Why You Should Oppose 'Economic Development'

Economic development seems quite the fashionable occupation in many state and municipal circles these days, and why not? Who can argue with efforts by the government to bring in new business, to facilitate job creation, and bolster the tax base? That's what government is for, right?

But lost amidst the litany of public sector truisms is a glaring disassociation between goals and objectives. Economic development is a term so overused, so vague, and so misunderstood that its employment in public discourse has become the convenient wildcard for government to impose its various, indeterminable designs. Have a hankering for a new waterfront? Issue bonds and call it economic development. Looking to lower unemployment? Wield public funds to subsidize otherwise wary corporations into setting up shop for a little while. But what is it we're really trying to accomplish? It stands to reason that the impulse for myriad economic development programs - implemented for their own sake - might be supplanting long-proven policies of economic growth. In a sense, we're losing sight of the forest for the trees.

Unfortunately, all too often, folks with policy-making responsibility are either foreign or indifferent to the differences between development and growth: whereas development represents the byproduct of economic strength - effective infrastructure, bolstering human capital, and strong employment - growth is the traditionally prescribed, and proven, mechanism for putting dollars in our pockets, allowing the markets to naturally stimulate development. Id est, after economic growth may follow expansion, higher tax revenues, increased employment, and more investment. Instead, political interests have attempted to cut out that critical ingredient from the picture and leapfrog onto development, hoping that public monies can be applied to create the veneer of growth, of economic health. And all too often, the result is problematic economic consequences and an over-drafted bank account, resulting in elevated clamor for new taxes, more federal and state aid, and - ironically - more economic development programs.

Such is the case today. Here's a dirty little secret about economic development: across the United States, there is a depressing correlation between the incidence of economic development programs and low levels of economic growth. That's right - statistically, the more economic development programs you have in your state, the more likely it is to be mired in sclerotic annual growth levels. Is this just chance? Maybe, but probably not.

A perfect example of this phenomenon is tiny, proudly anti-tax Delaware. A feisty little state of hardly more than 700,000 people, it wields an impressive Gross State Product of over $60 billion and grew 3.3% in 2005. Compare this with neighboring Pennsylvania, a state inundated with layers upon layers of economic development authorities (see: Pennsylvania Economic Development Association, Governor's Action Team, Team Pennsylvania Foundation, Delaware River Port Authority, et cetera and et cetera), who registered barely more than half that growth (1.7%) in the same year.

At the end of the day, the key to promoting growth - and actual economic well-being - does not lie in politically motivated development programs so much as making careful investments in the mechanisms that do traditionally encourage and sustain growth: good governance/institutions and stabilization policies.

More here

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Religion of Peace is a very informative site -- too informative. It has been "filtered" by several internet censoring companies as "hate speech". To get the filtering lifted they had to remove certain pictures. Pretty obnoxious!

Don't EVER get on an Indonesian airliner: "A chunk of wing dropped off an Indonesian passenger plane carrying 144 people minutes after take-off, forcing the aircraft to return to the capital, an airline official said yesterday. The incident at Jakarta airport renewed concerns about the safety of flying in Indonesia following two major air accidents this year. The Boeing 737-400 operated by Batavia Air landed safely and none of 138 passengers and six crew members were hurt, said Anton Situmeang, a spokesman for the airline."

What a laugh! Blacks score badly at school because of "insensitive" teachers? "Teachers in California may be required to take racial sensitivity training next year. The training would help close the "achievement gap" between students of different races; white and Asian students score higher on tests than their black and Latino classmates." [There sure must be a lot of insensitivity about!]

Bungling British bureaucracy kills: "An investigation has started into the criminal justice failings that resulted in a bus passenger being killed by a man who should not have been released from prison. Richard Whelan was stabbed seven times after trying to stop Anthony Joseph throwing chips at his girlfriend on the top of a double-decker bus. Joseph had been released from a young offender institution hours before the attack, despite a warrant being in force for his arrest on another matter. He pleaded guilty yesterday to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, after jurors failed to reach a verdict on murder. He is being treated for paranoid schizophrenia at Broadmoor secure hospital."

Surge of Anglicans embracing Rome: "The Pope will discuss how to deal with the increasing numbers of disaffected Anglicans wanting to join the Roman Catholic Church at a meeting with cardinals from around the world. Benedict XVI, who is making the reunification of Christendom a goal of his pontificate, is considering requests from at least three US Episcopal bishops for reception into the Catholic Church. He has also been approached by an entire breakaway group of traditionalist Anglicans. The meeting in Rome comes on the eve of the consistory to create a tranche of new cardinals and as the Anglican exodus over gays continues."

Muslim denial: "Islamist imams and Muslim "civil rights" groups in the United States continue to attempt to shut down free discussion about their beliefs. They seem to have no legitimate explanation or defense of their own words, or of the actions of their coreligionists who kill in the name of their 'religion.' They attempt to silence any criticism of their beliefs, showing that apparently they are too weak and childlike to reform them. They attempt to pass their beliefs off as benign, and accuse anyone who knows better and says so of being a bigot, or a proponent of hate speech. They don't represent all Muslims -- but they do represent some."

Is the U.S. government infested with jihadist moles?: "Looks as if it is. And it is, of course, because of the government's politically correct eagerness to hire Muslims, to show that the war on terror is not anti-Islam or anti-Muslim. And because no one in the government is studying the jihadist ideology, no one has the faintest idea how to screen applicants for it -- or any interest in doing so".

Eleven-year-old girl wants to play judo wearing hijab: "Stories like this one make the news more frequently these days. I don't get it. Muslim reps always say, "No one is making me wear a headscarf. It is an expression of modesty", blah blah. Well: is it mandatory or not? If not -- and you say it isn't, not me -- then the girl can remove it to compete. The rules say you can't wear such a scarf. So take it off and follow our rules. Oh but wait: suddenly the scarf IS mandatory. See why we get annoyed?"

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

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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"AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" AND LAW SCHOOL

The essential first step to an understanding of Leftism is that Leftists do NOT care about the people they claim to care about. They care about their own personal glorification only. What they hunger after is an appearance of righteousness and wise nobility -- and an appearance of righteosness is indeed beneficial to almost anybody. Righteousness is no substitute for being right, however -- but Leftists don't care about that. Just the appearance will do them fine.

