ELSEWHERE

Leftist journalist spins like a top: "George W.Bush is now under pressure to match the debating prowess of his running mate Dick Cheney, who delivered a strong performance in a tough encounter with Democrat vice-presidential candidate John Edwards in Cleveland, Ohio, last night." So a clear Cheney win gets reported not as a win but as a problem!

I see that Keith Burgess-Jackson is threatening to write an article called "Why I am not a libertarian". I hope he mentions that there are many versions of libertarianism. Only the anarcho-capitalists -- with their desire for no state at all -- have a really definite creed but most libertarians are minimal-statists -- who want a sort of "night watchman" state. But what individual libertarians include in that minimal state is infinitely various. So a very inclusive libertarian and a very minimalist conservative could be the same thing -- which I am -- which is why I call myself a libertarian conservative. Note that Reagan said that libertarianism is the heart of conservatism -- and as the most loved conservative of the 20th century, he has some claim to authority on the matter. The thing that I add to libertarian thinking which makes me conservative is a skepticism about human wisdom and benevolence -- which in turn gives me a Burkean respect for the social systems that have evolved over time -- not particulary a respect for the ancestors but a respect for what has been shown to work well. I think Britain in the year 1900 would be close to my definition of the ideal minimal state. See my post of 5th. about that. And read this about the British Prime Minister at that time.

The Soviet candidate: "University of California employees have given more than nine times as much money to the presidential candidates this year as they did in 2000, with more than 95% of it going to Sen. John F. Kerry"

Michael Totten on the "liberal" case for Bush: "Liberation and nation-building have been crucial parts of the Democratic tradition from the reconstruction of post-war Germany and Japan to the rescue and rehabilitation of Bosnia and Kosovo. In the 1990s and early 2000s I grew accustomed to hearing conservatives scoff at Bill Clinton's efforts as "international social work." With the honorable exception of dissident neoconservatives, post-Cold War Republicans increasingly resembled their circa 1930s isolationist counterparts... The intervention against Slobo's regime in Serbia wasn't slammed as a "unilateral war." It was the Peace Corps with muscles. But when George W. Bush implemented the Clinton Administration's policy of regime-change in Iraq, democratic nation-building morphed into "imperialism." Overthrowing a totalitarian regime was deemed "reckless." What mattered most was "stability.""

The "outsourcing" myth: "Studies show that the migration of U.S. jobs overseas is a tiny factor in weak employment growth. A Labor Department study of job losses in the first three months of the year found that only 2% went overseas. Other studies have put the figure closer to 1%.... Federal Reserve Board surveys show rising medical expenses - more than 10% annually for four years running - are dampening hiring as firms worry about paying for new employees' benefits."

More Leftist "racism" accusations: "Prime Minister John Howard says Opposition Leader Mark Latham's comments on Asian immigration shows he is getting desperate on the eve of the election. The Labor leader lashed out saying that Mr Howard had walked the streets of Liverpool in the late 1980s backing an anti-Asian immigration policy. Mr Howard rejected the claims, saying Mr Latham was desperate to win. "We've run a completely non-discriminatory immigration policy," Mr Howard told the Nine Network's Today Show. "We don't discriminate against anybody in this country on the basis of their race and Mr Latham knows that".

Leftists are born thugs: "More than 50 demonstrators supporting Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry stormed a Republican campaign office in West Allis at mid-day today, trespassing, creating a disturbance through the use of a bullhorn in the office and then refusing to leave when asked.... Graber called the latest incident part of a disturbing trend of criminal conduct by anti-Bush forces in Wisconsin, pointing to an incident in Madison last week in which Bush-Cheney yard signs were stolen from the yards of three homes. The vandals then used chemicals to burn swastikas into the lawns of the homes, which were within a two-block radius of one another. In addition, reports of stolen, defaced and damaged Bush-Cheney campaign signs are surfacing throughout Wisconsin."

Australian conservatives win unionist hearts: "It was an afternoon to chill the heart of a Labor true believer as workers and capitalists united behind John Howard. In Launceston thousands of card-carrying union members hailed Comrade John as a hero of the proletariat while in Sydney the heir to Australia's biggest business fortune, James Packer, declared his support for the Prime Minister. At Launceston's Albert Hall, Mr Howard gave loggers, log-truck drivers and sawmillers the message they wanted to hear: no changes to the Regional Forest Agreement, no job losses and no inquiries. "If my Government is returned on Saturday," Mr Howard began.. "You will be," yelled one of the workers, to deafening applause. "You're the best f..king Prime Minister we've ever had," one burly timber worker declared, red-faced with emotion and delight.... As Howard walked down to the myrtle timber floor of the hall, timber workers with their wives and children lined up to shake his hand. Winnaleah logger Gene Cavins persuaded Mr Howard to sign his sweat-stained baseball cap. His mate, fellow logger and previously committed Labor voter Dale Saward, 35, of Scottsdale, said he was thinking of voting for Howard now. "You'd bloody well better," demanded another mate".

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


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

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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

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THE DRAFT

Sinking a Democrat deception: "Trying to quiet fears of a return of the draft, the House Republican leadership engaged in a hasty call-up of its own on Tuesday. The Republicans brought to the floor a Democratic-sponsored proposal to reinstate mandatory military service and presided over its overwhelming defeat on a vote of 402 to 2. "We're going to put a nail in that coffin," said the House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas. He accused Democrats of generating opposition to President Bush - especially on college campuses - by raising the idea that the draft might be re-established after the November election"

Conscription fantasies: "The Wall Street Journal reported this week that a rash of e-mails have been circulating since the spring about an alleged plan by the Bush administration to resurrect the military draft as early as next spring, provided Bush is re-elected. This is nothing more than election-year posturing. Most likely it was started by Democrats eager to take one more shot at George W. Bush and at the war in Iraq. The idea of bringing back the draft is a non-starter for everyone.... Not even a second-term Bush administration would risk bringing back the draft. To begin with, they claim the military gets a better class of soldiers from volunteers. But, more importantly, an administration that's headed mostly by men who avoided the Vietnam War and that panders to the upper classes is not about to alienate its core supporters by exposing their children to a draft when we're already at war". (More here and here).

Soldiers are NOT "the poor": "A persistent myth about the All Volunteer Force is that it is made up largely of the poor and the uneducated. In fact, Wong said, the volunteer Army is more middle class than its predecessor. "We don't have the fringes any more -- the extremely rich or the extremely poor," Wong said. "We look like Middle America.""

Milton Friedman helped end the draft by pointing out that volunteers are NOT "mercenaries": "In his testimony before the commission, Mr. Westmoreland said he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. Mr. Friedman interrupted, "General, would you rather command an army of slaves?" Mr. Westmoreland replied, "I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves." Mr. Friedman then retorted, "I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.""

