IE problem traced

DELETE SITEMETER is the message to all my fellow bloggers. Your blog will not be readable until you do.

Two problems now beaten

Access to Greenie Watch was restored in record time. New posts are now up and accessible. Any problem I mention on this site seems to get prompt attention from Google. They must have this site on some sort of watch list.

Just as I had beaten that problem, another one popped up. Something strange is happening with Internet explorer. It gave just an error message if you tried to access several of my sites. I am told that Firefox was not giving any trouble, though.

Anyway, until somebody fixes whatever the problem is, I have reverted to older and simpler templates for the blogs affected. That has restored access but the sites are not as well organized as they were. I hope to get back to the former templates soon.

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ZEG

Conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has just offered his take on the Chinese Olympic censorship issue.

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GREENIE WATCH blocked by Google

On the grounds that it seems to be a "spam blog". Pretty absurd. Abuse of Google's blog "flagging" system by Warmists is the most likely cause of the nonsense. Google need to do something about such abuses. The block should be lifted in a day or two but in the meanwhile, my mirror site is still functioning and has new posts up that are not on the blocked blogspot site.

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Leftism is powered by hate, not facts or ideas

An email from a reader:

I was recently in a small "debate" with a leftist college professor in some forum. And generally, I find that when they are challenged they only respond with a stream of invective and insults, or try to shame you over something silly. For example, he triumphantly expressed: "The US always supported Saddam when it was in our interests!"

I noted, "Well, of course! Should we have opposed him if what he was doing was in our interests?" He had no answer for this.

And then I did what I've found to be the ultimate provocation of a leftist. I suggested that Leftism isn't really a political ideology that it is really just a collection of personality pathologies, that multiculturalism is a sham that even they don't believe in, and that the entire American left had absolutely no positive vision for where they wanted to take the US. I should note that I delivered this in a much less direct way and as politely as possible.

He called me a bunch of very colorful things, such as "f*ckface" in response.

I then asked him to name one US leftist intellectual who had articulated a positive vision for the US and wrote a serious book about our future, our liabilities and assets, strengths and weaknesses.

He called me f*ckface again. I kept asking. He refused to name any, but insisted that I was "full of sh*t."

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ELSEWHERE

Bad ecology is a new blog with a name that speaks for itself.

Sarkozy gets off his butt: " In a few weeks this summer, in volley after legislative volley, he has taken aim at some of the most sacred cows in French social and economic life. If he keeps up this pace, he will indeed change the face of France. The keystone is a law making it easier to set up in business, cutting red tape, freeing up the commercial sector by allowing retailers to negotiate directly with suppliers - which, incredibly, French law proscribed - and creating an independent competition authority. More flexible job contracts have been introduced to free up the labour market, and benefits curbed for jobseekers who reject more than two "reasonable" offers of work. To tackle the huge pensions deficit, retirement age is to be raised by a year - explosive in a country where successive governments failed even to abolish unfair pension privileges for public sector workers. Sarkozy succeeded only after toughing out a nine-day transport strike. He has risked student mayhem by allowing universities more freedom not just to raise private research capital, but to choose which students to admit. He has even announced the privatisation of the ports"

Anthrax case resolved after new FBI investigator appointed: "The chief suspect in the 2001 anthrax postal attacks in the US has died from an apparent suicide just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him. Bruce Ivins, 62, one of America's top biodefense researchers, had been told that he was going to be prosecuted for the attacks that killed five people and sent the country into panic in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. He died in hospital on Thursday after taking a huge dose of prescription Tylenol, a painkiller, mixed with codeine. His imminent prosecution had not been made public but followed a government payout of $US5.82m to a former government scientist, Steven Hatfill, who had been the FBI's chief suspect for the anthrax attacks almost since the beginning. The payout to Hatfill, an unusual development that exonerated him of being the anthrax attacker was an essential step to clear the way for prosecuting Ivins, lawyers familiar with the case told the LA Times. The focus was moved to Mr Ivins after the head of the anthrax investigation was moved. His replacement ordered agents to re-examine leads or potential suspects, and this led the FBI back to USAMRIID, where agents had first questioned scientists including Mr Ivins in December 2001, a few weeks after the fatal mailings."

U.S. gives Israel missile detecting technology : " The United States will provide Israel with a radar system used to detect and track missile and rocket attacks, a senior Pentagon official told CNN Tuesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. assistance will include an agreement to facilitate the sharing of U.S. "early warning" launch data and technical and financial help developing defenses against shorter range rockets and mortars. The technology is called X-band frequency, which has microwave range and provides for ultra-high very precise resolution. It is able to distinguish between real missiles, decoys and debris. The technology would be running before "the new [U.S.] administration arrives" in January, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, according to Israel's Haaretz newspaper. The plan for assistance was announced after Barak met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday".

