"WORLDVIEW DEFENSE" AS AN EXPLANATION OF CONSERVATISM

A critique of research by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski

That old Leftist, John B. Judis, has an article in The New Republic that summarizes a stream of psychological research into fear of death that goes by the name of "worldview defense". The idea is that if you are reminded of your own mortality, you become more conservative.

In one way, that is all fair enough. The old saying "A conservative is a liberal who was mugged last night" embodies a similar idea and represents a claim that conservatives often make: That they are more realistic and that Leftists are dreamers who need to be brought down to earth. Being vividly reminded of your own forthcoming death (which is what the psychological experiments concerned do) should invoke a similar burst of realism and disable dreamy views of life.

So an interpretations of the findings congenial to conservatives is more than possible. Judis and those he quotes, however, strain to find a more elaborate interpretation that is some way derisory of conservatives. But in doing so Judis falls into a trap common among psychologists and other Leftists: He lives in such a self-protective Leftist bubble that he basically just does not know what conservatism is or what conservatives think. For decades now, psychologists have been devising questionnaires that allegedly "measure" conservatism but which in fact give no prediction of vote at all! The ludicrous Bob Altemeyer is the most recent example of that. The highpoint of such ignorance, however, would have to be the 2003 "Berkeley" study which classified various Communist leaders as conservatives. That Communists and conservatives have radically different views about the world had apparently not penetrated the ivory towers of UCB!

So we have the following remarkable comment from Judis: Also central to worldview defense is the protection of tradition against social experimentation, of community values against individual prerogatives". And you thought it was conservatives who stood for individual liberties! Not so, according to Judis. Conservatives stand for "community values". So Hillary Clinton, with her quotation of an old African saying that "It takes a village to raise a child" must be a conservative!

So I don't think we really need to say much more about such profound ignorance. As this stuff falls squarely within my own field of professional exspertise, however, I will make one more comment: Answers to questions that are obtained from young college students (which is mainly what Judis is referring to) often tell you very little about the real world. The very first piece of psychological research that I ever did was based on responses from students and I found a most gratifying correlation of .808 between the two variables concerned. Being a born skeptic, however, I then did something that psychologists almost never do: I repeated the research among a group much more representative of the general population. And I found NO correlation between my two variables on that group.

And so it seems also to be with the research by Pyszczynski and friends that Judis quotes. Using student responses, Pyszczynski et al. found a correlation between awareness of death and what they (in their confused way) define as conservatism but I carried out long ago a piece of research into much the same question. I looked at the correlation between attitude to death and conservatism among a general population sample. And I used a measure of conservatism that DID closely reflect the political divisions of the day. So what did I find? I found that there was NO correlation between attititude to death and conservatism whatsoever. Nor was there any connection between anxiety generally and conservatism. So the Pyszczynski/Judis claims fail a more rigorous test. What they think happens, does NOT happen in the real world.

And I carried out that piece of research in collaboration with the head of our local Sociology department -- an impeccably mainstream Jewish Leftist. So the ad hominem attacks that one expects from Leftists would be more than usually implausible in this case.

'Lost tribe of Israel' arrives in Jewish state

TEL AVIV - One-hundred-seventy-four people from a group of thousands in India that believes it is one of the 10 "lost tribes" of Israel landed here this week, fulfilling for many a life-long dream of returning to what they consider their homeland. Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based organization led by American Michael Freund, hopes to bring to the Jewish state the remaining 7,000 Indian citizens who believe they are the Bnei Menashe, the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph's two sons and a grandson of Jacob. The tribe lives in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they claim to have been exiled from Israel more than 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire.

"I truly believe this is a miracle of immense historical and even biblical significance," Freund told WND as the group of 174 arrived here earlier this week. "Just as the prophets foretold so long ago, the lost tribes of Israel are being brought back from the exile," said Freund, who previously served as deputy communications director under former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Another planeload of 57 Bnei Menashe is slated to touch down in Israel tomorrow. The group, which has preserved ancient Jewish customs and rituals, has been trying the past 50 years to return to Israel. Over the last decade, Freund's Shavei Israel, at times working with other organizations, brought about 1,200 Bnei Menashe members to the Jewish state. Many settled in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. About 80 lived in Gaza's slate of Jewish communities, which were evacuated by the Israeli government in 2005....

The new immigrants will spend the next few months studying Hebrew and Judaism at a Shavei Israel absorption center in northern Israel... "As much as we might think that Israel is helping the Bnei Menashe, it is the reverse that is true. It is they who strengthen us - with their faith, with their commitment and with their undying love for Zion," said Freund.

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It seems that NYT writers and editors don't even know basic history. But facts always are an optional extra for Leftists.

Surge working: top US general: "The US troop surge in Iraq has thrown al-Qa'ida off balance and produced a dramatic reduction in sectarian killings and a drop in roadside bombings. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said the build-up of American forces in Baghdad since late January had produced positive outcomes. These included the killing or capture of al-Qa'ida fighters, causing the terrorist group to lose influence with local Sunnis. The strategic gains against insurgents would lead to a changed and possibly longer-term role for Australian troops, shifting from security operations to a focus on training Iraqi soldiers and police. General Petraeus told The Australian during a face-to-face interview at his Baghdad headquarters there had been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year, a doubling in the seizure of insurgents' weapons caches between January and August, a rise in the number of al-Qa'ida "kills and captures" and a fall in the number of coalition deaths from roadside bombings...."