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ELSEWHERE

More Democrat lies: "Army commanders denied allegations Wednesday that soldiers have been threatened with deployment to Iraq if they do not re-enlist. "It's just not being done," Lt. Col. David Johnson said. "We are a professional army. We want soldiers who want to be in the Army," he said. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., has demanded an investigation into claims that Iraqi war veterans near the end of their enlistments had been given a choice between re-enlisting or being sent back to Iraq. Fort Carson, with about 14,000 soldiers, including the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, claims the highest re-enlistment rate in the nation"

Edwards loses: "But the most devastating blow was struck when Edwards still wouldn't give up, and came back with the 90% casualty figure. That was when Cheney, addressing Edwards as an adult admonishing a foolish child, pointed out that our most important ally in Iraq is the Iraqis, and that by refusing to include the Iraqis' many casualties in his numbers--so as to be able to claim that almost all the casualties are American--Edwards denigrates the sacrifice of our Iraqi friends.... The second knockdown was when Cheney criticized Edwards' lackluster record as a Senator, noting that he had missed 70% of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee, of which he was a member, and that his home-town paper had labeled him "Senator Gone." That was good. But the devastating conclusion was Cheney's observation that despite the fact that as Vice-President he regularly presides over the Senate, he had never met Edwards until he walked onto the stage tonight. This fact blew me away; I wouldn't have thought it possible. It blew Edwards away, too".

Outrageous judge: "A state judge Tuesday threw out a Louisiana constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, less than three weeks after it was overwhelmingly approved by the voters. District Judge William Morvant said the amendment was flawed as drawn up by the Legislature because it had more than one purpose: banning not only gay marriage but also civil unions".

Cheney BAD for Halliburton: "Halliburton's relationship with the Bush administration is beginning to prove more problematic than it is worth. The company admitted 10 days ago that it was considering selling Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), the division carrying out billions of dollars worth of work for the US government in Iraq, in a desperate attempt to get out of the spotlight. It is considering a sale, spin-off or a separate listing for the business on the stock exchange. The company's shares have fallen from $50 when Mr Cheney first took office in the White House to the low $30s.... Mr Cheney, it turns out, may have been of little real help to Halliburton at all: KBR filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, weighed down by asbestos litigation it inherited from an acquisition the vice-president made while he was still running the firm".

Fun: "A conservative think tank says where George Soros goes, its members will follow -- at least until Election Day. The National Legal and Policy Center announced the formation of a Soros "Truth Squad" to inform the public about the background and motivation of George Soros -- a major funder of liberal, anti-Bush causes -- as he conducts a one-month speaking tour. The Soros Truth Squad, led by NLPC Policy Director John Carlisle, said it will travel to cities in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, where Soros plans to give speeches between now and Nov. 2."

CBS producer Mapes is a Leftist fanatic: "Before she left Seattle to become a producer at Mr. Rather's "CBS Evening News," Ms. Mapes produced a sensational report on a killing of a drug suspect by police that rested on the shoulders of an unreliable source whose story collapsed under cross-examination. Sound familiar? Former colleagues of Ms. Mapes agree that she was a passionate practitioner of advocacy journalism. "She went into journalism to change society," says former KIRO anchorwoman Susan Hutchison"

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of select reading.

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

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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

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IMMIGRATION

Turk saner than the Swedes: "An elderly Turkish immigrant in the southern town of Malmo in Sweden co-writes an article in a Social Democratic evening paper, Aftonbladet, demanding a stop to all immigration until all immigrants, who have already arrived, are working and integrated. It should have been done long ago, he says. And considering a population of nine million, of which 12 percent are born in another country, and that 400 000-500 000 are Muslim (a very recent development), he has a point. Especially since the familiar problems of crime, gang rapes and the like are abundant in the big cities.... Suad Cicek says he and friends are planning to start a one-issue-party demanding a stop to all immigration. The logic being that the present open borders-policies are a threat to both Swedes and immigrants.... Mr. Cicek boldly claims [it] is not really a real refugee problem, but rather "welfare-immigration" caused by the rumor that you can live comfortably without working in Sweden and other European countries. And, he also stresses, the ones who come are to a large extent not that poor, since they have to pay a small fortune to refugee smugglers. The really poor and needy can't afford to come here at all".

Italy copies Australia: "Italy is to send 150 police officers to Libya, along with aircraft and infra-red tracking equipment, as a first step towards the creation of holding camps for illegal migrants passing through North Africa bound for Europe. The deal between Italy and Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime is widely seen as a pilot project for a European Union policy of processing asylum seekers before they reach EU soil. This would effectively sub-contract the job of migration control to buffer states which often have a record of harsh treatment of refugees".

Italy boots them out: "Italy has defended as an "emergency measure" its draconian new policy of airlifting illegal immigrants straight back to Libya the moment they set foot on Italian soil. In an attempt to deter further waves of illegal immigration hundreds have been sent back to Libya by air during the past four days. Italian immigration officials said at the weekend that the immigrant reception centre on the tiny island of Lampedusa, designed to hold 200 people, was "packed to bursting point" with nearly 1300 migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East as smugglers took advantage of fine autumn weather and calm seas. Lampedusa, a rocky Italian outcrop, is closer to North Africa than to Italy and has become a magnet for refugees and the criminal gangs who smuggle them. Under the new law, refugees landing there are taken straight to the island's small airport to be put on aircraft".

Australia boots them out too: "The Federal Government's covert Operation Long Haul - in which 31 immigration detention centre detainees considered at high risk of escape or self-harm were forcibly removed from Australia using handcuffs, batons and restraining belts - appears to have been the flight from hell.... Almost all the detainees bundled onto the charter flight were considered "extreme high risk" and some had four guards assigned to them.... One more "multi-country" operation took place in December 2001, returning 65 detainees to 14 countries, an Immigration Department spokeswoman said yesterday.... Last financial year, 3390 people were forcibly removed from Australia".

But keeping the good guys out is a cinch, of course: "The US has immediately exhausted its annual quota of temporary visas for highly skilled foreign workers this year, making it impossible to hire engineers, mathematicians, researchers and others that US companies say are critical for their competitiveness".

I wonder why they stay? "The health of immigrant children gets worse the longer they live in the United States and become more like Americans, a study has found. When they arrive, children of immigrants - legal and illegal, who are mostly from developing countries in Latin America and Asia - have lower rates of asthma and obesity than American-born children. Children born to immigrant mothers are also less likely to have low birth weights or die as infants than children born to native mothers. But those relative strengths can dissipate by the time children of immigrants become teenagers - often because they have gone years without health insurance, adopted sedentary lifestyles and bad eating habits or become sexually promiscuous. Ellen Wu, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, said another reason was that American children tended to spend more time surfing the internet and playing video games than kicking soccer balls around."

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ELSEWHERE

Dennis Prager says that John Kerry's flip-flopping is clever: It convinces even people who violently disagree with one-another that Kerry is their man.

An amusing list here of the people who support John Kerry.

