Israel At 60: The Hope

Hope is deeply ingrained in the Israeli consciousness, along with resilience, creativity, progress, democracy, self-criticism, and decency. There is sometimes unavoidable friction among them, but cumulatively they make Israel a unique modern miracle among nations. May 8, the 60th anniversary, offers the lesson of Israel's experience to the world.

Israel's Left and Right argue and re-argue about how to relieve Israel of the burdens and threats from Gaza and the West Bank, and Iran. These arguments, however, are largely subsumed by hope, hope without much evidence to support it. There's quite a difference between constructive optimism and potentially lethal leaps. Still, the strengths of Israel's other national characteristics are what makes hope possible. For example, Colette Avital, a Labor Party Knesset member, argues:

At the end of the decade, the traditional disagreements between left and right have lost much of their relevance, as a majority of Israelis support the end of occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state. Moreover, the debate on the path to follow seems to be over, too. Unilateralism is largely discredited as an option. Our negotiating partner is our partner, however imperfect. Israelis may be less hopeful than they were, but they are more realistic in their demands. They know the limits of military power. What's more, they know that time is running out. It may just be that sense of urgency that will make an agreement possible at the end of 2008.

One may be excused for dismissing this hopefulness. But, it must be realized it is deeply felt by a broad range of the public in Israel and the US, and comes more from strength than from weakness of spirit. Hope is what Israel is, ultimately, about. Israel's national anthem is Hope, Hatikvah. That Hope is based upon the diaspora's return to Israel to live in peace and progress.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Bernanke gets it wrong: Bernanke is said to be an expert on the Great Depression and that it has shaped his thinking about the role of the Fed. Be that as it may, Bernanke's actions suggest that far from absorbing the lessons of the 1930s he has in fact hammered them into a Keynesian mould. And this is why we just got another rates cut
Emissions trading - a weapon of mass taxation: Although consumers in many countries will bear the oppressive costs of a carbon tax, there may be no reduction whatsoever in CO2 emissions, and no beneficial effect on the world's climate. But parasitic companies formed to exploit carbon tax will reap billions from ripping off the public and savaging its living standards
Debt and monetary policy - is there a link?: It is a pretty sorry state of affairs when economic commentators can write of consumer spending and debt driving the economy without once referring to monetary policy. It is even worse when the same commentators write about monetary policy without even alluding to the money supply
Body of South American youth mutilated near Guantanamo: Has Cuba's Stasi-trained secret police been murder South American students for their organs? The mutilated body Beatriz Porco of a 22-year-old Bolivian student found near Guantanamo suggest that this is the case. But this should not surprise us considering that Castro ordered political prisoners to be drained of their blood
Wages and risk: another leftwing fallacy: Leftists argue that labour flexibility and productivity schemes are attempts to shift the risks of doing business from the firm to its employees. This is pure baloney
Feed the World: Though he is already being belaboured by the self-haters in the left-wing commentariat, the Western consumer did not choose to implement costly and economically nonsensical biofuel policies; he had such ill-thought out intervention foisted upon him by ignorant politicians and greenie fanatics
The silent jihad against the west: Active jihad, the holy war, is terrorism. But there is also another form of jihad that is part of the deliberate effort to have Islam replace all concepts of morality and the values held dear by the rest of us. The name of this silent fifth column effort is Sharia Banking

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ELSEWHERE



Osprey exceeds expectations in Iraq test : "Textron Inc and Boeing Co's MV22 Osprey, the world's first operational half-helicopter half-airplane, performed far better in its Iraq combat debut than had been predicted by critics, the general in charge of Marine Corps aircraft said Friday. The hybrid aircraft is "just going to become more and more valuable across the board," including for Air Force special operations, said Marine Lt. Gen. George Trautman, deputy commandant for aviation. "Most of the critics are just plain wrong in many of the things they say," Trautman told a Pentagon briefing marking the return from Iraq last week of the first Marine Corps operational Osprey squadron. He said Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 did "every single mission that they were asked to do" during a seven month deployment. The Marines were just starting to exploit the tilt-rotor aircraft's "new and revolutionary technology," he added"

CNN Declares Itself a "Wright Free Zone," Explaining That "Our Viewers Want Us to MoveOn.org (TM)": "Funny how the networks are quick to accede to the political desires of liberals, without worrying too much about "pandering" or subcontracting their own highly-trained sense of news-value to the lay public, so long as that lay public can be used as a pretext to do what what the liberals in the newsroom want to do anyway. Imagine if FoxNews announced "We're going to have Wright updates every half hour, because that's what our viewers want." I imagine they'd be castigated for deferring to their bitter, gun-clinging audiences' wishes. Because CNN has a better audience, of course. It's liberal, and, as such, can be trusted to help make the big news-judgment decisions. Because ultimately it's not a J-school credential that empowers one to decide what should and should not be in the national debate -- it's an adherence to the liberal political philosophy."



Bratton for Britain: "The man who cleaned up the streets of New York is to help mastermind Boris Johnson's crime crackdown in London. U.S. police chief Bill Bratton will advise the new Tory mayor on how 'zero tolerance' of graffiti, fare-dodging and other minor crimes can prevent more serious offending. The move underlines Mr Johnson's determination to wage war on youth violence and anti-social behaviour. It chimes with David Cameron's promise to fight back against social breakdown and is further evidence that the capital will be a test-bed for a future Tory government. Yesterday Mr Johnson proposed the creation of up to 100 weekend clubs, involving 'competition, discipline and punishment', to help troubled teenagers. The 'respect schools' will offer youngsters activities such as football and boxing alongside academic subjects to help them perform the 'handbrake turn' needed to put them on the path to educational achievement. Mr Johnson will today flesh out his manifesto pledge to tackle crime on public transport, with patrols on buses and Tubes and a ban on drinking alcohol on the Underground."

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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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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Hillary Clinton's Radical Past

By Jonah Goldberg

Carl Bernstein has a long post up over at the Huffington Post.... Bernstein illuminates an under-discussed fact of the campaign. Hillary Clinton's ties to 1960s radicals are far more serious than Barack Obama's (no news to readers of my book). Yes, Obama knows William Ayers, and I for one think that's not insignificant. But Hillary's history with the radical left is much more profound. Bernstein is absolutely right to criticize the Clinton campaign's hypocrisy for attacking Obama about Ayers, while airbrushing her own past. But Bernstein also wants to make the case that Clinton's ties are entirely irrelevant too. His case in this regard rests almost entirely on assertion. It's just not a big deal because I say so.

The one attempt he makes to draw a meaningful distinction between 60s radicals and Hillary is that she rejects their faith in revolutionary violence. Okay. Fair enough and bully for her. But does that mean that so long as you reject radical violence in favor of "working through the system" your roots in sixties radicalism are completely irrelevant? I think many liberals would agree with Bernstein and answer, "Yes."

