ELSEWHERE

Russia’s President Putin is about to discover that no-one can do pomp and circumstance like the British. His getting such a grand welcome on his visit to London underscores what an asset to Britain the monarchy is. The disagreements between Putin and Prime Minister Blair are well-known but Russia is still a very important country whose friendship with the West must be fostered. And the monarchy helps with that by giving great honour to Russia despite minor differences at the political level.

The story of this unfortunate woman is as good an example as any of the disgraceful arrogance of government intervention in people’s private lives. We no longer allow government intervention in the private lives of homosexuals. Why do we allow it in the private lives of infertile couples? No child could be more wanted than one conceived through the great difficulties and uncertainties of IVF.

The FDA is up to its usual nonsense -- this time warning people that the long-lasting anti-impotence drug Cialis is “risky”. Yet it has been readily available on prescription in Australia and New Zealand for some time. Are American bodies so much frailer than Australian ones? All the FDA are interested in is protecting their own vast bureaucratic empire.

V.D. Hanson has an interesting review of a recent book about Napoleon that looks at why the murderous Corsican dictator is still widely admired -- even by his chief victims (the French). Excerpt: “Indeed Napoleon's enduring resonance in some parts of contemporary Western society tells us as much about ourselves as it does the self-proclaimed emperor. Johnson's matter-of-fact chronicle of executions, grotesque battle losses, betrayal, and outright lying—stripped of Napoleonic fluff and bluster—reflects deeply-rooted Anglo skepticism about messianic killers, as the principled careers of Englishmen like Edmund Burke, the Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill, and most recently Tony Blair attest. In contrast, for the insecure, megalomaniac, and duplicitous, Napoleonic power holds an eternal appeal.”

The previous French government to the present one was not too hot either: “French Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin stated that he was "proud" of the presence of communists in his government and shocked by a comparison to the Nazis.”

Thomas Sowell has an excellent short review of the work of Eric Hoffer. Excerpt: “People who are fulfilled in their own lives and careers are not the ones attracted to mass movements: "A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding," Hoffer said. "When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business." “ He also has a good explanation of the “Limousine Liberal” phenomenon.

O to have such small concerns: "A Norwegian family of four is facing eviction for painting their front door green. Tor Ole Eriksen's colour choice has put him at odds with his local homeowners' association in Kristiansand. The Brattbakken homeowners' association allows doors to be painted only blue, red, gold or white."

I have received another email from a reader about the famously anti-Australian Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mohammad Mahathir -- which I have posted here. The email makes the point that Australia is more respected in Asia if we stick to our own traditions instead of pandering to theirs.

China Hand has some reflections about a modern Chinese film Shower. Excerpt: “The film is full of nostalgia for the old ways put pessimistic about their ability to survive”.

The Wicked one has some pretty appalling examples of perverted justice in California and New York.

In my academic posting here (or here), I look at whether whether there is a distinctive Protestant ethic in Australia today. In five surveys I found no differences between Protestants and Catholics but I did find differences between believers and unbelievers. These days it is the atheists and agnostics who are hard driving and ambitious.

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

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

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

MALAYSIAN FOLLIES

My slightly sympathetic comment about the outrageous Mohammad Mahathir, Prime Minister of Malaysia, elicited the following response from a rather irate Australian reader:

“Didn't Mahathir appoint as deputy a man he now accuses of sodomy and homosexuality? If an Australian Governor General was forced to resign over an appointment he made in a previous job, surely el Presidente should be held accountable for his decisions in office.

And weren't Malaysia's sodomy laws introduced by the British anyway? And didn't Malaysia once include Singapore, which is home to the notorious transvestite Bugis Street? My understanding is that the Singaporean government, since being expelled from Malaysia for being of the wrong race, has made efforts to 'clean up' Bugis Street. So where were Malaysia's allegedly squeaky clean "Asian values" back then? Apparently the apparently puritanical and precious Malaysians were not offended by Bugis Street when Kuala Lumpur and Mahathir's own ruling UMNO party called the shots?

Do 'Asian values' include torture? Apparently Mahathir's values do! “

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

ELSEWHERE

How quickly the tune has changed: “The European Union has embraced a new doctrine of hard-nosed military intervention around the world. EU leaders meeting in Greece on Thursday ditched their strategy of "soft power". Instead, they favoured a more muscular mix, including pre-emptive strikes against dangerous regimes if necessary. "Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the single most important threat to peace and security among nations," said the text, drafted by Javier Solana, the EU's security chief.”