New documents on Saddam's anti-Americanism: "Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders".

Halliburton: "A Kerry ad implies Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton and is profiting from the company's contracts in Iraq. The fact is, Cheney doesn't gain a penny from Halliburton's contracts, and almost certainly won't lose even if Halliburton goes bankrupt." More on the demonization of Halliburton here.

Even Michael Moore was fussier than CBS: "Michael Moore, director of the movie Farenheit 9/11, said Sunday that he was given the same phony documents used by CBS News in its infamous Sept. 8 "60 Minutes" story but that he rejected them for inclusion in his film because his staff did not believe they were authentic."

Leftist Anglicans blink: "Anglican progressives were dealt a crushing blow last night when the church's General Synod rejected a bid to allow the consecration of women bishops. After a long and impassioned debate in Fremantle, delegates at first gave in-principle support to overturning the 450-year-old tradition of male-only bishops. But in a historic vote, the bill then failed to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority in the church's three decision-making bodies - the houses of clergy, laity and bishops. The result underscored the bitter rift between conservative evangelicals, with a large support base in Sydney, and progressive elements within the church. Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen said that at the heart of the debate was the battle over how to evangelise a church which, on his estimation, has only 30 years of life left in it."

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

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

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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

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THE LEFTIST "COMMUNITY" MYTH

One of the commonest Leftist arguments in defence of big government (a sophisticated example here) is to say that the individual could accomplish nothing and would earn nothing without the community of which he forms part -- and that therefore he "owes" the community something. That is of course true. What is hilarious is that Leftists by some amazing feat of illogicality then immediately equate "the community" with "the government" -- which is in fact merely one part of the community, and a very parasitic part at that.

To see how parasitic, it is instructive to look at Britain in the year 1900. Britain at that time was the workshop of the world, had the world's largest navy, had an army that could muster half a million men if required (as it subsequently did in South Africa), had more effective policing than it has today, had justice and educational systems that were legendary for their quality, had a comprehensive welfare system and had extensive worker-protection legislation (principally introduced by the arch-Conservative Disraeli). So how much of the national income was spent by government at that time? 13.3%! Taxation there has since skyrocketed (government expenditures reaching 49.9% of the national income in 1984) and what have Britons got in return for all that extra tax? An army of clerks and petty dictators, principally. Clearly, Britain in 1900 shows that one can discharge one's obligations to "the community" without giving half of the national income to the government to squander.

The plain fact is that what we owe the community we DO pay and have ALWAYS paid -- by working and providing our services in exchange for services from others. And people co-operate to create goods and services with or without government involvement. And even if we agree that we owe the government some of our money for the services it provides, that in no way implies that we owe something to each and every member of the community, regardless of how much they contribute to the community.

There is, for instance, nothing inconsistent with my admitting indebtedness to the community and also saying that I owe hobos nothing. They have done nothing for me so I owe them nothing. I may give them something out of kindness but that is all. It is of course typically dreamy and simplistic Leftist thinking to see "the community" as some sort of undifferentiated whole when it is in fact anything but and when people in every day of their lives make sharp and important distinctions of all sorts between different members of it. Leftists have such rigid and simplistic brains that their discussions have always tended to lump people into large and overgeneralized groups. It used to be "the working class" versus "the bourgeoisie" and now it is mostly "gays", "women", "minorities" etc. They just can't handle or allow for individuals in their thinking. Individuals are just too messy and unruly for them. Straitjackets for all!

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ELSEWHERE

A surprising endorsement from Taxachusetts: "Since the devastating terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, one American leader has maintained an unbending resolve to protect our homeland and interest against Islamic savages and those foreign governments appeasing them. That leader is President Bush. While out-of-touch U.S. politicians and world leaders have attacked President Bush's tactics, they can't question his steely commitment to keep America safe".

Kerry is pro-homosexual: "Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign offers "GLBT" bumper stickers, a demonstration of his support for "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered" activism. As WND reported, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute has declared the Edwards-Kerry presidential ticket the most "gay-supportive" in the history of the U.S.... "John Kerry believes that same-sex couples should be granted rights, including access to pensions, health insurance, family medical leave, bereavement leave, hospital visitation, survivor benefits, and other basic legal protections that all families and children need," the site proclaims. "He has supported legislation to provide domestic partners of federal employees the benefits available to spouses of federal employees. He was one of 14 senators - and the only one up for re-election in 1996 - to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act.""

Baseball Crank (Slow loading) lists 13 major issues where John Kerry has said the same as the far-Left and the Islamofascists.

Opinion Journal notes today that John Kerry has been dissed by both Poland and Iran. I have always had a soft spot for the Poles so it grieves me to see Kerry mock the Polish contribution to the Iraq war as "bribed". It is a gross insult to the heroic and very honourable Poles. No wonder the Poles are now getting tired of the whole thing.

Mark Steyn: "If I wasn't a conservative before 9/11, I'd certainly be one now. On one side I see decayed, self-absorbed passivity: citizens reduced to junkies with government as the pusher. On the other stand the gun-crazies, the religious Right, the home-schoolers, the flat-taxers and all the rest: you don't have to agree with them on everything to appreciate that, in a new war which not all of the West will survive, they have an advantage over the Swedes and Belgians. A self-reliant conservative citizenry is a better bet than the subjects of an overbearing state."

Islamic morality: "Who are we allowed to seize as hostage? Who are we allowed to kill? For the past few weeks these questions have prompted much debate throughout the Muslim world. The emerging answer to both questions is: Anyone you like!"

Catholics for Bush: "The presidential race is tightening among Roman Catholics, as national polls show President Bush cutting into Sen. John Kerry's lead among Catholic voters in recent months. The trend could help Bush in a tightening race in New Jersey, a state with 3.4 million Catholics. A poll released last week - before Thursday night's televised debate - by the Barna Research Group, which focuses on a Christian audience, showed Bush pulling ahead of Kerry among Catholic voters but it also showed Kerry gaining ground among Protestant voters".

Two of Australia's major newspapers have been sponsoring a Leftist blog run by a Chomskyite. Apparently they have become a bit embarrassed by that -- but not enough to cancel the blog concerned. They now have quite a good conservative blog up as well.

Wicked Thoughts has just put up a set of incredibly funny church announcements. The one I liked best was: "Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door."

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

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

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

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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

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

IMMIGRATION

Illegal immigration vast: "Many residents and ranchers in southeastern Arizona say they have reached a breaking point when it comes to illegal immigration. Roughly one out of every five of the 1.1 million undocumented immigrants arrested this year crossing the border came through Cochise County, population 122,000, according to the 2000 census. A handful of locals say they are so overrun that they have taken to rounding up undocumented immigrants on their own. Others plan to show their dissent at the polls in November."