Elitism and the Starbucks decline: "Bad news has been pouring down on Starbucks for a year. The price of the company's stock has been cut in half - and then some. Fewer people come through store doors and those who do buy less. Still when Starbucks, that longtime engine of growth, announced that it planned to close 600 US stores - 50 of them by the end of July - and lay off 12,000 employees, company watchers reacted with surprise. ... The company thrived throughout the past 15 years by giving middle-class Americans exactly what they thought they wanted - and this wasn't really about coffee. It was about creating a product that allowed doctors and lawyers, IT specialists and travel writers, and then their imitators, to portray themselves as they wanted to be seen. That's how products work in the world we live in. We buy things to announce something about ourselves. For the most part, the products that sell the best are the ones that communicate most effectively. That's what Starbucks did with their coffee. Really, then, they sold not coffee but elevated status. Just by buying the coffee and speaking the company's made-up lingua franca, you became a cup-carrying member of the upper class. And that made Starbucks, overpriced as it was, an affordable form of statusmaking. That sense of success - that sense of cool - is what is gone now. Now that there are Starbucks stores everywhere, in Tokyo and Terre Haute, London, and Lancaster (Pa. and Calif.), and Franklin, Tenn., and Franklin, Ind., it is too ordinary."

Brownout: "A year ago, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was enjoying a honeymoon as a new prime minister, building on a decade of Labour Party dominance under Tony Blair. How things have changed. A poll yesterday for the Independent newspaper found nearly a quarter of Labour voters believe Conservative Party leader David Cameron would make a better prime minister than their own Mr. Brown. Among all voters, Mr. Cameron held an 18-point lead on that question. That's why the Scotsman, the leading newspaper in Mr. Brown's native Scotland, is rattling political china with its report that Labour ministers are considering a "suicide election" to give the party a fresh start under a new leader. Under this scenario, Mr. Brown would be dumped either this fall or next spring, and the party would call an immediate election in which defeat would be the most likely outcome".

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

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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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Is John McCain Stupid?

On Sunday, he said on national television that to solve Social Security "everything's on the table," which of course means raising payroll taxes. On July 7 in Denver he said: "Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't." This isn't a flip-flop. It's a sex-change operation.

He got back to the subject Tuesday in Reno, Nev. Reporters asked about the Sunday tax comments. Mr. McCain replied, "The worst thing you could do is raise people's payroll taxes, my God!" Then he was asked about working with Democrats to fix Social Security, and he repeated, "everything has to be on the table." But how can . . .? Oh never mind.

The one thing -- arguably the only thing -- the McCain candidacy has going for it is a sense among voters that they don't know what Barack Obama stands for or believes. Why then would Mr. McCain give voters reason to wonder the same thing about himself? You're supposed to sow doubt about the other guy, not do it to yourself.

Yes, Sen. McCain must somehow appeal to independents and blue-collar Hillary Democrats. A degree of pandering to the center is inevitable. But this stuff isn't pandering; it's simply stupid. Al Gore's own climate allies separated themselves from his preposterous free-of-oil-in-10-years whopper. Sen. McCain saying off-handedly that it's "doable" is, in a word, thoughtless.

Speaker Pelosi heads a House with a 9% approval. To let her off the hook before the election reflects similar loss of thought.

The forces arrayed against Sen. McCain's candidacy are formidable: an unpopular president, the near impossibility of extending Republican White House rule for three terms, the GOP trailing in races at every level, a listless fundraising base, doubtful sentiments about the war, a flailing economy.

The generic Democratic presidential candidate should win handily. Barack Obama, though vulnerable at the margin, is a very strong candidate. This will be a turnout election. To win, Mr. McCain needs every Republican vote he can hold.

Why make it harder than it has to be? Given such statements on Social Security taxes, Al Gore and the "inspirational" Speaker Pelosi, is there a reason why Rush Limbaugh should not spend August teeing off on Mr. McCain?

Why as well shouldn't the Obama camp exploit all of this? If Sen. Obama's "inexperience" is Mr. McCain's ace in the hole, why not trump that by asking, "Does Sen. McCain know his own mind?"

In this sports-crazed country, everyone has learned a lot about what it takes to win. They've heard and seen it proven repeatedly that to achieve greatness, to win the big one, an athlete has to be ready to "put in the work." John McCain isn't doing that, yet. He's competing as if he expects the other side to lose it for him. Sen. McCain is a famously undisciplined politician. Someone in the McCain circle had better do some straight talking to the candidate. He's not some 19-year-old tennis player who's going to win the U.S. presidential Open on raw talent and the other guy's errors. He's not that good.

