EU SUGAR REFORM: GREAT NEWS FOR AUSTRALIA

And the ball is now firmly in America's court to do the same. Despite being the world's most efficient sugar producer, lots of Australian sugar mills have closed in recent years due to protectionism in their major markets

"Britain has brokered an agreement to reform the last remaining fully protected area of European agriculture, cutting sugar prices, phasing out quotas and bringing an end to sugar mountains. The first reforms since the postwar period to the EU's much criticised sugar regime will cut prices by 36 per cent, destroy 100,000 jobs in Europe, end sugar farming in countries such as Ireland and Greece, and lead to economic devastation for Europe's former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, which also benefited from the rigged market.... As well as European consumers and taxpayers, the reforms will also benefit efficient sugar producers such as Brazil, Thailand and Australia, who had taken successful legal action against Europe to force it to end its protectionism. It will also help some of the poorest African countries, who will get far better access to the EU market from 2009.

Under the reforms, prices will be cut by 36 per cent over the next four years, but the world's producers will not get free access until 2020. European sugar farmers and processors are being given billion euros (4.8 billion pounds) in compensation to help them to adjust to the new industries. Former colonies that lose out will be given 40 million euros next year.

Under the reforms, Ireland will be forced by quota cuts to shut down all its sugar beet production, while Italy will give up half its production quotas. Official estimates predict that European sugar production will drop by one quarter, and that 90,000 of Europe's 325,000 sugar workers will lose their jobs. With Europe's pampered and inefficient farmers largely unable to compete in the global market, the Commission predicts that all sugar exports from Europe will stop, and the EU will turn into a major sugar importer.....

The Common Agricultural Policy kept sugar prices in Europe at more than three times the world level. It led to huge sugar surpluses, which were dumped on the developing world, often undermining local farmers. However, sugar cane farmers in former European colonies, mainly in Africa, had preferential access to the European market, enabling them to sell at well above world rates...."

More here

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ELSEWHERE

What U.S. military men in Iraq have to put up with: "A small, but vocal group among us inhabiting most mainstream media newsrooms and occupying far too many elected positions in our government see our military's struggles not as a national sacrifice to stop an enemy driven to bring about our downfall, but rather as pawns on a global chessboard whose purpose is to show just how evil and corrupt our country is"

The terrorist-loving U.S. Presbyterians are at it again: "The Simon Wiesenthal Center has denounced renewed contact between the U.S. branch of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror organization. According to the Middle East Research Institute, Lebanese media confirmed that a PCUSA delegation headed by Robert Morley, a retired professor from McCormick Theological Seminary and Father Nihad Tomeh, the Church's Mideast liaison met with Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, Hezbollah's commander in Southern Lebanon. The Church delegation reportedly wanted to learn more about Hezbollah's charitable works and its "concern" for people".

Well-deserved: "The number of households tuning in to the BBC's TV channels each week has fallen by half a million over the last year. Figures published yesterday showed the number of viewers watching the BBC for at least 15 minutes a week was down to 87.9 per cent for the year to date, compared with 89.9 per cent over the same period in 2004".

Good God! Scottish shipyard workers have stopped destroying their own jobs! "A government minister yesterday praised the Clydeside shipyard workers who have built the Royal Navy's latest warship. Lord Drayson, Minister for Defence procurement, was visiting the BAe Systems yards at Govan and Scotstoun. He watched the new Type 45 destroyer, HMS Daring, being readied for launch in February. "I have been impressed by the professionalism of both the experienced BAE Systems employees and the apprentices whom I have been fortunate enough to meet and talk to today and who are working side by side to help deliver this important programme""

Muslim riots in France stem from anger against the West: "This anger was directed, not against unemployment or exclusion from French society (inclusion in the latter is the last thing they want if it means being forced to adopt the decadent culture of the West) but against the very policies which provide them with equal opportunites and equal status in French society. The "youths" burned down schools and sports centres because they perceived these for what they are: attempts to lure them into the culture of Western liberal society. From this point of view all the policies promoting integration and participation, equality, education and employment, especially when they are shrouded in liberal, "tolerant" rhetoric, can only be interpreted as insults to their dignity".

There is an "apology" here that refers to the behaviour of some moronic Australian Muslims. They apparently thought that attacking news cameramen was a good way of showing that their relatives were not terrorists! Brief background on the behaviour referred to can be found here.

Never Yet Melted is a straight-shooting blog with some humorous comments on the riots in "Frankistan"

I have just posted here an email from an Australian of German origin about Germany's bleak leftist future.

