Another hit at the self esteem myth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source

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Some truths about McCain that are stranger than fiction

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

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

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

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

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

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

More here

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

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

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

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Genocide in Pajamas

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

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

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

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

Nationalism resurgent

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

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

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

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

More here

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ELSEWHERE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Moment of Truth for the Left has Arrived

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More here

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Good humour from GWB

At the recent White House dinner:

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

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

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

Source

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ELSEWHERE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Look Who's Talking about Change, Unity and Peace

As I get older, I become more convinced that hypocrisy and irony must be as blind as a bat, for those who practice it seem oblivious to the fact that they wear it like a clown suit at a formal wedding; plain as day, badly out of place and amusing to boot. This election year, we have provided with a classic example of this phenomenon, as evidenced by the Bobbsey Twins, Obama and Hillary, from here on referred to simply as OH for practicality, simplicity and accuracy.

To begin with, it has become painfully obvious to many that the more this duo tries to distinguish themselves one from the other, the more we realize that they are two sides of the same coin. They speak of change even as they are no change from typical elitist liberal socialism. They speak of change even as they represent no change from the usual Left strategy of pointing fingers at America instead of at her enemies. They speak of change even as the only thing they seem capable of changing is a tire, and certainly not any tire that would take America anywhere productive.

You can change clothes, you can change diapers and you can change the channel on your television set, but you have a better chance of finding change at a nudist colony than you have of finding it between these two.

Unity is another popular slogan but, if this pair is any indication, the only thing uniting liberals is their individual selfishness and arrogance undermining their collective interest and agenda. If too many cooks spoil the soup, then this soup has become a diluted, jumbled and highly intoxicating superficial stew.

OH speak of unity, brotherhood, sisterhood and neighborhood even as they prove on a daily basis that they need to check under the hood and see why their actions have never met their words. How can we believe two people who claim to be messengers of unity when they cannot even find a way to unify their own party? How can we listen to two people who ask us to hug each other when they seem more likely to slug each other? How can we heed their calls to heal our wounds when they seem more adept at rubbing salt in their own?

More here

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An elitist sneer from the Left

Michael Hirsh, writing in Newsweek, tells us what he really thinks about people who are different than he, and although I don't think he is clinging to any guns or religion, he does seem just a tad bitter at those whom he sees as having "a rather savage, unsophisticated set of mores" This is a stunning piece of self-revelation:

I've watched the Southernization of our national politics at the hands of the GOP and its evangelical base....

...the "radical nationalism" that has so dominated the nation's discourse since 9/11 traces its origins to the demographic makeup and mores of the South and much of the West and Southern Midwest--in other words, what we know today as Red State America. This region was heavily settled by Scots-Irish immigrants.... the Southern frontiersmen never got over their hatred of the East Coast elites and a belief in the morality and nobility of defying them.... a substantial portion of the new nation developed, over many generations, a rather savage, unsophisticated set of mores. Traditionally, it has been balanced by a more diplomatic, communitarian Yankee sensibility from the Northeast and upper Midwest. But that latter sensibility has been losing ground in population numbers--and cultural weight.

The coarsened sensibility that this now-dominant Southernism and frontierism has brought to our national dialogue is unmistakable. [....]

On foreign policy, the realism and internationalism of the Eastern elitist tradition once kept the Southern-frontier warrior culture and Wilsonian messianism in check. Now the latter two, in toxic combination, have taken over our national dialogue, and the Easterners are running for the hills.