Mike Nifong in Court: "Discredited and disbarred former Durham, NC DA Mike Nifong is in court today facing criminal contempt charges related to the Lying, Crazy, Drugged Up Stripper Case (aka.the Duke non-rape case). Disgraced former prosecutor Mike Nifong pleaded not guilty Thursday to criminal contempt charges stemming from his failure to turn over complete DNA testing results during the discredited Duke lacrosse rape case."

More unprotected British Soldiers die: "Eureferendum has the horrifying story of more British Soldiers dying in exposed "dune buggies" being destroyed by IEDs in Afghanistan. These vehicles aren't called dune buggies (they are thin-skinned Land Rovers), but they offer no real protection against completely predictable threats. It's desperately sad. The British Ministry of Defense continues to deny its front-line people adequate protection. They continue to pretend that the enemy is stupid, and that the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Iranians in Basra, will not single out the most exposed and vulnerable of the Coalition forces. Americans, Canadians and Aussies now have a large number of properly protected vehicles. The politicians and upper brass in Whitehall continue to exhibit an inexplicable lack of common sense in the face of the enemy."

'Brave' artists: "The oh-so-brave artistic world, ever ready to be "transgressive", is insulting Christians and Christ again. This time, it is in Australia, where an exhibit includes a picture with the visage of Christ switching to that of Osama bin Laden. How provocative! How creative! Interesting choice, bin Laden. Could have used Muhammad, except, of course, that millions of Muslims have shown their willingness to riot, kill, and assassinate those whom they perceive as mocking Muhammad by, for instance, creating a visual image of him. Don't you just love the bravery of these artists? It tells us so much about them. There's a word for the kind of people who insult only those who won't strike back".

Crooked Soros organization: "The Federal Election Commission has fined one of the last cycle's biggest liberal political action committees $775,000 for using unregulated soft money to boost John Kerry and other Democratic candidates during the 2004 elections. America Coming Together (ACT) raised $137 million for its get-out-the-vote effort in 2004, but the FEC found most of that cash came through contributions that violated federal limits. The group's big donors included George Soros, Progressive Corp. chairman Peter Lewis and the Service Employees International Union. The settlement, which the FEC approved unanimously, is the third largest enforcement penalty in the commission's 33-year history. ACT, which ceased operations in 2005, was formed in late 2003 and rapidly deployed an enormous organization to do the retail-level grunt work of politics. It opened more than 90 offices in 17 states from which it mobilized an army of more than 25,000 paid canvassers and volunteers to knock on doors, stuff envelopes and make phone calls urging voters to defeat President Bush"

Thomas More Law Center Agrees to Represent Haditha Marine: "The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center is representing Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani (USMC), who has been charged with not fully investigating the events at Haditha, Iraq, and failing to report a Law of War violation, in the aftermath of the November 19, 2005, incident that led to the death of 24 Iraqi civilians. Spokespersons for the legal group hope the convening officer in the investigation will throw out the charges as he already has for two of the six other men charged in the case. Chessani is the highest ranking officer charged in the case. Congressman Murtha, a prominent war critic, last year accused U.S. Marines of shooting and killing unarmed civilians near the scene of an attack on a military convoy, then going into two homes and shooting others. According to Brian Rooney with the Law Center, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, one of the other defendants in the investigation, is already suing Murtha for those comments. Rooney argues the Pennsylvania Democrat should be held accountable for taking the word of Iraqi insurgents and calling the Marines "cold-blooded murderers."

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.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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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Sarkozy returns common sense to French foreign policy

Nicolas Sarkozy made headlines this week by telling his diplomatic corps that "an Iran with nuclear weapons is for me unacceptable." But the French President did more in his speech than name the gravest current threat to global security, itself a feat of clear thinking. He also signaled that France means to be something more on the international scene than an anti-American nuisance player.

That's worth applauding at a time when the conventional wisdom says the next U.S. President will have to burnish America's supposedly tarnished reputation by making various policy amends. In Germany, under the conservative leadership of Angela Merkel, foreign policy views have been moving closer to the Bush Administration's, not further away, while new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made clear he will not depart significantly from the pro-American course set by Tony Blair.

But it is Mr. Sarkozy who, true to his reputation, has been the boldest in stepping up to his global responsibilities. On Afghanistan, he told the assembled diplomats, "the duty of the Atlantic Alliance as well as that of France," is to "increase efforts." He then announced he would be sending additional trainers to assist the Afghan Army. On Israel, he said he "would never budge" on its security. He warned about Russia, which "imposes its return on the world scene by playing its assets with a certain brutality," and he cautioned against China, which pursues "its insatiable search for raw materials as a strategy of control, particularly in Africa."

More here

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Left is losing Vietnam War again

In political battles--and all too frequently in war itself--victories are rarely complete, defeats are rarely final, and the real significance of a battle is often not evident for years, even decades afterward. America's defeat in Vietnam, for example, was seemingly a triumph for the anti-war left, which had long proclaimed the war to be unwinnable quagmire. Yet the years following that defeat--the era of American retreat and "national malaise"--proved so traumatic that the American people have never wanted to repeat them. Thus, what the anti-war radicals regarded as a vindication ended up discrediting the left on foreign policy for a generation. You could say that they won the political battle over the war--but they lost the peace.

