BLOGGER.COM BLUES

Blogger.com have been very erratic this week. One day it took me four hours before I could get this blog up. And others have had worse experiences. Hopefully blogger.com have now got on top of whatever problem they had but I guess this is a good time to remind readers to bookmark one of my mirror sites (here and here) for times when this blog does not seem to have been updated at the usual time. I update it each and every morning my time -- which translates to some time in the afternoon of the "next" day for American readers (Brisbane time is 18 hours ahead of California time). At the foot of each day's postings I also give links to mirrors for five of my other blogs as well. It only takes me a couple of minutes per day to put up a mirror site but there is no point in my doing it unless people use it occasionally. So if there have been no recent updates here, the fault lies with blogger.com, not with me and the mirror sites should always be up to date.

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LIBERALISM WITHOUT COMPASSION

This morning President Bush offered his condolences to the family of Terri Schiavo:

The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life.

"The strong have a duty to protect the weak": Didn't that use to be a liberal sentiment? To be sure, some prominent left-liberals--Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Sen. Tom Harkin--joined the effort to save Mrs. Schiavo, and 47 House Democrats out of 100 voted in favor of the law that would have done so had the courts not defied it. But it seems clear that liberalism is not as compassionate as it once was.....

In a fascinating essay for The Weekly Standard, Eric Cohen argues that what went wrong in the Schiavo case was that "procedural liberalism"--the respect for Mrs. Schiavo's right to make her own decisions--gave way to "ideological liberalism"--the presumption that because she was unable to make such decisions, her life was worthless:

Treating autonomy as an absolute makes a person's dignity turn entirely on his or her capacity to act autonomously. It leads to the view that only those with the ability to express their will possess any dignity at all--everyone else is "life unworthy of life."

This is what ideological liberalism now seems to believe--whether in regard to early human embryos, or late-stage dementia patients, or fetuses with Down's syndrome. And in the end, the Schiavo case is just one more act in modern liberalism's betrayal of the vulnerable people it once claimed to speak for.

Opinion on the Schiavo case did not split along traditional left-right lines, of course; libertarian-leaning conservatives tended to side with those who wished to pull her feeding tube. Autonomy and compassion are both important values, and there are dangers in overvaluing either at the expense of the other.

It does seem, though, that the "religious right," for better or worse, has supplanted the liberal left as the political faction that most strongly and consistently advocates compassion in social policy.

(Above post excerpted from Taranto. The Leftist claim to compassion always was a con job. Look at the millions killed by Communism -- and back in the USA look at the thousands killed as a result of Leftist support for eugenics prior to 1945)

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ELSEWHERE

There is a good short summary of the truth about Michael Moore here

Amusing: The "pro-Palestinian" French Left have been awoken from their dreams. The Muslim immigrants in France have begun to attack the French Left too.

Kristol makes it clear: "A pie in the face didn't silence conservative pundit William Kristol during a speech at Earlham College. A man who later was identified as a student at the private Quaker college jumped onto the stage and splattered Kristol with the pie Tuesday night about 30 minutes into a speech about U.S. foreign policy. Members of the audience jeered the student as he walked off the stage, then applauded as Kristol wiped the goo off his face with a paper towel and said, "Just let me finish this point," the Palladium-Item reported".

From Nathan Tabor: "What do the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, and Monticello have in common? The average American with a smattering of historical knowledge might say that those historic sites are all symbolic of America's unique heritage of freedom..... What about the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone Park, and the Grand Canyon? Well, these priceless natural resources are all managed by the U.S. National Parks Service. They are among the most frequently visited natural recreation areas in America, where millions of American families vacation every year. Would it surprise you to learn that every one of these unique American landmarks is also controlled by the United Nations? It's amazing but true.... For example, in 1995, Bill Clinton got the UN to declare Yellowstone Park a "World Heritage Site in Danger." That gave him the "international obligation" to close down a coal mine on private property three miles away - despite the fact that coal had been mined in the area for 150 years before Yellowstone Park was created, and the Crown Butte Mines had won an award for excellence in 1992".

Academic study confirms Leftist bias: "Nearly three-quarters of faculty members at U.S. colleges and universities describe themselves as liberals, and at elite schools, the proportion is 87 percent, a survey has found. What's more, half say they are Democrats and 51 percent indicate they seldom or never attend church, according to the survey, published in the March issue of the online political journal Forum. 'You would expect the majority of English literature and sociology professors to be liberals, but our survey found that 66 percent of those in physics and 64 percent of those in chemistry are liberals,' said S. Robert Lichter, a communications professor at George Mason University and an author of the study."

French finally admit that water flows downhill: "After seven years of rising unemployment, economic stagnation, and general malaise, French socialists' war against self-determinism ended in defeat last week when France's parliament rescinded a law that made it a crime to work more than 35 hours a week. Essentially a lunatic scheme to create wealth sans labor, the law instituted a de facto lowest-common-denominator egalitarian society by shackling anyone with motivation to a sinking raft of bureaucrats and the lazy. In a sort of fiscal policy version of the Maginot Line, French socialists had argued that legally limiting the number of work hours would force companies to create millions of new jobs."