A black protest: "For years, liberal policy wonks have told us that illegal immigration is good for our economy. They sit in their high-rise think tanks in Brentwood and Century City and pontificate that the benefits of immigrants' cheap labor outweigh the price we pay to have these people here. But let's open our eyes and use common sense when assessing the costs to our communities. Crowded schools, crammed emergency rooms, high-density housing, gridlocked roadways, pollution, crime, depressed wages — are they worth the extra 50 cents we might save on a head of lettuce or a bunch of grapes? I don't think so.... Democrats want to cram more bodies into steerage, give them driver's licenses and move them toward de facto legalization to swell party ranks. Republicans want cheap labor for their factories. And who suffers? We do, the working stiffs whose taxes go to pay for all these extra people".

Hilarious solution: A majority of the Detroit City Council wants to implement an economic development plan it commissioned for $112,000 that preaches racial isolation and rails against immigration in its bid to gain economic success for poor blacks. The crux of the plan is the creation of a business district -- dubbed African Town -- that would be funded in part with city money and made up of black-owned businesses catering to a black clientele. The report also complains that immigrants from Mexico, Asia and the Middle East are stealing resources, jobs and other opportunities from blacks and calls on city leaders to stop the economic shift.

Immigration "too hard": "Wouldn't you think that a public policy issue that profoundly affects homeland security, unemployment, poverty, education, health, and the environment would be a hot-button issue in the campaign? Immigration policy is just such an issue, yet we don't hear a peep out of either camp on the subject -- except for bipartisan endorsement of amnesty for illegal immigrants. How important is immigration policy? ... Why doesn't immigration surface as a major campaign issue? Powerful political and ideological forces are in play that suppress debate sustaining the inertia of a dubious policy that has huge long-run implications for the size, composition, cohesiveness, and quality of life in America.... However, surveys indicate that recent immigrants are not as enthusiastic about continuing high levels of immigration as the politicians think. After all, the newcomers will be competitors for jobs and benefits"

The Swiss are tough: "Swiss voters have turned down plans to relax the country's strict citizenship laws, referendum results show. A proposal to ease naturalisation for foreigners brought up and educated in the country was defeated after 56.8% of voters opposed it. A separate proposal to grant automatic citizenship to the grandchildren of immigrants failed narrowly, with 51.6% voting against. Being born in the country will continue to be no guarantee of citizenship".

A good comment on the Swiss result by Trifkovic. Excerpt: "Switzerland is still today what the United States had been before 1861".

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ELSEWHERE

What a silly bit of calculation: Some game-playing "scientists" have worked out that all of humanity COULD have had a common ancestor as recently as 1,500 years ago. And now people are claiming that therefore all of humanity DID have had a common ancestor as recently as 1,500 years ago! Breathtaking illogic.

Modern Democrats like old Southern Democrats: "Mr. Bush has used accountability, as well as support for vouchers for the District of Columbia, to take the moral high ground on education. The folks now blocking African-Americans at the schoolhouse door are those who support the education status quo."

What Kerry ignores: "The sanctuary of al Qaeda is drying up in Pakistan while its money sources from Saudi Arabia are under new audit. Libya has flipped. Iran is now under global examination. Syria is apprehensive. Afghanistan is free of theocracy. All this shrinks the world of the Islamic fascists, which before 9/11 was expanding."

A good question: "The level of taxation, funding and control throughout all levels of government looks like an upside down pyramid. All of the funding starts at the top (federal) and runs down to the bottom (cities and local schools). A dollar that starts at the top of this system results is a few pennies by the time it reaches the bottom. This is the hallmark of liberal thinking. Strong centralized control at the top. The very few making all of the important decisions for the many of us at the bottom. This method of government did not work for the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries... Why is this now an economic model Western Europeans, Canadians and the liberals of this country wish to pursue in the face of such historic failures?"

Wal-Mart and unions: "One writer pointed out that Wal-Mart opposes unionization of its workers and that Hitler and the Nazi Party destroyed labor unions. In the minds of some people, the fact that a business prefers to operate in a union-free environment is tantamount to Nazism, but it isn't. Even under our highly authoritarian National Labor Relations Act, companies are free to discourage their employees from unionizing. That law makes union representation a matter of majority vote and compels companies where a union is officially deemed to have won a majority to bargain "in good faith" with the union representatives.... It's important to note that there are many workers who do not want union representation.... But aren't unions beneficial to workers? Not always. Some workers wind up unemployed after union wage demands lead to lower employment by the company".

Contrary to my original expectations, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE seems to have become a daily blog -- so suggestions for postings there are particularly welcome. I have just received an email from another U.S. doctor which I expect to be putting up in the next day or so. The focus of the blog is on the wonders of government-run health-care everywhere but I also note the damage done to private medicine by a legal system that supports predatory litigation.

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

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

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

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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

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THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE REVIEWED

I loved this "abbreviated" version of the Presidential debate. Very funny.

One Hundred Percenter argues that Jim Lehrer showed a liberal bias in the questions he asked during the Presidential debate.

Hugh Hewitt has a very good analysis of the debate -- with particular emphasis on two big blunders that he thinks Kerry made, about banning bunker busters and seeking global approval before acting in America's defence.

There is a list here or here of 16 "inaccuracies" that John Kerry uttered during the debate.

SCSU Scholars compares John Kerry's policies to the wimpish policies of the ancient Trojans in The Iliad who were eventually destroyed by the tougher Greeks.

Peg Kaplan (a Jewish girl with an Irish first name! My mother was a "Peg" too -- short for Margaret) has a heartfelt post about why the holocaust convinces her that Bush is the right man for America.

A relevant remark from Saint Augustine of Hippo: "Though wisdom without eloquence is of little service to states, yet eloquence without wisdom is frequently a positive injury, and is of service never." ("On Christian Doctrine" - Book IV, Argument).

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AUSTRALIA

Cynical Leftist hypocrisy: "Some breathtaking promises have been made in this election campaign - Medicare Gold, the 30 per cent child-care tax rebate - but nothing tops Labor's $3.7 billion-a-year tax and family plan. It's unheard of for politicians to promise tax changes that would leave some people worse off, yet that's what Mark Latham has done. What's more, apart from some well-off single-income families, the losers are the poorest families in the nation. Not a good look from a Labor leader. But the tax changes are much more than that. On the one hand they're a huge politically motivated bribe, carefully targeted at the kind of families prevalent in marginal electorates."

Another Leftist bishop: "Australia is "hell-bent on a course of disturbingly questionable morality", the outgoing head of the Australian Anglican Church said yesterday. In what many will see as an intervention in the last week of the election campaign, church head Peter Carnley made a scathing attack on the "so-called war against terrorism" and the Government's treatment of asylum seekers".

Australia's elitist Left: "Labor's electoral base is divided between a relatively small number of new-class social professionals and a relatively large number of people in traditional working-class occupations. These two groups often hold different values on political questions, such as border control, the size of the immigration program, cultural pluralism and so on. Labor candidates in federal elections are more likely to sympathise with the social professionals' values than with those of their traditional supporters".