"The House voted Wednesday to eliminate estate taxes by the end of the decade, keeping the Republicans’ tax cut efforts at the top of the congressional agenda. Republicans, criticizing the levy as a 'death tax,' said it forces families to liquidate small businesses and sell family farms to pay tax bills." See also here. Much the same bill was passed by the House last year but failed to get through the Senate so this is only a tiny step. Wealthy elderly Americans should migrate to Australia where such taxes were abolished years ago..

Jeff Jacoby has some ideas about what the U.S. should be doing to support the pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran.

USA Today can have surprisingly sensible editorial pieces at times. This one about High School students being required to pass a final test before they get a graduation diploma makes a lot of good points. Example: “U.S. Department of Education researchers found that ''A'' students in schools in poor neighborhoods had the same reading scores as ''D'' students in schools in affluent areas.” In other words, without the tests, a lot of diplomas are meaningless. But I guess we really knew that.

As their science comes increasingly into question, the “Greenhouse” advocates just push the panic button harder. They now claim that temperatures COULD rise by 6 degrees next century and that this would wipe out most life on earth! This article in “Spiked” points out the obvious however: “Humans live in a wide diversity of weather conditions already. Even within a single city like New York, people live very successfully with temperature extremes of 50 degrees Celsius or more.” So what’s a puny 6 degrees to that?

If only: Japanese Genetic engineers may soon give us decaf coffee that actually tastes like coffee.

There is already a huge Australian diaspora in Britain and the latest deliberate relaxation of the rules for Australians working in Britain will undoubtedly make Britain a second home for many more Australians. Britain clearly wants hard-working young Australians badly. They already fill many gaps in the British economy.

But government employees in Australia are a different matter. For instance, Australian police are as corrupt as any in the Western world. And public hospitals in Australia may be nearly as bad as British ones (See here , here and
here for the British example)

I have posted here a report that shows anti-abortionists doing something PRACTICAL to save young lives. About time! And didn’t it get the abortionists irate! They obviously put profit before saving lives. I advocated similar abortion-prevention measures myself last year (scroll down).

Eleanor Spreitzer has an amusing new set of ten commandments that Leftists will not like very much here.

There is a redirection notice on Michael Darby’s blog

There is a redirection notice on Chris Brand’s blog

In my academic post here (or here) I help wipe out a whole body of psychological “knowledge” about personal ambition.

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

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

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

CHANGE IN MALAYSIA

Australians, and their European brethren, are a greedy, war-mongering mob who promote free sex and sodomy, are indifferent to incest and want to conquer the world -- or so said the retiring Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mohammed Mahathir, recently. Australians will be delighted that the world’s most famous anti-Australian is stepping down but I fear that his going might in fact be a disaster. Malaysia is a racial tinderbox with the way its bumbling native Malays hate their large and prosperous Chinese minority and Mahathir’s anti-Western rhetoric was a classic way of distracting attention from that. Will anybody else be able to hold Malaysia together? I am pessimistic.

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

REVOLT AGAINST PC IN COUNTRY AUSTRALIA

A reader writes:

"The recent doings in Dubbo show that city/country split may not have been healed by big cash handouts to the bush from governments. Recently in the New South Wales provincial town of Dubbo (pop. 38,000) about 11,000 people have signed a petition for kids who regularly commit crimes to be taken from their parents. The town has a problem with juvenile crime committed mainly by black youth. This is both a race and crime issue. I think the locals support for the proposition, which has zero chance of actually being implemented, was being deliberately provocative. The locals were sort of telling State and Federal politicians by this "..if you don't care about our crime problems, we don't care about your social reform agenda".

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

LEFTIST COMPASSION

Jeff Jacoby writes: “As if the mass graves containing the remains of so many Iraqi men and women weren't horrific enough, now comes word of an Iraqi grave filled with children. "This is different from other mass graves discovered since the fall of Saddam," the Kurdish newspaper Taakhi reported this week, "because it contains the remains of 200 child victims of the repression of the Kurdish uprising in 1991." Found among the corpses were dolls; the little girls who owned them must have been clutching them when they died.” But all the world’s “compassionate” Leftists defended the man who did this! It tells you what THEY are. But they defended the murderous Stalin for decades too so they are at least consistent.