I am also Canadian has an amusing post arguing that killing seals reduces global warming. How awful for the Greenies!

My latest post on MARXWORDS shows that Engels thought that race made a big difference to historical development.

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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AMERICA'S IMPERIAL COURTS

A list of just some recent and appalling usurpations of power by the courts -- from Qando.

* A Federal Judge in Missouri ordered Kansas City to raise property taxes in order to pay for his court-ordered remedies. Several state courts are now embroiled in similar controversies over court-ordered tax increases.

* By invoking a non-existent "right" to privacy, the courts have increasingly legislated social outcomes from the bench, including finding a right to abortion in the 14th Amendment, and most recently, a right to homosexual marriage in some jurisdictions such as Hawaii and Massachussets.

* Federal Courts have repeatedly struck down voter referenda, such as Prop 209 in California, that ended affirmative action through race-based classifications, or Prop 187, which would have denied taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants. Federal courts in Washington overturned a state referendum to ban assisted suicide.

* Federal Courts have ruled that states may not compose their state senate of representatives from geographical districts, but must proportionally represent the state's population. Essentially this says that it is unconstitutional for states to fashion their legislatures in the same manner that the Constitution requires the national legislature to be composed.

What lots of people fail to realize is that these judgments have happened only because Congress has let them happen. Congress can legislate to limit the power of the courts in any way it likes. Article III of the constitution says so. Maybe they will start to use that power now that there is all-round control of the U.S. government by the GOP. The courts are certainly doing all they can to push Congress into doing something.

Qando has much more

And the latest rubbish verdict: The Supreme Court "ruled that workers can sue for age discrimination without proving that the discrimination was intentional". So you can now be sued for something you did not know you were doing!

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ELSEWHERE

I was going through my old files looking for something else the other day when I came across an interesting Table in J. Ethnic Studies of 1982 (10:2), pp. 106ff. It uses NORC data to tabulate the ethnic composition of the U.S. population as of 1980. I am not certain what the precise NORC question was but the survey appears to have asked people what their predominant origins were. Germany was cited by 15.6%, England and Wales 11.9%, Ireland 9.5%, Italy 4.7%, Poland 2.8% and Scotland 2.6% -- giving only 24.7% for the entire British Isles. Blacks were 11.5%. So I think it will surprise many to hear that the U.S. population is more German than English. And if we take 80% of the England & Wales figure to get (VERY roughly) WASPs, we find that WASPSs are a minority of only 9.5%. These days of course all the percentages above would have been trimmed back by the Hispanic influx. But the whole set of results does make very stupid the current American code of referring to blacks and Hispanics as "minorities". WASPs are a minority too -- a smaller minority than blacks in fact. Maybe WASPs should demand affirmative action on their behalf! (For those not up with the jargon, WASPs are White Anglo-Saxon Protestants).

Illegal immigration: "We've reached a very strange moment in the immigration debate. On Wednesday, President Bush condemned a group of good American citizens worried about the breaking of U.S. immigration law. He condemned the organizers of Project Minuteman as 'vigilantes' even though they have broken no law and pledge not to do so. An hour or two later, Mr. Bush welcomed to his Texas ranch a man [Mexican President Vincente Fox] who insults the United States for its immigration policy and leads a government that routinely flouts U.S. immigration law. ... Mr. Bush's description of the Minutemen as vigilantes is a misreading of American history. The vigilantes were a lynch mob. The Minutemen are an expanded version of the Neighborhood Watch programs popular in many American cities. It's sad to see an American president roll out a royal welcome to a foreign dignitary so openly contemptuous of U.S. law, while simultaneously condemning Americans who are trying to help duly constituted authorities enforce the law."

If this guy were white he would be in jail, not still in his job "A federal jury in New Orleans yesterday determined that the city's first black district attorney discriminated against dozens of white employees in January 2003 by summarily replacing them with black employees days after he took office. The jury found that Eddie Jordan acted illegally but did not hold him personally responsible. The plaintiffs were awarded almost $1.8 million in back pay and damages. "What I wanted was a win. Money was not the issue," plaintiff Clemens Herbert told reporters. "He was trying to disguise racial discrimination through politics, and the jury saw through it.""

Moderate Muslims cheer bin Laden rebuke: "The condemnation of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda by the Islamic Commission of Spain on the first anniversary of the train bombings in Madrid that took 200 lives is making waves throughout the Muslim world. The Spanish commission's fatwa, or condemnation, follows other signs of the kind of public theological debate rarely seen in the Muslim world, openly challenging the dominance of Saudi Arabia's wealthy Wahhabi fanatics. One Islamic scholar even calls it a sign of 'a counter-jihad.' In a recent interview with the Qatari daily newspaper Al-Raya, for example, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the former dean of Shariah and law at the University of Qatar, urged his fellow Muslims to purge their heritage of fanaticism and adopt 'new civilized humane thought.'"