This is of a piece with establishment liberalism's general approach to 60s radicals like the Weathermen and the Black Panthers. They ritualistically deplore their tactics, but they quickly start spouting sympathy for their goals, even their idealism. We're told that the only real sin of these would-be revolutionaries was that they "cared too much." This was certainly the attitude of many Great Society liberals in the 1960s and I think its the attitude of countless liberal sixties-nostalgists today. But surely it says something about your views about America and politics in general if your only serious difference with Marxist radicals is one of means rather than ends.

Do I think Obama's relationship with Ayers disqualifies him for the presidency? Of course not. Do I think it says something about the milieu he emerged from? Yes I do. Likewise, I don't think Hillary's affinity for the Black Panthers nor her work at the most "important radical law firm of the day" (Bernstein's words) should disqualify her from public office. But I think Bernstein & Co.'s attempt to make any consideration of these facts into "McCarthyite" guilt-by-association is undiluted hogwash. Sixties radicals weren't just tactically misguided, their aims were wrong too. Of course not all of them. They were right about racial equality. They were out of their gourds about much else.

And, while it's not a new point, it should be noted once again, that this is hardly a standard liberals apply to conservatives. Republican politicians who have tenuous unsavory relationships and associations with various confederate, racist or otherwise "extremist" groups do not endorse violence either, and yet liberals routinely find such associations relevant. Heck, Bill Clinton tried to blame the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush Limbaugh & Co., that was real McCarthyite guilt-by-association.

Source

Andy McCarthy adds in response to the above:

Jonah, the Clinton hypocrisy grates more than usual here. One of my last cases as a federal prosecutor was a lengthy litigation to keep Weather Undergrounder Susan Rosenberg in prison serving her richly deserved 58-year sentence, imposed by a federal judge in New Jersey. (She was claiming that she was lawlessly being denied parole because of New York conduct - the infamous Brinks robbery - for which she had never been convicted.) After I finally convinced the New York federal judge not to disturb the sentence, Clinton pardoned Rosenberg and another Weather terrorists, Linda Evans (serving a 40-year sentence), on his last day in office. To get a sense of what a Clinton/Obama web this is, Bill Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn, did several months in the slammer for contempt of a grand jury subpoena - she was refusing to testify about ... Susan Rosenberg.

Source

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The Italian Revolution

Comment by Michael Ledeen

We are in Italy. Sicily, actually. And we are watching something amazing: an Italian revolution. The new Parliament, sworn in yesterday, does not have a single member who calls himself "communist." That's the first time since World War II. Gianfranco Fini, the new speaker of the House, announced that the post-war era was over, and he was entirely right. No one knows it better than he, because for most of his adult life he has been called a "fascist," and scorned by most of the writers, salon hangers-on, and politicians in the country, even though he led his right-wing party through a profound transformation from its neo-fascist past, embraced Israel, actively supported Jewish causes, and challenged the Left's ostentatious support of radical antisemitic and anti-Israel terrorists. He dissolved his own party into Berlusconi's umbrella organization, and is now one of the three most powerful politicians in the country. Wow.

There is more. In the last few days, the city of Rome fell to the Right. Once again, the leader was a former neo-fascist, Gianni Alemanno, who had abandoned the bad old ways. Alemanno defeated one of the Left's most adored icons, Francesco Rutelli, who had twice before been elected mayor of Rome and who was heavily favored to win again. But Alemanno won by a huge margin, just as Berlusconi on the national level.

Why has all this happened? Above all, it is the result of the demonstrated incompetence of the Left to govern Italy effectively, along with the usual corruption scandals, and the Left's snooty disregard for law and order, particularly regarding illegal immigrants. The people I've spoken to (in Sicily the Right also won an overwhelming victory) all basically said the same thing: the Left is a disaster, let's see if these other guys can do better. It is not an ideological transformation; it's above all a search for someone who can advance the interests of most Italians.

Source

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Green Genocide

Post below recycled from Charlie Foxtrot:

fun from Europe:

At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the “dignity” of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called “plant rights” is being seriously debated.

see-dubya at Michelle Malkin says:

Sure, you vegans thought yourselves so morally pure. But according to the Swiss government, your hands are stained with the chlorophyll of innocent beings.

So this leads me to a couple of questions...

1 - Does this make the Haitians progressive for eating dirt cookies

2 - Will it be considered a 'Crime against Horticulture' to use Ethanol in your car?

I can see the protest signs now..."Save the Plants, Burn Oil!!" However when it comes to food, I guess we will have to resort to more dramatic measures

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There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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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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A comment on Britain's new Conservative hero

By veteran British conservative columnist, William Rees-Mogg

I followed the local elections in London and in Somerset. If one had to choose a mayor of London from the characters in Shakespeare's plays, there is no doubt one would have to choose Falstaff. He combines a big personality, a shrewd intelligence, a certain reputation where women are concerned, an eye for the main chance and an enduring warmth. So far, London voters have consistently voted for the candidate who most resembled Falstaff in character; Boris Johnson is now closer than Ken Livingstone, who has never been sure whether he was playing Falstaff or Jack Cade.

The most successful mayors of New York, such as the great wartime mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, have come out of the same mould. They have given personality to a great city. I doubt if Boris will ever be called "the little flower", but he will personify London. He will also add to the innocent amusement of the nation.

I expect him to be a good mayor; he is highly intelligent, basically good-natured and a surprisingly skilful politician. David Cameron will find him a nuisance from time to time, but he will be amply rewarded in additional votes. Boris Johnson may make it fashionable to vote for the Conservatives; he makes Toryism fun.

I'm certain he will not change. He was a contemporary of members of my family when he was at Oxford; I have heard him being discussed for the past 20 years. In that time he has not changed, and I cannot see why he would change now. One can safely disregard the stark warnings of those who have never liked him. He poses no threat except to political rivals and to attractive young women of nubile age.

Boris Johnson has done something very important. He has won London for the Conservatives against the most skilful London politician since Herbert Morrison, who led Labour in London to the great 1945 victory. London is the leading city of the nation and by far the wealthiest. It is always a strong influence on British politics. London usually leans to the left, as most big cities do. Only an exceptional Conservative politician can take the lead in London and deliver the big city for his party. Boris's London victory makes an overall Conservative victory at the next election far more likely. I do not expect the Conservatives to throw that away.