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ELSEWHERE

Saddam and Bin Laden WERE linked: "Anyone who has actually read the report would know that the 9/11 Commission had plenty to say about the connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, but because much of its findings were beyond the scope of its charter, important details went unstated in public hearings or were buried in the minutiae of the published narrative. Virtually every reporter I have spoken to has failed to answer this basic question satisfactorily: "Have you actually read the report?" The answer is almost always a sheepish "No." Those who have only given it a cursory scan may have missed the fine-print chapter notes where explosive information about names, dates, places, and conversations concerning the Iraq-al Qaeda connection are outlined in chilling detail."

V.D. Hanson on whether support for Israel is to blame for the huge Islamic hostility towards the West: "Kuwait ethnically cleansed thousands of Palestinians and now blames us for our supposed callousness toward the West Bank. China swallowed Tibet and the world snores. By 1967 the Arab world had simply deported almost all its Jews and sent them to Israel -and few complained. The Sudanese government has killed more black Africans in a week than Israel has Palestinians in a decade, and the Arab World is silent. The first three wars between 1947-1967 were not over the West Bank. And when it is autonomous, the next one won't be either. And on and on and on"

Belmont Club has some encouraging comments about the recent recapture of an Iraqi city (Samarra) from rebels by combined U.S. and Iraqi forces. See also here for the latest.

Terrorist U.N.: "The Israel Defense Forces released video footage Friday taken by an unmanned aircraft showing what appeared to be Palestinians in the Gaza Strip loading rockets into a vehicle marked "U.N." The black-and-white footage, taken by a drone - or unmanned aircraft - flying over the Gaza Strip, showed the militants driving off in the white van, with "U.N." marked in black on its roof. The IDF is furious at the United Nations representatives in the Gaza Strip, "who continuously stress that they are an international organization and of course is not in any way involved in terrorism,""

Icelandic blogger "Willy Sutton" has a new libertarian site. He has a lot of John Stossel stuff up that everybody ought to know but which almost nobody does.

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

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

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

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

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

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EUROPEAN DREAMS

A Jeremy Rifkin has just written a rather hilarious book called "The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream". It is amusingly demolished here.

And also here. Excerpt: "Professional worrier Jeremy Rifkin's pronouncements always remind me of the characterization by one-time Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas B. Reed of his political opponents, 'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.' Rifkin's assertion that Americans' consumption of beef causes domestic violence were absurd. So were his claims that biotechnology threatens 'a form of annihilation every bit as deadly as nuclear holocaust,' and that a small-scale field trial of a gene-spliced soil bacterium could change weather patterns and disrupt air-traffic control. He's at it again in a completely different realm in a new book, 'The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream' ..."

There is an article here by that learned dunce, Niall Ferguson (He thinks America should become an empire!) which argues that recent Anglo/American co-operation (e.g. Reagan/Thatcher and Blair/Bush) is somehow an aberration that must soon end. He says that Britain has more in common with Europe. He notes that, like Europeans, Brits are much less religious than Americans are -- but that seems to be his only substantial point. Really important facts, like the abhorrence most Britons have of the EU, he overlooks. And on the cultural affinities that will continue to bind Britons and Americans, I can do no better than to refer readers to the Anglosphere Primer. There is a more extensive demolition of Ferguson's surprisingly ill-informed article here and other criticisms by Mark Steyn here.

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ELSEWHERE

Tom Galvin puts lots of good political pictures up on his blog -- though he is mainly concerned with the Presidential debate at the moment (like most political bloggers). He has two good pictures of union goons harassing little 3-year old Sophia Parlock. Leftists will use any violence they think they can get away with. I mention that in today's postings on EDUCATION WATCH too. Stalin and Pol Pot were no aberrations. They were just normal Leftists who managed to get unrestrained power. "By their fruits shall ye know them" (Matthew 7:20) and their deeds constantly reveal how much hate there is in Leftists.

There is a whole series here of photographs taken at various Leftist "protests" (really exhibitions) in the San Francisco area in recent times. My favourite is this series, which is prefaced by the remark: "People not from the San Francisco Bay Area often think that, when locals say such-and-such person or group is "Communist," they're being metaphorical, or McCarthyites. Far from it. Overt Communists and Marxists are commonplace around the Bay Area, especially at rallies like this". And this series probably shows best how exhibitionism is the underlying theme of Leftist demonstrating. "Look at me" is what it is all about.

Bush to support lifetime savings accounts: "President George W. Bush is expected to push for new tax-free savings accounts during the upcoming presidential race by promoting a bill by a fellow Texas Republican, Representative Sam Johnson. Under the Lifetime Savings Accounts Act of 2004, H.R. 4078, Americans would be able to contribute up to $5,000 a year to two types of savings accounts and withdraw money at any time without penalty."

Lights out on regulators: "If there's any lesson that policy makers should have learned from the electricity blackouts throughout California in 2002 and then on the East Coast earlier this year, it is that the wrong sort of electric power deregulation can cause soaring prices and leave consumers literally in the dark. In California, homeowners and businesses had to ration their electricity use, dim the lights, and turn off their air conditioners. A basic service we as Americans take for granted -- cheap and uninterrupted access to electric power for light, heat, running computers, poweringhair dryers and dishwashers, and accessing the internet -- was suddenly scarce."

Jefferson would be disappointed: "Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." --Thomas Jefferson

The Leftist's anti-motto: "Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory." --F.W. Faber

Australia's most Leftist State government, led by Steve Bracks, wants phone-tapping powers (surprise!). Max Teichman comments: "Bracks is determined to give his Ombudsman such sweeping powers. I have little doubt George Brouwer is a man of integrity, but he could be replaced tomorrow and another government could use such powers as it saw fit. But as to this government's fitness; quite seriously, who would wish to entrust them with such powers? Amazingly, our civil libertarians who dined out on the evils of phone tapping for years, maintain a total, complicit silence. Like our feminists when the Afghan girl led her team in the Olympic parade. The first one ever. Not interested. Having screeched with the best of them about the US body bags certain to come out of Afghanistan, our feminists seem to have lost all interest when they didn't appear. Sod Afghanistan.

New search engine: The little-known United States company is taking aim at Google and other industry leaders such as Yahoo! with a new search engine called Clusty.com, due to begin this week after four years of fine-tuning. The search engine's name refers to the clustering technology that Vivisimo has refined to sort search results into different categories related to the initial search request. The technology aims to simplify online search by breaking down results into related categories instead of bunching them in a single listing that can span tens of thousands of links scattered across hundreds of Web pages... Vivisimo, a Pittsburgh company, has already has attracted a cult following". I tried it using the search-term "johnray". I liked the Google results best.