"Affirmative action" (a nice name for racial discrimination) is a perfect example of that. If Leftists really cared about minorities, they would abandon "affirmative action" immediately. Conservative commenters have been making that point for many years so all I want to do here is report a small personal example of how "affirmative action" actually works:

When I was teaching sociology in a major Australian univerrsity over two decades ago, I had in my class an Aborigine (Australian black). Just to get as far as university was a major feat for an Aborigine but the Australian government has for many decades had schemes in place to facilitiate black entry to higher education and the student I am referring to was the beneficiary of one of those schemes.

That he had got so far, however, meant that he could not be failed. Since he attended only a minority of the classes he was supposed to attend with me and showed little more than a sense of grievance in anything he said, I gave him a fail mark for the course. The School of Sociology, however, gave him a Credit mark for the year overall. His Sociology course was one that he had elected to take as one component towards a law degree but Sociology is in general vastly less demanding than Law so I shudder to think what his performance in his Law courses must have been.

He graduated, of course. And he was then immediately hired as a lawyer by a legal organization that represents blacks in court and elsewhere. They could hardly have done otherwise. Not to hire him would have been "racism". So the upshot of "affirmative action" in this case was that blacks came to be represented in court by probably the most incompetent lawyer in the whole country! Was that good for blacks?

When anybody points out ways in which "affirmative action" is bad for blacks (See, for instance, the research on law school admissions by Richard Sander -- here and here and here), however, Leftists respond not with concern about the problem but rather with rage and abuse towards the person revealing the problem -- plus attempts to deny or cover up the problem. They HAVE to respond with rage and denial. To do otherwise would be an admission of getting it grossly wrong and that would not be good for the image of wise nobility that they project for themselves. It would certainly deprive them of one of their major claims to righteousness and that would never do. Too bad about the minorities whom their policies hurt. Judge Clarence Thomas has of course recently waxed eloquent about how "affirmative action" hurt him.

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL MY AMERICAN READERS!

And eat as much as you want of whatever you want. Almost all of the food and health "wisdom" that gets preached at you daily via the media is just another form of bigotry. The balance of evidence is against most of the claims that you hear. A browse through my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog will assure you of that.

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The revenge of the paleoconservatives: "The simple truth of economics is that not every business -- not even every American business -- deserves to survive. Bolstering economically unviable American businesses misallocates resources and deprives deserving American companies of the resources they need to stay ahead. But Buchanan and his ilk see economics in stark terms: buying American good, buying foreign bad. They ignore the fact that Americans do not have unlimited supplies of cash -- that if Americans are forced to buy poorly made, expensive American products, well-made American products may suffer the consequences. If the Republican Party embraces Buchanan-esque paleoconservative economics, it will precipitate prolonged recession. The Democratic Party will tout Keynesian economics as a response, necessitating higher taxes and massive government growth. The paleoconservative nightmare -- bigger government -- is the likely outcome of a paleoconservative economic program."

Dianne Feinstein, enemy of the left? "Last year, ultra-liberal elements within the Democratic Party waged a heated political battle against Sen. Joe Lieberman, their vice-presidential nominee of just six years earlier. But if you thought that liberal cannibalism stopped with the attack on Connecticut's junior senator, think again. The left wing has now set its sights on California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another centrist Democrat who has failed to walk in lockstep with the increasingly puritanical left. Why are the hardcore lefties so upset with Feinstein? In August, she voted for a bill reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- a vote they interpreted as a thumbs-up for widespread, unchecked domestic spying by the Bush administration."

British bureaucrats lose even MORE files: "At least two more CDs that could leave thousands of people open to identity fraud have been reported missing by staff at HM Revenue & Customs this week, The Times has been told. Police have started an investigation into the loss of the unencrypted files, which went missing in transit from tax offices in Washington, Tyne & Wear, and contain "sensitive information" including national insurance numbers and dates of birth. They were sent to offices in London and are yet to be accounted for. The loss of these files are in addition to a series of recent blunders by HMRC, including the announcement this month that a CD-Rom that contained information on 15,000 Standard Life customers had been lost.... Further questions about the standards of data protection at HMRC were raised yesterday by a solicitor who works routinely with the prosecution arm of the HMRC. Shawn Williams, of Rose, Williams & Partners, a legal firm in Wolverhampton that deals with tax fraud cases, said that his firm frequently received discs that contained personal data from the HMRC with the password included"

Britain's latest prohibition: Baby milk: "The advertising of powdered milk for babies on television, in the national press and through a NHS leaflet given to mothers will be banned from January, as part of a new EU directive on infant formula. The ban supports the Government's policy to encourage breast-feeding."

Deceptions about poverty: "Most of the income received by people 65 years old and up is not counted statistically as earnings. Only 24 percent of their incomes are earnings. Most of their incomes are from pensions or other sources known as "unearned income," such as returns on investments. It should hardly be surprising that people who have been around a long time would have accumulated more money in the bank and maybe have a little nest egg in a mutual fund, each of which provides a stream of income during their retirement years, even if that income does not get counted as earnings. Despite a drumbeat of political rhetoric depicting the elderly as being in dire economic conditions, the actual incomes of the elderly are more than four times what their earnings statistics might suggest - or what politicians can claim, citing those statistics.... There are of course some elderly people who are poor, just as there are some poor people in every age bracket. But statistics cited by politicians, journalists, and others who inflate the number of the poor need both scrutiny and skepticism."

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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The CIA is now just another inefficient Left-dominated bureaucracy

It now works at best only half-heartedly in America's interest

The story of the US government's bungling in the case of Nada Nadim Prouty - "Jihad Jane" - gets worse and worse. Here are two more danger signs in her background that got overlooked: her cousin the terrorist, and her family's involvement in the Syrian National Socialist Party. That's right: It's not just Prouty's links to the terrorists of Hezbollah that got missed, but her ties to a Nazi party.

Since Prouty pleaded guilty last week to naturalization fraud and conspiracy, as well as unauthorized computer access at her FBI and CIA jobs, the two agencies have launched probes of how they bungled background checks before employing her. Then came reports that her sister, now a commissioned Marine officer, pulled a similar sham-marriage scam to gain US citizenship. But the scandal will only grow with this new information.

