity. They argue that if they're forced to return to Iran they'll be persecuted, with some refugee advocates saying they could even face the death penalty".
My latest posting on "A scripture blog" takes a look at paternalistic Leftist Christians.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
Monday, March 21, 2005
CLINTON AT DAVOS
The event at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos that most of us have heard about is the lying anti-American propaganda spewed out by Eason Jordan, head of CNN News -- propaganda that eventually led to his downfall. There were however other disgraceful events there too. Below is an account of one of them:
"The big American kahuna, of course, is not Graham Allison, and not even Sharon Stone, but Bill Clinton. He sits on a panel dealing with aid to Africa, along with Blair, Bono (the rock star), Bill Gates (Microsoft), and the presidents of South Africa and Nigeria: Mbeki and Obasanjo. The moderator of the session, French anchorwoman Christine Ockrent, wheels on Clinton, demanding to know why America is so stingy when it comes to foreign aid (did you know we were?). He answers, "Because no one will ever get beat running for Congress or president" by failing to espouse such aid. I have complimented Clinton's Davos performances before - in general, he's pretty good abroad - but he is a bit shameful here. Then it gets worse.
Clinton says, "The White House has just announced another $80 billion for the war in Iraq, and we could take half of that" and solve all of Africa's problems. The crowd whoops and cheers. This is a cheap political technique: to say, "Instead of spending money on X, we ought to spend it on Y." If Clinton thinks we should spend more on foreign aid, he should say so. And if he opposes our efforts in Iraq, he should say so. But to spite the war while calling for more aid to Africa - cheap....
But Clinton isn't through yet: He says that anyone who complains about corruption in African governments - who expresses caution about handing over money to these governments - "should be put in a closet, so no one has to listen to [him]." That, too, elicits whoops and cheers. And it is an odd thing for a democrat to say. Some of us believe that Carter is our worst ex-president ever (the opposite of the conventional wisdom). But the Arkansan is nipping at his heels".
More here
**************************************
The event at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos that most of us have heard about is the lying anti-American propaganda spewed out by Eason Jordan, head of CNN News -- propaganda that eventually led to his downfall. There were however other disgraceful events there too. Below is an account of one of them:
"The big American kahuna, of course, is not Graham Allison, and not even Sharon Stone, but Bill Clinton. He sits on a panel dealing with aid to Africa, along with Blair, Bono (the rock star), Bill Gates (Microsoft), and the presidents of South Africa and Nigeria: Mbeki and Obasanjo. The moderator of the session, French anchorwoman Christine Ockrent, wheels on Clinton, demanding to know why America is so stingy when it comes to foreign aid (did you know we were?). He answers, "Because no one will ever get beat running for Congress or president" by failing to espouse such aid. I have complimented Clinton's Davos performances before - in general, he's pretty good abroad - but he is a bit shameful here. Then it gets worse.
Clinton says, "The White House has just announced another $80 billion for the war in Iraq, and we could take half of that" and solve all of Africa's problems. The crowd whoops and cheers. This is a cheap political technique: to say, "Instead of spending money on X, we ought to spend it on Y." If Clinton thinks we should spend more on foreign aid, he should say so. And if he opposes our efforts in Iraq, he should say so. But to spite the war while calling for more aid to Africa - cheap....
But Clinton isn't through yet: He says that anyone who complains about corruption in African governments - who expresses caution about handing over money to these governments - "should be put in a closet, so no one has to listen to [him]." That, too, elicits whoops and cheers. And it is an odd thing for a democrat to say. Some of us believe that Carter is our worst ex-president ever (the opposite of the conventional wisdom). But the Arkansan is nipping at his heels".
More here
**************************************
ELSEWHERE
A reasonable proposition: "May God Bless Jessica Lunsford's soul, and sooth the grief of her family with the faith and knowledge that Jessica is in a better world than ours now. Which leads us to this question: HOW DO WE MAKE OUR WORLD BETTER? I KNOW HOW: By locking up convicted child molesters for life. Punishment and prisons supposedly exist to PROTECT society. If the current laws allow our most precious and beautiful citizens - OUR CHILDREN - to be at continued risk of further harm then the laws are inadequate and must be changed!"