There is a reason the American people the past 100 years elevated only two sitting senators into the White House -- JFK and Warren Harding. It's because they believe most senators, adept at compulsive compromise, have no political compass and will sell them out. Now voters have to do what they prefer not to. Yes, Sen. McCain has honor and country. Another month of illogical, impolitic remarks and Sen. McCain will erase even that. Absent a coherent message for voters, he will be one-on-one with Barack Obama in the fall. He will lose.

Source

And if you want CERTAINTY that McCain has lost his marbles, read this. It is too painful for me to reproduce

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ELSEWHERE

Click here to see what a banknote for 100 billion dollars looks like. Via Michael Darby.

Thomas Sowell says: "What is amazing this year is how many people have bought the fundamentally childish notion that, if you don't like the way things are going, the answer is to write a blank check for generic `change,' empowering someone chosen not on the basis of any track record but on the basis of his skill with words."

ANWR drilling would provide quick relief: "In a previous article, I showed that the proposals to curb 'excessive' speculation in oil futures markets were based on ignorance of how the market coordinates production and consumption over time. In the present article, I will explore the issue of opening up the Arctic National Wilderness Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling. We'll see once again that even friends of the market often don't fully understand its power to fix problems."

The Tax Relief Program Worked: Make the Tax Cuts Permanent: "Tax relief worked. It put the federal tax burden on track toward its historic norm. Combined with an aggressive monetary policy, tax relief helped to restore robust economic growth following the Clinton reces-sion and subsequent shocks early in the decade. It pro-duced a more growth-oriented tax policy for the long term, helping the economy to weather current storms arising in the housing and capital markets. And it made important strides toward fundamental tax reform. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will expire at the end of 2010 unless Congress acts. Congress should act quickly, making the tax cuts permanent, and then pur-sue additional pro-growth tax policies. Many major trading partners, including France, Germany, and other countries throughout Europe, are looking to lower tax rates and reform their tax systems to become stronger competitors, while other economic power-houses such as China and India are bursting onto the scene. Standing still is not an option unless the United States is willing to lose ground consistently and persis-tently in the international economy."

The Stubborn Grip : "From the New York Times: "A bill to advance dozens of federal programs stalled in the Senate on Monday afternoon as a narrow majority was unable to free them from the legislative grip of Senator Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who takes pride in being stubborn. The vote was 52 to 40 in favor of the Advancing America's Priorities Act, but 60 "yes" votes were required under Senate rules." That is to say, Coburn successfully filibustered the bill. We'll give a dollar to the first reader who can point us to a story in the New York Times that used the phrase "unable to free them from the legislative grip" or "takes pride in being stubborn" in reference to Democrats' filibustering Bush judicial nominees a few years ago."

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

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

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

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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Inequality is less than it seems

POPULISTS and professors rarely see eye to eye. But on at least one fact of economic life, they agree: wage inequality has increased in America since the mid-1980s. Many studies outline the same broad shifts. Workers at the bottom of the wage scale have seen their incomes fall relative to those at the top. Within the top decile, the super-rich have left the merely well-off far behind.

Indeed increases in national income this decade have been so skewed towards the rich that, allowing for headline inflation, the spending power of a large chunk of the population has apparently stagnated or even declined. Yet this finding is at odds with the impression of spreading prosperity. Increasing numbers of Americans watch DVDs, rely on dishwashers, enjoy air-conditioning and display other signs of increased material wealth. Are the poor really falling so far behind?

A challenge to the conventional wisdom is set out in a recent research paper by Christian Broda and John Romalis, both of the University of Chicago's business school. They argue that standard measures of inequality do not reflect differences in the way that the rich and poor spend their money. A person's demand for a particular good or service does not rise in exact proportion to his income. As he grows richer, the pattern of his spending changes, as well as the amount. In particular, high-wage households spend a greater share of their income on services and a smaller share on "non-durable" items, such as food, clothing, footwear and toiletries.

For most of the past three decades, the price of non-durable goods has been falling relative to the price of the services-investment advice, personal care, domestic help and so on-that the rich spend more of their money on. If these differences between the inflation rates faced by the rich and the poor are taken into account, the rise in inequality is reduced and may even vanish.

To back these claims up, the authors constructed price indices for 12 income groups, using official figures and detailed private information on the spending habits of different households. This data set, created by shoppers themselves using in-store scanners, records the type of goods bought by various income groups between 1994 and 2005, as well as the prices paid for them.

The Chicago economists found that the share of non-durable spending for the very poorest households was 12 percentage points higher than for the richest households. Because the price of services rose by more than the price of goods during this period, the inflation rate for the rich was far higher than that for the poor. Rich households also buy dearer versions of the same goods than poor consumers. For each product category-a 16-ounce carton of milk, say-well-off households paid an average of 25% more than poor households. This is not because the rich are gullible shoppers but rather, say the authors, because they tend to buy goods of better quality (such as organic milk), the prices of which are higher and tend to rise more quickly.