Today, we may be seeing the final chapter of that process. The left is losing the Vietnam War itself--losing Vietnam, that is, as a rhetorical high ground from which to pillory any advocate of vigorous American military action overseas. In a speech last week, President Bush surprised everyone by citing Vietnam as an analogy to Iraq. Just as we paid a "price in American credibility" for our abandonment of Vietnam, he argued, so we will suffer an even worse blow to the credibility of American threats and American friendship if we retreat from Iraq.... This certainly has caught the left by surprise, since the history of the Vietnam War is territory they thought they owned and controlled

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There is an article on FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC today titled, THE BIG BOWEL CANCER RETHINK, which is a must-read for anyone who trusts in "consensus" science or the wisdom of governments.

Incredible New NY Bill Will Make Staring at Women a Crime: "This year, a couple of women complained to New York City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., about a man standing under the subway steps at their station and looking up their skirts. "He has responded with city legislation, introduced yesterday, that would make all voyeurism in New York a misdemeanor. "Staring at women is rude. But, if it were turned into a crime, we all know what would happen. "You get all types of people on the subway here, everyone from rude men looking for cheap thrills to mentally ill, paranoid women. These problems are best handled by the individuals involved. Passing laws just to appease a couple of female constituents is just not a good idea. "Peter Vallone is a relatively moderate voice on a city council dominated by wild-eyed extremists. I was surprised at this move. The New York Chapter of the ACLU recognizes this legislation as too broad and have recommended against its passage." I would agree with Jeff that staring at women can be rude. Making it a crime is quite another matter. I would also add that some women do everything they possibly can so men will look at them. Or if that's not their intent, they sure make it seem that way."

Where did the money go? "It's hard for the average working stiff to contemplate a number as vast as the $23.5 billion the federal government has allocated to Mississippi for Katrina recovery. Think of it this way: It's enough money to buy two average-sized houses for each of the 65,000 families in Mississippi who lost their homes. And, there would be enough left over to buy each family a brand-new Honda Accord to drive between their two $166,000 houses. That's the EX-L, V-6 four-door sedan Accord, with all the extras and navigation, not a base model."

New Virginia Law Says If You Have Sex You Must Register with the State: "My new co-authored column criticizes an outrageous new anti-father Virginia law. The law has been debated in the press, but commentators have missed its central purpose--to remove fathers' rights to prevent their children from being put up for adoption against their will. The law asks any Virginia man who has had non-marital sex to register with the State. Men who fail to register waive all parental rights to children they may have fathered."

Democrats want Alms for the rich: "One of the first issues the Senate may address when it returns from recess is whether or not the federal government should provide public assistance to millionaires in Washington, D.C., to pay for their children's college tuition in other states. Despite the fact that one in three children in D.C. live in poverty, the mayor and D.C. public officials oppose ending public assistance for millionaires' families."

Taliban blow another ambush : "Taliban forces ambushed American and Afghan troops in Kandahar province today -- and now probably wish they hadn't. They killed one Afghan soldier and wounded three others, but lost over 100 men when the Americans called airstrikes down on their position"

Bush goes soft on Iran: "The Bush administration has notified Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois that it "can't support" the bills intended to help states and funds divest from Iran and Sudan, Haaretz learned on Tuesday. In a letter sent to Durbin within the past four weeks, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department Kevin Fromer explains the reservations the administration has regarding these bills, among them, the fear that such legislation "could jeopardize the support of our allies for multilateral actions against the regimes in these countries."

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.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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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Brookes News Update

The US trade deficit and Chinese' surpluses: economics vs. paranoia: American economy is not under attack by China. What we are experiencing, including China, is a massive monetary disorder. Irrespective of what the economic commentariat says, current economic problems are due to a failure to understand both the nature of inflation, money and capital. Until this situation is reversed I fear we are just going to continue to get more of the same
Bottlenecks and monetary policies: more economic fallacies that damage economies: It's an unfortunate fact that much of what we are told by the media about economics - in fact, most of it - is grossly misleading and thus highly damaging. Their ignornance of capital theory, monetary policy, inflation, interest rates, demand for labour, bottlenecks, etc., is something that the public needs to be armed against
George Soros: economic buffoon and enemy of democracy: Soros is a liar, and economic ignoramus and an enemy of democracy. He spent close to US$15,000,000 to help get the McCain-Feingold bill passed. The effect of this legislation, now upheld by a slim majority of the Supreme Court, is to restrict political speech in defiance of the First Amendment. Another effect was to increase his influence in the Democrat Party
Global warming: Chasing a "Will o' the Wisp" while ignoring a real monster in the sky: The Carbon Sense Coalition has called on the State and Federal Governments to stop wasting community resources on useless schemes for carbon trading and carbon sequestration and focus on some real world pollution crises
Iraq: the surge in action: Colonel Wayne Grigsby, 3rd Brigade commander: said to me. 'We're in these areas that no soldiers have been for months and years, we've got al Qaeda, JAM , and JAI discombobulated, and we're showing the people there - people who might not have seen an American soldier in years - a sustained presence, catching bad guys, building checkpoints, and making life safer for them'
Remember when the word "Leadership" meant something? Ah, the Good Old Days: My neighborhood in Marina Del Rey has always been a lovely beach city. But that was before Mr. Bush and his 'open door' and 'guest worker' policies for those from across the border. Now, I feel as though I'm living in a third world nation
Revealed for the first time: Goebbels' plan to destroy Britain's radar defences: The same arguments that are being levelled against the Bush administration's proposed missile defence system could just as easily have been levelled against Britain's expenditure on radar development and installations. Fortunately for the world they were not and because of that we are a free people
US financial markets rocked - what is really happening: Money lies at the heart of every financial crisis. Yet money, particularly in the form of credit expansion, is the one thing that is not mentioned by the economic commentariat. The possibility that policy of "pumping liquidity into the financial system" is the same policy that caused the crisis in the first place is never considered