More Islamic democracy coming? "Protests over Kyrgyzstan's disputed parliamentary polls have turned violent, with four people reported killed in a police assault on an occupied government building in the former Soviet republic. Angered at what they saw as votes rigged to elect supporters of President Askar Akayev, protestors stormed administration buildings in several southern cities in the Central Asian state following the March 13 elections".
Minimum wage fraud: "In the United States, federal and state politicians are eager to raise the minimum legal wage -- again. They have raised the minimum legal wage a dozen times before, but they complain that it is never enough. The prices of food, clothing, and shelter keep going up faster than wages. So politicians offer to solve this problem with a new law to raise wages. Don't fall for it. Politicians are the cause of the problem, not the solution."
Corrupt Arabs: "The Palestinian Authority's decision to purchase more than 100 new vehicles for all members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the new cabinet has drawn sharp criticism from some Palestinians. The PA's 24 ministers will each receive a German Audi A-6 car, which costs $76,000. The 86 lawmakers will be given the cheaper version of Audi, the A-4, which costs an estimated $45,000. Palestinian columnist Yahya Rabah on Thursday attacked the decision to buy the expensive vehicles at a time when the PA is cutting expenditure in many fields, and can't pay police salaries."
Far-Left ACLU: "The American Civil Liberties Union has long trumpeted itself as the protector of America's freedoms. But in a bizarre tactical decision, it has decided to abdicate that self-appointed role in exchange for membership in the shrill chorus of Bush administration opponents. The decision to file suit against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in connection with the alleged abuse of foreign detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan places the ACLU outside of its stated mission. It also places the group firmly in opposition to an organization -- the US military -- that is actually working for what the ACLU purports to be about -- the protection of American freedoms".
Black racism OK? "At Tolliver's, a South Central barbershop where the political debate flies as fast as the haircutters' scissors, Eddie Ford bitterly denounces "Mexicans" and says he won't vote for Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor. Seated across from the 82-year-old barber, customer Tony Wafford argues for Villaraigosa over Mayor James Hahn in the May 17 runoff election. "Antonio will help bridge the gap and help break down some of this foolishness of blacks against Latinos and Latinos against blacks," the 48-year-old community activist said. From the debates in the city's barbershop to the gang warfare in the streets, friction between these two groups has been part of life in South Central since immigration transformed this predominantly African American community into one dominated by Latinos nearly two decades ago".
They are even saying it in the Sacramento Bee: "The success of January's elections in Iraq, new flashes of democracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and massive rallies in Lebanon are causing some critics of the Iraq war to reconsider their skepticism of President Bush's Middle East strategy. A few are pondering a question they once would have found unthinkable: Could Bush have been right about the war?"
A nice story here about one German who still feels gratitude to America. He paid a bundle to put a big American flag in the middle of a Left-wing newspaper.
My latest posting on MarxWords marks the end of the material I have to put up there. So I summarize what I see as the underlying theme in Marx's writing. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" takes a Christian look at the Greens.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
A reasonable proposition: "May God Bless Jessica Lunsford's soul, and sooth the grief of her family with the faith and knowledge that Jessica is in a better world than ours now. Which leads us to this question: HOW DO WE MAKE OUR WORLD BETTER? I KNOW HOW: By locking up convicted child molesters for life. Punishment and prisons supposedly exist to PROTECT society. If the current laws allow our most precious and beautiful citizens - OUR CHILDREN - to be at continued risk of further harm then the laws are inadequate and must be changed!"
More Islamic democracy coming? "Protests over Kyrgyzstan's disputed parliamentary polls have turned violent, with four people reported killed in a police assault on an occupied government building in the former Soviet republic. Angered at what they saw as votes rigged to elect supporters of President Askar Akayev, protestors stormed administration buildings in several southern cities in the Central Asian state following the March 13 elections".