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

MORE LEFTIST COMPASSION

"We have the legal custody of the children and we will do with them as we see fit. They are minors and they do what we tell them to do." --Susan Etscovitz, of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, on attempts to take a pair of homeschooled teenagers from their parents. We now hear however that the words of this Nazi “social worker” were “taken out of context”. I don’t think those words need much context for us to know what we think of the system and the mentality which produced them.

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

ELSEWHERE

” Three more Iranians set themselves on fire on Thursday in European capitals to protest a crackdown on an exile group in France”. The sad thing about it is that the arrogant French will not give a damn about the poor old self-immolators. “Imbecile” will be the ordinary French response if I know anything about it.

The lucky old British taxpayer: “Citizens of ten Eastern and Southern European countries will be entitled to UK social security benefits, council housing, treatment on the NHS and schooling when their countries join the European Union next year.”

Blogger.com does it again! “Bigwig” writes: “Silflay Hraka has moved to http://silflayhraka.com. Blogger went down for us on Friday night and never came back, so we were more or less forced out, though I'd been toying with the idea for a while.”

If only there were supermajority requirements like this everywhere: "The requirement is especially important this year, as California struggles with massive budget deficit of $38.2 billion_the legacy of an incredible run-up in spending in the late 1990s. The requirement of a 2/3rds supermajority by the California Constitution protects state taxpayers from government's natural instinct to raise taxes instead of cut waste and extravagant spending."

Arlene Peck has been to a Hollywood party and is amazed at the antisemitism of the Jewish Leftists she met there.

China Hand has discovered a Hong Kong equivalent of New York’s famous “Soup Nazi”

Michael Darby has a post which shows that Leftists totally ignore the realities of the Middle East.

Chris Brand has a few reflections about his long-standing advocacy of conservative causes even whilst almost all of his academic colleagues were Leftist.

The Wicked one is pleased at news of two successful fightbacks by ordinary ARMED Americans against criminal intruders.

In my academic post here (or here) I report a new way of measuring how ambitious people are. It works very well but psychologists generally still use older methods that can be shown to work less well. They are much more interested in confirming their prejudices than in finding out anything new.

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

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

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

*
LEFT AND RIGHT IN TUDOR TIMES

I have often argued that a Leftist personality underlies the rhetoric of the Leftist ideologue. I think all history shows that Leftists are basically unhappy people with big ego needs -- needs that make them crave attention, praise and -- ultimately -- power. And along with that goes a hatred of any success, happiness or power in others. And the Leftist aims to exercise power by taking away the liberties and regulating the lives of ordinary people. But if such a Leftist personality does exist, it should have been around for a long time -- far longer than we have had the term “Leftist” for it. I believe that evidence of such personalities does abound in history and we see it in fact in one of the great eras of English history -- in the Elizabethan era. Note the following excerpts from a discussion of two of the most powerful politicians in the reign of Elizabeth I -- Sir Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth’s Prime Minister -- Robert Cecil:

Cecil's shrinking heart probably allowed him to receive only the unpleasing news of how much he was in Ralegh's debt. ‘He worked with a cold fervour for the things of this world,' writes C. V. Wedgwood, ‘but he did not love the world at all ... it seemed to him no more than a painful, unrewarding purgatory.'

Ralegh loved the world, and his work in it.

Robert Cecil was Secretary of State as well as Leader of the House of Commons, and made earnest efforts to regulate the private lives of citizens into a neat and tidy pattern. His paternal policy was one that has often since led to disaster. He tried to enforce economy by law; it was ‘most necessary' to insist on coarser bread, and thinner beer, and fewer ale-houses, and ‘opening hours' for them; they must be closed at least one day a week (as in the modern ‘Six Day Licence') and then, so he argued, people would grow more food. Sheep-grazing was also wrong, and must be replaced by crops of hemp and corn; though as he added, ‘in these last few wet years', their deaths might as reasonably be blamed on the weather. Cecil's piety failed to convince some of the M.P.s that men should be ‘compelled by penalties', as one complained, to grow the regulation amounts of wheat and hemp, etc.

Francis Bacon's outstanding intellect came to Cecil's help with heavily embroidered eloquence. This would be a ‘law tending to God's honour'....

By contrast with Bacon's incomprehensible rhetoric, Ralegh's forthright attack on the bill is startling. His pungent rejoinders made short work of the Government's high-flown theories. The practical knowledge he had gained as a child on his father's farm had shown him at first hand how absurd it was to try to legislate for land without experience of it. And there was something at stake more important to him even than the land -- and that was individual liberty. ‘I do not like this constraining of men to manure or use their ground at our wills; let every man use it to that which it is most fit for, and use his own discretion.' Let Parliament set corn and hemp at liberty, ‘and leave every man free, which is the desire of a true Englishman'.