Chris Brand has a new lot of postings up -- mainly focusing on France.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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THANKSGIVING DAY

I supppose it is a bit dastardly of me to mark Thanksgiving Day in this way but I am going to remind my American readers that the devout Protestant Pilgrim Fathers who held the first Thanksgiving were also such devout communists that it took a couple of years of starvation before they gave communism up and rediscovered private property. One account of all that is here. Communism was a killer even in those days. So much for the idea that Christianity and conservatism are necessarily associated. I offer an historical look at the relationship between Christianity and politics here -- where I also look the authoritarian element in Christianity.

We have no Thanksgiving or other harvest festival in Australia but the original white Australians also had an ambiguous relationship to private property. Most of them were convicted thieves -- including two of my ancestors.

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The secular Puritans of modern-day Massachusetts: "The Puritans of Massachusetts have been dead for 300 years, but their authoritarian ghosts haunt us to this day. Consider the plight of Whole Foods Market, an international chain of natural and organic food stores, which found itself accused of planning to engage in criminal activity in its 14 Massachusetts stores this week. What high crimes and misdemeanors was the upscale grocer plotting? It was going to open its doors for business on Thanksgiving. Shocking but true: It was going to sell fruit and vegetables and milk and desserts.... In short, Whole Foods was going to make its wares available to Massachusetts customers on Thanksgiving -- just as it does for customers in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and more than two dozen other states nationwide.... The attorney general of Massachusetts looked at it and saw a crime. In a stiff letter to Whole Foods last week, Attorney General Thomas Reilly noted that under Chapter 136 of the Massachusetts legal code, "the performance of work on legal holidays is prohibited, unless permitted by a statutory exemption." If Whole Foods opened its doors on Thanksgiving, the letter warned, it could face "criminal and equitable enforcement actions to enjoin violations of the Blue Laws." Ah, yes, the blue laws -- those rules and regulations imposed by New England's 17th-century Puritan theocrats to govern moral conduct and ensure proper observance of the Sabbath."

How unsurprising: Massachusetts in deal with Venezuela: "Thousands of low-income Massachusetts residents will receive discounted home heating oil this winter under an agreement signed Tuesday with Venezuela, whose government is a political adversary of the Bush administration. A subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company will supply oil at 40 percent below market prices. It will be distributed by two nonprofit organizations, Citizens Energy Corp. and the Mass Energy Consumer Alliance. The agreement gives President Hugo Chavez's government standing as a provider of heating assistance to poor U.S. residents at a time when U.S. oil companies have been reluctant to do so and Congress has failed to expand aid in response to rising oil prices. U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., met with Chavez in August and helped broker the deal. He said his constituents' needs for heating assistance trump any political points the Chavez administration can score".

Hillary hypocrisy: "Without question, Hillary Clinton is using every weapon of mass deception in her arsenal to attain the Presidency. With a solid lock on the liberal vote, Clinton is now pursuing moderate voters with breath-taking zeal. Senator Clinton has been remarkably successful at distancing herself from her husband's legacy of appeasing Osama bin Laden by casting herself as one of the few Democratic Party leaders who supports the liberation of Iraq. While she may be successful at fooling a pliable public, one of the major issues that will stand in her way is her unabashed support for abortion on demand".

Leftists indifferent to evils "If you want to understand the Left, most of what you need to know can be summarized thus: The Left hates inequality, not evil. As one raised as a New York Jew (who, moreover, attended an Ivy League university) and therefore liberal -- it took me a while to recognize this fatal moral characteristic of the Left. But the moment I realized it, it became immoral not to oppose leftist values.... Thus, when President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire," the liberal world condemned him. The Cold War, once regarded as an epochal battle between freedom and tyranny, came to be regarded by liberals as an amoral battle between "two superpowers." Likewise liberals almost universally mocked President George W. Bush when he labeled Saddam Hussein's Iraq, North Korea and Iran an "axis of evil." It takes a mind that either has little comprehension of evil or little desire to confront it to object to characterizing three of the worst regimes in modern history as "evil." How else can one explain the Left's enchantment with Fidel Castro, the totalitarian ruler of Cuba?"