Leftists ignore history -- as usual: "Two years ago this week, the American invasion of Iraq was underway. Why had we gone to war? In the months leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, President Bush repeatedly gave his reasons. Saddam Hussein, he said on Oct. 7, 2002, "has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States." ... The president had also made the case for taking action before the UN General Assembly on Sept. 12, 2002. "If we meet our responsibilities," he said, "the people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. ... Isn't it odd that such clear and compelling justifications for the war and where it might lead have been largely forgotten in what passes for debate these days? Instead, the talking point we hear -- over and over -- is that the casus belli for the invasion was simply and exclusively Saddam's possession of stocks of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). That is usually followed by the assertion that since no such caches of WMD have been found, the war was unjustified and, it is customary to add in an outraged tone, based on a bald-faced "lie."

Carnival of the Vanities is up again -- this time in April Fool's mode

My latest post on MARXWORDS shows that Engels thought Aryans were superior.

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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BLACK INCOME DISPARITIES

First we read this in USA Today:

Black and Asian women with bachelor's degrees earn slightly more than similarly educated white women, and white men with four-year degrees make more than anyone else.

So how come blacks are tops among women and whites are tops among men? About the women we read that they do well because of:

the tendency of minority women, especially blacks, to more often hold more than one job or work more than 40 hours a week, and the tendency of black professional women who take time off to have a child to return to the work force sooner than others.

So black women do well because they work harder. But for black men we read:

Workplace discrimination and the continuing difficulties of minorities to get into higher-paying management positions could help explain the disparities among men, experts say.

So black women do well because they work harder but black men do badly because of "discrimination". But if discrimination holds black men back, why does it not hold black women back? Is the writer implying that black women sleep their way to the top? I think that's more offensive than anything I would dare to say and I don't think it is true. Could the real explanation for black men lagging be -- horror! -- that black men don't work as hard as black women? Back in Africa the men mostly sit around while the women work. That couldn't happen in America, could it? No! It is wicked white discrimination that must be trotted out like a kneejerk reflex.

And I guess it would be vastly incorrect for me to mention another obvious reason for low average black male achievement: About a third of them either are in prison or have been there. Prison is an excellent college for crime but a very poor college for everything else.

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ELSEWHERE

The Irish show the way: "In 1985, the Irish economy was in a shambles. It was facing excessive budgets deficits and minimal growth. Its GNP p.c. amounted to only 65% of the Belgian level. In addition, Irish unemployment stood at 17% against 10% for Belgium. Until 1985 both countries followed similar Keynesian policies of deficit spending. In 1983 Belgian public spending even exceed-ed 50% of GNP. Excessive spending triggered a vicious circle of continuing rises of the tax burden and public debt. The graphs above show that until 1980 Irish public spending followed the same path as that of Belgium, with similar growth performance. However, in 1985 Ireland made a u-turn. It drastically lowered the tax burden. All wasteful government spending was eliminated. In three years time public spending was reduced by no less then 20%. The result was that Ireland entered a period of explosive GNP growth, averaging 5.6% from 1985 to 2002. This is rough-ly three times the Belgian growth rate. The boom went hand in hand with the creation of new jobs, which was far in excess of that in Belgium. Because of its awe-inspiring rise in prosperity Ireland has now more resources available for all sorts of social, cultural and environmental initiatives than Belgium does".

Stupid Californians try to destroy jobs: "The City Council here is set to consider whether to impose a living-wage policy for all companies that provide services to the city, a move airport officials warn could lead to the loss of millions of dollars in revenue. San Jose was the first major Bay Area city to establish the living-wage policy, which was put in place in 1998. But the mandatory wage increase has yet to be imposed on all companies, including airport rental car agencies, amid concerns that the policy could hinder San Jose's ability to attract and keep businesses..... Representatives of Hertz, Avis and Alamo/National rental car companies oppose the wage increase. "Is it fair to saddle an already unprofitable business with $1.5 million more in costs? No, said Hertz spokesman Rich Broome. "We believe the wages we offer are fair for the work being done.""

Confusing control and security: "Suppose you were a sadist and really hated your fellow men - what type of job would you try to get? Well, you might try to become head of airline security for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), where you could devise a system like the following. You would: * Hire people who are wannabee drill instructors, to order passengers around as if they were new Marine Corps recruits. * Demand passengers show their IDs up to four times before boarding, even though you know IDs are easily forged. ... * Take away relatively harmless personal items, such as tweezers, hat pins, sewing scissors, etc., while leaving people with items that are much more lethal in trained hands. * Harass small children, elderly women, infirm individuals and young attractive women by making them go through difficult body motions and inappropriate touching. ..."

Castro's daughter: "As a 3-year-old, Alina Fernandez didn't know that the Communist revolution that swept Cuba was led by her father. The only thing she could see was what the revolution did to her TV cartoons...... Eventually, the situation in Cuba worsened when the Soviet Union withdrew its support from Cuba in 1989. By 1993, she had to take her daughter out of school because there was no electricity - and no teachers. And by this time, she had already become a dissident. That's when she knew she had to leave, and she was able to smuggle herself out of the country with a little help and a fake passport. She has not seen her homeland or her father ever since."