Source

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Far-Left KOS sends itself up



See the yellow highlights. They were criticizing John McCain for not knowing the difference between Shias and Sunnis (He did but was unduly deferential to Joe Lieberman). But, in criticizing McCain, Kos showed above that THEY certainly did not know which was which. They actually thought that Al Qaeda was Shia! Full story at Blue Crab

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Media frauds trip themselves up

North Pole fables: "On the NBC nightly news there was a heart-throb report of an attractive British teen-ager who had skied across the North Pole with her father to demonstrate how the Arctic ice pack is receding in the face of global warming. Oh, horror. Oh, how terrible. The pictures were beautiful: Her pretty face, her gentle smile, her soft voice, her snow-crusted parka, the blue skies, the brilliant white ice, the cascading chunks of ice calving from glaciers, the two penguins standing on an ice floe.... Wait a minute. Penguins? At the North Pole? Not that we ever heard of. So much for science, as reported by NBC News. [See the video concerned here]

A commenter on the above adds: "Actual photo below from my journey to the lowland rainforests of Nepal, where the penguins have all been killed for their ivory tusks"



[For any products of a modern education reading here, the South Pole has penguins but no bears and the North pole has bears but no penguins]

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ELSEWHERE

Democrat distortions shown up: "Howard Dean made his much-anticipated appearance on Fox, and found the environment much less friendly than did Barack Obama last week. Chris Wallace pressed the DNC chair hard on the latest ads from his organization, which even the nonpartisan group Fact Check insist are distortions of John McCain's remarks on the economy and on Iraq. Dean sputters and spins, but doesn't make any headway against Wallace in this appearance. He flashes a piece of paper that supposedly contains what McCain really said, but Wallace calls his bluff and shows the whole clip. Wallace also scornfully ripostes Dean's contention that it would take "six minutes", when it only takes less than ten seconds to show how the DNC used creative editing to distort the remarks."

White farmers from Zimbabwe bring prosperity to Nigeria: "Musa Mogadi says he is better off since "the whites" came. He's got a new job, learned new farming skills, and he can chat on a mobile phone while zipping around the countryside on a motorbike. Three years ago, Mr. Mogadi got by as a subsistence farmer. But he now earns a regular wage as a supervisor on one of this town's new commercial farms. He's applied skills he learned from some of the two dozen white Zimbabwean farmers who moved to Nigeria in 2005, after being kicked off their land by President Robert Mugabe and later attracted by large parcels of land on offer under 25-year leases and commitments of support from the Nigerian government."

European middle classes getting poorer: "The European dream is under assault, as the wave of inflation sweeping the globe mixes with this continent's long-stagnant wages. Families that once enjoyed Europe's vaunted quality of life are pinching pennies to buy necessities, and cutting back on extras like movies and vacations abroad. Potentially more disturbing - especially to the political and social order - are the millions across the continent grappling with the realization that they may have lives worse, not better, than their parents.... A study by the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin found that the broad middle of the German work force, defined as workers making from 70 to 150 percent of the median income, shrunk to 54 percent of the population last year, from 62 percent in 2000."

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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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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Derb defends Darwin

John Derbyshire replies below to a post by a young Jewish writer in defence of Intelligent Design. The controversy arose from Derb's criticism of some fairly extreme statements by Jewish creationist Ben Stein (Someone whom I admire, in general).

Although I am an atheist, I myself think that it is entirely proper that schools teach BOTH Intelligent Design and evolution. As they say in boxing, "Let the best man (or theory) win"! From a purely scientific point of view, I think that there are deficiencies in both theories.

No, David. "The world is truly revealed as upside-down and backward" when intelligent young Jews sign up to the anti-science crusade. One of the best reasons to be a philosemite in our time is sheer gratitude at the disproportionate contribution Jews have made to the advance of Western civilization, and to our understanding of the world, this past two hundred years. The U.S.A. dominated the 20th century in culture and technology, to the great benefit of all mankind, in part because of the work done in math and science by the great tranche of pre-WW2 immigrant Jews from Europe.

Now you have joined up with people who want to trash the scientific enterprise and heap insults on one of the greatest names in intellectual history. For reasons unfathomable to me, you and Ben Stein want to sneer and scoff at our understandings, hard-won over centuries of arduous intellectual effort. Don't the two of you know, don't Jews of all people know, where this anti-intellectual agitation, this pandering to a superstitious mob, will lead at last? If you truly don't, I refer you to the fate of Hypatia, which you can read about in my last book (Chapter 3), or in Gibbon (Chapter XLVII). Your new pals at the Discovery Institute no doubt think Hypatia got what she deserved. Civilization is a thin veneer, David. Reason and science are bulwarks against the dark.

I am sure you know the fine speech that Robert Bolt put in the mouth of Sir Thomas More, but "people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed":

More: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: (Roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on Roper) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Bolt's More understood a thing you and Stein don't understand, the thing that Waugh credited Kipling with understanding in that quote I posted earlier in the week, and that Adolf Hitler (hey, you started the reductio ad Hitlerum), in his own way, and of course from the other side of the Wall, also understood. You and Stein are playing a dangerous game, a game that Jews should be the very last to play. The ADL, for all its faults, at least understands that.

I really, seriously wonder how much of a future the U.S.A. has. We are sinking into a bog of mediocrity, frivolity, superstition, and ignorance. When even Jews join the parade of folly, it's hard to keep hoping.

Yesterday (thanks! to a generous friend who got me in) I had the colossal privilege of watching Kurt Masur conduct Anne-Sophie Mutter in rehearsal. While Tchaikovsky's wonderful music filled the hall I found myself thinking, as I always do: How long shall we have this? How long will it last? How long before it is all swallowed up in the great grinning, jeering maw of hip-hop, the worship of worthless "celebrities," reality TV, Oprahified politics, and "intelligent design" - junk religion meets junk science? How long have we got?

Our civilization is on the way out. I hope it at least outlives me, but I am less and less sure it will. I'll be damned if I won't go down fighting, though.

Source

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Tony Blair: "You didn't realize how much you needed me"?



Rightward movement in both London and Rome: "In less than a week the major political parties of the Right in Britain and Italy scored unprecedented electoral victories by winning mayoral races in Rome and then in London. Since the end of the Second World War, the Right had never controlled those two offices. To grasp what this means, consider that "Londonistan" is the title of an excellent book by Melanie Phillips which warns of the descent of that great city into a radical Moslem polity. The citizens of Londonistan have chosen an iconoclastic Conservative Party leader, Boris Johnson, who has campaigned on the need to reduce crime in London and who has condemned the academic boycott of Israel by British universities as "disgusting and one sided." Although Johnson is more an offbeat moderate than a strong conservative, in Londonistan the change is dramatic and sweeping compared to what it had been before. His defeated opponent, "Red Ken" Livingston, was a blatant fan of every Marxist thug and radical Moslem in the world."

[There is a good humorous piece by Boris Johnson here]

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ELSEWHERE

How Many Communists Does It Take to Discredit an Anti-War Movement? "Not In Our Name (NION) is a group of people who sit around writing paranoid diatribes about the Bush administration with campy names like "Pledge of Resistance" and "Statement of Conscience." They collect signatures from celebrities and professional radicals, then publish the things in big, expensive newspaper ads. Then everyone involved pretends like they've just done something courageous and heroic. NION's money shot was the "Statement of Conscience," which they claim has been signed by over 15,000 people. Those courageous signatories include Angela Davis, two-time vice-presidential candidate on the Communist Party ticket; unindicted traitor Jane Fonda; convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal; and left-wing usual suspects like Ed Asner, Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon, Al Sharpton, Martin Sheen, Gloria Steinem, and Gore Vidal. Oh, and Yoko Ono. Nobody gives a movement credibility like Yoko Ono! The folks at NION aren't content just to write self-indulgent "pledges" and "statements." They also have an "activist" arm, the Not In Our Name Project, which organizes "anti-war" demonstrations."