California's not-so-bright future: "By 2020, California will be more crowded, its population older and its racial composition dominated by Latinos, according to a report released Tuesday. The changes will pose challenges to state lawmakers, who will have to grapple with the additional pressures on already-strained schools and health-care systems, according to the report by the California Budget Project. In just 15 years, one in seven Californians will be age 65 or older, the state will add 10 million residents, and Latinos will account for 43 percent of the population, with whites accounting for about 34 percent. The white and Latino populations are expected to become equal in 2010, when each is projected to account for 39 percent of the population, said Barbara Baran, associate director of the organization and the report's author. The report, "Planning for California's Future," examined Census data and figures from the California Department of Finance. While it doesn't offer recommendations, its intent is to warn lawmakers of the coming shifts".

Attitudes to Iraq: "The Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations just released a survey of American elites that found that 64% of military officers are confident that we will succeed in establishing a stable democracy in Iraq. The comparable figures for journalists and academics are 33% and 27%, respectively. Even more impressive than the Pew poll is the evidence of how our service members are voting with their feet. Although both the Army and the Marine Corps are having trouble attracting fresh recruits - no surprise, given the state of public opinion regarding Iraq - reenlistment rates continue to exceed expectations. Veterans are expressing their confidence in the war effort by signing up to continue fighting."

The weird one is antisemitic too: "The Anti-Defamation League has demanded an apology from Michael Jackson after a US TV network aired what was said to be a telephone answering machine message in which the pop star referred to Jews as "leeches". The message was supposedly recorded two years ago and has now surfaced in connection with a lawsuit against the pop star. "Michael Jackson has an anti-Semitic streak and hasn't learned from his past mistakes," Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman said in a statement. "It seems every time he has a problem in his life, he blames it on Jews." Jackson infuriated Jewish groups in 1995 when his song They Don't Care About Us included the lyrics "Jew me, sue me, everybody do me, kick me, kike me"."

Grandpa John is a good blog. How do I know? They quote this blog quite a lot! They also seem to agree with Dick McDonald about the low casualty rate in Iraq. They need a new template, though.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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FOR THE LEFT, ABUSE TRUMPS LOGIC EVERY TIME

Excerpt from Daniel Pipes

My talks at university campuses sometimes occasion protests featuring Leftists and Islamists who call me names. A favorite of theirs is "racist." This year, for example, a "Stand up to Racism Rally" anticipated my talk at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I was accused of racism against Muslim immigrants at Dartmouth College, and pamphlets at the University of Toronto charged me with "anti-Muslim racism."

Anti-Muslim racism? That oxymoron puzzled me. Islam being a religion with followers of every race and pigmentation, where might race enter the picture? Dictionaries agree that racism concerns race, not religion...

Thus understood, the term racist cannot be ascribed to me, as I neither believe that race defines capabilities nor that certain races have greater capabilities than others. Also, my writings and talks never touch on issues of race.

Does that mean the word racist merely serves Leftists and Islamists as an all-purpose pejorative, a magical insult that discredits without regard to accuracy? No, the evolution of this word is more complex than that.... Note the evolution: As belief in racial differences and racial superiority wanes in polite society, some parties expand the meaning of racism to condemn political decisions such as worrying about too much immigration (even of poor whites), preferring one's own culture, fearing radical Islam, and implementing effective counterterrorist measures.

This attempt to delegitimize political differences must be rejected. Racism refers only to racial issues, not to views on immigration, culture, religion, ideology, law enforcement, or military strategy.

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ELSEWHERE

Corrupt Frog owns up: "One of France's most distinguished diplomats has confessed to an investigating judge that he accepted oil allocations from Saddam Hussein, it emerged yesterday. Jean-Bernard Merimee is thought to be the first senior figure to admit his role in the oil-for-food scandal, a United Nations humanitarian aid scheme hijacked by Saddam to buy influence. The Frenchman, who holds the title "ambassador for life", told authorities that he regretted taking payments amounting to $156,000 (then worth about 108,000 pounds) in 2002. The money was used to renovate a holiday home he owned in southern Morocco. At the time, Mr Merimee was a special adviser to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general"

French ambassador says the Muslim rioters just want to be French! "Though the vast majority of the rioters were Muslims, Mr. Levitte believes the violence was not motivated by religion. "It was not about the role of Islam influence," said Mr. Levitte. "It has nothing to do with the clash of religions or civilizations or cultures. I think it's very important to understand that. You may say, but are you so sure? Yes, I am. Religion played no role at all during these two weeks." ... "These teenagers feel alienated and discriminated both socially and economically. They don't want to affirm any difference, but they want to be considered as 100 percent French," he noted. "They are not fighting to be recognized as a minority, either ethnic or religious, but on the contrary, they want to be accepted as full citizens of the French republic. They want to be part of the French dream." Mr. Levitte says the government plans to spend $42 billion to improve educational opportunities for immigrants and build new, more welcoming housing developments." (Hat tip to Reliapundit)