These differences matter when considering inequality. One standard measure compares the income of a household just below the top 10% of earners with one just above the bottom 10%. The richer household earned 10.6 times more than the poorer one in 1994; that multiple rose to 11.2 in 2005. But according to the authors, this ratio exaggerates how far the poor have been left behind because it does not account for different inflation rates. A fuller picture would consider shifts in relative prices as well as in relative incomes.

Mr Broda and Mr Romalis reckon that around two-thirds of the increase in the standard inequality gauge since 1994 is offset by the poor's lower inflation rate. They find a similar result when they extend their analysis on spending patterns to price and income figures dating back to 1984. That is not all. Their data on shopping habits show that the range of goods consumed by poor households increased by far more than for rich households. The benefit of this extra variety is not captured in income or inflation, but it can be quantified. If that gain is expressed as an addition to real income, the remaining increase in inequality vanishes.

More here

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BrookesNews Update

Obama and his fellow Democrats adopt Hoovernomics: The Democrats are now promoting Hoovernomics presented by the economically illiterate Obama as the only way to create growth.. The brilliant Obama and his fellow imbeciles in Congress have declared that increased government spending and a massive tax rise is just what America needs
The humble light bulb: a victim of political stupidity and green zealotry: Irrespective of what smart-aleck journalists and Malcolm Turnbull think Joe Public is being perfectly rational in choosing the incandescent bulb over the new wonder light. What's more, he might not like mercury-laden lamps
Obama's tax plans will be "lethal" to the economy: Columbia University economist Robert Mundell warned Americans that Obama's proposed massive tax hike could send the US economy spinning into a deep recession
Democrats v. Arctic abundance: America is sitting on over 1,000 billion barrels of oil. Americans who feel squeezed by higher oil prices should know they have a stark choice: More oil and lower prices, or less oil and higher prices. And they should also know who's to blame for this energy mess: the Democrat-led Congress
Obama and the media: In election coverage, 'sizzle' outweighs fairness: The spectacle of the New York Times rejecting McCain's op-ed on the utterly stupid grounds that it does not 'mirror' Obama's vies on Iraq did a fantastic job of getting it across to the public that the media are dominated by politically bigoted leftwing liars
Oil production: Earth to Nancy Pelosi: How does one deal with Nancy Pelosi's idiocy and economic illiteracy? This is the same woman who says increasing domestic oil production will have no effect on prices. She also says that Bush should act on oil prices by releasing the country's oil reserve of 700 million barrels. It is not Bush who embarrasses the US but idiotic Dems like Pelosi
Obama as a false prophet: It is Obama' clarity of vision that makes him so attractive to his supporters. But it is also the source of the greatest danger to his policies. What happens if Obama says, 'Yes we can' and reality says, 'No you can't'? What happens if the hedgehog meets the Black Swan?

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

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

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

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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Cuil not so cool

Excerpt:

Anna Patterson's last internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system. She believes her latest invention is even more valuable - only this time it's not for sale. Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the internet. The end result is Cuil, pronounced "cool." Backed by $US33 million ($A34.6 million) in venture capital, the search engine was set to begin processing requests for the first time today. Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers - Russell Power and Louis Monier - searched for better ways to search.

Now, it's boasting time. For starters, Cuil's search index spans 120 billion web pages. Patterson believes that is at least three times the size of Google's index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index's breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion web pages.

Cuil won't divulge the formula it has developed to cover a wider swath of the web with far fewer computers than Google. And Google isn't ceding the point: Spokeswoman Katie Watson said her company still believes its index is the largest.

More here

I tested cuil.com by doing a search on the topic I know most about: "John Ray". The results were crazy. I am always on the first page of a Google search but cuil.com just produced page after page of duplicated results about the 18th century English naturalist of the same name. Why they had to repeat the same result endlessly, I don't know. Try it for yourself and see what it does. A couple of other modern-day John Rays got a look in but they were on some occasions teamed with a picture of the 18th century guy. MUCH more work needed before this is a useful search tool -- JR

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Energy is the issue

Four-dollar-a-gallon gas has done something that few Republicans thought possible just a few months ago: given them hope. United behind a renewed push for offshore oil drilling, Republican members of Congress and the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, think they have found their best political issue of the 2008 campaign. McCain strategists and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill say the issue, which polls suggest Americans favor by healthy margins, lets Republicans demonstrate their plans to address the anger over high gas prices as well as the broader economic distress that many voters feel.

Because most Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama, are opposed to increased drilling, McCain and the GOP have already begun casting their rivals as unconcerned about gas prices and unwilling to wean the country from foreign oil....