Muslims find Christ: "Despite unprecedented press coverage of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East since September 11, 2001, one big story is not being told by mainstream media. Scores of Muslims are converting to evangelical Christianity and will be celebrating their first Easter this year, even amidst widespread persecution and the very real threat of death..... One Arab Christian leader tells me that based on his research with churches and ministries throughout the Islamic world, he now believes more than 1.5 million Muslims worldwide have trusted Christ since 9/11. Such numbers are difficult to verify, but the trend is clear. "More Muslims are becoming followers of Jesus Christ today than at any other time in history," a prominent Arab Christian leader told me recently, on the condition that I not mention his name or organization. "It's not something we talk much about openly, but it is very exciting and very important.""

A good example here of how Leftist pollsters can get any result they want out of a public opinion poll by asking loaded questuions.

I have just come across a Canadian blog that I really like. Dare I say it? Let it bleed is almost a Canadian version of Dissecting Leftism. It's got the same contempt for the Left, anyway.

My latest post on MARXWORDS shows that Engels thought native blacks to be dumber than German 8-year-olds.

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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BLACK ASSERTIVENESS -- THEN AND NOW

I received yesterday the following interesting email from a man who might well be the "father" of the blogosphere -- in the sense of being the oldest blogger there is. Dick McDonald is in his 70s and is as lively as a cricket. He is referring to this post of mine from two days ago, called "How important is culture?":

You said something yesterday about blacks that didn't ring true with my personal experience with the black population when I was a kid. Compared to other kids of the era, I believe I had a bird's eye view of their culture and "maybe" their genes. You wrote:

"The overwhelming source of uncivil (to put it mildly) behaviour in the USA is undoubtedly the black population -- who are at least as Christian as the whites -- perhaps more so overall. So the source of destructive and disruptive black behaviour is not in their culture. It is in their genetics. Yes. I know all the Leftist tosh about the legacy of slavery suppressing their self-esteem etc but since all the studies shows that blacks tend to have unusually HIGH self-esteem, I am not going to waste time on that one."

This statement is valid when you look at today's conditions in the USA. But I grew up in a very different world and I can attest to the fact that "black aggressiveness and self-esteem" were the furthest thing from your mind in assessing "colored people" of that day.

We lived in a whites only neighborhood in West Hollywood, California. But I visited the "black" bars and chicken joints of South Central Los Angeles on a regular basis from 1940 through 1946. I accompanied my father who during that period owned and operated the largest record company in the world exclusively devoted to black singers, Giltedge Records. As Dad's singers were comparable in station to the gangster rapper's of today, they couldn't be more dissimilar.

The blacks I knew personally and culturally were painfully passive and their self-esteem on a scale of 1 to 10 was hovering just above 1. They were depicted in movies mostly as servants. When observed the word "massa" came to mind. They always were portrayed in movies as being frightened of their shadow and that is the way they came across in real life. The only violent minority of that time were the Mexican "Cholo's and they were more "Zoot Suit" than dangerous. Then the streets of South Central were calm compared to the war zones they are today.

At the time blacks were barred from participating in professional sports with whites. So I would say that I had a cat bird seat in watching black genes at work in the entertainment joints where among their own their self-esteem was the highest. It just wasn't there. Then they were as polite as the ever-bowing Chinese of the era and would generally run from any confrontation. They were not fighters then. They also were never angry..

Their transformation here in LA was slow. It started with the spectacular success of Jackie Robinson at UCLA and later with the Dodgers; with UCLA's Doctor Ralph Bunche who climbed the ladder to head up the UN.and Sidney Poitier in "Look Who's Coming To Dinner". Somewhere along the line, their attitudes changed, their self esteem soared and they changed to the super-aggressive anger that instructs us today.

I have to say my university played a big role in the transformation with Bunche, Robinson, Kenny Washington and Rafer Johnson. But the times were passive and so were blacks. The anger had yet to be stoked by the MSM and black opportunist leaders looking for a paycheck or a story. I harken back to Marshall McLuhan's admonition "The media IS the message" or something like that.

You are the expert on genes and culture. I was just an casual untrained observer of the scene. But the "blacks" of my youth are not the blacks of "today". Not by a million miles. If there was such a thing as a dormant gene, it sure got juiced in the last 20 years. It surely was absent or in hiding then.

Dick makes a very good point that is almost never mentioned today: That the oppressive discrimination against blacks that was normal in America up until the 60s did make them very submissive and hence much less threatening to whites. Blacks were afraid, rightly or not, that if they got "uppity", they would end up hanging from a tree. They had learned to "know their place" (at the bottom). So Dick's point about a generally low level of black self-esteem at that time is undoubtedly true. It would be surprising if the oppression which blacks suffered from at that time did not have a severe impact on their self-esteem. American Blacks were very largely a cowed population at that time.

All recent studies (See also here and here and the academic review abstracted at the foot of this post) however show that black self-esteem is now at higher averages than that of whites -- reflecting a recovery to natural levels now that systematic oppression has ended. And with that, of course, the fear of whites has also vanished and something like 80% of violent crime against whites is now inflicted by blacks.