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Google bias again? Gerry Jackson has just emailed me: "Early this year Google search results for Brookes News brought up 52,000 pages. After that it was down hill -- very quickly. Research results for today were only 798! I asked Google for an explanation. Naturally I didn't get one." I just did a Google search on "Brookes News" and got 15,500 mentions listed. Maybe Google have already acted on the complaint without admitting that they have done so. I have repeatedly found that they do that. They are too grand to talk to us but they do take notice. Since Google will no doubt read this, I guess I should complain that they have not got a lot of the files on this list

Bush Poverty Rates Continue to Plunge Below Clinton Years: "The current US poverty rate dipped to 12.3 percent last year. The AP reported today: "The nation's poverty rate dropped last year, the first significant decline since President Bush took office. The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that 36.5 million Americans, or 12.3 percent - were living in poverty last year. That's down from 12.6 percent in 2005. It is interesting that the AP didn't mention that the current poverty rates under this president are way below what they were during the Clinton years. Odd, isn't it? Official government figures have the poverty rate at 12.8 in 1968 and 12.6 in 2005."

The real problem of the chocolate city: "To see how New Orleans is doing, consider two recent stories: This past weekend, seven family members and friends were enjoying a quiet night outside their home in a tranquil neighborhood of the city's eastern region, which was badly flooded by Katrina. Their evening was interrupted when, according to New Orleans police, gunmen forced them into their house, herded them together and robbed them. Then the robbers shot them all - killing two. That was the second horrific crime in the same neighborhood in two weeks. Two weeks ago, gunmen killed a couple in a similar double murder (leaving unharmed their infant and toddler). As The New Orleans Times-Picayune notes, other victims just have been luckier. "The slayings . . . were the latest in a series of armed home invasions and robberies in eastern New Orleans," wrote reporter Brendan McCarthy. "Several crews of gunmen . . . have robbed and shot workers . . . and homeowners in the area, where many residents are rebuilding their flood-damaged homes." Also just last week, gunmen lined up six home laborers and shot three of them, killing one."



Alleged 9/11 memorial honors Islam: "Tons of you are stunned, outraged, and sickened by the new Flight 93 Memorial, the "Crescent of Embrace." I called the architect responsible for the redesign, Paul Murdoch of Los Angeles, yesterday for comment. He did not return my call, but he did speak with the Johnstown, Pa., Tribune Democrat, as quoted in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Neither Murdoch nor his supporters see any problem with the red crescent wrapped around the crash site near Shanksville, Pa., where 40 innocent people were murdered at the hands of Islamic terrorists"

Castro endorses Hillary: "Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is tipping Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up and win the U.S. presidential election. Clinton leads Obama in the race to be the Democratic nominee for the November 2008 election, and Castro said they would make a winning combination. "The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate," he wrote in an editorial column on U.S. presidents published on Tuesday by Cuba's Communist Party newspaper, Granma."

MSM sides with defeat: "Freedoms Watch has placed its ads on Fox and CNN, but CNBC and MSNBC have refused to run the ads. Ari Fleischer wrote this morning on behalf of Freedom's Watch to let us know that CNBC and MSNBC have stubbornly refused to air the pro-war ads, even though they have run issue ads on other controversial topics. Freedom's Watch has written to CNBC and MSNBC to protest their decision.

There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.

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.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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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Strange "poverty"

The Census Bureau will release its annual report on poverty in America tomorrow. The report will show, as it has in recent years that around 37 million people live in official poverty. Presidential candidate John Edwards, who hopes to lead the nation in a new crusade against poverty, will, no doubt, seek to reap much publicity from the report.

In the past, Edwards has claimed that poverty in America is a "plague" which forces 37 million Americans to live in "terrible" circumstances. According to Edwards, an amazing "one in eight" Americans lack "enough money for the food, shelter, and clothing they need," caught in a daily "struggle with incredible poverty." However, examination of the living standards of the 37 million or so persons, the government defines as "poor," reveals that America's poverty "plague" may not be as "terrible" or "incredible" as anti-poverty crusader Edwards contends.

If being "poor" means (as Edwards claims it does) a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, then very few of America's 37 million official "poor" people can be regarded as actually poor. Some material hardship does exist in the United States, but, in reality, it is quite restricted in scope and severity. The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from a variety of government reports:

46 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only six percent of poor households are overcrowded; two thirds have more than two rooms per person. The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars. 97 percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions....

As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100-percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, super-nourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and ten pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II......