Minimum wage fraud: "In the United States, federal and state politicians are eager to raise the minimum legal wage -- again. They have raised the minimum legal wage a dozen times before, but they complain that it is never enough. The prices of food, clothing, and shelter keep going up faster than wages. So politicians offer to solve this problem with a new law to raise wages. Don't fall for it. Politicians are the cause of the problem, not the solution."
Corrupt Arabs: "The Palestinian Authority's decision to purchase more than 100 new vehicles for all members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the new cabinet has drawn sharp criticism from some Palestinians. The PA's 24 ministers will each receive a German Audi A-6 car, which costs $76,000. The 86 lawmakers will be given the cheaper version of Audi, the A-4, which costs an estimated $45,000. Palestinian columnist Yahya Rabah on Thursday attacked the decision to buy the expensive vehicles at a time when the PA is cutting expenditure in many fields, and can't pay police salaries."
Far-Left ACLU: "The American Civil Liberties Union has long trumpeted itself as the protector of America's freedoms. But in a bizarre tactical decision, it has decided to abdicate that self-appointed role in exchange for membership in the shrill chorus of Bush administration opponents. The decision to file suit against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in connection with the alleged abuse of foreign detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan places the ACLU outside of its stated mission. It also places the group firmly in opposition to an organization -- the US military -- that is actually working for what the ACLU purports to be about -- the protection of American freedoms".
Black racism OK? "At Tolliver's, a South Central barbershop where the political debate flies as fast as the haircutters' scissors, Eddie Ford bitterly denounces "Mexicans" and says he won't vote for Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor. Seated across from the 82-year-old barber, customer Tony Wafford argues for Villaraigosa over Mayor James Hahn in the May 17 runoff election. "Antonio will help bridge the gap and help break down some of this foolishness of blacks against Latinos and Latinos against blacks," the 48-year-old community activist said. From the debates in the city's barbershop to the gang warfare in the streets, friction between these two groups has been part of life in South Central since immigration transformed this predominantly African American community into one dominated by Latinos nearly two decades ago".
They are even saying it in the Sacramento Bee: "The success of January's elections in Iraq, new flashes of democracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and massive rallies in Lebanon are causing some critics of the Iraq war to reconsider their skepticism of President Bush's Middle East strategy. A few are pondering a question they once would have found unthinkable: Could Bush have been right about the war?"
A nice story here about one German who still feels gratitude to America. He paid a bundle to put a big American flag in the middle of a Left-wing newspaper.
My latest posting on MarxWords marks the end of the material I have to put up there. So I summarize what I see as the underlying theme in Marx's writing. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" takes a Christian look at the Greens.
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
**************************
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.
********************************
Sunday, March 20, 2005
THE U.N. MAFIA FIRES AN HONEST MAN
"A former United Nations monitor of the organization's oil-for-food program in Iraq told a congressional committee Thursday that the program had 'gaping holes' and that large amounts of aid never reached the Iraqi people. Rehan Mullick testified that by his estimate more than 20 percent of the shipments to Iraq, worth $1 billion a year, were not distributed properly, with many goods pilfered by the Iraqi military. 'A fourth or fifth of the supplies were not distributed,' he said."
Mullick worked for two years in Iraq as a data analyst for the program designed to permit Iraq, while under international economic sanctions stemming from its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, to export a limited amount of its crude oil reserves and import food, medicine and supplies screened by the United Nations. "Soon after I started my job, it became amply evident that there were gaping holes in U.N.'s efforts to meet [its] objectives," Mullick told the committee... The United Nations would routinely send contract information for approved imports to Baghdad, and U.N. staff in Iraq were expected to ensure the goods reached their destination. But Mullick said "Saddam loyalists" with jobs at the U.N. mission corrupted the program's data. "A lot of items that were held back or redirected by the government of Iraq were never observed," Mullick's statement said.