People are beginning to realized the anti energy demagogues have no alternative energy. They hate oil, gas coal, nuclear, shale oil, wind and in some cases even solar. They just flat do not like energy in any form unless it is to get them to a protest march. The Democrats have embraced their radical agenda and it is driving up the cost of energy to the point it is lowering our standard of living and these guys want the price to go even higher. With the Democrats putting the wackos ahead of everyone standard of living they deserve to lose.

Source

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What we really meant was....

Allahpundit has an excellent takedown of Dem angst over McCain getting verbally pugilistic with their messiah. The best bit that comes out of it is the new Dem line that Iraq can't be lost, so why are we staying? Interesting....

Not too long ago, according to Democrats, we needed to get out of Iraq, because Iraq couldn't be won. Now, according to Democrats, we need to get out of Iraq, because Iraq can't be lost.

Unfortunately both arguments simply demonstrate the Dems lack of understanding of reality. You see, not too long ago, we needed to stay in Iraq, because Iraq could be won. Now we need to stay in Iraq because Iraq can be lost. It is their misunderstanding of this simple reality that bothers me

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Bungling Iranian hostage commander fired: "The captain of the [British] ship at the centre of the Iranian hostage debacle last year has been removed from his post, the Minstry of Defence said today. Commander Jeremy Woods was in charge of the frigate HMS Cornwall when 15 sailors and Royal Marines were seized by Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf last March. They were detained at gunpoint and held for 13 days after Tehran claimed they had strayed into Iranian waters. A parliamentary inquiry in December called the episode a "national embarrassment" and said formal action has been taken against a number of service personnel. The MoD said Commander Woods would keep his rank but has been moved "to a post where his talents and experience can be used to best effect". A spokesman said: "We can confirm that Commander Jeremy Woods, Commanding Officer of HMS Cornwall, has been removed from command. This is an internal administrative matter between the individual and his senior officers and we will not give further details of the removal."

British Labour Party doomed with or without Gordon Brown: "Voters are increasingly writing off Labour as fewer people believe that a change of leader or policy would help the party to win the next general election. A Populus poll for The Times, undertaken over the weekend after Labour's defeat in Glasgow East, suggests that its dramatic slide in popularity is being driven by a collapse in economic confidence. Labour is on 27 per cent, down one point on the last Populus poll three weeks ago, and about the level it has been for the past three months. This is the lowest since the early 1980s. The Conservatives are on 43 per cent - up two points - with the Liberal Democrats down one point at 18 per cent. Other parties are unchanged on 12 per cent. Ministers plotting to remove Gordon Brown receive a warning that barely half the electorate (52 per cent) believe that it would improve the party's fortunes"

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

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

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

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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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McCain is a man of good character but no brains

"I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and, if so, how much it has affected the price of a barrel of oil. There's a lot of things out there that need a lot more transparency and, consequently, oversight." Those are the words of presidential candidate John McCain. This man is the Republican?

There's more: "I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. They're making huge profits and that happens, but not to say, 'We're in this so we can over time eliminate America's dependence on foreign oil,' I think is an abrogation of their responsibilities as citizens."

Let me get this straight. A potential president of a putatively free country scolds companies for "obscene profits," failure to invest in competing products, and therefore irresponsible citizenship. Why? Is McCain running for national economic commissar?

This is not the first time McCain has displayed what I would call an anti-capitalist mentality. In an early presidential debate he countered former businessman Mitt Romney's claim to superior executive experience by saying, "I led the largest squadron in the U.S. Navy, not for profit but for patriotism". Why the put down of profit? It's clear McCain does not understand how markets work or why they are good. He certainly doesn't understand the role of speculators and other middlemen. He's not alone. Speculators are among the most reviled people in history. When they were members of ethnic minorities, they have been easy targets for economically illiterate people who were jealous of their success.

McCain wonders "whether speculation has been going on." He needn't wonder. Speculation always goes on. Speculation means to take a risk on what the future holds in hopes of making a profit. The world's stock and commodities markets are based on this principle. Sen. McCain must have meant it when he said, "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues".