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"Fallen" mankind: "One of the things that a classical liberal realizes that a leftist doesn't is that human beings are the problem. And this is why the classical liberalism embodied in the conservative intellectual movement will always be a tougher sell than contemporary left-liberalism, because people naturally don't want to believe that they are the problem. Rather, they prefer to imagine that there is some simplistic political solution that will cure the disease of man. But if you have even a modicum of personal insight, you know bloody well that no political program could ever cure you, you sick bastard, any more than socialized medicine could make Michael Moore just put down the freaking fork, okay?

State Treasurer Switches to GOP: "More than any other state, Louisiana has paid the price for big, corrupt government. Two years after Katrina, Democrats in the Bayou are in total meltdown. Not only is Bobby Jindal likely to cakewalk into the Governor's mansion this fall, but State Treasurer John Kennedy just switched to the GOP, setting up a likely Senate run against Mary Landrieu next year.

"There is no such thing as Moderate Islam" says the (Muslim) Prime Minister of Turkey: "Speaking at Kanal D TV's Arena program, PM Erdogan commented on the term "moderate Islam", often used in the West to describe AKP and said, `These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it."

ONLY six years away: "The federal government is expected this week to award a contract worth more than $1 billion to build the key components of its next-generation air traffic control system -- a high-tech network that officials say will alleviate chronic flight delays. The system comes at a critical time, officials say, with flight delays at record levels and commercial aviation expected to continue growing steadily. The network will rely on satellites, rather than radar, to guide aircraft, and it is expected to allow planes to fly closer together and take more direct routes, saving fuel and time while reducing pollution. Government officials say it will also improve safety by giving controllers and pilots more precise information about planes. Controllers could begin using the system to manage traffic nationally by 2013"

Federal program ONLY 20 billion in the red: "Despite promising changes, Congress has shown little enthusiasm for taking the unpopular steps that experts say are necessary to fix the nation's main flood insurance program. Recent flooding in the Midwest has brought the issue back to the forefront. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, back-to-back storms in 2005, dispelled any notion that the insurance program was self-sustaining. They threw it roughly $20 billion into debt and called attention to major structural flaws. Nearly everyone acknowledges it cannot pay off the debt, much less pay for losses in future storms. But so far, Congress has done little more than raise the program's borrowing limit, essentially handing taxpayers a series of shaky IOUs."

Islamic tolerance in Iraq: "They have been threatened because of their religious faith, their distinctive clothing and their success in business. They have been killed because of a Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad. Many have sought safety by fleeing to the countryside, north to Kurdish-controlled territory or abroad to Syria. They have seen their churches bombed, their clergy murdered and community members threatened with kidnappings. The Christians of Mosul, once a substantial and predominantly middle-class community, have suffered the same fate as most other Iraqi citizens. Christians are hardly the only religious minority under attack, as witnessed by this week's coordinating bombings against members of the Yazidis community, which left more than 250 dead. But their religious faith has made them especially vulnerable in a city where the rule of law is non-existent and Islamic militant intimidate and kill with impunity."

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.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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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One episode in the defeat of American Fascism

That the American Left in the first half of the 20th century were essentially Fascists is extensively documented here. Roosevelt even referred to Mussolini as "That admirable Italian gentleman" and he tried hard to emulate Musso's "corporate state". Only the Supreme Court defeated him -- as we see below.

Do free-marketeers need their own judicial pantheon? In a recent forum at the Council on Foreign Relations, Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, argued that conservatives and libertarians ought to induct Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States into such a pantheon.

In a nutshell, Schechter is the case that saved us from a centrally planned economy. Although, Roosevelt ultimately bullied the Court into abandoning Lochner, after Schechter the New Dealers were chastened, and they never again tried anything as massive and intrusive as the NRA. Indeed, I think that you could plausibly argue that since 1935 no one in the United States has dared try anything on the scale of the NRA. Had it stood, we would have been saddled with an economy where every major sector was regulated by detailed codes that not only dealt with issues of safety or working conditions, but also things like prices, permissible production levels, the scope of consumer choice (the New Dealers thought it was bad), and the terms of agreements between government regulated cartels. Gauche as Red-baiting is in New Deal history, there is no denying that many of the New Dealers were enamored of totalitirian economic planning, and, while the NRA never came close to the state-owned monstrosities of Stalin, it would have created an economic world in the United States closer to Fascist Italy than the modern welfare state. It was ultimately less of an exercise in economic redistribution than of political domination and control of economic life.

As a myth rather than a historical or legal theory, Schechter has much to commend it. A small, religious, family business built by immigrants searching for the American dream of advancement and self-improvement gets shut down by arrogant government bureaucrats hell-bent on imposing economic idiocy on the nation. They push back, and David-like force the government Goliath to its knees. The chicken triumphs over the eagle.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



The Approach Of The Arab Pol Pot: "Peter Rodman has a column on the aftermath of the American abandonment of Vietnam which is timely since the old legion of anti-war propagandists are assembling on the virtual Mall in response to the president's speech yesterday. When I heard a radio interview with octogenarian Stanley Karnow last night --was it the first time he had been rung up by the MSM since the Bill Clinton-dodged-the-draft stories of 1992?-- I knew the president had not just touched a nerve, he'd touched the nerve in American history: Complicity in foreseeable genocide is, after all, a big deal. This is the ghost haunting the anti-war left, and the left shudders and screams whenever it floats into the room. All those millions of Cambodians didn't have to die, and all those Boat People didn't have to sail into death or exile. The Kennedys didn't have to topple Diem any more than Senators Levin and Clinton have to work to force the toppling the Maliki. And the Democratic Congress elected in 1974 didn't have to abandon South Vietnam to North Vietnam."