Mullick told the subcommittee that he repeatedly alerted U.N. officials of problems he observed but was rebuffed. "Each suggestion resulted in my supervisors reducing my job responsibilities," Mullick said. "This continued to occur until my only job was to run the slide projector at staff meetings." Mullick said he eventually submitted a 10-page report to U.N. headquarters in 2002 reporting that 22 percent of supplies imported under the program never reached Iraq's 27 million people. "I heard nothing," Mullick said. "Finally I was contacted and told my contract was not being renewed."
Mullick described the United Nations as having "old mafia-style management." He added in his statement, "Had the U.N. chosen to listen to and offer protection to those who blow the whistle on bureaucratic injustice and corruption, a program like oil for food would have worked more in the interest of the impoverished Iraqi people rather than their detractors."
More details here. There is a site here devoted to getting America to withdraw from the U.N.
***************************
"A former United Nations monitor of the organization's oil-for-food program in Iraq told a congressional committee Thursday that the program had 'gaping holes' and that large amounts of aid never reached the Iraqi people. Rehan Mullick testified that by his estimate more than 20 percent of the shipments to Iraq, worth $1 billion a year, were not distributed properly, with many goods pilfered by the Iraqi military. 'A fourth or fifth of the supplies were not distributed,' he said."
Mullick worked for two years in Iraq as a data analyst for the program designed to permit Iraq, while under international economic sanctions stemming from its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, to export a limited amount of its crude oil reserves and import food, medicine and supplies screened by the United Nations. "Soon after I started my job, it became amply evident that there were gaping holes in U.N.'s efforts to meet [its] objectives," Mullick told the committee... The United Nations would routinely send contract information for approved imports to Baghdad, and U.N. staff in Iraq were expected to ensure the goods reached their destination. But Mullick said "Saddam loyalists" with jobs at the U.N. mission corrupted the program's data. "A lot of items that were held back or redirected by the government of Iraq were never observed," Mullick's statement said.
Mullick told the subcommittee that he repeatedly alerted U.N. officials of problems he observed but was rebuffed. "Each suggestion resulted in my supervisors reducing my job responsibilities," Mullick said. "This continued to occur until my only job was to run the slide projector at staff meetings." Mullick said he eventually submitted a 10-page report to U.N. headquarters in 2002 reporting that 22 percent of supplies imported under the program never reached Iraq's 27 million people. "I heard nothing," Mullick said. "Finally I was contacted and told my contract was not being renewed."
Mullick described the United Nations as having "old mafia-style management." He added in his statement, "Had the U.N. chosen to listen to and offer protection to those who blow the whistle on bureaucratic injustice and corruption, a program like oil for food would have worked more in the interest of the impoverished Iraqi people rather than their detractors."
More details here. There is a site here devoted to getting America to withdraw from the U.N.
***************************
ELSEWHERE
An email from one of my medical correspondents about Terri Schiavo: "The court record for Terrri Schiavo says she has "no cortical function" -this means that her brain waves show a flat electroencephalogram (EEG). A neurologist - a very trustworthy man - told me that this means that she has no cognitive function or awareness; The "following the balloon" test is meaningless - it can't be reliably reproduced; and even patients with only lower brain (brainstem) function do it sometimes. And such patients also show some reaction to sounds and touch. If this is true, there just isn't much to save. And Terri is NOT awake. And she is NOT going to "get better", as her parents have said. Terri's condition is NOT the same as the lady who "woke up" and "talked" after being in a coma for 20 years. The neurologist described this as a "locked in" syndrome. This is often the result of damage to the brainstem without "cortical" damage - this is caused by mechanical injury or stroke or bleeding. Terri, in contrsast, suffered "ischemic" damage - lack of flow of blood and oxygen to the brain - the cortex (thinking, consciousness, pain) is the first to be damaged - the most sensitive part of the brain to oxygen lack. The "locked in" patients may have normal brain function and be alert, as noted by EEG studies - which may demonstrate changes with stimulation and sleep patterns etc.. To the untrained eye, these two may look similar. Terri's condition is NOT the same as those who report "waking up" after years in a "coma". I believe a lot of well meaning people are sorely misinformed about Terri's condition".