I have just put up on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE an article by a medical specialist reader who explains that the high costs of medical treatment in the USA are to a significant extent non-medical. A large part of what you pay goes to comply with purely bureaucratic requirements of the government and to line the pockets of trial lawyers.

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

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

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

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

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

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A NEAR-FISKING

I rarely bother to fisk Leftist rubbish but there is an article here that tempts me. An evidently Leftist economist asks why the USA is more conservative (which he seems to equate -- rather narrowly -- with less welfarist) than most other countries. He says it is because the U.S. constitution makes change difficult and limits the power of the central government. He also says that Americans are less willing to spend on welfare because so many of the poor are racially different and most voters therefore have difficulty identifying with them.

The second point is undoubtedly true -- there has been research to support it -- but the rest of the article is lamebrain stuff. For a start, the author identifies the much greater Christian committment of Americans as part of their conservatism but nowhere explains how the constitution or the presence of minorities brings that about. Perhaps the great influx of Muslims into France and the Netherlands in the last 50 years has made those countries more Christian? There is no evidence of it.

And if the constitution limits the power of the central government, no-one told Abraham Lincoln. Nothing restrained him from actually making war on other Americans. And the claim that the U.S. Supreme Court tends to support conservatism would draw a horse-laugh from almost all conservatives. How many conservatives agree with the court's decisions permitting racial discrimination in favour of minorities on the specious grounds of "diversity", for instance?

The subheading of the article also proclaims that: "Europe is in the 21st century, but we remain locked in the 18th". I would have said that Europe has returned to the feudalism of the 12th century -- in that Europeans now as then are dependant on their political masters for most things -- rather than being as free to provide for themselves as Americans are.

STRAUSS AND THE NEOCONS AGAIN

I said most of what I want to say about Straussians and the neocons on 21st. but I cannot help noting again that the "neocons" generally and Straussians in particular are everybody's favourite villain at the moment. We see here (in an article by De Lorenzo) how an attack on the Straussians by a Leftist professor is being welcomed by libertarians!

It's just scapegoating of course -- something Jews are all too familiar with. Instead of blaming a huge segment of the American people for supporting the policies of President Bush, moral cowards pick on a small group of history freaks instead. Hitler did the same. Instead of blaming the German people because so many of them went "Red" after WW1, he blamed the Jews for "manipulating" them. It's all in Mein Kampf.

One of the bones of contention between libertarians and Straussians centres around the contempt which many libertarians feel for Abraham Lincoln. I share the libertarian view. A man who brought about the death of half a million Americans in order to "free the slaves" -- when every other country in the world freed the slaves without a drop of blood being spilt -- is an utter monster in my view. Straussians however take the conventional view of Lincoln as a hero. De Lorenzo is of course one of the chief proponents of the libertarian view. There is a counterblast at him over that from a Straussian here.

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ELSEWHERE

The New Deal debunked (again): "Macroeconomic model builders have finally realized what Henry Hazlitt and John T. Flynn (among others) knew in the 1930s: FDR's New Deal made the Great Depression longer and deeper. It is a myth that Franklin D. Roosevelt 'got us out of the Depression' and 'saved capitalism from itself,' as generations of Americans have been taught by the state's educational establishment."

There is also a great cartoon here on how FDR's New Deal "helped" black Americans. A reader comments: "It reminds me of an old Al Capp "L'il Abner" cartoon strip. Abner's hero -- bumbling cop "Fearless Fosdick" -- meets some do-gooder liberals. They figure Fosdick is earning less than the minimum wage and promptly storm the police chief's office demanding an end to this illegality. The chief chews his cigar and looks Fearless up and down and says "Fosdick: scram, you're fired!". The liberals run off cheering and patting themselves on the back. Another injustice eliminated". There was a similar post on POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH yesterday, noting how feminist policies had "helped" women in Sweden.

Islamic democracy not so impossible after all? "Only six years after casting off the shackles of deeply-entrenched authoritarianism, Indonesians have gone to the polls three times in six months and elected themselves both a parliament and, for the first time in their history, a president.

Great stuff! Lawyers made to bear all the costs of a foolish lawsuit that they hoped to profit from: "Lawyers for a policeman who lost a court case in which he sought "hurt on duty" benefits were ordered not to charge their client yesterday, after the state's highest court called his appeal futile."

A defeat for the drug nuts: "The hemp food industry declared victory Monday in its three-year battle over the federal government's effort to ban sales and consumption of bread, protein powders and other food products made from the psychoactively benign botanical cousin of marijuana. Federal officials declined to appeal a February ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejecting the Drug Enforcement Administration's attempts to block sales and consumption of hemp foods.

"Children at the Australian International School in Jakarta are at risk from terrorists and the school will be forced to close unless Canberra boosts its security, according to the school's principal. School principal Penny Robertson has written to Prime Minister John Howard urgently calling for more funding for security at the school, which has been singled out for attacks in the past.... The school has been closed until after the Australian elections for fear it may be targeted by terrorists."

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

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

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

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

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

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

FROM BROOKES NEWS

The Democrats, social security and the equity premium puzzle The Bush administration's proposal for social security accounts invested in the share market has been unjustly attacked by Democrats
Lefty journo slimes humanitarian Lib candidate The Herald-Sun's Luke McIlveen's slimy attack on NSW Liberal Senate candidate and bush poet Michael Darby not only showed McIlveen to be out of his depth but also bereft of journalistic ethics
Myths of the Asian economic crisis still dominate Without a doubt, the depth and suddenness of the economic crisis that swept through the Asian economies took most economists and investment advisers by complete surprise
Do payroll taxes kill jobs? There is a view among some of Australia's free-market economists that payroll taxes are not part of labour's gross wage and are therefore not a labor cost
Dan Rather and 60 Minutes conclusively prove that the Bush memos are not forgeries In this exclusive, Dan Rather of 60 Minutes fame provided Brookes' with irrefutable evidence that his forged memos are genuine

Details here

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I WAS WRONG

I note that Keith Burgess-Jackson has a post up explaining why he has reversed his view of President Bush and why he no longer advocates liberalism in general. Heaps of conservative thinkers have at one time been Left-leaning (including Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill) so all of them must have had to do a lot of explaining at some stage. I am pleased that I have never had to do that but I am also pleased to say that I have been wrong in the past on some matters nonetheless. I am pleased to find that I was wrong because it shows that I have learned something.

The mistake I made which I most regret was to underestimate the good nature and tolerance of my fellow Australians. In an article I wrote in 1972, I expressed the view that admitting large numbers of ethnic Chinese immigrants to Australia could well cause racial strife -- as indeed it actually did in the Australia of 100 years ago or more. In the last 30 years, however, Australia has admitted large numbers of ethnic Chinese immigrants so that they are now probably around 10% of the population -- but there seems to have been no friction between them and other Australians whatever. Note however that it was my fellow Anglo-Australians that I doubted. I have never doubted the civilized qualities of the Chinese.