Hillary's Jobs Ad Shows Indiana Plant Closed By Bill Clinton: "U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton stood in a Washington Township gymnasium last month and publicly said President George W. Bush was forcing the American military to rely on "Chinese spare parts" by allowing the sale of a Valparaiso defense contractor. But fresh questions are being raised in the wake of Hillary's much-publicized comments questioning why Bush failed to stop Chinese investors from moving Magnequench to China and closing the Northwest Indiana plant. For example, if the sale of the company to Chinese investors was going to jeopardize national security, why did President Bill Clinton's administration approve it in 1995? Magnequench made the sophisticated magnets needed to guided "smart bombs." Today, bomb-makers have to buy the magnets from the Chinese."

Happy 60th birthday to Israel: "Melanie Phillips says that the prosperity and growing cultural confidence of Israel is a fitting riposte to the Western intelligentsia, American meddling and the daily propaganda assault that ignores the Islamisation of the Palestinians. Indeed, much of the responsibility for these six decades of conflict lie with a Western world which, from 1921 onwards, has chosen to appease Arab violence while shedding crocodile tears over its Jewish victims. But the future of Israel is the future of the West. If the front line in Israel were to go down, the West would be next. Given its current internal appeasement of Islamism, however, the West may go down anyway. At least Israel knows it has to fight to survive. As a result, in 60 years' time it will still be there. Can the same be said for Britain or Europe?"

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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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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Triumph for truth! New York Governor signs law protecting residents against suits in foreign courts

New York state fought back today against terrorism apologists who have used foreign libel laws to silence opponents as Gov. David Paterson signed a law granting protections under the First Amendment. The Libel Terrorism Protection Act was inspired by New York-based author Rachel Ehrenfeld's battle with a British court over her 2003 book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Funded and How to Stop It."

New York officials said the law will make it more difficult for "libel tourists" to threaten authors and publishers with foreign libel suits. It bars enforcement of a libel judgment in foreign courts unless a New York court determines the decision is consistent with the free speech and free press protections guaranteed by the U.S. and New York state constitutions. "New Yorkers must be able to speak out on issues of public concern without living in fear that they will be sued outside the United States, under legal standards inconsistent with our First Amendment rights," said Paterson. "This legislation will help ensure the freedoms enjoyed by New York authors."

Britain's libel law has been used in a number of instances against writers who speak out against international terrorism. As WND reported, Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz filed suit against Ehrenfeld after she named him in her New York-published book as a funder of Islamic charities that supported terrorism. She asserts there are more than 10 lawsuits outstanding by numerous plaintiffs in the U.S. claiming billions of dollars in damages from Mahfouz's alleged involvement in financing the 9/11 attack of the World Trade Center. Only 23 copies of her book were sold in the United Kingdom, but Mahfouz took advantage of the country's liberal laws and filed the suit there, charging damage to his reputation.

The British court issued a $225,000 judgment against Ehrenfeld after she refused to appear, on advice of her counsel in Britain. The author then sought a judgment in New York declaring the British decision unenforceable in the U.S., because her work is protected under American law. The New York Court of Appeals ruled Ehrenfeld's suit could not be heard under state law unless legislature made changes. Paterson, who succeeded disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer last month, urged the federal government to take similar action.

"Although New York state has now done all it can to protect our authors while they live in New York, they remain vulnerable if they move to other states, or if they have assets in other states," said Paterson. "We really need Congress and the president to work together and enact federal legislation that will protect authors throughout the country against the threat of foreign libel judgments."

State Sen. Dean G. Skelos noted "the truth is a critically-important component of the war on terror." "American authors, like Dr. Ehrenfeld, who expose terrorist networks and their financiers should not be subject to intimidation and lawsuits in foreign courts designed to circumvent our First Amendment rights," he said. "This is important legislation, and I thank Governor Paterson for signing it into law."

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Boris! "Britain's Labour Party has suffered its worst local election defeat on record and lost control of London, forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next national election. Conservative Boris Johnson, a journalist-turned-politician prone to gaffes, wrested the prized post of London mayor from Labour's maverick Ken Livingstone, who has run the capital since 2000. After an often bad-tempered campaign, Mr Johnson paid tribute to Mr Livingstone as a "distinguished leader" of the city, singling out his efforts after the Tube and bus bombings in 2005. He promised to those who did not vote for him to "work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me". To those who did vote for him, he said: "I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence." ... Mr Johnson will be in charge of an $23.31 billion budget covering public transport, police and fire services in a city of some 7.5 million people. He will oversee preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games and be responsible for promoting policies on housing, the environment and the economy in Europe's biggest financial centre."

Navy Announces Commissioning of Submarine North Carolina : "The Navy's newest attack submarine North Carolina will be commissioned Saturday, May 3, during a 10 a.m. EDT ceremony at Port of Wilmington in Wilmington, N.C. Designated SSN 777, the fourth submarine of the Virginia-class will bear the name North Carolina to honor the Tar Heel State. The submarine will be the fourth ship of the U.S. Navy to bear the name North Carolina. The Virginia-class is designed and built to fulfill all current warfighting requirements and provides the Navy with the capabilities required to maintain the nation's undersea supremacy well into the 21st century. Equally adept at operating in the world's shallow littoral regions and deep waters, North Carolina and her sister ships will significantly contribute to the mission areas of anti-submarine warfare; anti-surface warfare; special operations forces; strike; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; battle group support; and mine warfare. Capt. Mark E. Davis, a native of upstate New York, will become the ship's first commanding officer and will lead a crew of approximately 134 officers and enlisted personnel. North Carolina will be homeported in Groton, Conn., as a member of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. The 7,800-ton North Carolina was built under a teaming arrangement between Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Electric Boat."

High taxes are for others, not Leftists -- the Metzenbaum story: "Though a lifelong Ohioan, the Senator moved to Florida in 2002, according to a declaration of domicile filed with the Broward County Clerk's office in 2003. In doing so, he avoided paying his home state's income tax (top rate: 6.55%). More important as he neared the end of his life, the former Senator also saved his family from paying Ohio's death tax, which features one of the highest state rates (7%) and lowest asset thresholds - $338,333 - in the country. Florida famously has no income or estate tax, which is one reason other than the climate that it is home to so many northern-born retirees. Howard Metzenbaum thus denied the state in which he lived most of his life a parting financial gift. But he has at least provided the rest of us with a teaching moment in tax policy. If a liberal lion like Metzenbaum is willing to relocate late in life to avoid his state's death tax, maybe living politicians in Ohio will better understand how their confiscatory tax laws are driving its citizens to warmer climes."