Bill Clinton says U.S. must stay in Iraq: Former President Clinton said yesterday that the United States should wait until after mid-December parliamentary elections in Iraq to decide whether to set a timetable for troop withdrawal. Clinton offered a lengthy assessment of the Iraq war as part of a wide-ranging talk at Westchester Community College for The President's Forum, a school fundraiser. It marked a rare local appearance by the former president, a Chappaqua resident. Clinton, a Democrat who left office at the start of 2001, said he had personally never seen any intelligence linking Iraq to al-Qaida, and "no one I knew believed that was the case." But that doesn't mean President Bush, a Republican, lied or deliberately misled the country about the reasons for going to war, Clinton said. Bush probably believed the information he was relying on was right, Clinton said".

NAACP chief makes switch to GOP: "For decades, Republicans have struggled to reach out to black Americans. But now in Orange County, the GOP has to reach no further than the NAACP. As of this week, Derrick Wallace, head of Orange County's NAACP, has switched parties -- to become a Republican. "I've thought about this for two years," Wallace said Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours after returning from the elections office. "This is not a decision I made yesterday." It is, however, a decision that rang out like a shot among political circles."

The phosphorous beatup: "The US defended the use of white phosphorus munitions against insurgents in Iraq last year but denied civilians were targeted. The toxic agent was used during what a U.S. Army journal called "shake and bake" missions against insurgents in the battle for Fallujah last year. "It's part of our conventional weapons inventory. We use it like we use any other conventional weapon," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. Whitman said he had no knowledge of any civilian victims of attacks with white phosphorus.... Reports that white phosphorous was used in Fallujah has thrust the US into a new controversy over Iraq war tactics. But another Defense Department spokesman highlighted that white phosphorous has been used by armies around the world for the past century. A yellowish substance with a pungent smell similar to garlic, white phosphorous erupts spontaneously into fire when exposed to oxygen, releasing a dense white smoke".

"Pacifist" novelist Kurt Vonnegut supports suicide bombers. He thinks "It must be an amazing high". He draws an analogy with Harry Truman and the bomb. Does he really think Truman bombed Hiroshima to make himself feel good? And that would be OK? Just another nutty Leftist with no idea of right and wrong.

A good spoof here that equates Kofi Annan with Nigerian spammers.

Strange Justice has a very troubling post about how U.S. soldiers are prosecuted for "offences" in Iraq.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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EXTRAORDINARY ACADEMIC IGNORANCE ABOUT TWINS AND IQ

Below we see academic "experts arguing about something that they obviously know nothing about. The article is a discussion of the findings in "The cognitive cost of being a twin: evidence from comparisons within families in the Aberdeen children of the 1950s cohort study", by Georgina A Ronalds, Bianca L De Stavola and David A Leon, which appeared in the British Medical Journal of 18 November 2005:

"Twins may be livewires but they are certainly not bright sparks, according to new research showing that they have lower IQs than single children. The study has ignited debate, with some experts claiming the lower IQ is a result of the twins spending less time in the womb and having less room to grow while they are in there. But others have argued that what happens after birth is more important, with twins losing out because they do not have a parent's undivided attention.

"We know there are language problems with twins - it's very difficult for a parent to adequately develop the language skills of two children at the same time," said David Hay, professor of psychology at Curtin University in Perth, who challenged the assumptions of the British research team. Professor Hay said previous research had shown that if one twin died in early childhood, the IQ of the surviving twin reached normal levels, suggesting the post-natal environment - in particular, one-on-one contact with a parent - played a part.

The study, published yesterday, found a five-point average shortfall in IQ among twins compared to single children - and the difference remained apparent even after factors such as the mother's age, the child's sex and the number of older siblings were taken into account. When the twins in the study were aged seven, their average IQ was 5.3points behind the single children in the same family. By the age of nine, it was 6points behind. Girl twins tended to make up the IQ deficit by the age of about 13, which was not always they case with boys.

The researchers who wrote the paper, published online by the British Medical Journal, were sticking with their theory that the "likely explanation" was a shorter gestation. Lead author David Leon concluded that social and economic circumstances could not explain the IQ gap".

