Leftist logic again

Leftists repeatedly do everything they can to avoid looking at the facts of any issue they discuss. Instead they use moral outrage, ad hominem arguments, appeals to dubious authority, whatever.

Egregious Leftist columnist Dana Milbank is a good example. He appears to have been present at a launch at AEI of a new book "Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People" written by Jon Entine. You may remember that Entine got into a lot of trouble a few years ago for arguing that blacks have a genetic advantage in certain sporting events -- an advantage any Olympic games spectator could see with their own eyes. Entine appears not to have been deterred by his critics however. The new book argues that the average Jewish IQ is unusually high and that the advantage is genetically inherited. The IQ research certainly supports that (See here and here) but it is again pretty obvious if you look at who is teaching in the universities etc.

Milbank reports that the arguments of the new book were generally accepted by the audience and then goes on to say:

Left unchallenged was the question of whether Jews are indeed smarter than others -- even though it would have only required a walk down the hall to the office of new AEI visiting fellow Paul Wolfowitz, whose leadership on the Iraq war and conflicts of interest as head of the World Bank demonstrate that Jews are capable of questionable judgment.

Where do I begin to comment on that pathetic apology for an argument? He thinks that the "questionable" judgment of one Jewish man is a serious challenge to generalizations about Jews as a whole. It would be equally logical to deny that dogs bark because some dogs do not.

But that's the sort of thing that Leftists do when all the evidence is against them. Anything rather than abandon the simplistic illusions that they so obviously desperately need.

There is nothing wrong with using examples and anecdotes to make vivid a statistical generalization but to use one example to challenge a statistical generalization is brain-dead. To challenge a statistical generalization you have to look at the evidence for and against it, and where IQ is concerned, Leftists avoid doing that like the plague. No mystery why.

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An amazing twist

At first it's just the Democrat corruption you expect... and then we find that the Dems have been in cahoots with one of the world's naughtiest men. It is probably more proof of how smart Watson is. He figured what he needed to do to get Federal funding for his lab

Lawmakers, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have taken thousands in campaign cash from an embattled Nobel-prize winning scientist while earmarking federal money for his New York lab. Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, also a New York Democrat, requested a $900,000 earmark in June for the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where James D. Watson served as chancellor before resigning last week after apologizing for comments that suggested that people descending from Africa aren't as intelligent as those from Europe.

Federal campaign filings show that Mr. Watson has donated more than $70,000 to candidates and their political causes, including a total of $3,000 to Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign on May 17 and June 25. Two days later, a Senate committee report showed that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Schumer earmarked $900,000 for the lab. The majority of Mr. Watson's donations over the years have gone to Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, who has received more than $30,000 from the scientist, records show. Mr. Harkin is chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on labor, health, human services and education.

Phillippe Reines, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, yesterday referred all questions about the earmark to Mr. Harkin's office but added that there was no connection between political donations and the earmark. "One thing had nothing to do with the other," he said. [Oh, no!]

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Surge in American Anti-Semitism : "This is a rather disturbing trend and it's likely a result of the nonstop Israel bashing by the left, who see a neo-con around every corner. Nearly 35 million American adults - 15 percent - hold views consistent with making them anti-Semitic, according to a survey released yesterday. The Anti-Defamation League survey, conducted from between Oct. 6 and 19, also showed that 31 percent of Americans believe that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America, and just over a quarter - 27 percent - believe that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ. The survey showed that the nearly 35 million adults Americans who held views making them "unquestionably anti-Semitic" increased the rating 1 percentage point from the 14 percent of the 2005 survey".

Money Train. Another subsidy, no real reforms for Amtrak: "Ronald Utt of the Heritage Foundation notes that in 2006, Amtrak lost enough money per passenger on at least three of their long-distance routes - Orlando to L.A., ($436 per passenger), Seattle to L.A. ($227), and New York to Florida ($132) - that they could have easily come out ahead by collecting passengers' fares and handing them round-trip airline tickets. As of August, Amtrak had lost approximately $845 million for the year.... It could not be clearer that inter-city passenger rail has lost its raison d'etre. Rail is a good way to move cows, logs, grain, and cars. It is not a good way to move people, except the ones who are willing to pay far too much (even after the subsidy) for a trip that takes far too long. Other industrialized nations are already privatizing - it is about time Congress gave someone else a chance to improve the margins on the most cost-efficient routes (in the northeast), and stop running the ones that lose the most money."

Thousands of Iraqis returning to Baghdad: "In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday. Saad al-Azawi, his wife and four children are among them. They fled to Syria six months ago, leaving behind what had become one of the capital's more dangerous districts - west Baghdad's largely Sunni Khadra region."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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