There is more sneering, but fair use copyright limitations preclude further excerpts. This is a must-read for all those who doubt that elitism is a serious factor in American politics and journalism.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



Demographics: "If there was any surprise in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, it was that recent events had virtually no effect on the result. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could have stayed home for the past month and a half and the outcome would have been essentially the same. Women and older voters, for the most part, would have come out for Clinton; blacks, young people and the highly educated elite would have backed Obama. And Clinton would have ended up with a decisive victory unlikely to halt her opponent's march toward the nomination. .... But what is good for Obama now might be fatal later. Demographics don't necessarily favor him, or any Democrat, in the general election. Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, racially polarized voting patterns will remain a reality, argues Vincent Hutchings, associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. If voters behave this year as they have in the recent past, upwards of 55 percent of whites will vote for the Republican candidate and somewhere upwards of 85 percent of blacks will vote for the Democrat. In 2000, Al Gore won an estimated 92 percent of the black votes. Hutchings doubts Obama could do any better"

British bureaucrats eat crow: "The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has issued an unprecedented apology to Wm Morrison for wrongly suggesting that Britain's fourth-largest supermarket group was guilty of fixing prices for butter and cheese five years ago. The competition watchdog agreed today to pay 100,000 pounds to settle a defamation case brought by the retailer over "serious errors" published in a press release last September. The OFT has also agreed to pay Morrison's costs in relation to the defamation case and a judicial review the supermarket launched in the wake of the OFT's strongly worded press release, which accused supermarkets of ripping off shoppers to the tune of 270 million. The OFT said in a statement today that its September release incorrectly stated that Morrison was the subject of a provisional finding of infringement in relation to the supply of butter and cheese in 2002 and 2003."

The corrupt EU again: "A British whistleblower who exposed alleged corruption at a European aid agency faces the sack after he told EU fraud investigators that his boss was involved in the scam. Terry Battersby, 53, from Manchester, has been removed from his job as head of information technology at the Brussels-based Centre for the Development of Enterprise (CDE) and placed on a short-term contract. Battersby uncovered evidence that the agency's former director, Hamed Sow, who is now the energy minister of the west African country of Mali, approved the award of lucrative European Union contracts to a company in which he had a financial interest. Sow is alleged to have arranged for the CDE to back a loan of nearly 3m pounds to a textile company in Mali, without disclosing that he owned up to 20% of the company and was receiving payments from the firm. The CDE, set up to support the private sector in poor countries, receives more than 14m a year in taxpayers' money from the EU."

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

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

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A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

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

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U.S. military chiefs get ready for attack on Iran

The nation's top military officer said today that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be "extremely stressing" but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force. "It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," he said at a Pentagon news conference....

In a speech Monday at West Point, Gates said Iran "is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." He said a war with Iran would be "disastrous on a number of levels. But the military option must be kept on the table given the destabilizing policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat."

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who was nominated this week to head all U.S. forces in the Middle East, is preparing a briefing soon to lay out detailed evidence of increased Iranian involvement in Iraq, Mullen said. The briefing will detail, for example, the discovery in Iraq of weapons that were very recently manufactured in Iran, he said. "The Iranian government pledged to halt such activities some months ago. It's plainly obvious they have not. Indeed, they seem to have gone the other way," Mullen said.

He said recent unrest in the southern Iraqi city of Basra had highlighted a "level of involvement" by Iran that had not been understood by the U.S. military previously. "It became very, very visible in ways that we hadn't seen before," he said.

More here

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More Brookes News

The US needs a good dose of supply-side economics: By drawing attention to the destructive effects of heavy capital gains taxes, supply-siders are have brought to light another economic fact: if you want less of a product, penalise it. As capital gains are profits that can be directed to investment, penalizing them produces less investment which in turn has a detrimental effect on real wage
George Soros, economic illiteracy and monetary policy: Soros is obviously a very successful currency speculator, but he is no theoretician or deep thinker. He has only demonstrated the adage that you do not need to be clever to make lots of money
Dan Rather: Cuba's useful idiot: Dan Rather has been long-time supporter of Castro's brutal dictatorship, continually running interference for it. Rather recently gave Americans another thoroughly dishonest account of conditions on the Castro brothers' island estate, once again revealing how corrupt the mainstream media are
It's not about saving the planet: it's about control: In the 1970s the imminent catastrophe of the day was 'global cooling'. Isn't it ironic that the same phenomenon now used to explain how the world is undergoing catastrophic warming was earlier claimed to be the source of unmanageable global cooling?
"We have met the enemy and they is us": In the past year the Democratic majority cut funding for the border fence, opened the door to illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded services and overturned a GOP proposal to prevent taxpayer-funded federal benefitsfrom being awarded to illegal immigrants
Israel: time to "Leave Egypt": Israel is on a front line of the war between Arab-Muslim expansionism and Western democracy. This war has already shifted to America and Europe
"Gay" activists risk your life - tolerate it!: Current U.S. health regulations prohibit men who have sex with men (MSM) from donating blood. Studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) categorically confirm that if MSM were permitted to give blood, the general population would be placed at risk