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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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 vast hypocrisy of "There's no such thing as right and wrong" -- again

When Leftists say, "There's no such thing as right and wrong", they are normally referring to moral judgments. They use that formula when confronted with something as uncomfortable as their unwavering support for murderous Communists and Muslims. And, as such, it is a transparent fraud. They themselves reveal that such talk is at best a tantrum by going on themselves to use the language of right and wrong to condemn "intolerance", "Zionists" or the Iraq war etc. Talk of right and wrong is meaningless when conservatives use it but highly meaningful when Leftists use it, apparently. To call such reasoning "sophomoric" is to praise it too highly.

Under the rubric of "postmoderninsm", they also however extend their condemnation of "right and wrong" to statements of fact. If anyone presents facts that conflict with Leftist beliefs they evade it in various ways. One stratagem is to say that that is just "your reality" etc. Or if some fact upsets some theory that they are wedded to, they simply deny the fact in some way -- often by ad hominem arguments such as saying that the person presenting the pesky fact is "in the pay of big oil" -- or some other totally discreditable stratagem that tells you no more than that the Leftist does not want to believe the fact concerned.

And the latest example of convenience as a criterion for truth is the amazing spectacle of Pastor Wright claiming that blacks and whites have inherently different brains. He has famously said that:

"Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality," he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. "Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style, ....They have a different way of learning."

or as Heather Macdonald summarizes:

At the NAACP meeting, Wright proudly propounded the racist contention that blacks have inherently different "learning styles," correctly citing as authority for this view Janice Hale of Wayne State University. Pursuing a Ph.D. by logging long hours in the dusty stacks of a library, Wright announced, is "white." Blacks, by contrast, cannot sit still in class or learn from quiet study, and they have difficulty learning from "objects"-books, for example-but instead learn from "subjects," such as rap lyrics on the radio. These differences are neurological, according to Hale and Wright: whites use what Wright referred to as the "left-wing, logical, and analytical" side of their brains, whereas blacks use their "right brain," which is "creative and intuitive."

Most people have reacted very adversely to these utterances -- recognizing how far outside the mainstream they are. But I think that there may be something in what he has said. The behavioural differences between blacks and whites are plain to any honest observer and that the differences might have a genetic basis is entirely in accord with what the scientific literature keeps telling us about the vast influence of genetics.

I myself have also been saying for decades that black and white brains are different -- but I have been rewarded for that by being figuratively cast into outer darkness -- even by other conservatives. Anybody who mentions the plain psychometric fact that blacks are on average of much lower intelligence and that the difference is hereditary is completely outside the pale of civilization. To accept the lie that there are NO important genetic differences between the races is not just the conventional wisdom: It is a necessary passport to being acceptable and respectable in polite society. And rejecting that lie is even worse than rejecting global warming!

As Dr Goebbels knew, a big lie is often more plausible than the plain scientific facts and those of us who draw attention to the facts can easily be marginalized. Perhaps fortunately, most of the lies, deceptions and legends that I campaign against are in the medical field -- where the fate of the skeptic is mostly to be ignored rather than being stigmatized. But all the lies, deceptions and accepted myths concerned are very harmful to people. I would not bother about them otherwise.

So how come Pastor Wright can say the opposite of what is normally regarded as correct about race to thunderous applause at a NAACP convention? Simple: To a Leftist, the truth of a statement depends entirely on the use to which it is put. If a statement about an inborn difference seems to be derogatory to a favoured group (Leftists are so mentally limited that they think almost entirely in terms of groups) then that statement is WRONG. But if it defends the deviant actions of the same group it is RIGHT.

Leftists really do mean it when they say that there is no such thing as right and wrong -- absurd though that it. I guess that they do know deep down that there are real truth differences but truth is very subordinate to their political convenience. It just does not matter. They have no regard for truth at all. Truth is what is expedient. Manipulating people has priority over all else.

Ed Morrissey has also noted the hypocrisy in the response to Pastor Wright's claims.

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ELSEWHERE

The incoherence of Democrat energy policy : "The Democrats' domestic policies are an incoherent jumble: they want lower gasoline and heating oil prices, but they block the very things, oil drilling and the construction of new refineries, that would actually reduce them. At the same time, for reasons of "climate change," they want less consumption of oil and gas, which implies higher, not lower, prices. None of this makes any sense; the Democrats are just hoping that no one notices between now and November."

Slower growth is not a recession: "Despite all the doom and gloom, America is not in a recession, in fact, according to our rule of economics, "if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession. That, however, didn't happen in the last recession in 2001", and it isn't happening now. Soaring gas prices, higher food prices, and a sputtering job market aren't helping things but since the Democrat presidential candidates, in an effort to differentiate themselves from President Bush, chose the economy as a topic to beat on, well, if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it."

It's Not All About Hillary : "So Hillary was on O'Reilly last night (and again tonight), and apparently was somewhat impressive. So much so that some on the conservative side of the aisle might even view her as acceptable. Heck some obscure internet pundits have declared that she might possibly be the "most uncompromising wartime President in U.S. history" (should that be 'herstory'?). That may well be true, I dunno. But I want to say this to all conservatives who think that perhaps things wouldn't be so bad if she were to get the nomination and then win the election.... This election ain't all about the war, and this election ain't all about Hillary. The election is about all the issues, and the election is about all the people she would bring into the administration with her. It has been proven time and again that a President is limited in what he actually *can* do. It is the politicos who are brought in to take over the vast federal bureaucracies and establish/implement their policies that are the ones who can do the most good....or the most damage. So if you think that Hillary as a tough talking, uncompromising wartime president is acceptable, than you had better be ready to accept all the liberal and leftist activists who are going to take over leadership positions in Justice, Education, Immigration and Customs Enforcement , HHS, EPA, OMB, DHS, Defense, CIA, etc...."

Leftists lose big in Britain: "Gordon Brown is facing pressure from Labour MPs for a change in direction after a nightmare at the polls which saw the party slump to its worst results for four decades. With results still coming in from England and Wales overnight, Labour’s projected national vote share has been put at just 24 per cent, trailing 20 points behind David Cameron’s Conservatives on 44 per cent and beaten into third place by the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent. The margin was similar to the drubbing received by John Major in council elections in 1995, two years before he was ejected from Downing Street by Tony Blair. Latest analysis suggests that the Tories would enjoy a landslide Commons majority of between 138 and 164 seats if the results were repeated in a general election."