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Whoa!... AP Backs McCain's Plans For Iraq Over Obama's Hasty Retreat : "You may want to sit down for this one... In a stunning piece of journalism the Associated Press reported that the United States was now winning the War in Iraq yesterday. Noticably missing from their article was any mention of the "Bush" or "Bush surge." Even the AP has its standards. But, here's the real stunner... The AP released a video to go with their weekend story where they agreed with the McCain, Bush and Petraeus plans on succeeding in Iraq and withdrawing troops cautiously over Barack Obama's hasty retreat plans" [Note however that many papers (guess one!) did not carry the AP story]

Long term study of the New York Times reveals a bias against Israel: "The last HonestReporting long-term analysis of the New York Times was released in November of 2007. At the time, we found that there were several disturbing patterns in how the Times reported events in the Middle East. Our conclusion was that the treatment of Israeli and Palestinian actions was so different, that there could be no question that the reporting was favoring the Palestinians rather than remaining impartial. We highlighted specific cases where headlines dealing with Israeli or Palestinian actions were written in different styles. We also noted that the vast majority of images used by the Times appears reflectively sympathetic to the Palestinians while virtually ignoring the greater context surrounding the conflict. We have now concluded a broader survey of the Times. Specifically, we looked at 205 articles between July of 2007 and June of 2008. Using this much larger time frame, we found that our original thesis has only been strengthened. Specifically, when reviewing headlines and photographs, it is clear that there is an inherent bias in New York Times reporting about the conflict that favors the Palestinians".

Carter relic says McCain Would Start World War IV : "Former US President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski criticized US officials in Senator McCain's camp for pushing the presumptive Republican nominee toward a radical foreign policy on issues such as Iran. Brzezinski described McCain's presidency as an 'appalling concept' as it would lead to the World War IV, arguing that from the viewpoint of figures surrounding the Arizona senator the Cold War counted as World War III. "Well, if McCain is president and if his Secretary of State is Joe Lieberman and his Secretary of Defense is [Rudolph] Giuliani, we will be moving towards the World War IV that they have been both favoring and predicting,"

Is Journalism Giving One Candidate Twice the Coverage?: "On Sunday, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz continued his mission of exposing the absurd amount of coverage the media are giving to Barack Obama as compared to John McCain. On CNN's "Reliable Sources," Kurtz amazingly asked his guests, "Where does journalism get off saying it's OK to give one candidate twice as much coverage -- this week, I would say four times as much coverage -- as the other candidate running for president?" This followed last Sunday's warning by Kurtz that "there could be a big backlash against news organizations if this trend continues":

NYT writes about terror bombing in India. Guess what's missing?: "After highlighting the most egregious evasive verbiage in a Times account of a bus bombing in India that claimed 45 lives, Gilbert summarizes: To review, for two days dozens of bombs have gone off in a region where Muslims have attacked Hindus countless times over the years. (What the New York Times merely describes as "attempts to provoke violence between Hindus and Musliims." You see, the bombings were not violence in themselves. And of course no group was actually behind them. They just happened.) Furthermore, an Islamic terrorist group has even claimed responsibility for the bombings. A group that was responsible for similar bombings just two months ago. Still, the New York Times only sees fit to mention with any specificity "Hindu-on-Muslim violence," which was done in reprisal for "a train fire" that obviously broke out spontaneously."

Senator John Thune Skewers Far Left Hee-Haw McCaskill : "Ugh... Claire McCaskill (D-MO) won her senate seat in 2006 by bashing Bush for "killing black people on rooftops" and pushing for surrender in Iraq. It made sense then that she would hook up with Senator Barack Obama, the most liberal US senator, and campaign for him this past year. Today, Claire McCaskill proved that she is nothing more than a walking-talking Far Left nut. McCaskill tried to pass out her loony Far Left talking points in a grown up discussion on FOX News Sunday... It was embarrassing. You almost felt sorry for her if she wasn't such a Far Left war loser who voted against the Bush Surge. Senator John Thune (R-SD) was brilliant. Every time McCaskill shot off her Far Left talking points, Thune meticulously batted them down with the facts on the ground."

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

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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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The Numbers Are In, Again - The Rich Pay More Than Their "Fair Share"

Latest IRS Data Shows that Wealthier Americans' Portion of Taxes Actually Exceeds Their Portion of Income

In their never-ending campaign to increase taxes, those on the left endlessly allege that wealthier Americans don't pay their "fair share" in taxes. There's only one problem: the exact opposite is true. When one compares the portion of taxes paid by Americans of various income brackets to their corresponding portion of the nation's income earned, wealthier Americans actually pay more than their fair share.

And once again, the latest Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) numbers prove that. This month, the IRS's income statistics division released its latest data comparing the amount of income earned by various segments of the income ladder against the amount of taxes paid by those same segments. And what do they reveal?

According to the statistics, the richest 1% of American taxpayers (those earning above $389,000) earned 22% of the nation's reported income. But their share of the nation's income taxes was 40%. In other words, the wealthiest 1% of Americans' income tax payments are almost twice as much as their "fair share."

The same is true for other income levels as well. According to the IRS data, the wealthiest 5% of Americans earned 37% of the nation's income, but paid some 60% of the nation's income taxes. The top 25% of Americans earned 68% of the nation's income, but paid 86% of the nation's taxes.