IIe won over the whole House. They shouted ‘Away with the bill!' and persistently rejected it, though the Government pushed it twice to a division.

Ralegh, that 'liberal-minded independent',' also [opposed] the bills to enforce a right religion. There was one against the Sect of Brownists, whom he had agreed gravely were `worthy to be rooted out of any commonwealth'. But just how, demanded the uncompromising realist, were they to set about rooting them out? (`I am sorry for it, I believe there be ten or twelve thousand of them in England.') If by banishment, who was to pay their transport, and to where? And who was to maintain their wives and families? And did the House really know what exactly the Brownists were, even after a Committee had been locked in by Cecil to study a book of their Articles of Belief? They should be judged, Ralegh insisted, only by their acts, not by their opinions. Like his Queen, he would not admit to anyone the right to set up `window to peer into men's souls'.

His loathing of such spiritual tyranny helped to cut out the cruellest measures of repression. It was expressed again, in terms of sheer hard common sense, against the new bill to make church attendance compulsory, and the church-wardens act as informers to the J.P.s. With the brisk logic of mathematics, Ralegh pointed out that if there were only two offenders in each parish, their sum total, together with the church-wardens, would add four hundred and eighty persons to every quartersessions, and `what great multitudes-what quarrelling and danger may happen, besides giving authority to a mean churchwarden'.

In matters more vital it was Ralegh's voice more than any that persistently championed the poor. He attacked with open scorn the meanness of rich men who called it good policy to squeeze the pockets of the poor and oppress their liberties.

He championed the humble housewife as keenly as he did his sovereign lady, and more dangerously for himself. Robert Cecil spoke in patriotic praise of the news that ‘some poor people were selling their pots and pans to pay the subsidy.... Neither pots nor pans, nor dish nor spoon should be spared', he announced unctuously. He was sure it would have an excellent effect on the King of Spain when he heard ‘how willing we are to sell all in defence of God's religion', etc. His listeners applauded this noble sentiment. It has a hollow echo coming from a man who had made a large fortune, as Master of the Wards

His complacent eagerness to sacrifice the household goods of poor folk was backed by Bacon. The poor ought to be taxed as heavily as the rich: because, as he quoted in Latin, it was a right and ‘sweet course to pull together in an equal yoke'.

This smug hypocrisy brought Ralegh to his feet. `Call you this an equal yoke, when a poor man pays as much as a rich? His estate may be no better than he is assessed at, while our estates are entered as £30 or £40 in the Queen's books -- not the hundredth part of our wealth!' His outrageous frankness over this unfair advantage given to his own class, shocked his opponents. His final blow demolished them: ‘It is neither sweet nor equal.'

(Quoted from p. 136 - 138 of That Great Lucifer: A portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh by Margaret Irwin [Bungay, Suffolk: Reprint Society, 1960])

So we see that, even back then, it was the conservative defender of individual liberty (Ralegh) who was -- as conservatives have always claimed -- the true champion and helper of the poor. While the power-mad control freaks such as the scheming Cecil and the intellectual Bacon had no real concern for the poor at all. Nothing has changed.

And in another very modern touch, Queen Elizabeth ended her reign by announcing a big tax cut (by abolishing government-granted monopolies) -- to much popular acclaim (p. 158). Big tax-cutters such as Thatcher and Reagan thus have a most respected and successful predecessor in English history.

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

FOOLISH CHANGE IN BRITAIN TODAY

Tony Blair’s sudden announcement that he is going to abolish Britain’s ancient unwritten constitution and replace it with more “modern” arrangements is rightly being decried by most conservatives. A major objective is to make the appointment of judges less politicized, yet, as it points out here, the British judiciary is in fact already much LESS politicized than most. It is certainly less politicized than the US judiciary. So replacing such a successful system seems crazy. One reason that has been suggested for this attack on the British constitution is that Tony Blair and most of his senior ministers are in fact Scotsmen, who have no love for anything English. I think that is a red herring, however. It is almost certainly just another example of the Leftist conviction that they can “improve” anything by ever more legislation. Robert Cecil would understand.

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

ELSEWHERE

There’s some amusing stuff in the WSJ today about clinical depression at Guantanamo Bay and the evils of dihydrogen hydroxide.