The failure of the background checks on Prouty puzzles sources familiar with her family's background in Lebanon. The Syrian National Socialist Party is actually an organization in Prouty's native Lebanon, where everyone knows it's a pawn of Syria's Baathist dictatorship; its stated goal is the formation of a greater Arab state, including Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cypress and part of Turkey.

Prouty's maiden name is Al-Aouar - and the Al-Aouar family is noted back in Lebanon for its extremist political activity on behalf of the SNSP. That activism is all the more notable, because they are members of Lebanon's Druze minority - distinct from Syria's usual Shia Muslim allies there, and generally at odds with Hezbollah. And intelligence sources from Israel and its old ally, the South Lebanese Army, say that Prouty's cousin, Nidal Al-Aouar, was a terrorist - one who trained in North Korea and the old USSR and went on to set roadside car bombs in Lebanon on behalf of Syria.

That the CIA did not uncover these elements of Prouty's background is cause for concern, since it is hardly a secret in Lebanon and Syria.

Source

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Brookes News Update

Is the US economy facing a credit crunch? : Every time an economic crisis seems to be on the horizon you can bet your last dollar that scores of advisers will be warning that a drop in consumer confidence will cause a fall in consumer demand which will drive the economy into recession. So what is really happening?
Australia's plummeting jobless: miracle or good economics?: The economy is booming, unemployment is dropping, capacity utilization is at a record level and China's demand for our resources is rising. What could possibly be wrong with this picture? Unfortunately, quite a lot
Put the carbon killers last: Saturday's election could be crucial to Australia's future. Fanatical greens are making fantastic demands that would send the economy reeling into a permanent recession - and Mr Rudd promised to accommodate them
Hollywood's Red Decade: The current crop of Hollywood anti-victory movies is nothing new. Hollywood leftists have a long history of making anti-American films
Hillary Clinton's corruption and the mainstream media's treason: Electorates are generally known for having short memories. Unfortunately this kind of memory loss can be hazardous to the body politic and a nation's economic welfare. This is why electorates need to be periodically reminded of the misdeeds and inordinate ambitions of those who lust for power
The Golden Compass has no moral compass: It seems the most militant anti-theist are either arrogant scientists or unrestrained licentious types whose main obstacles to faith are not intellectual, but moral - and that moral obstacle seems invariably to be sex

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Economist Arnold Kling has a good article on Race, IQ and Education. He implicitly accepts what any non-political person could see after not much observation at all: That blacks are on the whole less intelligent. He quite correctly, however, points out that this should not in general matter. Some blacks are highly intelligent and some whites are dumb so each person should be treated on his individual merits rather than on the basis of his race. It is only the race-obsessed Leftists who get hysterical over statements about groups. Conservatives have always held that it is the individual that matters. The KKK were Democrats, not Republicans. And Hitler was a socialist, not a conservative. It has ALWAYS been the Left who obsess about race. And via "affirmative action" etc they still do. They are incapable of treating people as individuals. That would be too complex for their simplistic style of thinking. Saletan covers much the same ground as Kling and comes to much the same conclusion but links a lot more to the scientific evidence on the subject. Note that even the super-correct American Psychological Association had to acknowledge that the AVERAGE black-white gap in IQ is one SD (15 points).

Strange Justice has had a lot of meaty articles up lately.

So much for that story about tourists avoiding the USA: "A record number of foreigners visited the United States this summer and spent unprecedented amounts of money, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday. "These robust summer travel numbers highlight the vitality of the American travel industry," U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a statement applauding the role international tourism plays in boosting U.S. economic growth. Six years after the September 2001 attacks put a big dent in visits to the United States, the weak U.S. dollar has made foreign travel in the United States a better bargain and helped to bring overseas travelers back." [The earlier story is here]

The Left's idea of "scary": "But of course there was nothing scary about Reagan. What frightened his opponents was his refusal to let them forget what they were really afraid of: an evil empire with weapons of mass destruction pointed at all of us, including Tony Lewis. Likewise, today's Angry Left is afraid of Giuliani (and George W. Bush) because he reminds them of a threat they are trying desperately to deny--a threat that will actually be greater if the cowardly deniers are allowed to make policy.

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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BBC bias again

A British Jewish community leader is demanding that BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen be replaced following contentious remarks about Israel made in a BBC memo. Andrew Balcombe, chairman of the Zionist Federation of Britain and Ireland, has written to the chair of the BBC Trust, Dr Chitra Bharucha, following a leaked e-mail Bowen sent last month that questions Bowen's impartiality as he appears to put the onus of blame for the violence in the region on Israel. The Middle East editor blames the "fragmentation of Palestinian society" on the "death of hope" citing Israel as the reason for this.

The e-mail, with the subject title, Mini briefing on the Israeli and Palestinians, was sent to senior BBC staff including BBC Director-General Mark Byford, head of the BBC's Jerusalem bureau, Simon Wilson, the BBC Editorial Board and the editors of the BBC's world bureaus. "What is new in the last year, and will be one of the big stories in the coming 12 months, is the way that Palestinian society, which used to draw strength from resistance to the occupation, is now fragmenting," the e-mail read. "The reason is the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building - and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas-led government which are destroying Palestinian institutions that were anyway flawed and fragile.

"The result is that internecine violence between Hamas and Fatah is getting worse. On Thursday six people were killed in clashes between them in Gaza. The death of a major figure on either side would spark something much more serious." He continues, "Israel's major military incursion into Ramallah on Thursday, killing four Palestinians after a botched arrest operation, was a reminder of the non stop pressures of the Israeli occupation."

In his letter to the BBC, Balcombe cited the press briefing released by the BBC when Bowen was appointed as Middle East editor in June 2005. "The new role is designed to enhance our audience's understanding of the Middle East; and to provide extra commentary, focus and analysis to an increasingly complex area of the world," the briefing said. "Recent events indicate that Bowen is unable to perform this role to the standard required," Balcombe insisted. "This simply does not represent balanced reporting and does not contribute to BBC viewers' understanding of the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this way Bowen is doing a disservice to the BBC's customers." ....

"Israeli policies towards the Palestinians create hardship and tough, critical reporting is legitimate, though it may make uncomfortable viewing for Israel supporters," said Gavin Gross, campaigns director of the ZF. "However, equal time and emphasis must also be given to presenting Israel's viewpoint and the threats it faces, or else it is bad journalism. Sadly, the BBC's coverage does not meet this test, which is why we are calling for Jeremy Bowen to be replaced as Middle East editor," he said.