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ELSEWHERE

British Leftist government Takes From the Poor: "This was another bad week for Gordon Brown. Not even a year in office, the Prime Minister has already been in the soup for mishandling a banking crisis and for chickening out on early elections and an EU Constitution referendum. Now the Tories are taunting the Labour leader - who had made fighting poverty his No. 1 issue - as a tax oppressor of the poor. The charge has stuck and stung. Mr. Brown was forced Wednesday by backbenchers in his own party to mollify more than five million low-wage earners and pensioners who have seen their income taxes double to 20% this month. Even worse for a Labour leader, the tax hikes, which he passed last year when he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer but which came into force only this month, coincided with tax cuts for the middle class."

Politicians want it both ways: "It's infuriating how all three presidential candidates prattle on about the need to fight global warming while also complaining about the high price of gasoline. The candidates treat CO2 emissions as a social issue like gay marriage, with no economic ramifications. In the real world, barring a massive buildup of nuclear plants, reducing carbon dioxide emissions means consuming less energy and that means raising prices a lot, either directly with a tax or indirectly with a cap-and-trade permitting system."

Black members of the U.S. military once again outrage Japan: "Prosecutors charged a US sailor today in the stabbing death of a taxi driver, one of a series of alleged crimes by American service members that has stirred anger in Japan. Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a 22-year-old Nigerian citizen serving in the US Navy, was charged with stabbing the driver to death near a US naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, on March 19, the court said in a statement. The killing followed a string of accusations against American servicemen in Japan, stoking criticism of the 50,000 US troops in the country and calls for tougher military anti-crime measures. In a separate case, a US military policeman on the southern island of Okinawa was indicted today in an assault and robbery of a Japanese taxi driver in March, Kyodo News agency reported. The officer has been handed over to Japanese authorities. The sailor in Yokosuka today faced two charges: one of robbery and murder, and one of illegal possession of a weapon. Japanese police have said that he confessed to the crime."

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

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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

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

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THAT WAFFLE WAS MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN YOU MIGHT THINK

Obama's now-famous remark: "Why can't I just eat my waffle?" has been much noted. Google has over 19,000 mentions of it. And the message taken from it has generally been that Obama is a haughty elitist who does not like to be questioned. I think that there is much more than that to it, however. Read the following report from last month to put it in context:

Early morning trainers and exercisers at the Greenville, Miss., YMCA on Mississippi primary day last Tuesday got a taste of Sen. Barack Obama's reclusiveness, which the traveling press corps has learned to accept.

After speaking at Tougaloo College on Monday night, Obama went to the "Y" at 6:30 a.m. for a workout. He greeted nobody and did not respond when people there called out to him. That aloofness has been the pattern in the Democratic presidential candidate's behavior toward reporters who cover him.

After finishing his workout, Obama returned to his gregarious campaign mode with a visit to black-owned Buck's restaurant in Greenville before leaving the state. He won Mississippi comfortably against Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Source

The above quote and the waffle remark are both telling us the same thing: That Obama has difficulty keeping up his "nice guy" image. Keeping it up quite simply wears him out. It is not who he really is so keeping up that image tires him and he just HAS to rest from it. It is not who he really is.

And as someone who has studied psychopathy (I have a couple of academic journal articles on the subject) that is very familiar. Psychopaths also typically present a "nice guy" image -- something that sucks in the females wholesale. The psychopath says and does all the right things and people promptly put their trust in him. And then when they least expect it, he "goes bad" on them. "Why did he do that?" is the typical distressed response, "He was so nice and then he went and did ....".