President Bush said Wednesday that he and other world leaders would not tolerate nuclear weapons in Iran. And after Iraq, that carries weight.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with reading for all.

Chris Brand has a discussion of the connection between white guilt and coloured immigration.

Michael Darby has some thoughts about explaining tax reform better.

The Wicked one points out that George Bush supports big government.

In my academic posting here (or here), I re-do some research originally reported by Marxist psychologists and get results that totally undermine their conclusions.

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

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

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

FOREBODINGS ABOUT MULTICULTURALISM

A reader writes:

I read your recent posting on multiculturalism with interest. There is something quite arrogant and self contradictory about 'multiculturalism'. On the one hand multiculturalists think it is arrogant and supremacist for western people to rate their own culture higher than other cultures, especially Third World cultures. They say it is xenophobic and racist for Australians to want to give preference in immigration to people with similar cultural traditions.

Yet how do they treat the experience of other nations, especially Third World nations? Look at the track record of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural states. Eritrea split from Ethiopia 1993. Czechoslavakia splits 1993. USSR breaks down into about a dozen ethnically distinct states 1991. Yugoslavia 1991. Lebanon effectively splits into Christian and Muslim regions 1975. Cyprus partitioned 1974. Hindu and Muslim areas of India split into India and Pakistan 1947, with muslim Pakistan and muslim Bangladesh further spliting on ethnic lines in 1971. Malay dominated Malaysia, expels Chinese dominated Singapore in 1965. Sri Lanka. Turkey. Iraq. Iran. Sudan. Chad. Nigeria. Ireland. Ulster. The German speaking South Tyrolians of Italy. Canada and Quebec. Even multi-ethnic Switzerland, which is effectively divided into linguistically homogeneous cantons each with local control over education and cultural affairs, saw the creation of a new Francophone canton of Jura within German Berne following years of terrorist activity.

Isn't it arrogant to ignore the numerous failures of other nations? Doesn't this imply that multiculturalists really believe, ...under their benign leadership, of course, that we are superior to the Ethiopians, Czechs, Slovaks, Russians, Yugoslavs, Lebanese, Cyrpriots, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Sri Lankans, Turks, Iraqis, Iranians, Sudanese, Nigerians, Irish, Ulstermen, Italians, Canadians, Quebeckers and Swiss? Isn't their something self contradictory about the multiculturalists' failures to deal honestly with the real world failures of numerous multi-ethnic states? Isn't it a tad arrogrant to believe we can avoid the same fate if only we cast out our doubters?

Multiculturalism is an idealistic political programme. History shows that idealistic programmes don't last more than a generation, sometimes they linger for two, especially if the vested interests dig themselves in. Hopefully it will work and countries like Australia and the US will be spared the ethnic conflicts that litter the world. Just maybe we can show mankind a new, better way to live. But don't bet on it. Unfortunately, like communism, another highly idealistic program, the most likely outcome is that in it's wake it will leave a mess for the realists to sort out.

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

ELSEWHERE

Is France now on the side of the mad Ayatollahs of Iran? “Masked and heavily armed police raided the compound of an Iranian opposition group Tuesday, detaining activists on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks in France and building a support base for operations abroad.”

Language the French might underrstand: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told France on Tuesday it should ''shut up'' about his Middle East policy.

Hmmm... It looks like the British Conservatives have rediscovered traditional conservative values and are thus putting the heat on British Labour.

The total disregard for truth and honesty among Leftist academics is breathtaking --as we see here. They complain about the private funding received by conservative think-tanks whilst totally ignoring the vastly greater government expenditure in supporting Leftist institutions such as the Social Science and Humanities faculties of the universities and "public" broadcasters. And they even put such distortions into a "textbook"!

This should at least keep him away from children for a while: “The Roman Catholic bishop of Phoenix has been arrested over a deadly hit-and-run accident after US police said they traced the number plate of his car and found the windscreen caved in.”

Notice from Iain Murray: “A glitch in Blogger has meant that I have to unveil my new web site for The Edge of England's Sword a little earlier than I wanted. The new site is at: http://www.iainmurray.org/MT. The full iainmurray.org site is under development, and will hopefully contain links to all my published articles in weeks to come.”

On this day (18th June) in 1814 Ann Jane Burnside was born. She grew up to be less than 5' tall and obtained work in Northern Ireland as a child's maid. She was tried in court at Down on 26.3.1840 and convicted of stealing clothes. She was sentenced to transportation to Australia. She arrived on the "Margaret" on 17.8.1840 from Ireland. The convict ship records show that she could read, that her native place was Liverpool and that her religion was Presbyterian. She was my Great-great Grandmother.