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Above are some of the kids that the "humanitarians" in the U.S. Congress want to betray. Story here

See here for a debunking of the recent CBS News story about a high suicide rate among soldiers who have served in Iraq. Iraq veterans in fact have a LOWER suicide rate than others in their demographic. Another media lie is that soldiers have been deserting a lot more since the Iraq involvement began. Debunked here.

What the French elite tolerate: "Last night at the Stade de France, France's showcase stadium in Saint Denis (the notorious Nine-Three [an area heavily populated by Muslim immigrants from North Africa]), France and Morocco played a 2-2 tie. Before the match, the French national anthem was widely booed by the "French youths" in attendance. French defender William Gallas, commenting the total absence of French flags in a sea of waving Moroccan flags, stated "I thought I was in Morocco."

Heading towards the police state: ""Every year the United States becomes less free; the state controls more of our lives, takes more of our money, and takes from us more choices of how we are to live our lives. This is not the result of some government plot to establish a dictatorship but simply the natural progression of the state. Unless freedom is defended diligently, it disappears and is replaced by the police state."

The greening of Wal-Mart: "Wal-Mart's support for the anti-free market agenda of the environmental movement is not silencing its liberal critics and may be undermining the company's financial future. Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott began pushing a so-called sustainability campaign in October 2005 as part of an ill-conceived attempt to deflect union criticism of its business practices. The campaign includes spending $500 million a year to cut greenhouse gas emissions to combat the unproven global warming threat, selling more sustainable products, using more renewable energy, and generating less waste."

Osama's quagmire : "We're floundering in a quagmire in Iraq. Our strategy is flawed, and it's too late to change it. Our resources have been squandered, our best people killed, we're hated by the natives and our reputation around the world is circling the drain. We must withdraw. No, I'm not channeling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. I'm channeling Osama bin Laden, for whom the war in Iraq has been a catastrophe."

Inbred British Muslims: "Marriages between cousins should be banned after research showed alarming rates in defective births among Asian communities in Britain, a Labour MP said last night. The report, commissioned by Ann Cryer, revealed that the Pakistani community accounted for 30 per cent of all births with recessive disorders, despite representing 3.4 per cent of the birth rate nationwide.... "I think this should be applied to the Asian community. They must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people." It is estimated that more than 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, resulting in an increasing rate of genetic defects and high rates of infant mortality"

Greed and ethics go hand in hand: "Greed is a universal human trait. The world is run on greed. All individuals make decisions in their best self-interest, even if it is doing something for someone else from their heart. They do it because it makes them feel good which is satisfying their greed, if you will, for being happy. The point is free trade and capitalism is the best system that allows for the most individuals to be able to satisfy their greed and self-interest while at the same time encourages ethical behavior."

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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"Imposed Mixing" of ethnic groups recommended

The academic journal article abstracted below (fuller summary here) is a bit alarming. It makes the unremarkable observation that the longer and vaguer are your borders with another group or nation, the more likely you are to get into conflict with the other group or nation. The recommendations the authors come up with from that are however a problem.

One recommendation -- strong and secure borders between different groups -- would I think be generally hailed by conservatives. But there is another very Leftist recommendation: "imposed mixing". Such an idea might seem impossibly Fascistic but some versions of it are sometimes agitated for by Leftists. They want to break up the voluntary self-segregation of blacks and whites by busing blacks into white areas or putting welfare housing into white areas, for instance.

We know pretty well now how that works out. Whites just keep moving away in order to keep themselves and their children safe from black crime and violence.

But what if a Leftist government seized on the study below as "scientific" justification for PREVENTING white flight in some way? It could happen. That the result would be INCREASED conflict we all know but Leftists are very good at ignoring the obvious.

So, if we are being all scientific, maybe I should draw attention to summaries of the scientific EVIDENCE for what the authors below propose. See here and here. DOES mixing people from different groups produce more harmony? The answer is that "It all depends" and what it depends on is rarely easily foreseeable. In short, the "mixing" policy recommendation below has already had lots of scientific testing and the testing does not support it.

Global Pattern Formation and Ethnic/Cultural Violence

By May Lim et al.

We identify a process of global pattern formation that causes regions to differentiate by culture. Violence arises at boundaries between regions that are not sufficiently well defined. We model cultural differentiation as a separation of groups whose members prefer similar neighbors, with a characteristic group size at which violence occurs. Application of this model to the area of the former Yugoslavia and to India accurately predicts the locations of reported conflict. This model also points to imposed mixing or boundary clarification as mechanisms for promoting peace.

Science 14 September 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5844, pp. 1540 - 1544

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There is another good article here pointing out that Christians were major opponents of Nazism in Hitler's day. Leftists try to claim the opposite but to do so is to ignore all history.

Jenny Bea has done a lot of research into the "undecided voters" who asked questions at the CNN Democrat debate on 15th. It turns out that all of them were Democrat operatives or have strong connections to Democrat causes. Apparently, someone feared that REAL members of the public might ask the "wrong" questions. The questions were essentially a deceptive piece of theatre rather than an exercise in open debate. Doug Ross has the pictures. And, yet again, the questions asked were scripted

Another crook has been found among the large donors to the Clinton campaign. Birds of a feather flock together and the Clintons and crooks have been flocking together for a long time. If "there's no such thing as right and wrong", why not?

Bill and Hill: "Sure, Hillary is fairly bright. But that is trumped by the fact that she married a philanderer and has stayed with him through public humiliation after public humiliation. That is not "love", nor is it "constancy", nor is it in any way laudable in my estimation. Frankly, it reeks of incredibly poor judgement, particularly since Bill has not apparently reformed since the Lewinsky affair; though admittedly he's less public about it since his wife began her run for the White House. OK, fine. She has chosen to stick with the jerk. What goes on in their bedroom (or doesn't) is none of my business. It's her problem and her cross to bear....but...but she seems to think--no expect, that I, as a woman, should be excited and revved up that she is running for President. Sorry, not interested in that line of propaganda. As far as I'm concerned, she's a complete loser as a woman and not at all a role model I'd hold up to my daughter. I don't care how many people she cons with this "I am woman, hear me roar" bullshit. Hillary Clinton is nothing more than a postmodern gold digger whose preferred "gold" happens to be political power."