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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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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Remove the Democrat fingers from the throat of energy production

What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely. The truth is that we're almost powerless to influence today's prices. We are because we didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both "energy independence" and cheap fuel. They deplore imports -- who wants to pay foreigners? -- but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a "no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality," writes Robert Bryce in "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence.' "

Unsurprisingly, all three major presidential candidates tout "energy independence." This reflects either ignorance (unlikely) or pandering (probable). The United States imports about 60 percent of its oil, up from 42 percent in 1990. We'll import lots more for the foreseeable future. The world uses 86 million barrels of oil a day, up from 67 mbd in 1990. The basic cause of exploding prices is that advancing demand has virtually exhausted the world's surplus production capacity, says analyst Douglas MacIntyre of the Energy Information Administration. Combined with a stingy OPEC, the result is predictable: Any unexpected rise in demand or threat to supply triggers higher prices....

On environmental grounds, the alternatives to more drilling are usually worse. Subsidies for ethanol made from corn have increased food prices and used scarce water, with few benefits. If oil is imported, it's vulnerable to tanker spills. By contrast, local production is probably safer. There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America's Future Energy, an advocacy group.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Dire warnings of an economic collapse plague the US economy: The cause of the current economic problems is very simple: Bad economics. Instead of closely examining the monetary theory that got us into this mess economists have started playing the blame game
Inflation v. unemployment?: Critics of a fight inflation first policy are committing a serious and inexcusable error. The unemployment they are attacking is not the cost of fighting inflation at all - it is the price that must be paid for having inflation
The real costs of the greens' carbon tax: Considering the amount of anti-warming evidence that is accumulating, I think people are entitled to question the motives of those who are using hysterical language to try and bulldoze us into adopting policies that would savage our living standards while simultaneously increasing government control over our lives
Obama's Academia Nuts: William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn bombed New York City police headquarters in June 1970, the U.S. Capitol Building in March 1971 and the Pentagon in May 1972. Ayers stated on Sept. 11, 2001: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough". Despite the vicious record of this unrepentant terrorist Obama picked him as a friend and adviser. That tells us what Obama really thinks about America
Obama, Clinton and capitalism: It's OK for them, but nobody else: Although Obama has done extremely well for himself in our free-market economy he still has the 'audacity' to demonize others who have done well for themselves, and to propose economic policies that, if implemented, would radically change our nation into something more akin to a Western European socialist state
The future you save might be your own: Instead of forcing curly cue light bulbs upon us and ethanol, with some initial government assistance legislatively and financially we could tap into a virtually limitless (at least for several hundred years) supply of coal to produce oil

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ELSEWHERE

Media support voter fraud: "On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, upheld Indiana's requirement that voters present photo identification before casting ballots. Yesterday the Associated Press published a dispatch titled "Advocates: Voter ID Ruling May Disenfranchise US Voters." It ran 15 paragraphs, required two reporters (Deborah Hastings got the byline; David Lieb "contributed"), and was totally one-sided, offering not a single argument in favor of voter ID requirements. It's possible that the AP did another dispatch titled "Advocates: Voter ID Ruling Helps Prevent Fraud," or some such, but we couldn't find it in a Factiva search."

Clinton blasts Bush for not stopping a project that Bill OK'd: "Hillary Clinton loves to tell the story about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China. It's a story with a dramatic, political ending. Republican President George W. Bush could have stopped it, but he didn't. If she were president, Clinton says, she'd fight to protect those jobs. It's just the kind of talk that's helping her win support from working-class Democrats worried about their jobs and paychecks, not to mention their country's security. What Clinton never includes in the oft-repeated tale is the role that prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company or that the sale was approved by her husband's administration."

Democrat Congress loves rich farmers: "Prominent Los Altos developer John Vidovich and various family members in the Sandridge Partnership of Sunnyvale were the nation's biggest recipients of automatic government payments to farmers last year, receiving more than $1 million, according to a new analysis of federal data by Environmental Working Group. Known as direct payments, the subsidies go mainly to big farms growing a handful of crops. In the Sandridge case, that is mostly cotton, wheat and peanuts grown on farms controlled by the partnership in the Central Valley. Vidovich did not return a call for comment. More than $5 billion in direct payments are made each year to growers of corn, wheat, rice, cotton and a few other crops based on past production, regardless of market conditions or even whether the crops are still grown. The payments are heavily weighted to the biggest producers, with the top 10 percent getting two-thirds of the subsidies."

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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

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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Another hit at the self esteem myth

The absurd idea that high self-esteem is a universal good thing (contrasting with the Christian message of the importance of humility) has already been extensively debunked (See e.g. here and here and here) but the study below offers some refinements. The comments about people with fragile self-esteem seem particularly apt. I have long identified preachers of Leftism as having high but fragile self esteem -- or "large but weak egos", as I usually put it

Oscar Levant, a mid-century pianist, film star and wit, once watched noted keyboardist and composer George Gershwin spend an evening playing his own music at a party and clearly having a great time. "Tell me, George," Levant said, somewhat jealously, "if you have it to do all over again would you still fall in love with yourself""

Increasingly, psychologists are looking at such behavior and saying out loud what may go against the grain of how many people act: high self-esteem is not the same thing as healthy self-esteem. And new research by a psychology professor from the University of Georgia is adding another twist: those with "secure" high self-esteem are less likely to be verbally defensive than those who have "fragile" high self-esteem. "There are many kinds of high self-esteem, and in this study we found that for those in which it is fragile and shallow it's no better than having low self-esteem," said Michael Kernis. "People with fragile high self-esteem compensate for their self-doubts by engaging in exaggerated tendencies to defend, protect and enhance their feelings of self-worth." The research was published today in the Journal of Personality. Kernis's co-authors are Chad Lakey and Whitney Heppner, both doctoral students in the UGA social psychology program.

Amid the complexity of perspectives on the human psyche, a slow but relentless change is occurring in how psychologists view self-esteem, said Kernis. It was once thought that more self-esteem necessarily is better self-esteem. In recent years, however, high self-esteem per se has come under attack on several fronts, especially in areas such as aggressive behavior. Also, individuals with high self-esteem sometimes become very unlikable when others or events threaten their egos.

While high self-esteem is still generally valued as a good quality that is important to a happy and productive life, more researchers are breaking it down into finer gradations and starting to understand when high self-esteem turns from good to bad. In fact, it is now thought that there are multiple forms of high self-esteem, only some of which consistently relate to positive psychological functioning.

One of the ways in which high self-esteem can turn bad is when it is accompanied by verbal defensiveness-lashing out at others when a person's opinions, beliefs, statements or values are threatened. So Kernis and his colleagues designed a study, reported in the current article, to see if respondents whose self-esteem is "fragile" were more verbally defensive than those whose self-esteem was "secure."

Using 100 undergraduates, they set up a study in three phases. In the first part, students completed a basic demographic questionnaire and other measures to evaluate their levels and other aspects of self-esteem. In phase 2, the team assessed the students' stability of self-esteem because the more unstable or variable one's self-esteem, the more fragile it is. And finally, in the last phase, the researchers conducted a structured "life experiences interview" to measure what they call "defensive verbalization."