These guys must know twins only via columns of numbers about them. Anybody who has helped bring up twins -- as I have -- will know perfectly well what the problem is -- and it is "none of the above". What happens is that twins do not need others for social support as much as singletons do, so they develop language skills primarily to talk to one-another. But because of their similar age and situation, even dizygotic (fraternal) twins tend to understand one-another with a much reduced use of adult language. They to a degree develop a private and largely non-verbal language of their own. So they have much less incentive to develop adult language skills and are therefore slower to develop such skills. And language skills are a central part of IQ development.

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ELSEWHERE

I am pretty shaky, come to think of it! "People with high levels of education and demanding careers also have an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, research has suggested. Scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have found that the chances of developing Parkinson’s rise with years of education, or intellectually challenging jobs. The highest risk was found in people who had studied for at least nine years. Miners, machine operators, metalworkers and farmers were less often affected. The study, published in Neurology, says that the findings do not mean that education or professional achievement cause the condition, but that people in these groups may lead lives that predispose them to the disease, or be more alert to its symptoms: doctors were the most likely to develop the disease".

Interesting point from a comment on Rishon-Rishon (also see here): How come the Left happily compare Bush to Hitler because of the invasion of Iraq, even though the guy Bush TOPPLED was a real dictator who did gas people, was a member of a national socialist party, AND had a moustache. Doesn't that make GWB more like FDR? There's no logic on the Left, though.

Muslims even intolerant of one-another: "France and other Western democracies offer Islam an opportunity that it has never enjoyed since the first Islamic civil war during Ali's Caliphate: the possibility for Muslims to develop their own approach to their faith and to practice it freely and in accordance with their deepest beliefs, without fear or hypocrisy. The West is the only place where all Muslim schools freely propagate their ideas and maintain their places of worships and seminaries without restriction. In Muslim-majority countries, the dominant school of Islam bans all other schools. Iran, for one, calls itself an Islamic Republic, but won't allow a single Sunni mosque to be built in Tehran, a city with at least 1.5 million Sunnis. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, sectarian feuds claim thousands of lives each year".

Islamofascism as a neurosis: "I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution."

An early libertarian: "In 1851 Herbert Spencer published a treatise called Social Statics; or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified. Among other specifications, this work established and made clear the fundamental principle that society should be organized on the basis of voluntary cooperation, not on the basis of compulsory cooperation, or under the threat of it. In a word, it established the principle of individualism as against Statism -- against the principle underlying all the collectivist doctrines which are everywhere dominant at the present time. It contemplated the reduction of State power over the individual to an absolute minimum, and the raising of social power to its maximum; as against the principle of Statism, which contemplates the precise opposite."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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ANOTHER AMUSING EMAIL FROM A LEFTIST

A Melanie Barrett (mbarrett@bayoucity.net) wrote to me as follows (I have not endeavoured to fix the grammar or spelling):

"we should adhere to the belief that if you do not make more than $100K a year or you are mentally deficient or physically ill, tough luck. Are you so vain as to not realize that there are many people that actually contribute to this world that do need some help? Your blog brings reason for euthenasia.

Actually every time I read some conservative blog, hear Limbaugh or one of those radio talking heads, I cringe to think that there is so much hate in this world".

I replied:

"You want to kill me ("euthanasia") and you say that I am the one full of hate? You are a psychiatric case -- the phenomenon is called "projection" -- seeing in others what is really in yourself. How sad that people like you have to live a life of such deranged suffering"

In a subsequent email she made this rather sad statement: "And for your information - life is suffering, for everyone..... ". She really is a mess -- like another Leftist emailer I commented on recently.

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BIG ISSUES COMING UP FOR SCOTUS

No more striking down constitutions: "Let's drop the talking points about 'conservative,' 'constructionist' and 'originalist' nominees. Such language obscures what's going on. These nuances are a polite way of pretending that the mainstream in law and government interprets the Constitution differently than we do. No. They are oblivious to the actual content of the Constitution, or they are anti-constitutional. A polite term would be 'post-constitutional.' If Ginsburg, Souter, and friends have a 'theory' of constitutional interpretation, they're keeping it to themselves. When they shake the foundations of the earth from their bench it is neither theory, nor constitutional, nor interpretation. They are, wrote Jonah Goldberg after one heinous ruling, 'making it up as they go along.'"