Candyfloss German pilots: "They are on the front line of the war on terror, but German pilots facing the Taliban are insisting they stop at tea time every day to comply with health and safety regulations. The helicopter pilots, who provide medical back-up to Nato ground troops, set off for their base by mid-afternoon so they can be grounded by sundown. Their refusal to fly in the dark is hampering Operation Desert Eagle, an allied offensive, which involves 500 Nato-led troops plus 1,000 Afghan troops and police. Although Germany has sent 3,200 troops to Afghanistan, they operate under restrictive rules of engagement. They spend much of their time in an enormous base, complete with beer halls and nightclubs, in Mazar-e-Sharif, a 90-minute flight from the fighting. They also have a base at Kunduz."

Muslims hurting Muslim women: "Male gynaecologists are being targeted by Islamic extremists in Iraq as they are accused of invading the privacy of women. Women's NGOs have raised concerns as there are few women gynaecologists in the country and their male counterparts are scared to continue working. "Extremists say that [male] doctors are not allowed to see the private parts of women and two male doctors were reportedly killed last week after leaving their clinics. A message was left near their bodies saying that was the end for any doctor who insists in invading the privacy of Muslim women," Mayada added."

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Rare realism from a Palestinian

For Sari Nusseibeh, true peace between his own people and Israel won't come from canny manoeuvres at the negotiating table. Ultimately, the Palestinian philosopher and humanist argued in a recent lecture at McGill University, peace will result from the mutual realization and acceptance of the fact that neither side will get everything it wants. For Palestinians, peace will mean giving up on the long-held dream that they will return one day to land they left almost 60 years ago. For Israelis, peace has to mean giving up on the dream that it can hold on to occupied land or that Jerusalem will never be the capital of two nations.

"On both ends, I believe a new paradigm has to be created based on an equitable settlement," the 58-year-old Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University in the West Bank, said in a relatively brief, 20-minute address to a crowd of about 600 in the Stephen Leacock Building. "In the final analysis, a peaceful future and a positive future are not impossible to achieve. The distance is not arduous - it is the distance between one side of a pane of glass and another," he said. The glass is transparent, but it must be "cracked," he added. "The Israelis and Palestinians have the power to change. If we don't, it is not because we were powerless, but because we could not see through the pane."

At McGill, Nusseibeh, who recently released his memoirs, Once Upon a Country: a Palestinian Life, appeared to live up to his reputation as a voice of moderation, humanism, and intellectual rigour regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nusseibeh recalled how, in 1986, he witnessed the "horrible" stabbing of a 90-year-old pious Jew and decided to condemn the crime in writing - an act that was looked upon suspiciously by Israelis and got him into trouble with his own community. "It is easier to say things that please people, but I say exactly what I believe. If I condemn acts of terror, it is because of my humanity," he said. "It has been a constant fight.

Nusseibeh, referring to the fact that he has been called brave for speaking out, said, "I speak not because I'm courageous, but because of my fear about the future." For Palestinians, he said a two-state solution will have to entail trading their "right of return" for their "right to freedom." "These are impossible to implement together," he said, although it has always been "taboo" for Palestinians to say as much.

Similarly, Israelis must be prepared to give up some of their own dreams, too. Jerusalem, he said, is destined to be the capital of two states, and occupied territories will have to be abandoned.

Asked about the continued level of violence in the area, Nusseibeh seemed to regret that Palestinians have not "reached a consensus" on the use of non-violence. Recalling the first intifadah in the late 1980s - in which he played an active role - Nusseibeh said Palestinians were once "very creative" in resisting Israel without violence. In reply to another question, Nusseibeh said the last five years have been "unfortunately" violent, with Hamas operating under a completely "different paradigm" in which the group's means don't necessarily appear to be related to appropriate ends, which should be a two-state solution. "Do the people who voted for Hamas support violence against Israel?" he asked. Not necessarily, he answered. "My sense is that the majority of Palestinians who voted for Hamas would also accept a peace solution that is tangible."

More here

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ELSEWHERE

So much for government "security": "Investigators with bomb-making components in their luggage and on their person were able to pass through security checkpoints at 19 U.S. airports without detection, according to the Government Accountability Office. GAO officials are expected to testify about the investigation Thursday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform."

SC: Thompson urges million-member ground force for military: "Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson called yesterday for a million-member military ground force and more funding to equip and care for service members and veterans. Thompson said he wants a military ground force of 775,000 in the Army and 225,000 Marines, 23,000 more Marines than the Pentagon is seeking. 'Some would say this plan is too much and too big,' Thompson said at The Citadel, a military college. 'I don't believe that's the case, not at all.' Thompson didn't say how he would pay for the increase, but added that military spending should be set at 4.5 percent of the value of the goods and services the nation creates. His campaign said that would be the equivalent of increasing military spending by as much as $150 billion a year, but that those increases would be phased in and depend on economic growth."

California: Eminent domain state ballot measure takes aim at rent control: "Property rights activists are once again pushing a ballot measure aimed at restricting government's use of eminent domain, but this time there's a secondary target - rent-control ordinances. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Farm Bureau Federation and various property owner groups are expected in the coming weeks to submit more than a million signatures to qualify the measure for the June 3 ballot. Similar to Proposition 90, which state voters narrowly rejected last year, the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act would seek to ban the ability of state or local government to condemn privately owned land to assist private developers. Proponents of the Jarvis measure said it also would prohibit government officials from imposing price restrictions on the sale or lease of private property - a provision that would phase out rent controls including San Francisco's ordinance."

Germany to protect Israel? How?: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday said she felt a moral duty to protect Israel and would stand firm in the face of Iran's nuclear ambitions and its threats to wipe the Jewish state off the map. After receiving a prestigious award from the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Merkel said the prize gave her a responsibility to fight racism and to foster close ties between Germans and the Jewish community. "It means intervening to protect the safety of Israel today and in the future, as well as our common values of democracy and the rule of law."