"Our findings offer strong support for a multi-component model of self-esteem that highlights the distinction between its fragile and secure forms," said Kernis. "Individuals with low self-esteem or fragile high self-esteem were more verbally defensive than individuals with secure high self-esteem. One reason for this is that potential threats are in fact more threatening to people with low or fragile high self-esteem than those with secure high self-esteem, and so they work harder to counteract them." On the other hand, individuals with secure high self-esteem appear to accept themselves "warts and all," and, feeling less threatened, they are less likely to be defensive by blaming others or providing excuses when they speak about past transgressions or threatening experiences.

One reason the study's findings are important, Kernis said, is that it shows that greater verbal defensiveness relates to lower psychological well-being and life satisfaction. "These findings support the view that heightened defensiveness reflects insecurity, fragility and less-than-optimal functioning rather than a healthy psychological outlook," said Kernis. "We aren't suggesting there's something wrong with people when they want to feel good about themselves. What we are saying is that when feeling good about themselves becomes a prime directive, for these people excessive defensiveness and self-promotion are likely to follow, the self-esteem is likely to be fragile rather than secure and any psychological benefits will be very limited."

Source

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Some truths about McCain that are stranger than fiction

Excerpts from an account by Karl Rove -- retelling what wartime comrades of McCain have related to him

Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple." The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place. Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners. Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "and sounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.

Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can't raise his arms over his head. One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted to meet was that guard.

Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn't corruptible then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptible today."

More here

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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

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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Genocide in Pajamas

There seem to be very few defenders of comprehensive freedom of speech. The Left defend their right to say their stuff and attack the rights of others while Christians attack "obscene" speech and often lose in defending their own speech. The end result is that everybody feels somewhat restricted in what they can say. Even I do, libertarian though I am. Just to make sure that Google does not take any of my sites down, I always use the form "n*gger" if I have to discuss that word, for instance. I must say that I do not really understand why that small change -- which fools nobody -- makes such a big difference, but it seems to.

And what are we to make of the brave conservative bloggers at Pajamas Media? They have just expelled Gates of Vienna from their organization for using the "G-word": "genocide". GoV is a site that is devoted to defending Western civilization against Muslim attack and they frequently warn against what could happen in the future. One of the scenarios that they warned against recently was the eruption of outright war between Muslims and others in Europe, with one possible outcome of that being genocide of Muslims. The entire aim of GoV is of course to avert any such war by taking action now to defend our freedoms from attack.

GoV was quite clearly, therefore, NOT arguing for a genocide against Muslims -- quite the opposite. It aims to prevent that. But the mention of the G-word in the same sentence as a reference to Muslims was just impermissible speech to Pajamas media. What wimps and wusses they are! They have surrendered. They are doing the job of the Muslims and their Leftist allies for them. I doubt that I will ever again read or link to any of their sites. You will note that I have not done so here.

GoV have themselves been very magnanimous about the matter and have said that the Bananas in Pajamas had every right to do what they did. Undoubtedly they do but what does it say about their character or the value of reading them? Do drop by at GoV and give them what support you can.

Nationalism resurgent

With widespread ill-effects -- like food and oil shortages

The world isn't as flat as it used to be. During the long march toward globalization, international borders and trade barriers came down. Communism fell. Protectionist walls in Latin America and elsewhere were dismantled. Governments -- long prone to meddling in trade -- took a back seat to broader market forces. In a globalization manifesto, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman declared that the Internet and other planet-spanning technologies were erasing national boundaries. The world, he said in a 2005 best seller, was flat.

No longer. The global economy appears to be entering an epoch in which governments are reasserting their role in the lives of individuals and businesses. Once again, barriers are rising. Call it the new nationalism. "The era of easy globalization is certainly over," says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, whose 1998 book, "The Commanding Heights," detailed the triumph of markets over nations, starting with British deregulation under Margaret Thatcher. "The power of the state is reasserting itself."

Just a decade ago, Asia, Latin America and Russia were on financial life support from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The U.S. was planning yet another round of global trade negotiations. The European Union was writing a constitution to shift power to Brussels from member nations. Now borrowers shun the IMF and World Bank. Trade talks are shelved. Barriers to foreign investment are rising around the world. State-owned companies are expanding, particularly in oil and gas. Public support of immigration restrictions is growing in countries from the U.S. to India.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

"Moderate" Muslim antisemitism: "Malaysian Muslim groups have called for protests when Chelsea football club visits in July because the coach, Avram Grant, and a player are Israeli. An alliance of 21 Muslim groups is angry the Malaysian authorities have given permission for the Israelis to visit the country with the London club. Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, and the Malay Muslim majority is strongly pro-Palestinian. Malaysian citizens are banned by their government from visiting Israel."

UK: Elections "vulnerable to fraud": "Elections in the UK fall short of international standards with the system vulnerable to fraud, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust claims.Measures to improve choice for voters -- such as postal and electronic voting -- are actually risking the integrity of the electoral process, it said."

Multicultural nonsense: "The intellectually fascinating feature of multiculturalism is just how incoherent it quickly becomes. If one fails to accept multiculturalism, well then one is acting badly; but if one accepts multiculturalism, then no one can be blamed for anything at all since from some, however obtuse, cultural standpoint any conduct can be 'justified.' It would be far more enlightened to figure out some basic standards of human morality and then apply them to any society and culture carefully. The nihilism of refusing to judge is simply unavoidable to us -- even that refusal is a judgment and in need of rational support."

The lazy British police: "A family who dialled 999 when eight men wearing balaclavas burst into their home at 11.15pm were told by the police that they were too busy to come. Mathew Sims, 24, his partner Sarah Barham, also 24, and their two children, aged 6 and 5, ran upstairs when the men, one brandishing an axe, smashed the glass in a door that Mr Sims was trying to keep closed. Eventually the burglars left in two cars after stripping the downstairs rooms of electrical items. Three hours later the police turned up at the house - barely a mile from a police station - in Arnold, Nottinghamshire. Mr Sims said: "The minute we knew these people were in the house we rang the police, but they said it would be at least half an hour before they could come out. "No one from the police had turned up half an hour later, and when we rang again they said there was no one they could send." In a letter to the couple, Chief Inspector Andy Burton said that they deserved an apology and confirmed that an inquiry was under way." [If he had said that somebody had called him a queer, they would have been right out]

UN corruption again: "The United Nations has been accused of covering up allegations that its peacekeepers traded gold, ivory and arms with violent rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Confidential sources told the the BBC that Pakistani and Indian troops were implicated in arms deals. It is the latest scandal to hit the UN's mission to the DRC, where soldiers and officials have been accused of repeated sexual misconduct. The UN said that it investigated the accusations last year but could find no evidence that troops had supplied arms to militias. But the 18-month investigation by the BBC Panorama programme concluded that such deals had taken place, and that UN staff had been told not to pursue their investigations for fear of upsetting Pakistan - the biggest contributor of peacekeepers."