I have just put up a new cartoon I like here and two cat and dog pictures here that I think most people will like.

I have a post on PC Watch that compares the big effects of Marshall Plan aid to Europe with the negative effects of aid money given to Africa.

Michael Darby has more on the legal machinations that force our insurance costs up.

Chris Brand points out how little UK academics are concerned about freedom of speech.

The Wicked one has a post about the black war on whites.

In my academic posting here (or here), I report that even back in the ‘70s, the English were not much bothered about Scotland becoming more independent.

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

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

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

GLOBAL CYNICISM

See here for a translation of the National Academy of Science’s report on global-warming into more honest English. And Nobel prizewinner Kary Mullis explains it REALLY simply: “Environmentalists predict that global warming is coming, and our emissions are to blame. They do that to keep us worried about our role in the whole thing. If we aren't worried and guilty, we might not pay their salaries. It's that simple." There is a review of Mullis’s book here. Mullis recommends the "Public Choice" ideas of James Buchanan, 1986 Nobel prizewinning economist, to anyone trying to find out how publicly funded big science actually works. Interestingly, research in the field is increasingly labelled 'climate change' rather than global warming. A code word for hedged bets?

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

ELSEWHERE

There is a facsinating interview with famous but anonymous Baghdad blogger Salam Pax here.

Black racism: “The inclusion of a white contestant in a pan-African version of the reality TV show Big Brother has ignited a heated debate about who can call themselves an African”

Better late than never, I suppose: “The European Union, in a significant shift towards United States thinking, says force might be necessary where diplomacy fails to address threats from weapons of mass destruction”

Most people around the world, including Americans, view US President George Bush unfavourably and think the United States was wrong to invade Iraq. That sounds bad but when we realize that the poll comes from as discredited an organization as the BBC, the “findings” are no surprise. For contrast, look at the professional polling results described by John O’Sullivan.

Andrew Bolt summarizes well the shocking story about how the exposure of systematic lies by Leftist historians caused not one shred of repentance among them. They of course attacked the man (Keith Windschuttle) who exposed them instead. Excerpt: “Windschuttle aims to take the discipline of history back to some golden age when it was all about facts," complained Professor Alan Atkinson. Well, yes, professors. That's his point.”

A victory for home schoolers against the Fascist educational authorities of Massachusetts.

Some U.S. libertarians have voted “Rabbit Proof Fence” as “Best Libertarian film”. I hope they realized that the film is fiction masquerading as fact. If anybody wants the true story see here.

From Brookes News: Plant closures and left-wing fallacies. Tariffs and the state of the textile, clothing and footwear industries should serve to remind us that socialist and statist economic fallacies are a bit like weeds, no matter how much intellectual hoeing we do they constantly return to pester us.
Is India stealing America's high-tech jobs? To cut to the chase, India has been subsidising the US economy. Think of it as foreign aid in reverse, with the benefits of Indian investments in computer science and engineering moving to the US whose highly advanced capital structure could accommodate the flow.

Michael Duffy points out that keeping Australian Aborigines isolated from mainstream Australia by way of “land rights” will leave them forever without hope of achieving white living standards

Arnold Kling sounds like he knows how to minimize the nuisance of spam. I would like spammers to be declared outlaws myself. People would be lining up to shoot them.

The problems of the Japanese economy certainly are an amazing test of whether Keynesian “pump priming” works. By itself it clearly does not. The Japanese experience certainly shows how hopeless and destructive it is to prop up failing or failed busnessses -- particularly banks in the Japanese case.

Hydrogen-powered cars are a Greenie dream but making them practical really is a dream. And if we did all convert to hydrogen powered cars, the effect on the ozone layer would probably be catastrophic! Erk! The Greenies might find that a problem.

Chris Brand thinks there are six dimensions of human personality.

Michael Darby has some suggestions for making public liability insurance cover more affordable.

The Wicked one is appalled at the extent of the battle against drugs in U.S. schools.

In my academic posting here (or here) I note hypocrisy among British Leftists who decry materialistic ambition and ambition generally without being any less ambitious and materialistic themselves.

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

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

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

MULTICULTURALISM NEED NOT BE NEGATIVE

The usual "alternative" that Leftists offer to racial, ethnic or national consciousness is multiculturalism. Though what is inadequate about awareness of oneself as being simply an individual rather escapes me.