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ELSEWHERE

There is an interesting post here (slow-loading site) describing in detail the various American public opinion polls. There seems to be considerable quality variations between them, with Zogby the trashiest. From my point of view as a long-time academic survey researcher, the whole lot of them seem very careless. The fact that every last one of them is a telephone poll seems amazing -- after the famous Truman/Dewey debacle. But telephone ownership would be more widespread now than it was in Truman's day so perhaps that source of inaccuracy pales into insignificance compared with other biases -- such as the tiny proportion of people called who actually co-operate. I was also amazed that only one poll takes precautions against the "curbstone" problem -- which is when the interviewers just make the results up. Checks against that should be routine. They certainly were in my practice. But the fact that the results are adjusted to make them representative demographically is probably what saves the day. Sacks of salt needed, though.

And if American public opinion polls are primitive, American voting seems to be even worse. I have never been able to understand how American voter registration is so slapdash and open to fraud. With people like Rush Limbaugh tackling the issue something might get done about it sometime maybe but it was Al Capone back in the 1930s who said "Vote early and vote often" so it is not exactly a new problem.

Amusing: Some old-line journalists are REALLY getting peeved at bloggers. But all they can come up with is a lot of self-righteous huffing and puffing. Long live pajamas!

The megalomaniac George Soros is stepping up his preaching against GWB. I wonder why he thinks that ordinary American voters are going to want to support his views? I think many would be more likely to resent him trying to tell them what to do. Amusing to see him wasting his money advertising on conservative blogs, though.

Columnist Molly Ivins wrote: "Defining "terrorist" or any "other" as an absolute, irrational evil gives us a spurious and intoxicating sense of self-righteousness. We become the Simon-pure contrast, thus missing any chance to consider if correcting or just changing our own conduct would be effective." There is a good reply to that here or here. Excerpt: "If you are unable to distinguish between the purposeful targeting of innocents, especially children, and the accidental killing thereof, then you are viewing the world through the prism of moral equivalence. One is pure evil whatever your motivation, the other is a tragic accident."

I have just put up here a touching story about one of the private deeds of President Bush. The story is verifiable though I am not in a position to verify it. It is however consistent with everything we know about the character of the man. It reminds me of the fact that many people who wrote to Ronald Reagan when he was President got replies from him in his own hand: What a gentleman!

There is a good New Zealand site here that gives both the Left and the Greens a pretty good going over from a liberty-oriented perspective. Lots to read.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual conspectus of the blogosphere.

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

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

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

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

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

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

AUSTRALIA MATTERS

An interesting email from one of my American readers:

"Perusing your postings, it occurred to me that your readers might not realize just how important your forthcoming elections are. Not just for your country, but for the course of the entire free world.

Mr. Howard has shown a sort of political courage depressingly rare in our times. His unwavering commitment to the battle against Islamofascism and his support of the war in Iraq truly mark him as a "Profile in Courage" - not that the Kennedy Center will be giving him any such award in the near future. History, though, will mark him as a great and important man.

Like Winston Churchill a half-century before him, though, Howard faces the prospect (though I note with pleasure, an apparently less-likely prospect than it was weeks ago) of being cast aside by his countrymen at the ballot box as a prophet without honor in his own time.

I believe I am not overstating the case when I say this could have calamitous consequences for global polity and the future of Western Civilization. If Howard were to lose, it is rumored that his successor will immediately announce the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq. Given the degree to which John Kerry's sister appears to be meddling Down Under, and what we know of the Kerry clan, I don't doubt that this is true.

If it should occur, the Kerry campaign will immediately seize upon this as evidence that the policies of the Bush administration are so hideously misguided that even our staunchest friends are abandoning us. Our media will then proceed to trumpet this beyond all reason as cause for alarm and consternation. It will be presented as the beginning of a great unraveling of what John Kerry disgracefully calls "The Coalition of the Bribed and Coerced."

While things look good for Bush right now, this is the sort of thing, coming as it would less than a month before our American election, that might provide significant momentum for the Kerry campaign.

I am naive enough to believe that somehow, some way, right will triumph. But I am realistic enough to know that it doesn't happen by accident. George Bush was elected President in 2000 by 700 votes in Florida. John Howard could well be elected Australia's Prime Minister by the 70 - or 7 - votes it takes to elect his party's candidate to a single Australian Parliament district. That alone is cause enough for concern in normal times. That it might well tip the U.S. election to forces that would preemptively surrender to an enemy that knows no victory but worldwide Islamic government is cause for alarm in our own.

May fate be kind to John Howard. History doubtless will be."

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ELSEWHERE

If you have not yet seen Paul Berman's article on Che Guevara and the recent film which makes a hero of him, you should read it. Excerpt: "The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster.... Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system - the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination"

Lester Dent has a good article on the counterfactual nature of most Leftist beliefs. He wonders why they ignore so much. But in the end he gets it pretty right by concluding that they implicitly say: ''Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up.'' He does not go on to the next step, however, of asking what function their mental fixations serve. They serve ego needs. They make the Leftist feel grand and wise and that is more important than the facts, pathetic though that is.

There is a thoroughly conservative article here that takes up the burden of finding a balance between liberty and paternalism. Conservatives have always thought it obvious that either extreme is fit for simple minds only. Simplistic formulas such as "The community comes first" (Leftists) or "No government at all is needed" (extreme libertarians) just don't fit the complexity of the real world. So conservatives give themselves the difficult task of finding a balance. That's why the article concerned is a long one.

The American Voice is an interesting site -- with lots of politically-relevant facts and figures. Facts can be misleading out of context (Noam Chomsky is proof of that) but there are a lot of interesting starting points in what he lists.

Don't knock the drug companies: "In general, the benefits of new drugs outweigh the costs by a substantial margin."

Amusing: One of the people behind Clinton's successful political strategy was a Straussian -- a dreaded "neocon". Pity he wasn't a Jew as well. That would REALLY have got the Leftist conspiracy theorists frothing at the mouth.

There is a new counter-Michael Moore movie out. The trailer for the movie is excellent, particularly regarding the Left's "liking a dictator" if "free health care is provided."

Amusing: Some libertarians are trying to get into the Australian Senate in the forthcoming Federal election on Oct., 9th. Buckley's, of course.

Mark Steyn's site seemed to have been taken down last couple of times that I tried to log on. Leftist vandalism?

Every now and again I get an email from a fellow-conservative blogger asking irately why they are not on my blogroll. I am happy to concede their right to be on my blogroll and always add them but I do get a bit of a laugh out of anybody assuming a "right" to be there. Since I must have about 300 links on my blogroll by now, I doubt that having one more or less does anybody much good anyway. Sending me details of a post that I might link to would do other bloggers a lot more good.