I am not quite as old as Dick and I am also not American so in none of these matters can I speak from personal experience. I can however speak from experience of another very similar situation -- South Africa under apartheid. I was in South Africa in 1979 doing field research into -- would you believe? -- racial attitudes. The resultant research report was published in a widely-circulated academic journal and you can read it here.

While I was there I got to know one of the local libertarians well. He was then and still is someone devoted to using libertarian ideas to improving the lot of blacks. Like most white South Africans at that time, however, he was greatly frustrated by the false and simplistic views foreigners tended to have about South Africa in that era. As part of re-educating me, he took me at one stage for a drive through Soweto -- the big black township just outside Johnannesburg that was already at that time internationally notorious for crime and violence. His first point was to show me that there were no checkpoints or other barriers. You could just get into your car and drive there. And his second point was that it was generally a safe and friendly place for whites to go -- at least during daylight hours. We could get out of the car at will and without fear -- which we did -- and in fact a common response in blacks who saw us driving past was to wave! Which is of course a friendly gesture. I noted the same thing when I took the train from Johannesburg down to Bloemfontein. The train's occupants were almost all white but as it passed various black settlements (with roofs generally held down by rocks!) along the way, the people in the settlements would all come out and wave to us.

Now most South African blacks were then and still are enthusiastic Christians. And Soweto (and South Africa generally) was then and still is a place with enormous levels of black-on-black violence. And in this post-apartheid era you would soon be either dead or very sorry for yourself if you tried to do in any black South African township what Leon and I did in 1979. So the idea that Christianity leads to high levels of pro-social behaviour -- as American Christians often claim -- is as patently falsified among black South Africans as it is among black Americans. That the heavy hand of entrenched white oppression can deflect black aggression away from whites (and perhaps to a degree to suppress it generally) in some eras does nothing to falsify that.

In fact, if it were culture that made the difference, present-day international comparisons would lead us to conclude that Christianity is an antisocial influence. I certainly don't always agree with Kristof but he is right about Africa and religion:

"If on a Sunday you want to attend a lively, jammed full, fervent and life-changing service of Christian worship, you want to be in Nairobi, not in Stockholm," notes Mark Noll, a professor at Wheaton College. He adds, "But if you want to walk home safely late at night, you want to be in Stockholm, not Nairobi."

Nairobi is of course in Africa. But high levels of lawless and violent behaviour are characteristic of African-origin populations worldwide -- no matter what system they live under or what their history is -- so it is in fact clearly black genetics that matter, not their culture.

But if we include in our meaning of "culture" the effective laws and other enforced requirements we operate under, then culture does indeed matter to how we live. In my earlier post, however, I was using the word "culture" to mean the common rules in our environment that we follow (or not) of our own free will.

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Reference: (with abstract)
Twenge, J. M., & Crocker, J. (2002). Race and self-esteem: Meta-analyses comparing Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 371-408.

Abstract: These meta-analyses examine race differences in self-esteem among 712 datapoints. Blacks scored higher than Whites on self-esteem measures (d = .19), but Whites score higher than other racial minority groups, including Hispanics (d = -.09), Asians (d = -.30), and American Indians (d = -.21). Most of these differences were smallest in childhood and grew larger with age. Blacks' self-esteem increased over time relative to Whites', with the Black advantage not appearing until the 1980s. Black and Hispanic samples scored higher on measures without an academic self-esteem subscale. Relative to Whites, minority males had lower self-esteem than did females, and Black and Hispanic self-esteem was higher in groups with high socioeconomic status. The results are most consistent with a cultural interpretation of racial differences in self-esteem.

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ELSEWHERE

What a laugh! The NYT has discovered that in Australia, as in the USA, slightly less than half of the population have Leftist views. Wow! "As the point person in the Bush administration's campaign to improve America's image in the world, Karen Hughes may face a more difficult challenge than she imagined and discover that she will have to travel far beyond the Middle East. A poll released Monday in Australia, long known for friendly relations with Americans, found that only 58 percent of the population had a positive view of the United States."

MARXWORDS is back! I have dug up another lot of quotations from Marx which show how much he and Hitler were two peas in a pod. So if Hitler was a Rightist so was Marx! But if the poor old Leftists have to claim that Marx was a Rightist they would really be a laughing stock! Clearly, both the great European mass-murderers of the 20th century -- Hitler and Stalin -- were acolytes of Marx and, as such, far to the Left. From Lenin to Milosevich, mass-murder has been Leftist. Even the belief in Aryan superiority was Leftist before the second world war. U.S. Democrat President Woodrow Wilson of course believed in it and, as we shall see in a few days time, so did Engels. So keep checking MARXWORDS!

Most readers of this blog will by now be well aware of the Leftist myth that the early British settlers of Tasmania committed genocide against the native black population there. The myth has of course been painstakingly demolished at huge length by Keith Windschuttle. There was however another article much prior to Windschuttle's work which makes essentially the same argument. It is very brief but even so makes quite horrifying and therefore quite gripping reading. It is by Patricia Cobern and I have just put it online here or here.

Arnold Kling argues that the universities today are a lot like the Catholic Church before Martin Luther came along.