And astonishingly, the top 50% of American earners brought in 88% of income dollars, but paid 97% of all income taxes in this country. Thus, half of the American population is paying almost the entirety of income taxes. So what was that about paying their "fair share?"

And precisely how does Senator Barack Obama plan to cut taxes for lower-income Americans, when the lower half of income earners already pay only 3% of the nation's income taxes?

More here

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Remarks about anti-Americanism in Europe

The following was forwarded to me by a European reader -- pointing out that American political correctness has undermined European efforts to rein in third-world thuggery

Undoubtedly a strong anti-Americanism is prevalent in Europe. It is also true that this sentiment is mainly a kingdom of the left; at least, leftists are those who lead the street dance. However the roots of this sentiment are deeper than the apparent schizophrenia of these persons that bite the hand that has protected them from the communist takeover. In order to prove this assertion lets think of three words and an half: Suez, Algeria, Africa (and Falklands).

SUEZ. In 1956, Nasser the autocratic ruler of Egypt took over and closed the Suez Channel closing the naval route between Europe and Asia. Great Britain, France and Israel took a successful military action to reopen the Channel but the US had a preference for Arabs and other Third Word so called nationalists over Europeans. As a result the initial victory became a humiliating retreat.

ALGERIA. It was a French colony from 1830 until 1962. Anyway the French conquered Algeria in order to stop the continuous pirate actions of the Arabs in the Mediterranean and after the dey (local king) of Alger slapped the face of the French envoy. An independence war begun in 1954 and ended with the defeat of France; all the time the US pressed France to surrender.

AFRICA. All we know what a tragedy has became the retreat of the colonial powers. The last one to surrender was Portugal a small and the most western country of Europe. It sustained a war for 13 years in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea against the UN and all the usual people. How did this war begin in 1961? With a really nasty attack against white people - for instance opening the belly of pregnant women - in order to impose terror and force people to flight. And who paid for this initial terrorist actions? The US then under President Kennedy. What happened in Angola is more or less what happened in all the Black Africa: the expulsion of colonial powers followed by the ascension of very nasty rulers. But for the US the end of colonial rule in Africa was a strategic aim, no matter the consequences.

Falklands. Only by small chance the same "anti-colonialism" did not prevail in the Falklands; the ambassador Jane Kirkpatrick took the side of Argentina, only the President was a certain Reagan.

For decades the anti-colonialism of the US reduced European powers to world irrelevance and Africa is suffering its nasty rulers. Some of us can be rational and understand that our interests are with the US and that without the military power of the US civilization risks to be lost, like it has been the case between 1939 and 1989. But it should be understood that other people are not so rational.

It is now very common for American conservatives to condemn Europe for its failure to stand up for Western civilization. But the Europeans were doing that until quite recently -- when America stopped them. No wonder the Europeans have given up. So why did America do that? Because of misguided ideology. America's own racist past caused them to see as racism and "colonialism" what were perfectly reasonable actions by European countries -- JR

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ELSEWHERE

Charges against Marine sniper dismissed: "The Marine Corps said Thursday that charges were dismissed against a Camp Pendleton Marine sniper accused in the shooting deaths of two Syrians in Iraq. The Marine Corps said the charges against Sgt. John Winnick II were dismissed without prejudice by the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, meaning charges could be brought again at a later time."

Generous old Congress OKs $48 billion for global AIDS fight: "The House voted Thursday to triple money to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world, giving new life and new punch to a program credited with saving or prolonging millions of lives in Africa alone. The 303-115 vote sends the global AIDS bill to President Bush for his signature. Bush, who first floated the idea of a campaign against the scourge of AIDS in his 2003 State of the Union speech, supports the five-year, $48 billion plan."

UK: Painter fined for smoking in own van: "A painter and decorator from Ceredigion says he is 'dumbfounded' after being slapped with a $60 fine for smoking a cigarette in his own van. Gordon Williams says he had popped to the shops earlier this month, when he was pulled over by council officials. 'I was told that because my van is my place of work I had broken the smoking laws,' he said. ... The grandfather decried the on-the-spot penalty as the 'Big Brother state going too far.' He added: 'I respect anyone who chooses not to smoke, but I would also ask for the same respect to have the freedom to smoke in my own private vehicle.'"