Canada: US Army cowards lose appeal for asylum: "Two U.S. Army deserters who fled to Canada and sought refugee status on grounds of their opposition to the war in Iraq have lost their bids to have the Supreme Court of Canada hear their cases. The court refused Thursday to hear the appeals of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, who were rejected by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board in 2005. ... Hinzman and Hughey deserted the U.S. Army in 2004 after learning their units were to be deployed to Iraq to fight in a war they have called immoral and illegal. The men argue that serving in Iraq would force them to commit crimes against civilians, and that they would be persecuted if forced to return to the United States."

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Truthless in Gaza

Post below excerpted from AWOL Civilization. See the original for links

Western journalists have a long record of collaboration with the Arab propaganda machine. Let me point to just one example with which I am familiar from personal experience. After the signing of the infamous Oslo Accords in 1993, the Western media was suppressing any news that would make the nascent Palestinian Authority look bad. This included a blackout on Arafat's belligerent posturing to the Arab world, in Arabic. Despite the peace treaty signed on the White House lawn, Arafat and his lieutenants continued to speak to their people as if the war against Israel was at its peak. One would never know this, however, from reading Le Monde or watching ABC news. (Unfortunately, this was before the advent of the blogosphere.)

I was in Israel some time later, working as a freelance journalist. I picked up a rather unusual assignment. A team of film technicians and translators had made videos of some of Arafat's Nazi-style, jihadesque speeches to the masses in Gaza. These chilling spectacles, which could make even the most hardened Arafat-watcher's hair stand on end, were translated into Hebrew and English. The team was looking for a native English speaker to present the videos to the Western media. I accepted the offer. At the outset, I was concerned that my personal safety might be endangered when the films were shown to a wide audience.

My fears were for naught. For several days, I visited with virtually the entire Western press corps in Israel: the New York Times, the BBC, Reuters, you name it. All of them courteously listened to my pitch. All of them tried to keep a poker face as they watched the video, but signs of shock expressed themselves in a rogue muscle twitch or bead of sweat. All of them responded at the end with some mumbo-jumbo such as "oh, that's just what Arafat's saying to his people; he has to do that to maintain credibility."

Sure, I said to myself. That's certainly what these journalists would say if I had shown them translations of Yitzhak Rabin making speeches in Hebrew calling for the Palestinian Arabs to be driven into the sea. Not a single one of those media outlets ran the story. The silence was deafening. Little did I realize, at the time, that this entire affair-just like al-Dura-was one more link in the long chain of media promotion of all that is anti-Western.

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Hitler's Revenge

In Diana West's book, "The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization," there is a brilliant analysis of the current Western decay. Excerpt:

And therein lies Hitler's revenge - the cultural leveling that either emerged from, or was, in some crucial way, accentuated by, natural outrage over the crimes against humanity committed by the Third Reich. Hitler, of course was totally defeated, along with his tyrannical notion of cultural (Germanic) and racial (Aryan) "supremacy."

But so, too, perhaps, were all notions of Western primacy regarding culture and race (which I take here to include nationhood) - even ones that supported, not supremacy in a murderous form, but judgment in a rational form. Grounded by notions of sovereignty and cultural affinity, such judgment determines the kids of attitudes and choices-on everything from religion to law to literature-that are expressed in cultural identity. In the case of the United States and its European allies, these attitudes and choices derive from a specifically Judeo-Christian identity forged in fire, ink, and steel by those whom our modern-day multiculturalists insultingly deride as "dead, white men."

Having failed to destroy the democracies by making Nazi war, then, Hitler may have unwittingly managed to destroy the democracies by effecting a post-Nazi peace in which the act of pledging allegiance to the flag itself, for example, would practically become an act of nationalist supremacism - racism, even; bigotry, too.

Quite sudddenly, it didn't matter whether the culture in question led to a reign of terror, or to liberty and justice for all. The act of maintaining or defending the culture, or ultimately, even defining it - whether through unabashed opposition to communist expansionism, purposefully selective immigration practices, or even sticking to the Western canon - became confused with and condemned as an exclusionary and, therefore, evil chauvinism. In this way, having won the great victory, the Allies lost the will to survive.

Having defined the ultimate evil of Nazism, not as the ultimate violation of the moral law as traditionally understood, but as the violation of liberal tolerance, postwar liberalism then set about dismantling all the existing ordinary particularisms of our own society (including, in the case of the EU, nationhood itself) in the name of preventing a resurgence of Nazi-like evil. This was the birth of political correctness, which sees any failure on our part to be completely open to and accepting of the Other - and thus any normal attachment to our own ways and our own society - as the equivalent of Nazism.

Openness and acceptance on every and any level - from personal to national, from sexual to religious - are the highest possible virtues of the postmodern Westerner. This makes boundaries and taboos, limits and definition - anything that closes the door on anything else - the lowest possible sins. Judgment, no matter how judicious, is tarred as "prejudice" and, therefore, a neobarbarous act to be repressed and ultimately suspended. Patriotism has been caricatured out of polite society as boorish warmongering. Western civilization itself, which may be taken as the product of both judgment and patriotism, has been roundly condemned for being both prejudiced and warmongering.

The overall effect has been to sap the culture's confidence in its own traditions, even - especially - in the classical liberal tradition that stiffened our spines against Hitler in the first place. The cultural anemia that began to take hold long ago has passively accepted the transformation of America the Western into America the Multicultural (and Western Europe into Multicultural Europe) as a good, or necessary, or even just inevitable thing. And thus - with the practical disappearance of the nation, or perhaps better, the culture, that defeated him - Hitler's revenge.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Leftists sometimes claim that Nazism was in some sense Christian. There is a very detailed account here showing that it was anything but. And I note that the L.A. Times is about as favourable to the Pope as Hitler was. Great socialist minds think alike.

Pakistani troops attack Taliban: "Pakistani troops have launched a counter-offensive against pro-Taliban militants in the northwest, pushing them back into forests and mountains, officials and witnesses reported overnight. The fighting has left more than 50 rebels dead in two days, according to army accounts, as security forces struck back against sweeping gains made in the scenic Swat Valley by militants loyal to a radical cleric."