A good post from Norm Geras, a left-leaning blogger and authority on Marx, about the dishonest way many Leftists compare modern Western conservatives to the Nazis. A Leftist who takes the facts seriously is always refreshing.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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TUESDAY ROUNDUP

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

On Dissecting Leftism I show that Hitler's Nazism was a popular, working-class movement and that it was Green/Left, not "Rightist"

On Political Correctness Watch I point to evidence that multiculturalism has destroyed Britain's sense of community

On Greenie Watch I note that the huge advantages of biotechnology have mostly been destroyed by ignorant politics

On Gun Watch I suggest that the solution to school shootings is to arm the teachers

On Education Watch I note how desperate parents are to escape Los Angeles public schools

On Socialized Medicine I note how a public hospital had a transplant donor for a boy with kidney failure but put off the operation for 3 years -- until the boy died

On A Scripture Blog I looked at what happens to the earth after the day of judgment

On Leftists as Elitists I give some examples of the sheer stupidity of Gore Vidal

On Blogger News I ask how important is culture?

On Majority Rights I reproduce a rave about how gutless are the British Conservative party

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ELSEWHERE

French corruption again: "The latest corruption trial of the French president's cronies leaves the public shaking their heads, yet again. It is a case of deja vu for millions of French people: forty-seven politicians and other officials are on trial this week over a vast kickback scheme. For several years in the early 1990s, construction companies are said to have paid 90 million euros ($116 million) in bribes, swelling the coffers of political parties. Their reward: contracts to build and maintain secondary schools in the Paris area. And yet again, the trials involve President Chirac when he served as mayor of Paris and his allies"

Albanians show up other Europeans: "The announcement several days ago Albania -- a small country with limited resources -- was sending an additional 50 well-trained troops to Iraq came as a surprise to some observers. But it really should not have surprised anyone. Albania was one of only four countries to send combat troops during the operation "Iraqi Freedom." Albania is probably the most pro-American country on Earth. It showed its support of the United States early, when it initially sent 70 commandos to join the Coalition of the Willing's effort to bring peace, stability and free elections to Iraq. These new troops bring to a total of 120 Albanian soldiers serving in Iraq..... "We Albanians are a nation of freedom fighters who know something about living under oppression," Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano wrote in a letter to President Bush. "That is why we wholeheartedly support the American-led effort to free the people of Iraq. And though we are a small country with a small military, we are proud to stand side by side with our allies in the fight to end the reign of terror in Baghdad.""

There is an article here which argues that it is Europe's abandonment of religion that is causing their birthrate to plunge so dramatically -- to the point where the population of many European countries will as much as halve only two or three decades from now.

A summary of the latest Democrat document forgery here -- a supposedly Republican memo about Terri Schiavo

There is an article here about the very fragile human rights situation in Cuba today.

This should freak the Leftists: "Christian conservative leaders from scores of Ohio's fastest growing churches are mounting a campaign to win control of local government posts and Republican organizations, starting with the 2006 governor's race. In a manifesto that is being circulated among church leaders and on the Internet, the group, which is called the Ohio Restoration Project, is planning to mobilize 2,000 evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic leaders in a network of so-called Patriot Pastors to register half a million new voters, enlist activists, train candidates and endorse conservative causes in the next year. The initial goal is to elect Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a conservative Republican, governor in 2006" [And wait for the Leftists to call Blackwell an "Uncle Tom"]

Amazing! Bureaucracy doesn't reduce crime "The [U.K.] government has failed to reduce violent crime despite its pledges to tackle the problem, according to the last set of crime statistics likely to be released before the election. Home Office figures, due to be published next month, are expected to show that offences such as assaults and wounding increased by 8% in England and Wales last year. In some areas police recorded a 30% rise in personal violence. Police say the increase has been caused by binge drinking and a shortage of officers to patrol the streets because constables are tied up with duties such as form-filling, inflicted on them by the government... "As soon as the government says `We want to measure something' I have got to get somebody to fill a form or sit at a computer screen so it can be measured," said one senior officer in Lancashire, where there was a 20% rise in violent crime. "If we measured less and there was not so much excessive bureaucracy we could have more people on the street fighting crime".

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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HOW IMPORTANT IS CULTURE?

How important to us today is the Protestant Christian culture that appears to have been so central in creating the modern world? Most conservatives I know would answer: "VERY important". And Leftists of course would also say that it is important -- but only as something that needs to be eradicated as quickly as possible.

I don't agree with either. I hark back to another important and historic conservative belief -- in the importance of human nature. I think that what is normally attributed to culture is in fact almost all due to genetics. And the studies that are now coming out of genetics research are pretty startling confirmation of that. It is in fact something of a wonder to me that conservatives do very often seem to maintain in their heads two rather contradictory beliefs -- in the importance of culture and in the importance of genetics. It is obviously true that what we are is the product of both but I don't see how conservatives can assert the central importance of human nature (which they normally do) and also give a large role to culture. Anybody I put that point to normally retreats into saying that BOTH are important -- perhaps 50-50 or perhaps 60-40 but that neither can be downplayed or ignored.