The UN sends itself up yet again: "The UN is lining up its 2009 Anti-Racism Conference with the same collection of players that made the last Racism Conference in Durban, South Africa a shocking anti-Semitic international scandal! UN member states Libya (the Chair), Cuba, Iran and Pakistan will meet at the Second Durban Preparatory Committee in Geneva on, August 27, 2007 to make preparations for this next disgusting Jew-bashing conference planned for 2009. As Iranian Fars News reported- Iran is very excited about leading this next UN racism conference. It was nice of the UN to allow the genocide advocates to lead the effort, wasn't it?"

Iraqi leaders sign unity accord: "Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurdish leaders have signed a reconciliation deal, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says. The accord was the second step towards rebuilding Iraq's political process, Mr Maliki said, after four Kurdish and Shia parties formed a new alliance. A committee formed by the parties had "accomplished some solutions", he said. Issues under discussion include holding provincial elections and easing a ban on former Baath party members in the civil service and military. Mr Maliki was speaking at a news conference alongside Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, Shia Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Massoud Barzani - president of the Kurdish region."

India is the No. 2 terrorism target: "India has since 2004 lost more lives to terrorist incidents than all of North America, South America, Central America, Europe and Eurasia put together. All of these vast swathes of the globe lost a total of 3,280 lives in terrorist incidents between January 2004 and March this year. India alone lost 3,674 lives over the same period of three years and three months."

US Strikes Inside Pakistan!... 30 Rebels Dead! : "US-led forces and Afghan troops struck Taliban positions inside Pakistan in fresh clashes with the Islamic militia that left at least 19 local Taliban dead, security forces said on Sunday. The US-led coalition said it received permission from Pakistan to attack across the border on Saturday, but this was denied by the chief military spokesman in Islamabad. Afghan and coalition forces used mortars and artillery fire to destroy insurgent attacking positions on both sides of the border after a military post in Afghanistan came under attack, the coalition said in a statement. "The Pakistani military gave permission for the Afghan National Security Forces to fire on the targets located within Pakistan," it said. Six insurgent positions were destroyed, three on each side of the border, and more than a dozen insurgents were killed."

The brains of men and women are, indeed, different: "Women really are better than men at shopping. And they really do prefer pink. And, surprisingly, it is possible that these facts are connected. The first conclusion was drawn by Joshua New of Yale University and his colleagues. The second was drawn by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in England. The connecting theme is that in the division of labour that forms the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies, it is the men who do the hunting and the women who do the gathering.

Czech Republic Joins the Flat Tax Club: "The cabinet's package of public-finance reforms passed the final vote in the Chamber of Deputies yesterday thanks to two unaffiliated opposition MPs who voted with the governing coalition. ... Starting next year, the legislation will gradually reduce corporate and personal-income taxes, cut social spending and introduce cash fees for health care. It still requires Senate approval and President Vaclav Klaus's signature, but no resistance is expected from either. .The reform package will gradually lower the corporate tax rate from today's 24 percent to 21 percent next year, 20 percent in 2009 and 19 percent in 2010. The existing progressive taxation of personal income at 12 to 32 percent will be replaced by a flat tax of 15 percent in 2008 and 12.5% in 2009. The personal income tax will be calculated from super-gross income, including social and health insurance contributions paid by the employee and the employer. This means effective taxation will be 23.1 percent of gross income in 2008 and 19.4 percent in 2009."

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.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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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The Horror! The Horror! The paranoid style of the American left

The second part of the heading above is an allusion to a famous article, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics", by Richard Hofstadter, published in Harper's Magazine in November 1964. Hofstadter argues that both the Left and the Right can be paranoid but the examples he gives of paranoia on the Right are a little unfortunate in view of subsequent events. He said that a suspicion of covert Communist influences at the highest level of American government was paranoid. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, it was revealed that the FDR/Truman government was in fact riddled with Soviet agents

The fascists are coming! Or rather, they're already here, installed in the White House, planning like mad to subvert the Constitution and extend their reign in perpetuity, having first suppressed and eviscerated all opposition and put all of their critics in jail. Thus goes the rant of America's increasingly unhinged left. If only, sigh many Bush partisans, wondering when this administration will get out of the fetal position and show some fighting spirit. To them, as to most reasonable observers, the White House shows the chronic fatigue of a two-term presidency reaching its final year. Nonetheless, paranoia about what Bush and Co. are up to preys on the minds of many progressives, who have progressed, in this case at least, beyond reason.

It Can Happen Here, says Joe Conason, in his book of the same name, and in fact it already has started: George W. Bush and his coterie are the very picture of the pious and scheming homegrown fascisti that Sinclair Lewis described in his 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here. Similarities abound. In Lewis's novel, "Buzz Windrip" (Bush), an illiterate dweeb with sleazy charm and low animal cunning, backed by Lee Sarason (Karl Rove), a smooth and duplicitous political mastermind, becomes president, cooks up a fake war to extend his own power, cows Congress, corrupts the courts, bankrupts the country, and all but destroys the free press. The core of his power is a sinister nexus of theocrats joined at the hip to corporate interests, and you can tell how evil they are by their proclaimed love of country, and their incessant talk about God. In their endeavors, they are backed by the Hearst newspaper empire (Fox News), the only one left after all other outlets have been shut down.