Deceit comes naturally to the BBC: "The BBC has apologised for adding the sound of babies crying to its footage of quintuplets born to a Russian woman. The five girls, delivered at an Oxford hospital on November 10, are the latest individuals to be drawn into the broadcasting fakery row. The John Radcliffe Hospital distributed clips of the five babies and their parents, who defied doctors in Moscow who advised they abort some of the fetuses. While broadcasters like Sky and ITN ran clips of the footage without the audio, the BBC's footage contains the sound of children crying, even though the babies have respirators in their mouths. A spokeswoman for the Oxford hospital said: "There was no audio on our clip." "The BBC must have put it over. "I thought they weren't supposed to do things like that." A BBC spokesman said the corporation should have left the footage alone. He said: "We received the film without sound and on reflection we should have kept it that way."

Documentation of Saddam's WMD's: "Finally, there are some definitive answers to the mystery of the missing WMD. Civilian volunteers, mostly retired intelligence officers belonging to the non-partisan IntelligenceSummit.org, have been poring over the secret archives captured from Saddam Hussein. The inescapable conclusion is this: Saddam really did have WMD after all, but not in the way the Bush administration believed... The gist of the new evidence is this: roughly one quarter of Saddam's WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid 1990's. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during the mid to late 1990's. The Russians insisted on removing another quarter in the last few months before the war. The last remaining WMD, the contents of Saddam's nuclear weapons labs, were still inside Iraq on the day when the coalition forces arrived in 2003. His nuclear weapons equipment was hidden in enormous underwater warehouses beneath the Euphrates River. Saddam's entire nuclear inventory was later stolen from these warehouses right out from under the Americans' noses."

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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DISRAELI

It is one of the better-established findings in psychological research that the relationship between attitudes and behaviour is not at all straightforward. That is particularly true when it comes to predicting behaviour from a person's racial attitudes and beliefs. For instance, Left-influenced psychologists long thought that a person who was very attached to his own group (race, nation etc.) would thereby automatically be hostile to outgroups (minorities etc.). It is however now well established that there is very little relationship between the two at all. One of my own papers on the subject is here and a review of the academic literature is here.

So you can get "racists" who are hostile to other races and "racists" who are benevolent to other races. Hitler is an obvious real-life example of the former and the 19th century British empire -- with its conception of duty as embodied in Kipling's poem "The white man's burden" -- is a notable example of the latter.

History is generally taught with such a Leftist bias these days however that it takes a lot to undermine the demonized conception of the British empire that people have in their heads. To make it clear how different the Conservative "racists" of the 19th (and earlier) century British empire were from the socialist racists of Nazi Germany, therefore, I often mention the case of Benjamin Disraeli, a Jew who was installed as Prime Minister of Great Britain by the British Conservative party and subsequently by the British voters. He was hugely influential and died among great expressions of national loss in 1881.

British Conservatives who believed that the English were a superior race made a Jew their Prime Minister. German socialists who believed that Germans were a superior race murdered Jews by the millions. Is THAT contrast stark enough? Does THAT show that racism is not monolithic? Racism per se need not be destructive at all. But when it is combined with the hatreds of Leftism, it certainly is.

Leftists however sometimes quibble with my history lesson by saying that Disraeli was not in fact a Jew. They have obviously not read Disraeli. The very name "Disraeli" (d' Israeli, meaning "of Israel") might have alerted them to something but there are none so blind as those who will not see.

The tiny hook upon which Leftists hang their quibble is that British law of the day said that a Jew could not enter parliament. So Disraeli's father wisely had young Benjamin Christened as an Anglican at age 13. Everybody understood this as largely a formality however and Anglicanism then, as now, asked little of its adherents. So how did his "conversion" affect Disraeli? Very little. He in fact often flaunted his Jewishness. He was not so unwise as to speak ill of Anglicanism -- he was a great lover of all things British in fact -- but he often pointed to his Jewish origins and Jewish traditions as major influences on his thinking and on what he was. He was notorious for NOT "fitting in" with English ways of the day, in fact. He would have fried in Nazi Germany.

Perhaps the most telling indication of how Disraeli was perceived at the time can be found in Bismarck's famous admiring comment about Disraeli. Did Bismarck refer to Disraeli as "The old Englishman" or as "the old Anglican"? No. What Bismarck said was: "Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann" (The old Jew. THAT is the man). Everybody knew what Disraeli really was and it was simply not held against him. Though it would blow the mind of any Leftist to think such a thought, racists can in fact be very tolerant.

Footnote: This is strictly irrelevant to what I have written above but the historian in me impels me to note that, given Bismarck's own coruscating political brilliance, his tribute to Dizzy's political brilliance that I have noted above shows just how outstanding Dizzy was. And even though he was not one of them, British Conservatives had the good sense and flexibility to recognize and accept Dizzy for what he was as an individual.

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Brookes News Update

The depreciating dollar and the US economy: It was domestic inflation that drove down the dollar. Those who argued that cheap imports kept inflation under control were oblivious to the fact that these imports were the result of the US 'exporting'. So what is really happening to jobs and investment?
Does irrational exuberance drive the stock market?: Contrary to Robert Shiller's thesis a sharp deviation of stock prices from their fundamentals is the result of loose monetary policies of the US central bank and not some mysterious impulse or "animal spirits" gone wild
Immigration, economic growth and jobs: The claim that immigration is generates economic growth is a myth. The anti-immigration assertion that immigration damages the environment, aggravates the housing situation and overburdens the infrastructure is also a myth
'Global warming' as pathological science: The Global Warming campaign is endangering real, honest science. Global Warming superstition has become an international power grab, and good science suffers as a result. When the truth-tellers in society begin to sell out and tell lies for some ideological goal, people end up dying
Giuliani and the right's shifting priorities: Not only does Giuliani lead as the candidate who is the first choice of Republican voters: he also leads as the second choice of Republican voters. This indicates a high level of comfort with Giuliani, even among Republicans who would prefer a more religious candidate

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ELSEWHERE

I mentioned recently the strangeness at LGF -- where Charles Johnson seems to be on a jihad against European political parties that oppose Muslim immigration. Johnson is himself critical of Islam but seems to accept what Leftists say about critics of Islam in Europe. All very strange. There are now a couple of detailed critiques of Johnson's dubious reasoning up here and here (second link a bit slow to load but worth the wait).

Our friends, the Saudis: "A court in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail. The 19-year-old woman - whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms - was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape,'' the Arab News reported. But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200. A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.''