But that's not what the evidence shows as far as I can see. I don't want to beat people over the head with genetics research findings (though I think I will in a minute) so let me initially point to some things that are widely known. I am however going to have to offend just about everybody to do so. Take the importance of Christian culture. There is a very vigorous flow of claims from Christians to the effect that it is only America's Christian heritage that keeps America civil. Yet that is patently false. The overwhelming source of uncivil (to put it mildly) behaviour in the USA is undoubtedly the black population -- who are at least as Christian as the whites -- perhaps more so overall. So the source of destructive and disruptive black behaviour is not in their culture. It is in their genetics. Yes. I know all the Leftist tosh about the legacy of slavery suppressing their self-esteem etc but since all the studies shows that blacks tend to have unusually HIGH self-esteem, I am not going to waste time on that one.

I suppose I have just spoken an unmentionable truth that you need to blot out from your consciousness in order to get by in American society today but, unlike Leftists, I think the truth is vitally important and I intend to persist with my lifelong habit of exploring it wherever it may lead. And what we see in the black/white behavioural difference is a huge gap that certainly cannot be attributed to Christianity or the lack of it. It is true that there has evolved in recent years a black "rap" culture which is just about as antisocial as you could conceivably get but the black/white behavioural gap goes way back -- to long before the evolution of rap culture. Rap culture is more an effect than a cause.

And I am now going to mention something else that is going to lose me friends. Most Leftists lead perfectly decent personal lives whether or not they subscribe to any form of Christian thinking or values. I myself prefer to deal with Christians where I can because I think that Christianity does have some effect in keeping people honest but I normally don't know anything about the beliefs of the people I come across in everyday life except that on average about half must be Left-leaning and about half must be Right-leaning. But I have yet to be able to detect any person's politics from just the way they behave. So culture doesn't seem to matter there either.

And it is not just that I lead a sheltered life. For twelve years I taught sociology in a major Australian university -- where most of my colleagues were Marxists of one sort or another. And I always made clear my view that Marx was just an obsolete economist. In the middle of my time there I even wrote a big book in defence of conservatism. So how did my colleagues treat me? With the greatest civility. Even though my views were clearly anathema to them they even used to invite me to some of their parties! So how much difference to everyday behaviour did their cultural beliefs and my cultural beliefs make? None that I can see.

Now let me mention something else. I like Indians. I even have four of them living in my house with me (two Hindus, one Sikh and one Muslim). And if there is any group of people I know who are outstanding for warmth, civility, good humour, patience and sociability it would have to be Indians. Their culture could hardly be more different from my own Presbyterian heritage but their behaviour sets a standard that makes Westerners a pretty rough lot by comparison. If I thought culture was important for making decent human beings I would be recommending that we all take up Hinduism.

Anyway, I have probably said enough by now to be giving all my readers indigestion of some sort but for those masochistic enough to want to explore the issues I have raised in more detail, I have an article on the role of Christian culture here (or here) and two articles touching on the central importance of genetics here and here (or here and here). Which do you think genetics has more influence on: How tall you are or your political beliefs? You may be surprised at what the geneticists have found.

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ELSEWHERE

What a stupid old fart the President of France is: "During the summit, Mr Chirac said that "ultra-liberalism" - for that, read market forces - was the "new communism of our age"".

Jacques Chirac is the amoral leader of an amoral nation: "Let us not forget that Chirac in his youth was a communist, distributing l'Humanite, the French communist newspaper, on street corners. [He] is more of a "girouette" (wind vane) than Clinton ever was..."

Some amazing pictures of a people-smuggling operation here. The things people will do to get into that "cowboy" USA! I guess trampling all over the feelings of the "international community" must be a good thing.

Good comment from Tom Heard: "The United Nations, my favorite organization has decided to send 10,000 peacekeepers to Darfur. A little too little and a lot too late. Hundreds of thousands displaced and by some counts a genocide of 150,000 has been taking place there and the UN decides to pass a Resolution. That's all this region needs right now, 10,000 rapists and pedophiles to add to their problems."

An email: "As always, eagerly covering up for the Communists, The New York Times today, in the obituary for Judge Wright (the memorable "Turn 'Em Loose Bruce" ) never mentions the judge's active participation in Communist rallies in the 1970's. I recall seeing his name on posters in Harlem, together with Angela Davis and other such "luminaries".

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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SOME ECONOMIC ISSUES

Farm aid getting hit from left and right: "Among the groups working to convince Congress to rein in farm subsidies are the liberal Environmental Working Group and the conservative Club for Growth. Former Club for Growth President Stephen Moore told the Chicago Tribune for a January 8 article, 'Farm subsidies are one of the most expensive forms of corporate welfare in the federal budget. Most Americans believe it goes to the small family farmer, but the truth is that the lion's share goes to large agribusiness.' Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, told the Tribune, 'If you lay off a factory worker in Chicago because you outsource the job, we give them $10,000 and a hug and a certificate for retraining. What we give these guys [farmers] is $150,000 for cotton year after year that keeps them in the game internationally.'"