Bungling British bureaucrats again: "Confidential tapes and internal documents have exposed bullying and bungling in Gordon Brown's flagship tax-credit scheme that will cost the taxpayer up to $5.6 billion. More than 1.5m people have been told that they were overpaid tax credits and should now give back the money. Tax officials told them it was their own fault and informed some victims they had no right of appeal. However, many victims have turned the tables on the tax-man, using evidence from their own case files, obtained under data protection laws, to prove officials' errors were to blame. This has revealed government offices in disarray, random errors inserted by computer into claimants' files, and officials misleading claimants about the right of appeal. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is now preparing to write off $5.6 billion"

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

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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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Wikipedia versus "Knol"

I recently put up on Paralipomena an article about "Knol" -- the new Google alternative to Wikipedia. I imagine that most readers here are well aware that Wikipedia is totally unreliable on politically contentious matters. Anything opposed to Green/Left beliefs gets wiped rapidly -- sometimes within minutes. Try to find on Wikipedia anything much that argues against global warming if you don't believe me. Leftists have been devotees of political censorship ever since Napoleon. They just cannot afford to have people hear the whole story about their nonsense. And Wikpedia turns them loose.

One has to laugh at Wikipedia protestations of "neutrality". The bias is so bad that some people are predicting the demise of Wikipedia.

So an alternative that allows only the original author to delete stuff was badly needed. And Knol seems to meet that need. I thought therefore that I might help to get the ball rolling by putting up a few articles. The first one I put up is here.

I soon began to see the virtue of the Google approach. I have already received several steamed-up and ill-informed emails from a guy named Cyrus Robinson (cyrus.robinson@gimail.af.mil) who objects to what I have written. Clearly, if I had put the same stuff up on Wikipedia, he would have deleted it immediately. But on Knol he cannot.

It's ironical that the Leftists at Google are doing something that may help conservatives so I wonder how long that can last. Will Google start finding pretexts to delete conservative comments? Time will tell.

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Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen. But true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money.

True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is no media bias. It is we, the hoi polloi, who reveal our bias by questioning the neutrality of these learned professionals in their ivory-towered newsrooms. Big Media applies this rationalization to every argument used to point out bias. "It's not a result of bias," they say. "It's a matter of news judgment." .... The "newsworthy" argument can be applied to every metric - one-sided imbalances in airtime, story placement, column inches, number of stories, etc. - save one.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans . Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans - a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.And while the money totals pale in comparison to the $9-million-plus that just one union's PACs have spent to get Obama elected, they are more substantial than the amount that Obama has criticized John McCain for receiving from lobbyists: 96 lobbyists have contributed $95,850 to McCain, while Obama - who says he won't take money from PACs or federal lobbyists - has received $16,223 from 29 lobbyists.....

The contributions of individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations are listed in the nearby table. The contributions add up to $315,533 to Democrats and $22,656 to Republicans - most of that to Ron Paul, who was supported by many liberals as a stalking horse to John McCain, a la Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos with Hillary and Obama. What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain). Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans - a ratio of 100-to-1. No bias there.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

A great interview with Bruce Caldwell, general editor of the Hayek series, on the release of the edited "Road to Serfdom". Caldwell makes the point that government has always grown on the back of wars - the war between the US states, and every other war on the record, now including the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on terrorism. Add to the list the war to save the planet - witness the alarmist ads now on Australian TV to support the rush to lead the world in emission reductions"

Incredible pettiness in bureaucratic Britain: "A shop manager has criticised a council after she was issued with a fine for using the wrong coloured bin bags. Haringey council in North London issued Dora Panagi with a $600 fine after she put rubbish in black bags. The council encourages shopkeepers to put rubbish in grey sacks. Mrs Panagi, 41, who manages a boutique in Muswell Hill, said that she used black sacks after the council failed to deliver the grey sacks. A spokesman for the council said that the fine would be cancelled."

McCain to Fannie Mae: Go Away: "In the rush to bulldoze the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac and housing bailout bill through Congress this week, scant attention has been paid in Washington to how the U.S. system fell into this hole. Thus it was refreshing to see Senator John McCain step up and speak rude truth to his colleagues about the fiasco in an op-ed piece this week. "Americans should be outraged at the latest sweetheart deal in Washington," the Republican presidential hopeful wrote in the St. Petersburg Times, stating the clear but all-too-often unspoken reality about this greatest of boondoggles. Senator McCain, who wasn't present for the cloture vote, also called for an end to their multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign. More importantly, he called for "making them [Fannie and Freddie] go away," as in, be no more. Receivership may indeed by the only option if a regulator can't get the far-flung activities of these two under control. Politics today is endless self-calculation, but Mr. McCain deserves some credit for bucking the Washington consensus on this debacle"

Reid: Churches which defy my edicts are "organized crime": "Polygamous sects that have spread throughout the United States and beyond are 'a form of organized crime,' largely unchecked by law enforcement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday. He is proposing a federal-state partnership aimed at policing such communities. 'The lawless conduct of polygamous communities in the United States deserves national attention and federal action,' Reid said before the Senate Judiciary Committee." [Reid is himself a Mormon]

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

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

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

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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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