Roe v. Wade was a legal absurdity: "What do Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe have in common with Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork? They all believe Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. Dershowitz and Tribe are not the only pro-choice legal scholars who denounce Roe as poor jurisprudence. John Hart Ely, another pro-choice legal scholar, wrote in 1973 in the Yale Law Journal that Roe was wrongly decided. Edward Lazarus, a dedicated pro-choicer and former clerk to Roe's author, says Roe was borderline 'indefensible.' Pro-choice Washington Post writer Benjamin Wittes calls Roe 'a lousy decision.' Slate columnist William Saletan--who left the Republican Party in 2004 because it was too pro-life--has written that Roe was a sloppy 'overreach.' Pro-choice Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calls Roe 'a bad decision.'"

Privacy rights may be good but finding them in the constitution is absurd: "Nowhere does the Constitution guarantee the right to privacy. The word "privacy" isn't even mentioned in the text. But if all you had to go by was the obsessive interest in the subject whenever there is a Supreme Court vacancy, you might imagine that privacy is the very bedrock of American constitutional law. Few legal cows today are more sacred. A judicial nominee who referred dismissively to the "so-called right to privacy" or insisted that courts should not "discern such an abstraction in the Constitution [and] arbitrarily elevate it over other constitutional rights," would stand no chance of winning confirmation. That is why John Roberts, who wrote those words as a Reagan administration lawyer in 1981, smoothly disavowed them during his confirmation hearings in September. It is why Samuel Alito's nomination to the court was no sooner announced than his most important Senate ally -- Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter -- called a press conference to say that the nominee had assured him that "there is a right to privacy in the Constitution"

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ELSEWHERE

Dick McDonald has had his calculator out: "If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops (majority of the time over 250,000) in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. The death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol"

The disgusting racist treatment of Michelle Malkin by Leftists: "The racist and sexist "yellow woman doing a white man's job" knock is a tiresome old attack from impotent liberals that I've tolerated a long time. It is pathetic that I have to sit here and tell you that my ideas, my politics, and my intellectual capital are mine and mine alone in response to cowardly attacks from misogynistic moonbats with Asian whore fixations. My IQ, free will, skin color, eye shape, productivity, sincerity, and integrity are routinely ridiculed or questioned because I happen to be a minority conservative woman. As a public figure, I am willing to take these insults, but I cannot tolerate the smearing of my loved ones. Because I have always been open and proud about his support for my career, my husband has taken endless, hate-filled abuse from my critics. His Jewish heritage, his decision to be a stay-at-home dad, and even his looks, are the subject of brutal mockery."

Sugar Daddies: "In a hall of fame for corporate-welfare queens, the sugar industry would occupy a place of special honor. For decades, powerful sugar growers have gotten politicians to enrich them with a protectionist scheme that inflates domestic sugar prices to the detriment of American consumers, American manufacturers, American farmers, and the American economy as a whole. In that congeries of absurdities known as U.S. farm policy, sugar’s sweet deal stands out as perhaps the most damaging and least defensible program. Now, more than ever, it needs to be scrapped."

Not a bad summary: "One way to describe libertarianism is that we believe in the separation of family and state as strongly as the American Civil Liberties Union believes in the separation of church and state. In contrast, both the Left and the Right view government as a substitute parent. As pointed out by George Lakoff in Moral Politics, the Left wants government to be a nurturant parent and the Right wants government to be a strict parent. Libertarianism does not want the government to act as a parent."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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ONE THAT SLIPPED THROUGH THE NET

It is part of the conventional religion among psychologists to believe that conservatives are the ones who are "authoritarian". Joe Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers party just did not happen, you see. And like most Leftist beliefs, this one is impermeable to evidence. I have reported in the academic journals heaps of carefully conducted research showing the belief to be false but I was wasting my time of course. You can't argue with something that people need to believe.

Still, every now and again, a piece of research pops up which questions the orthodox faith and one such article is: "Is political conservatism synonymous with authoritarianism?", in The Journal of Social Psychology of Oct 2005, volume 145, issue 5, p571ff. by H. Michael Crowson, Stephen J. Thoma and Nita Hestevold. Their research is of course the usual rubbish that passes for science in psychology: No attempt at sampling, no awareness of what the questionnaires they use actually say, internally inconsistent indices treated as informative, negligible correlations reported as if they offered useful information etc. but it is still nice to see a challenge of sorts to the orthodoxy being put up. I would give a more detailed critique of what they did but I don't want to discourage them too much. They should probably read this and this and this, though.