Proposed Mortgage Regulations Prompt Opposition: "The mortgage industry, facing the prospect of tougher regulations for its central role in the housing crisis, has begun an intensive campaign to fight back. As the Federal Reserve completes work on rules to root out abuses by lenders, its plan has run into a buzz saw of criticism from bankers, mortgage brokers and other parts of the housing industry. One common industry criticism is that at a time of tight credit, tighter rules could make many mortgages more expensive by creating more paperwork and potentially exposing lenders to more lawsuits."

Russian mafia trades weapons for Afghan poppies: "The heroin flooding Britain's streets is threatening the lives of UK troops in Afghanistan, an Independent investigation can reveal. Russian gangsters who smuggle drugs into Britain are buying cheap heroin from Afghanistan and paying for it with guns. Smugglers told The Independent how Russian arms dealers meet Taliban drug lords at a bazaar near the old Afghan-Soviet border, deep in Tajikistan's desert. The bazaar exists solely to trade Afghan drugs for Russian guns - and sometimes a bit of sex on the side. The drugs are destined for Britain's streets. The guns go straight to the Taliban front line. The weapons on sale include machine guns, sniper rifles and anti-aircraft weapons like the ones used in the attempt to assassinate the Afghan President Hamid Karzai last weekend."

Indiana 1, Vote Fraud 0: "You have to show a photo ID to buy beer or smokes. Now you have to show a photo ID to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold an Indiana law aimed at ending voter fraud. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the decision. Stevens said the law “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process’.” “We cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters,” Stevens said. Indeed, the 2 plaintiffs who sued include a snowbird who was registered to vote in both Florida and Indiana. She was refused permission to vote in Indiana because she flashed her Florida driver’s license. In short, the law works."

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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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 Moment of Truth for the Left has Arrived

If you haven't listened to Jeremiah Wright's hate sermons at Hugh Hewitt's website, you must do so. Every American with open eyes and ears has to listen to the voice of racial hatred, coming not from the Klan but from a clergyman of the Christian Left. Reading his words isn't enough, because you won't hear the unmistakable meaning of his vocal intonations. If you are a person of good will you will feel upset. But it's of the utmost importance to understand this moment of truth.

Because Jeremiah Wright -- the respectful word "Reverend" seems grotesquely out of place now -- is shouting out the slander catechism of the Left. His sermons say exactly what other Leftists say in calm voices, over and over again. Mr. Wright just does it with real, raw hatred, and every new slam is cheered on by his jubilant congregation. His is not a lone voice. He just sings the music to fit the words.

We have been nursing a viper in our national bosom. Seven years after September 11, 2001, this is the moment of truth, when the Left must finally decide what side it's on. Wright's sermons may signal the end of the Obama campaign, and they may mean the breakup of the Democratic Party as we know it. I don't see how any centrist Democrat can still belong to this party if Obama is its nominee. Jeremiah Wright may mean the historical end of the Civil Rights Era, because fifty years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Left's presumption of victimhood and innocence is now gone.

The Rev is only the visible bulge of this lethal political tumor. This is Saul Alinsky's sociopathic teachings on display, and this is what Hillary Clinton learned back at Wellesley College. It is the voice of feminists who hate all men, and of radicalized blacks who hate all whites.

Hate mongers collect injustices. If you and I did that, we could collect an endless laundry list about all the bad things somebody did to us. Maybe we have been hurt by men, or by women. Maybe we have been hurt by rich people, or by the angry poor. Maybe we have been hurt by Jews or blacks or whites, and we can put all our built-up rage on their heads. It's been done many times in the human past; that's exactly the psychology we see at work in Africa, the former Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, and various Muslim nations (among others), when explosive massacres take place. Mob psychology has been manipulated by demagogues throughout history. This is simply the another version of the Kluxers and Jim Crow lynch mobs. Today I see that psychology clearly enough on the Left, but outside of the ranting rooms of verifiable paranoids I don't see it many other places in this country....

For Jeremiah Wright, the enemy comes with a white skin. He has taken historical injustices and turned them into a lifelong call for vengeance. This is the official doctrine of Black Liberation Theology, and it is freely supported by powerful institutions on the religious Left. BLT's founder, Dr. Jim Cone, is a professor of systematic theology at the Union Theological Seminary. It's utterly bizarre but true.

So the entire American body politic has a festering sore on its hands. This will not go away by itself. It will not be bought off by more money. It must be repudiated by the sensible Left, if it is still there. Just as William F. Buckley denounced the anti-Semites on the right, and sensible Americans rejected segregation and the Klan, just as American unions expelled Stalinist unions from the AFL-CIO, the time has come for the decent Left to draw a bright line in the sand, and keep the hate mongers out.

More here

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Good humour from GWB

At the recent White House dinner:

"Senator McCain's not here," Bush said of GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain. "He probably wanted to distance himself from me a little bit. You know, he's not alone. Jenna's moving out too."

Bush then referred to scandals that have dogged the campaigns of the two remaining Democratic candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, in explaining their absence: "Hillary Clinton couldn't get in because of sniper fire and Senator Obama's at church."

Jenna is, of course, getting married. One of the other three is going to have to learn their comedy timing for next year's event.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Blacks honour black hatred: "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright gave a sermon this morning at the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas. He received a standing ovation. FOX News reported: "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the embattled pastor of presidential candidate Barack Obama, gave a 45-minute sermon on Sunday that included a reference to his "public crucifixion" for past comments from the pulpit. Wright received a standing ovation from the 4,000 worshippers at Friendship-West Baptist Church, The Dallas Morning News reported on its Web site." Al Sharpton was an honored guest at the church earlier in the month. [Wright was indeed crucified -- by his own words]

Different But Equal? "Jake Tapper tells us about Jeremiah Wright's speech to the NAACP: "The bulk of his remarks addressed, however, different groups seeing each other as deficient. He acted out the differences between marching bands at predominantly black and predominantly white colleges. "Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality," he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. "Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style," he said. "They have a different way of learning." And so on. I am trying to imagine the reaction if a white figure announced that black brains were different."

Hamas blocks fuel supplies for Gaza: "Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip on Sunday attacked fuel trucks headed toward the Nahal Oz border crossing, forcing them to turn back, sources in the Palestinian Petroleum Authority said. The fuel was supposed to go to the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the sources said. "Dozens of Hamas militiamen hurled stones and opened fire at the trucks," the sources added. "The trucks were on their way to receive fuel supplied by Israel. The drivers were forced to turn back. Some of them had their windshields smashed." The Palestinian Petroleum Authority reached an agreement with Israel over the weekend to receive 250,000 liters of fuel after UNRWA complained that it did not have enough fuel to distribute food aid to more than 500,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

A conservative cannot be African? "Barack Obama's autobiography makes the "African-American" section in the Barnes & Noble on M Street in Georgetown. Clarence Thomas's autobiography does not. Wonder how that decision was made."

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 and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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

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

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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