The latest excuse to slug the consumer "The US multinational establishment, having successfully championed free-trade orthodoxy for decades, may now be flirting with protectionist heresy--a stiff tariff against China to stanch America's hemorrhaging trade deficits. Fred Bergsten, the multinationals' leading economic authority, warns that the United States is in "big trouble," taking on foreign debt beyond anything any industrial nation has experienced and comparable to Mexico and Thailand just before they crashed in the 1990s. Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, is lobbying elite circles to demand decisive action by the Bush Administration--an "import surcharge" as high as 50 percent on all Chinese imports--to avert financial meltdown".

Leftist hatred of economic success in evidence: "As Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., tries to plant dozens of new Supercenters in California, lawyers aligned with opposition groups the company calls fronts for labor unions and competitors are using California's tough environmental laws to stall the nation's largest retailer. From rural Northern California to the crowded south, a handful of lawyers have sued more than 30 cities that approved the 200,000-square-foot combination grocery and department stores, claiming that local officials hungry for sales taxes have miscalculated their environmental consequences.... In many cases, these suits have been filed on behalf of obscure, often-secretive, community groups that have few known members. Some of them have been backed by the labor unions leading an anti-Wal-Mart fight in California, while others have few apparent sources of money. They're delaying the opening of some stores by months or years and slowing Wal-Mart's plan to build up to 40 new Supercenters ... The suits haven't stopped the company from opening any stores, said Peter Kanelos, a company spokesman. "All they've done is delay the stores."

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ELSEWHERE

From PoliPundit: "The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has released a set of proposed “rules” for political speech on the Internet. These rules specify exactly what speech is, and isn’t, allowed on the Internet. I’m not kidding. They really do want to regulate political speech on the Internet. Bloggers, like yours truly, could be fined and punished for writing about a political candidate, if the FEC decides that we violated some aspect of their byzantine “rules.”... Fortunately, there is something you can do. The FEC is asking for your comments on the proposed “rules.”"

Another twisted social worker: "A county mental health counselor appears to have been with a 16-year- old Oakland girl when the teenager allegedly slashed the throat of a 75-year- old woman near the Berkeley Rose Garden last week, county officials said Friday. Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson said the female employee, who was placed on leave pending several investigations, apparently had not called police to report the March 16 attack. "That would be the first action a normal person would take," Carson said Friday. "The fact is that we are under the impression that she did not call the Police Department." The employee, who is about 30 years old, was a counselor in the guidance center at Juvenile Hall, where the suspect is currently in custody"

A hidden epidemic: "There is a 'hidden epidemic' in this country, and it amazes me that people who can do something about it either don't recognize it, refuse to recognize it, or are part of the cause of it. This epidemic is children 's abuse, sex abuse, and death WHILE IN THE CARE OF THE CHILD PROTECTORS. These are the people who are supposed to be 'protecting' our children. They take our children from us as a first option and on the flimsiest of excuses, put them in foster care, there to die or be sexually or physically abused much more often than they ever are at home. ... Have you heard anything about this 'epidemic' in the news? No. And you won't, because these 'child protectors' are very good at hiding the truth from the public or 'poo-pooing' it when it does come out. They have a permanent legal 'gag order' on all facts concerning their operations."

NYC slides into mass illiteracy: "City officials recalled preparation material for math tests that had been sent to teachers after discovering they were filled with math and spelling mistakes. The materials were designed for math students in grades 3 through 7, and had been sent to math coaches and local instructional superintendents. The errors were found late Wednesday before the guide reached classrooms. Several answers in the guide were wrong. There were also sloppy diagrams and improper notation of exponents. There were at least 18 errors in the guide, and grammar and spelling issues proved just as problematic as the math. For example, the word "fourth" was misspelled on the cover of the 4th-grade manual. School officials blamed the mistakes on an ineffective fact-checker".

Book by Thomas Sowell: Black Rednecks and White Liberals. "An essay titled "The Real History of Slavery" presents a jolting re-examination of that tragic institution and the narrow and distorted way it is too often seen today. The reasons for the venomous hatred of Jews, and of other groups like them in countries around the world, are explored in an essay that asks, "Are Jews Generic?" Misconceptions of German history in general, and of the Nazi era in particular, are also re-examined. So too are the inspiring achievements and painful tragedies of black education in the United States".

The failed faith: "Like Communism, liberalism was put into practice. Better for the idealists if it had remained a dream. But as anyone who has lived within a mile of a government-housing project will know, real-life liberalism is a menacing thing -- anti-utopia. Neighborhoods menaced by young men without fathers, their mothers financed by the state, should by now have disillusioned even the most progressive minded. So should inner-city state schools, where parents play little or no role, and perhaps don't even know where the school is. Although its adherents don't like to discuss the point, the liberal faith has much in common with Communism... Liberalism and Communism both regarded egalitarianism as an ideal and both were godless; Communism openly so, liberalism more obscurely. Democracy admittedly distinguished between them, but the liberal admiration for an ideological judiciary shows that they, too, would like nothing more than a government that is free to impose its will by fiat (provided it is run by the right people).".

There is a choice posting on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS about Gore Vidal.

My latest posting on "A scripture blog" notifies a hiatus.

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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