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

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

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

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

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

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

ECONOMICS

EU wants to criminalize work: "EU states will find it harder to opt out of the Union's 48 hour maximum working week under new proposals. The European Commission says it wants to tighten loopholes in its Working Time Directive in order to limit the time employees spend at work. The changes would mean workers would be able to work more than 48 hours a week only if employers and unions reached a collective agreement. The government has vowed to fight the plans when they come up for approval. Any changes will need to be voted on by the European Parliament before they come into force. UK business leaders have argued that the proposals will increase bureaucracy while unions said the proposed changes did not go far enough".

Lower female average earnings are fair: "An Aug. 26 report from the U.S. Census Bureau stated that the median female full-time wage for women was 75.5 cents for every dollar similarly earned by men; that's down .6 percent from 2002. Gender feminists quickly cried "discrimination is increasing!" ...BUT... "women have fewer years of work experience, work fewer hours per year, are less likely to work a full-time schedule, and leave the labor force for longer periods of time than men.".... Indeed, when you factor out variables like having children, the wage gap virtually disappears. In their book "Women's Figures" (1999), economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba meticulously compared data on the earnings of childless men and women aged 27 to 33. They found that the wage gap shrank to 98 cents"

The economics of happy feet: "Even in the poorest countries, shoes are available everywhere and at rock bottom prices. One of the great miseries of living in the third world used to be the aches and pains associated with poor quality footwear (if you could find it at all). But no more. American capitalist "excess" that led entrepreneurs to pay workers in China and Indonesia to make shoes for American consumers has yielded surpluses that spread affordable shoes to all corners of the globe. Today a peasant in the fields of a Guatemalan village wears shoes that medieval lords would have traded for their own models made of wood and leather."

"The real outsourcers are to be found among regulators, trial lawyers, and environmental groups whose cumulative actions have devastated once-flourishing industries and the communities in which they were located. Their deeds have consigned hundreds of thousands of Americans to the ranks of the unemployed. Meanwhile, the jobs these people once had have been gleefully picked up by foreign workers..... In the last decade alone, over 900 mills, pulp and paper plants, and other forest products facilities have closed in the U.S., with a loss of over 130,000 jobs... These are real job losses, courtesy of real outsourcers."

A reader who is a teacher points to another cause of outsourcing: American workers are too poorly educated to make good employees on many occasions these days. "The left has outsourced education. Their insistence that disruptive children be kept in the classroom as part of their rights, their insistence that memorization and skills are tools of oppression, their convictions that kids need to have self-esteem without earning it, their insistence that testing is just a way of putting kids down -- all these stupid ideas and more have made sure that a kid in India who sits through the good old British education system can add better, write better, and think more clearly than their American counterpart"

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ELSEWHERE

Some progress: "A "white list" of 10 nations from which asylum applications will be presumed to be false by all European Union countries is to go ahead, despite warnings of human rights violations. The list of "safe countries" covers seven African states, including Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Mali and Senegal, as well as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay. The European list is modelled on the British system, which presumes asylum claims from designated "safe" countries are unfounded and applicants fast-tracked for removal. The system has operated since 1993. The EU list will form a cornerstone of the new common European asylum policy"

Immigration elitism: "Huntington's discussion of mindless immigrationism is one of the reasons for the hostile reception to his book. He points to the now commonplace distinction between the "elites" and the general public and the clear differences in their attitudes to immigration. It is easy enough to dismiss the reservations of the electorate as a product of ignorance, xenophobia, fear of the unknown, unfounded fears of competition for their own jobs or whatever. Denigration of the attitudes of ordinary people is routine for the elites. But not all these concerns are totally unfounded.."

I have already had online for some time (See here) a review of some of the evidence leading to the view that Bill Clinton is a sub-clinical psychopath. I have just put up some extra evidence here. Note the total lack of any sense of guilt or remorse for anything he did and the wild theories put forward to explain the attacks on him. It's his "enemies" who harmed him, not his own lack of any morality or responsibility. Psychopaths all think that they can do no wrong and very commonly explain their difficulties by saying that people are just out to "get" them.

This article compares the present difficulties in Iraq with the problems previous Presidents (such as Lincoln and FDR) have faced in their wars and concludes that GWB is doing pretty well by comparison: "Reading the depressing headlines, one is tempted to ask: Has any president in U.S. history ever botched a war or its aftermath so badly? Actually, yes. Most wartime presidents have made catastrophic blunders, from James Madison losing his capital to the British in 1814 to Harry Truman getting embroiled with China in 1950"

Good news from Afghanistan: "But the political skill demonstrated by Karzai since July, and the popularity he clearly possesses, are reason for optimism. Afghans themselves are optimistic. The country has passed its major political challenges reasonably well since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 - forming a transitional cabinet, drafting and approving a constitution, maintaining a steady civilian government in Kabul. The next milestone, Afghanistan's first free presidential election in over a decade, also looks to be a qualified success. For now, that's quite an achievement".

Another foul priest: "A district attorney said Monday that he would not prosecute Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Dupre on child rape charges because the statute of limitations has expired in the case."

There is a good new post up on Leftists as Elitists.

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

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

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

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FRANK FUREDI'S JOURNEY FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Frank is an Australian psychologist and ex-Marxist who has now long been a British resident

"Furedi found himself feeling 'ever-more estranged' from the conventional left. He recalls three incidents in particular that suggested the left was moving in a troublesome direction. 'The first time I felt it was when there were all these demands for "No Platform" for fascists, that fascists should be censored. I have always been, and continue to be, vehemently anti-fascist, but I felt that was just a cop-out, a very anti-democratic way of avoiding debate. I argued that rather than saying "No Platform" we should take up the fascists' views and undermine them, instead of opting for this very authoritarian, censorious approach.'

The second event was the miners' strike of 1984. A key issue in the strike was whether there should be a national ballot, which would allow all miners to vote on whether the strike should continue. In places like Yorkshire miners were striking hard, while other miners, in particular in Nottinghamshire, refused to strike on the grounds that there had not been a national ballot. The RCP campaigned for a ballot; just about everybody else on the left disagreed and the ballot was vetoed by Arthur Scargill, head of the National Union of Miners. 'I fully supported the strike', says Furedi. 'But I also called for a ballot, with a rank-and-file campaign to win the vote, for a strike that could be supported by everybody.' Thatcher supported a national ballot because she thought it would break the strike; the RCP supported a campaign for a ballot as a way of strengthening the miners. 'But others on the left wanted to prevent a ballot in case the vote went the wrong way. I thought this qualified approach to democracy on the left was a very big problem.'

The third event that further estranged Furedi from the left was the Cleveland child abuse scandal of 1987, when a number of families in the industrial region in the north-east of England were falsely accused of abusing their kids - often by health and social workers who considered themselves part of the left. 'I felt very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable indeed', says Furedi. 'People who I had known on the left were going around saying that loads of working-class men are child abusers. This very negative view of human beings took me aback. The kind of panic about working-class behaviour that would traditionally have been triggered by the right was starting to become a fixture of the left.'"

More here.

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