Antiwar movement runs out of puff: "MoveOn.org, the Berkeley-birthed online hub that fueled anti-Bush sentiment before the invasion and now boasts 3 million members, has moved on. Critics on the left complain that it is spending too much energy on such issues as Social Security reform and Bush's judicial appointments, and not enough on opposing the occupation. MoveOn.org Executive Director Eli Pariser told liberal-leaning media critic Norman Solomon recently that the group "is seeing a broad difference of opinion among our members on how quickly the U.S. should get out of Iraq. As a grassroots-directed organization, we won't be taking any opinion which a large portion of our members disagree with."
Still some opposition to homosexuality: "Warning of divine retribution and possible violent protest, evangelical Christians and rabbis from the United States have joined forces with ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel to fight plans to hold an international gay festival in Jerusalem this summer. The WorldPride Parade, last held in Rome in 2000, is a 10-day event including street parties, workshops and a gay film festival. Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jewish mayor, Uri Lupolianski, says he is powerless to interfere, as public events are licensed by the police, not City Hall. At a news conference Wednesday, California pastor Leo Giovinetti said hosting the 10-day World Pride event could bring divine retribution upon Jerusalem, citing the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorra as a precedent."
Muslims kick out Christians: ""Christian groups and some other private relief agencies are being asked to halt their work in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province of Aceh and leave the area by March 26, Indonesia's defense minister said yesterday. The decision likely will target Western and smaller church groups as the government moves to tighten control over reconstruction work in Aceh, the home of a decades-old separatist insurgency. 'We want each of the relief agencies to be transparent in their programs: Some of them are not clear about their mandates,' said Juwono Sudarsono during an interview in a Washington hotel. 'Aceh is mostly Muslim, and some church groups from Australia and the United States are too eager to be there and do their part,' he said. Sudarsono said his government had set March 26 some weeks ago as a target date for moving from the disaster-relief phase of post-tsunami operations to the reconstruction phase."
Israel does its part: "Israel handed control over security in this quiet desert town back to the Palestinians yesterday after weeks of haggling, highlighting the improving relations between the two sides but also the lingering suspicions after more than four years of fighting. The Israeli army dismantled the westernmost of three checkpoints surrounding Jericho and eased travel restrictions in and out of the West Bank town, but kept troops poised along a main highway nearby. ... A number of Palestinian checkpoints were erected following the Israeli moves. The handover, complete with a small signing ceremony and the lowering of an Israeli flag at the checkpoint west of Jericho, marked one of the first practical steps toward restoring Palestinian security control over the West Bank since Mahmoud Abbas was elected Palestinian president two months ago."
Well, it is clear now that Saddam DID have WMDs. Even the NYT admits it. GWB vindicated yet again. But as Christopher Hitchens asks: "This Was Not Looting. How did Saddam's best weapons plants get plundered?"
Wicked Thoughts now has a second blog -- called "Strange Justice" -- which records some of the more appalling miscarriages of justice that are happening. Very disquieting reading.
My latest posting on MarxWords notes again Engels showing his contempt for Russians. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" deals with the Bible view of the death penalty.