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BLOG COMMENTS

I am well aware that having a Comments facility would enhance this blog. As in many other things, however, I try to steer a middle way with comments. I welcome comments via email and am generally pleased at the quality of the comments I get that way. But comments that can be read by all are a much more attractive facility, of course. The three group blogs to which I regularly contribute -- Majority Rights, Tongue-Tied and Western Heart all have a comments facility that is managed by the owners of the respective blogs so I don't have to spend time deleting all the rubbish that piles up in any comments facility from time to time. And I do cross-post a lot -- put the same post up on more than one blog. Western Heart specifically encourages cross-postings so I put up there every day what I personally consider to be the three most interesting of all the posts on my own blogs that day. So if any reader especially wants to make a public comment on some particular post of mine, there is around a 50/50 chance he will be able to find the post elsewhere and comment on it there.

Since rationality is the only thing I am unwaveringly committed to, however, I am open to change in what I do. So I have enabled comments on my new Australian Politics blog. If that works out well, I may add a comments facility on more of my blogs. I occasionally get up to a hundred or more comments to my postings on Majority Rights, however, and many of them do in my view require a response from me, so the workload of a comments facility here may well be more than I can comfortably offer.

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ELSEWHERE

Liberals lured by free lunch: "I first became aware of the law of gravity as a small child when I pedalled by tricycle off the porch and crashed into the yard. Gravity was of course operating all along, whether I was aware of it or not. Economics is a lot like that. Many people who are completely unaware of economics sometimes discover it the same way I discovered gravity, through some personal or national crash. Liberals especially tend to think up all sorts of good things we want -- a 'living wage,' 'affordable housing,' 'universal health care,' and an ever-expanding wish-list of things that everyone should receive as 'rights' -- with little or no awareness of the economic repercussions of turning that wish list into laws."

Do-it-yourself legislation: "The aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita have proved a massive breeding ground for what former OECD Chief Economist David Henderson has termed 'Do-it-Yourself Economics' (DIYE), which he defines as 'firmly held intuitive economic ideas and beliefs which owe little or nothing to textbooks, treatises or the evidence of economic history.' The DIYE phenomenon is not restricted to the general public. Henderson points out that DIYE ideas are 'sincerely held, and voiced with conviction, by political figures, top civil servants, CEOs, [labor unionists], well-known journalists and commentators, religious leaders, senior judges and eminent professors.' Sadly, these ideas might do real harm to the U.S. economy."

Move the media elite outside its bubble: "Former CBS-TV correspondent Bernard Goldberg rocked the journalism world in 2001 with his bestselling book 'Bias.' It was an indictment of what Goldberg believes to be an unintended but pervasive liberal prejudice in America's television and print newsrooms. Now, Mr. Goldberg is back with a more in-depth look at why this perceived bias exists. In his new book, 'Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite,' there is plenty of fresh red meat for those who believe that too many people in the media hold a baseline view of things that runs too far to the left. That point is well taken, but Goldberg presents a more significant one in 'Bias.' The author posits the existence of a 'bubble' inside which most established national media live and work. By looking through an elite pair of myopically focused glasses, these media movers deceive themselves that everything revolves around their own business and social circles in New York City and Washington, D.C."

Ilana Mercer on racism or realism? "I stated that Chinese and Jews have 1) overall endured far greater depredations in modern times than Muslims and African-Americans (notwithstanding category overlap). 2) Have coped with such contingencies admirably while Arabs and blacks . not so much. Is this not an observation of reality? Am I not stating an objective fact? So why is realism framed as racism? Dare discomfit people with unsettling facts, and they threaten to tarnish your reputation with damaging labels; tell the truth, and, it would seem, you risk your reputation. That pretty much sums the direction in which discourse has been steered."

The Guardian atypically features an excellent essay of some of the hairy issues involved in the intellectual property area without getting all soap boxy over pharmaceutical companies and the third world etc.

Wicked Thoughts has obviously had a VERY wicked thought about a certain German torchlit parade.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE: THE NEW GESTAPO?

They are not quite the new Gestapo yet but they are a long way down the track. The immediate and savage execution of a Brazilian electrician just because he looked like a known terrorist and the lies the London police used in an attempt to exculpate themselves got worldwide publicity. That should have been a huge wake-up call for the British powers that be to bring their police back into civilization but the only difference now seems to be that they don't shoot you on mere suspicion. They can still be extraordinarily oppressive to innocent people if they are feeling a bit bored, however. Read this account of the ordeal that David Mery -- a totally innocent computer geek -- was put through just because he was wearing a backpack while quietly waiting for a London Underground train.