Fox News looms large in the liberal panic about creeping fascism--an immense smoke machine pumping poison gas into the atmosphere 24/7, against which there is neither escape nor defense. This theory of the pervasive malevolent power of Fox rests on a quip by anchor Brit Hume that the network played a decisive role in the 2002 midterms, which Conason seems to take seriously, and the scholarly output of two obscure professors arguing that Fox swung the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 as well. "Citing what they call 'The Fox Effect,'" Conason informs us, "professors Stefano Della Vigna of the University of California at Berkeley and Ethan Kaplan of the University of Stockholm found that the network convinced 2 to 8 percent of its non-Republican viewing audience to 'shift its voting behavior toward the Republican party.'" If they say so. But there is no corresponding mention of the NBC-ABC-CBS-Time-Newsweek-New York Times "effect," and what its impact on voters might be.

At the same time that Conason is looking back to a fictional past in America, Naomi Wolf--last heard from in 2000 advising Al Gore to dress in earth tones--is looking back to a real past in Europe, and seeing troubling parallels. In 4,600 overwrought words, she explained to the readers of the Guardian that there are ten steps to "Fascist America" and Bush is taking them all. He has whipped up a menace (the war on terror); created "a prison system outside the rule of law" (Guantanamo, to which public dissidents, including "clergy and journalists" will be sent "soon enough"); developed "a thug caste .... groups of scary young men out to terrorize citizens" (young Republican staffers who supposedly "menaced poll workers" during the 2000 recount in Florida); set up an "internal surveillance system" (NSA scanning for phone calls to and from terrorists). An airtight case, this, and leading to just one conclusion: "Beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable.... that it can happen here."

Well, this explains many things. It explains why poor Cindy Sheehan is now sitting in prison; why Bush critics like CIA retiree Valerie Plame have been ostracized by the corporate media and are wasting away in anonymity; why no critic of Bush can get a hearing, why no book complaining about him can ever get published, and why our multiplexes are filled with one pro-Bush propaganda movie after another, glorifying the Iraq war and rallying the nation behind its leader.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Cindy Sheehan is running for Congress; Valerie Plame is rich and famous; the young Republican "thugs" made all of one appearance seven years ago--chanting "Let us in!" when Miami-Dade County vote counters planned to move to a small inner room with no observers present; and press censorship is now so far-reaching that you can't even expose a legal, effective, and top-secret plan to trace terrorists without getting a Pulitzer Prize. " .....

Over and over, they do what they claim their opponents are doing, want to do, or have done: make vast leaps of faith on almost no evidence, get carried away on large waves of emotion, build towering edifices on small collections of factoids, omit, deny, or denounce all contrary evidence, build fantastical schemes which they project on the enemy, put two and two together and get 384. People are entitled to say what they want, but it takes something other than reason to look at raging debates and discern in them fascistic oppression, to look at large Republican losses (wholly in line with a sixth-year election) and see massive fraud on the part of the losers, to look at today's South and see John Calhoun's, to draft both the Bushes (and the entire Republican party) into the Confederate Army, 150 years after the fact. Facts on the ground have no effect on their fantasies, which exist in a realm of their own.

Let's give the last words to Mark Crispin Miller [Himself a well-known paranoid of the Left so he speaks from experience], as he told the blog Buzzflash in February 2006. [See also here]:

"That sort of warped perception comes from extreme paranoid projectivity: the tendency to rail at others for traits or longings that one hates and fears inside oneself..... We're dealing with a movement that is anti-rational. It's faith-based ..... it's a movement that believes what it believes, and it believes what it believes is right. ... It believes what it wants to believe. If it hears contrary evidence, it comes up with evidence of its own. .... This is not a movement that the rational can ever shame into surrendering by merely demonstrating its illogic to its followers. ... Paranoia .. is based on fear, and therefore on a kind of 'logic' that's impervious to evidence and quite incapable of learning from experience. ... Paranoia is an atavism, deep within us all."

Much more here

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Brookes News Update

Financial markets reach hurricane force: Right up to the second half of July, world equity markets were still raging ahead in utter denial of the spreading cracks in the credit boom, with both the S&P and the emerging markets indices making new highs in that time. This was despite the fact that all the technicals were signalling the need for caution
Labour market reform and productivity: who got right and who got it wrong: Our right has completely buggered up labour market reform. The actual consequences for productivity of freeing labour markets were completely overlooked. The same goes for investment and growth. This has allowed leftwing critics of reform to gloat over its 'failures'
No-show Castro on his last legs: Good news from Cuba: Castro's failure to make a public appearance on his 80th birthday suggests that the dictator is now too ill to govern. Further reports reinforce the opinion that this sadistic thug is nothing more than a barely breathing cadaver
The New York Times' treasonous propaganda: The New York Times has become a criminal organisation that systematically traffics in treason and disinformation. It's hatred of America becomes more transparent with each passing day
It's not just the Scott Beauchamp media scandal: Media offenses include lying and fabricating, doctoring photos, plagiarism, conflicts of interest, falling for hoaxes, and overt bias. Some are hilarious, such as an action figure doll being mistaken for a real soldier. But the point is that media dishonesty and bigotry has reached plague proportions

There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.