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
**************************
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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An email from one of my medical correspondents about Terri Schiavo: "The court record for Terrri Schiavo says she has "no cortical function" -this means that her brain waves show a flat electroencephalogram (EEG). A neurologist - a very trustworthy man - told me that this means that she has no cognitive function or awareness; The "following the balloon" test is meaningless - it can't be reliably reproduced; and even patients with only lower brain (brainstem) function do it sometimes. And such patients also show some reaction to sounds and touch. If this is true, there just isn't much to save. And Terri is NOT awake. And she is NOT going to "get better", as her parents have said. Terri's condition is NOT the same as the lady who "woke up" and "talked" after being in a coma for 20 years. The neurologist described this as a "locked in" syndrome. This is often the result of damage to the brainstem without "cortical" damage - this is caused by mechanical injury or stroke or bleeding. Terri, in contrsast, suffered "ischemic" damage - lack of flow of blood and oxygen to the brain - the cortex (thinking, consciousness, pain) is the first to be damaged - the most sensitive part of the brain to oxygen lack. The "locked in" patients may have normal brain function and be alert, as noted by EEG studies - which may demonstrate changes with stimulation and sleep patterns etc.. To the untrained eye, these two may look similar. Terri's condition is NOT the same as those who report "waking up" after years in a "coma". I believe a lot of well meaning people are sorely misinformed about Terri's condition".
Antiwar movement runs out of puff: "MoveOn.org, the Berkeley-birthed online hub that fueled anti-Bush sentiment before the invasion and now boasts 3 million members, has moved on. Critics on the left complain that it is spending too much energy on such issues as Social Security reform and Bush's judicial appointments, and not enough on opposing the occupation. MoveOn.org Executive Director Eli Pariser told liberal-leaning media critic Norman Solomon recently that the group "is seeing a broad difference of opinion among our members on how quickly the U.S. should get out of Iraq. As a grassroots-directed organization, we won't be taking any opinion which a large portion of our members disagree with."
Still some opposition to homosexuality: "Warning of divine retribution and possible violent protest, evangelical Christians and rabbis from the United States have joined forces with ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel to fight plans to hold an international gay festival in Jerusalem this summer. The WorldPride Parade, last held in Rome in 2000, is a 10-day event including street parties, workshops and a gay film festival. Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jewish mayor, Uri Lupolianski, says he is powerless to interfere, as public events are licensed by the police, not City Hall. At a news conference Wednesday, California pastor Leo Giovinetti said hosting the 10-day World Pride event could bring divine retribution upon Jerusalem, citing the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorra as a precedent."
Muslims kick out Christians: ""Christian groups and some other private relief agencies are being asked to halt their work in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province of Aceh and leave the area by March 26, Indonesia's defense minister said yesterday. The decision likely will target Western and smaller church groups as the government moves to tighten control over reconstruction work in Aceh, the home of a decades-old separatist insurgency. 'We want each of the relief agencies to be transparent in their programs: Some of them are not clear about their mandates,' said Juwono Sudarsono during an interview in a Washington hotel. 'Aceh is mostly Muslim, and some church groups from Australia and the United States are too eager to be there and do their part,' he said. Sudarsono said his government had set March 26 some weeks ago as a target date for moving from the disaster-relief phase of post-tsunami operations to the reconstruction phase."
Israel does its part: "Israel handed control over security in this quiet desert town back to the Palestinians yesterday after weeks of haggling, highlighting the improving relations between the two sides but also the lingering suspicions after more than four years of fighting. The Israeli army dismantled the westernmost of three checkpoints surrounding Jericho and eased travel restrictions in and out of the West Bank town, but kept troops poised along a main highway nearby. ... A number of Palestinian checkpoints were erected following the Israeli moves. The handover, complete with a small signing ceremony and the lowering of an Israeli flag at the checkpoint west of Jericho, marked one of the first practical steps toward restoring Palestinian security control over the West Bank since Mahmoud Abbas was elected Palestinian president two months ago."
Well, it is clear now that Saddam DID have WMDs. Even the NYT admits it. GWB vindicated yet again. But as Christopher Hitchens asks: "This Was Not Looting. How did Saddam's best weapons plants get plundered?"
Wicked Thoughts now has a second blog -- called "Strange Justice" -- which records some of the more appalling miscarriages of justice that are happening. Very disquieting reading.
My latest posting on MarxWords notes again Engels showing his contempt for Russians. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" deals with the Bible view of the death penalty.
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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