Leftists have undoubtedly given multiculturalism a bad name but I would argue that moderate versions of the idea are perfectly reasonable. There is surely a middle way between rejecting everything that is "foreign" and regarding Western civilization as little better than a criminal conspiracy. Multiculturalism is firmly entrenched in Australian politics as just such a middle way. There is general agreement that other cultures should be generally accepted and that we should all be open to whatever good might be in them.

And I fully accept that. What I do NOT accept is the claim that all cultures are equal or of equal value. I believe it to be pretty obvious that modern Western culture does best at delivering generally desired outcomes to its adherents. And it is also historically undisputable that, from early roots in the Mediterranean area, that culture has mainly been developed by a small group of interrelated peoples with origins on the fringes of North Western Europe. And those of us who are part of one or more of those peoples have every reason to celebrate it. And I am and I do. I am happy with who and what I am.

Critics of multicultural excesses are often portrayed as uneducated redneck yokels by the Left. But are Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr or Harvard's Samuel P. Huntington rednecks? Huntington sums up rather well the excesses that the chronic anger of the Left leads to:

"Historically American national identity has been defined culturally by the heritage of Western civilization and politically by the principles of the American Creed on which Americans overwhelmingly agree: liberty, democracy, individualism, equality before the law, constitutionalism, private property. In the late twentieth century both components of American identity have come under concentrated and sustained onslaught from a small but influential number of intellectuals and publicists. In the name of multiculturalism they have attacked the identification of the United States with Western civilization, denied the existence of a common American culture, and promoted racial, ethnic, and other subnational cultural identities and groupings. They have denounced, in the words of one of their reports, the "systematic bias toward European culture and its derivatives" in education and "the dominance of the European-American monocultural perspective." The multiculturalists are, as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., said, "very often ethnocentric separatists who see little in the Western heritage other than Western crimes." Their "mood is one of divesting Americans of the sinful European inheritance and seeking redemptive infusions from non-Western cultures."

Clearly, there is absolutely no need for multiculturalism to be so negative. Only the chronic hatred of Leftists for the ordinary people around them can explain such negativity.

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

INDIA

John O’Sullivan has been looking at international public opinion poll data and concludes that the big new division in the world may be between the USA and its Anglosphere friends on the one hand and the rest of the world on the other. But it is notable that he includes among the “friends” not only Britain and Australia but also India. The many years of the British “Raj” in India have of course left an enormous legacy there -- in that Indian English the only means many Indians have of communicating with one-another and English culture generally has become deeply integrated into Indian life. So even without common racial origins, common culture can be very important, influential and unifying. And Leftists want to throw that great cultural legacy away! I personally have known Indians since my childhood and very much like them so sharing a culture that unites me with one billion of them strikes me as a very good thing.

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

ELSEWHERE

Saudi support for terrorist organizations is coming back to haunt them. They have just found a "huge" cache of weapons and explosives in Mecca itself. Since no “infidels” are allowed in Mecca, other Muslims were obviously the intended target.

Good! The French are peeved that the USA is largely ignoring their Air Show. They insult and disparage Americans and still expect American support?? So having got themselves into that pickle, what do they do? In a truly French display of brainlessness, they add more insults!

German practicality resurfaces: Even the German Greens now back Schroeder’s long overdue plan to trim Germany's welfare state and reduce job market regulation.

China has sacked two high-ranking naval officers involved in a fatal submarine accident. Encouraging. They are sounding increasingly Westernized. It might have happened under Mao but would never have been announced.

Chris Brand argues that recognizing inherited differences in IQ would be a positive for liberalism.

Michael Darby notes that the U.S. military have far more respect for GWB than they had for Clinton.

The Wicked one has a rather amusing post about atheist churches.

In my academic post of 15th. here (or here) I report a survey of white South Africans done during in the Apartheid era which found them to be no more racist than anyone else. Their refusal to give legal equality to blacks at that time was then an outcome not of racism but of of fear about what black control would lead to -- a fear that has now been amply borne out by the collapse of law and order in modern-day South Africa under black rule.

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

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

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

ELSEWHERE

Saudi support for terrorist organizations is coming back to haunt them. They have just found a "huge" cache of weapons and explosives in Mecca itself. Since no “infidels” are allowed in Mecca, other Muslims were obviously the intended target.

Good! The French are peeved that the USA is largely ignoring their Air Show. They insult and disparage Americans and still expect American support?? So having got themselves into that pickle, what do they do? In a truly French display of brainlessness, they add more insults!