Like the Brazilian electrician incident, the Mery incident got heaps of publicity at the time it happened (in September) -- e.g. here -- but in spite of all the publicity. Mery still had to wait a long time and had huge difficulties getting all his possessions back from the police and heaps of data about him are still to this day held in police records. He was never charged with any offence in any court but he still effectively "has a record" that could seriously hamper him in the future. As Mery himself says:

"The Police eventually decided to take No Further Action (NFA): `a decision not to proceed with a prosecution'. In a democratic country such as the UK, one would be forgiven for naively thinking that this is the end of the matter. Under the current laws the Police are not only entitled to keep my fingerprints, palm prints and DNA samples, but apparently, according to my solicitor, they are also entitled to hold on to what they gathered during their investigation: notepads of the arresting officers, photographs, interviewing tapes and any other documents they collected and entered in the Police National Computer (PNC)....

Aren't the Police supposed to keep tabs only on convicted criminals and individuals under investigation? So even though the Police consider me innocent, otherwise they would have had a duty to prosecute me, there will remain some mention (what exactly?) in the PNC and, if they fully share their information with Europol and Interpol, in other Police databases around the world as well. Isn't a state that keeps files on innocent persons a police state? This gradual erosion of our fundamental liberties should be of concern to us all."

So how has a once highly-respected police-force degenerated so badly? After years of Leftist control, politically correct harassment and appointments of far-Leftists to leadership positions, the London police are now more a political police than a law enforcement body. Legal safeguards have been so eroded that they can now do almost anything they like without repercussions as long as their victims are white. The Left have destroyed the London police just as they destroy everything they get control over (education being another example of that).

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ELSEWHERE

A not very foxy Foxman: "Abraham Foxman has gone from nuisance to embarrassment to self-parody. The national leader of the Anti-Defamation League has declared war on conservative Christians. In doing so, he's not only attacking the best friends Israel and the Jewish people have, he's also repudiating Torah-based morality. At a New York meeting of the ADL's national leadership recently, Foxman experienced a near total meltdown. Groups like Focus on The Family and American Family Association are leading a full-scale assault on tolerance and diversity, Foxman foamed. As reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Foxman declared: "Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!""

Democrats Teach The World to Hate America: There is an old "joke" about a man who murders his parents and then pleads with the judge for leniency because he's an orphan. I think of this every time I hear a Democrat ask why the world so hates us. Could it be because, in places where people will never actually meet an American they can hear Bruce Springsteen, the Kerry flack, testifying over and over again that being "Born in the USA" is a horrible fate where people kick you when you're down and where you "end up like a dog that's been beat too much"? Could it be because, in places where the only Americans they'll ever see are in Hollywood movies made by leftists, the Democrat makes sure the villain is never an Islamic fascist terrorist and always an American, an American corporation or an American government agency? Could it be because when Michael Moore makes a movie that the Democrats know to be a lie-filled, hate-filled anti-American propaganda flick but those in other places might not, the Democratic Party leadership makes sure to smile for the cameras of al Jazeera and give the film a standing ovation and their endorsement of its message?

A good defence of Wal-Mart against the enviers: Just one excerpt: "Sam Walton's innovations created thousands of new jobs and allowed millions of Americans to save money. In earlier eras, John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt were depicted as evil. But the condemnation rarely came from consumers. It was competing businessmen who complained. And newspapers lapped it up, calling them "robber barons." Vanderbilt got rich by making travel and shipping cheaper. Lots of people liked that. No one was forced to buy the oil on which Rockefeller got rich. He had to persuade people by offering it to them for less. He offered it so cheaply that poorer people, who used to go to bed when it got dark, could now afford fuel for their lanterns. These are "robber barons"? (Hat tip to Commonsense & Wonder)

"Faiths for Fairness is a project of the American Interfaith Institute, an organization with a long history of working to remove bigotry and hatred from the religions of Abraham. Most recently, we have been concerned by the decision of the Presbyterian Church USA to begin a divestment process of its multi- billion dollar portfolio from select companies that do business with Israel. Not only has this action threatened the bonds of friendship between Presbyterians and Jews, it is likely to have even greater consequences by giving encouragement to anarchist organizations"

The Fourth Rail is a very good blog if you want to know what is actually happening in Iraq: Detailed coverage of military movements etc.

Pleasing: My new Australian Politics blog got 300 hits in a recent 24 hour period. Pretty good for a brand-new blog. Some of that will be an initial surge of course so what the return visitor numbers will be like is anyone's guess. It is the only one of my blogs where I have a comments facility so anybody who has always wanted to comment at me now has their chance! I will delete any drongo comments, though. Australians will know what a drongo is.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

**************************

Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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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