Iran stops shipping bombs to insurgents: "Iran appears to have stopped shipping the deadliest type of weapons used against U.S. troops in Iraq after a European government confronted Tehran with proof that the weapons came from Iranian factories and Iraqi officials warned their neighbor that instability in Iraq affects the entire region, U.S., Western and Iraqi officials said. A senior U.S. general in Iraq said Thursday that Iran is upholding informal commitments it's made in the last several months and no new weapons caches have been found recently."

A good comment from a Leftist: "Nothing exemplifies the return of old junk more than the `new' anti-Semitism and the bad faith that often finds expression in the statement: "I am anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic." The fixation on Israel/Palestine within parts of the left, often to the exclusion of all other suffering on the globe, ought to leave any balanced observer wondering: What is going on here?"

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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"Islamophobia" and antisemitism

There is no such thing as Islamophobia. Phobias are irrational fears. There is nothing irrational about fearing and disliking people who blow up your buildings, trains, buses and nightclubs. And since the 7/7 atrocity in Britain -- which was committed by Muslims who seemed to be well-assimilated into British society -- it is reasonable to fear or be wary of ALL Muslims. Nobody can tell which Muslim might be the next mass-murderer. It could be your neighbour or workmate and you could be among the victims.

So the term "Islamophobia" is just another attempt by Leftists to stigmatize normal attitudes. "Homophobia" is similarly misapplied. People who dislike or disapprove of homosexuality do not at all need to FEAR homosexuals. They may simply be disgusted by the thought of it -- as many are -- or they may think that the behaviour is simply wrong for one reason or another.

The term "Islamophobia" is useful for Leftists in many ways, however. There seems to be a fashion -- particularly in Europe -- to equate "Islamophobia" with antisemitism -- which is brain dead. I concede that many antisemites are perfectly rational people in general but it remains true that antisemitism is roughly as irrational as "Islamophobia" is rational. Only a Leftist would be unable to see the difference. Where Muslims are largely parasitical on Western civilization, Jews are great contributors to it, for instance.

A recent article in the WSJ makes similar points to what I have said above but makes that a jumping-off-place for discussing yet again the origins of antisemitism. The explanation favoured by the author -- Uriya Shavit -- is however a rather fanciful one. It is, somewhat amazingly, an attempt to show that there ARE important commonalities between "Islamophobia" and antisemitism. Shavit claims that both Jews and Muslims have territorial loyalties as well as religious loyalties. Jews are loyal to the land of Israel and Muslims are loyal to the Muslim "world" or "Ummah".

It is difficult to know where to start in commenting on that. For a start, it is a classic antisemitic slur to say that Jews have dual loyalties. I suppose it is true of some Jews to an extent but Shavit seems to be endorsing it as being true of Jews in general. And the claim that people are fearful of Muslims because of dreams in Muslim heads rather than because of what many Muslims actually DO is extraordinary.

I wonder if Shavit and A.B. Yehoshua (the writer to whom Shavit attributes his ideas) have ever talked to any actual antisemites. I spent some years doing so (see here, here and here) and found that most of the usual explanations for antisemitism were correct: Envy, scapegoating, a need for explanation etc. I also however found that the rather tribal morality that a subset of Jews practice was known and objected to (See here). So there is some minor rationality in antisemitism of that sort. Anybody who cannot see the difference between peaceful Jews and the actively hostile Muslims is not being serious, however.

As always, reality is complex but the reality Shavit discusses is one of the central issues of the day so dreamy simplifications of it do us all a great disservice.

So if "Islamophobia" is a myth, what expression should we use to describe wariness towards Muslims? Perhaps not surprisingly, we lag behind Germans in the matter. The two German terms "Judenhass" and "Muslimhass" are short and to the point: Translatable as "Jew-hate" and "Muslim-hate". Both terms are however exaggerations. I do know some antisemites who really do hate Jews and I have no doubt that some Germans hate Muslims but there are also many people who are simply wary or distrustful rather than actively hating anybody.

I think therefore that we should avoid ALL simplifications of this important matter. If we are talking about hatred of Muslims we should say "hatred of Muslims" and if we are talking about distrust of Muslims we should say "distrust of Muslims". Treating all negative attitudes towards Muslims as the same is a denial of reality.

I have also gone to great length to distinguish different negative attitudes towards Jews (See here and here) but I acknowledge that the term is too useful as shorthand for it to be abandoned.

Leftist "anti-Zionists" do however object to being called "antisemites" and they are correct in doing so. Some of them are stupid enough to believe all the old conspiracy theories of classical antisemitism but most hate Jews and Israel simply because both are successful and flourishing. They hate America and "the rich" for the same reason. So even use of the term "antisemitism" does obscure important truths. Unlike "Islamophobia", however, "antisemitism" does not embody false claims about mental health, so is much less pernicious.

Footnote: Being an incorrigible academic, I cannot resist noting that the term "antisemitism" (Antisemitismus) was coined in 1879 by a German (oddly enough!) named Wilhelm Marr -- who was hostile to Jews even though (because?) he was married to one!

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ELSEWHERE



Media ignores Iraq because of success of surge: "Last weekend's news coverage of our veterans was welcome, but deceptive. The "mainstream media" honored aging heroes and noted the debt we owe to today's wounded warriors - but deftly avoided in-depth coverage from Iraq. Why? Because things are going annoyingly well. All those reporters, editors and producers who predicted - longed for - an American defeat have moved on to more pressing strategic issues, such as O.J.'s latest shenanigans. Oh, if you turned to the inner pages of the "leading" newspapers, you found grudging mention of the fact that roadside-bomb attacks are down by half and indirect-fire attacks by three-quarters while the number of suicide bombings has plummeted."

IEDs in Iraq drop sharply: "The number of roadside bombs found in Iraq declined dramatically in August and September from earlier this year, and U.S. officials say the discoveries of thousands of ammunition caches might explain the drop. Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are responsible for at least 60% of U.S. casualties in Iraq... The numbers of IEDs found and the deaths they caused have declined steadily since June. In September, coalition forces found 2,022 IEDs. That's down 38% from March, this year's peak. On Monday, the U.S. command in Baghdad also said rocket and mortar attacks have dropped to their lowest levels in 21 months. The tallies were issued a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said suicide attacks and other bombings in Baghdad also declined."

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

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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