German practicality resurfaces: Even the German Greens now back Schroeder’s long overdue plan to trim Germany's welfare state and reduce job market regulation.

China has sacked two high-ranking naval officers involved in a fatal submarine accident. Encouraging. They are sounding increasingly Westernized. It might have happened under Mao but would never have been announced.

Chris Brand argues that recognizing inherited differences in IQ would be a positive for liberalism.

Michael Darby notes that the U.S. military have far more respect for GWB than they had for Clinton.

The Wicked one has a rather amusing post about atheist churches.

In my academic post of 15th. here (or here) I report a survey of white South Africans done during in the Apartheid era which found them to be no more racist than anyone else. Their refusal to give legal equality to blacks at that time was then an outcome not of racism but of of fear about what black control would lead to -- a fear that has now been amply borne out by the collapse of law and order in modern-day South Africa under black rule.

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

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

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

.LOTS OF GOOD SUNDAY READING

Carol Johnson has a good comment on looting: "There's much bias evident in this NYT article, but it is still a good read on the current state of affairs of the Iraqi oil industry. I find it very ironic that the truth appears to be that museum artifacts were not, after all, heavily looted, but the oil fields that the US was condemned for protecting, have, in fact, been targets of looting."

The Guardian, of all papers, has a furious attack on the anti-Americans who invented the "looted museum" myth in Baghdad.

The French “peacekeeping” forces in Africa under the auspices of the U.N. are a joke. All they are doing is observe while the slaughter goes on. But the poor dears got fired on yesterday!

There are some signs that moderate Muslims everywhere are getting sick of the extremists: In Australia, in Malaysia, in Italy and in Saudi Arabia itself. Obviously, however, there is still a long way to go. Some talk of the "Clash of Civilisations" with the West versus Islam. They have got it wrong. Terrorism is about those who are against ALL civilisation.

LOL: “Canberra's 25-year-old Aboriginal tent embassy was gutted by fire early yesterday - and angry indigenous residents on the site are pointing the finger at the Federal Government”

I think this is a disgrace: "In 1999, Ifaw found meat from a western Pacific grey whale on sale in Japan: no more than 100 or so are thought to survive."

A very good look at the history of Marxism here: "His coverage of Marx and Engels makes one ask the inevitable question, which is how two rogues such as these could have seduced a large portion of the world's population with their delusions. Marx appears to have been the prototype for what I call the 'self- righteous leftist' who still swings, like a Bonobo in search of a five second mate, from the girders of our political infrastructure today."

To make Social Security solvent over the next 75 years, either a permanent 15 percent increase in payroll income taxes, or a 13 percent reduction in benefits, or some combination of the two would be required."

Thomas Sowell: "The June issue of National Geographic contains one of the rare honest looks at India. The article ('India's Untouchables') gives a shocking picture of some of the most persecuted people on Earth. For far too long, India has been one of a number of countries used by the intelligentsia to denigrate the United States. The image or the insinuation has been that we are materialistic, they are spiritual; we are violent, they are peaceful ... and so on."

"If American education is to survive, it must completely abandon its current paradigm of enormous, age-segregated schools controlled by Federal monies and the NEA. A return to the one-room school house -- even in large metropolitan areas -- would be a massive improvement.... As long as we allow any government body to control education through funding, our children will continue to be either ignorami or bored stiff all day long."

Australians for Constitutional Monarchy takes a very relaxed stance on flag burning. Libertarians would argue that if you own the flag concerned it is up to you whether to burn it or not.

Australia's open ended welfare system -- with no limits on how long one can be on welfare -- is at last coming in for some criticism.

Genetic technology may revive extinct Tasmanian tigers ... so the Greens are against it, of course. What a horror it would be for them if the extinctions they love parading turned out to be reversible!

Peter Hitchens on what the EU means for the UK: Extinction of 1000 yrs of history. And his authority for that? None other than respected British Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell!

Arlene Peck’s latest article, “The gloves are off!” -- on the response to terrorism directed against Israel is up here

The Wicked one has a posting about enemies of free trade.

Chris Brand notes some tentative retreats from political correctness.

Michael Darby notes that ownership of personal compurters is now severely restricted in Cuba.

In my academic post here (or here) I report evidence that upsets a silly psychological theory that tries to blame the poverty of some nations on lack of ambition among their people rather than laying the blame for poverty where it belongs -- on socialist politics.

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

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

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