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.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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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The Racist EU

What fun! That old British stirrer, Gerald Hartup, has scored a hit. Hartup regularly draws attention to Leftists violating their own regulations

The European Commission is to remove the comic "What me a racist?" from its Europa website following a complaint from civil liberties group Liberty and Law taken up on its behalf by the Commission for Racial Equality [CRE].

The glossy A4 comic produced in 1998 to combat racism was published in all the official European Union languages. It was "designed for teachers to use when addressing the subject of racism with young people" and has been on its website since 2001.

Liberty and Law complained about the offensive racial caricatures of the black characters portrayed, reminiscent of the treatment given to Africans in Herg,'s 1931 book Tintin in the Congo.

The CRE made rapid progress with the Commission for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. On 21 August the CRE told Liberty and Law that the Commission underlined to them that it was "not their intention to be offensive to any group or individual and are looking into the matter". Just a few hours later Commissioner Spidla's spokesperson asked the Communications Directorate General to remove the comic from its website.

Source. The comics concerned are at the moment still up here.

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"Prisons are worth every penny"

Post below lifted from Surber. See the original for links

Norwegian officials estimate that after sentencing, 20 percent of Norway's criminals don't bother to show up for prison. That is because until very recently it was not against the law in Norway to skip out of prison. Norway's legislature recently changed that law, but prison officials haven't gotten around to implementing the law. This makes me wonder about the 80 percent of Norway's convicted criminals who do show up for prison. Are they really that stupid?

Not surprisingly, Norway's crime rate is double that of the United States. In 2006, Norway had 86.3 crimes reported for every 1,000 people, according to Statistics Norway. In the United States, reported crimes were 39.8 per 1,000 people, according to the FBI. The violent crime rates are similar: 5.5 per 1,000 people in Norway, 4.7 per 1,000 people in the United States.

No, for violent crime, one has to head north to Canada, where there are 9.5 violent crimes for every 1,000 people. That figure is down 5 percent from 1996. The numbers are from Statistics Canada. That's double the violent crime rate in the United States.

Anyone who is surprised has not been paying attention. We are told that the United States leads the world in its prison population. This may be true. Roughly 1/2 of 1 percent of Americans are in prison. The upside is that is nearly 1.4 million robbers, muggers, killers and rapists who are not out robbing, mugging, killing and raping.

A certain percentage of inmates are in prison for drug offenses. One estimate is over 20 percent. But drug offenders are mainly dealers who are serving time in federal prison. Getting into Mount Olive usually requires more than smoking a joint or two....

The state of West Virginia spends about $100 million on prisons. That is about 2.5 percent of the state's $4 billion general revenue budget. The prisons are worth every penny. Prisons keep more children from being molested. Prisons keep more people from being killed. Prisons keep more drunken drivers off the road. Some say the nation is becoming a "prison state." I grew up in a high crime area in Cleveland where no one ventured out after dark. That's a prison state. The choice is this: Either have a high incarceration rate or have a high crime rate. Norway and Canada have made their choice. America has made hers.

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ELSEWHERE

Iraqi terrorists caught along Mexico border: "President Bush's top intelligence aide has confirmed that Iraqi terrorists have been captured coming into the United States from Mexico. The confirmation comes from National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who talked about the situation in an interview with the El Paso Times recently. "Coming up through the Mexican border is a path," McConnell said. "Now, are they doing it in great numbers? No, because we're finding them and we're identifying them and we've got watch lists and we're keeping them at bay." But, he said, "There are numerous situations where people are alive today because we caught them (terrorists)."

Humans not just "big-brained apes," : "In discussions on animal intelligence, it's fashionable to play up animals' smarts and their similarities to humans. And many studies provide fodder for such thinking. But a new study, reassessing much past research, offers a different perspective: it argues that key humananimal differences are often overlooked. Humans are more than just "bigbrained apes," as Charles Darwin called them in 1871, wrote the author, psychologist David Premack. Premack didn't challenge the findings of past studies. But he argued that they often focus on animalhuman similaritiesstriking us repeatedly with examples of how animals are "so like us"while glossing over the vast realms of activity where they're really quite unlike us. That leads to the false idea that animals have humanlike abilities, he said. Only since the late 1990s has research challenged that notion, by revealing microscopic features unique to human brains, Premack wrote. These studies have found "enhanced wiring, and forms of connectivity among nerve cells not found in any animal." One such finding, he added, involved a newfound type of neuron, or brain cell, that's far more numerous and larger in humans than in any of their ape relatives.

TV losing out -- good for bloggers: "Time spent on the internet is set to surpass time spent watching TV in the average American household, according to the results of an IBM survey released Wednesday. Overall, 19% of respondents said they spend six or more hours a day on the Internet, versus 9% for TV. More telling, 60% reported that they spend one to four hours using the Internet, versus 66% who spend the time watching TV. Of course, the time spent on the Internet includes growing consumption of online video, according to the global survey of about 2,000 respondents (including 885 Americans) conducted in April-June of this year. Globally, 67% of consumers say they watch video on the Internet, or would like to do so.

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.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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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