The sucker in the story gets very thoroughly betrayed and has no clue as to why the psychopath suddenly changed. The answer, of course, is that the nice guy act was all a pretense in the first place and because it was not genuine the psychopath just could not keep it up for long. The "change" that distressed the sucker was the mask being dropped and the psychopath reverting to his true type.

And that is what we see in both reports of Obama's behaviour above. By the time he got to his waffle he just could not keep up his act, even under the full glare of media scrutiny. He HAD to have a rest from acting. So the Obama we see on the campaign trail is just a false front for the very dismal soul that lies beneath it. If America elects Obama, it will not get what it voted for. It will get a horror. An entire nation will have been conned.

Bill Clinton is a psychopath too. He too is known for suddenly "losing it" at times. But Slick Willy was led around by his penis. Obama will probably be led around by the hate that he sucked up in listening to 20 years of Jeremiah Wright's preaching.

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ELSEWHERE

Hillary refuses to concede North Carolina: "Sen. Hillary Clinton is widely expected to lose North Carolina's Democratic presidential primary on May 6, but that isn't stopping her campaign from spending millions of dollars on advertising and holding rallies in dozens of communities throughout the state. Sen. Clinton wants to avoid the kind of blowout loss to Sen. Barack Obama she suffered in South Carolina in January. She is trying to demonstrate the breadth of her support to Democratic elected officials and other superdelegates who will sway the decision on the party's nomination. North Carolina has a large population of the economically hard-hit rural white voters among whom Sen. Clinton has fared well in recent contests."

British prison absurdity: "Prisoners are passing up opportunities to escape because they are more comfortable inside jails where there is a plentiful supply of cheap drugs, according to a prison officers' union leader. Staff morale is at rock bottom and many jails are close to anarchy because of underfunding, said Glyn Travis, assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers Association. He gave warning yesterday that the drug problem was now "out of control" and said that even prostitutes were sometimes smuggled in. Mr Travis told of one institution in Yorkshire where members of the public were climbing over the prison walls to take drugs inside. "They put up ladders to climb over the walls, but prisoners were so comfortable in the environment they were living in that none tried to climb up the ladders and escape," he said, in a reference to Everthorpe Prison in East Yorkshire."

Iraqis winning: "When Nouri al-Maliki launched his surprise attack against the main Shia militia in Basra, the operation appeared to be a disastrous miscalculation pitting inexperienced Iraqi soldiers against well-armed and battle-hardened street-fighters of the Mahdi Army... One month on and Iraq’s leader can justifiably claim to have scored a stunning victory, probably the first of its kind by the post-Saddam Iraqi army. The most notorious areas of Basra are now under government control, the Mahdi Army of Moqtadr al-Sadr has been roundly defeated and the long suffering people of Basra are celebrating freedoms they did not enjoy during the four years of British military rule in the city."

Israeli Ambassador calls Jimmy Carter a "bigot": "Israel's ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday called former President Jimmy Carter "a bigot" for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, "went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas," Ambassador Dan Gillerman told a luncheon briefing for reporters. The ambassador's harsh words for Carter came days after the ex-president met with Mashaal for seven hours in Damascus to negotiate a cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Carter then called Mashaal on Monday to try to get him to agree to a one-month truce without conditions, but the Hamas leader rejected the idea. The ambassador called last weekend's encounter "a very sad episode in American history." He said it was "a shame" to see Carter, who had done "good things" as a former president, "turn into what I believe to be a bigot."

What happened to the 4th Amendment ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures?: "Federal agents at the border do not need any reason to search through travelers' laptops, cell phones or digital cameras for evidence of crimes, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, extending the government's power to look through belongings like suitcases at the border to electronics. The unanimous three-judge decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were 'an extension of our own memory' and thus too personal to allow the government to search them without cause. Instead, the earlier ruling said, Customs agents would need some reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred in order to search a traveler's laptop. "

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

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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

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

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Red hair and another seder recollection

A VERY late arrival (about halfway through the seder) at my table was what I took to be a mother/son couple. The son was a serious but polite young man who arrived wearing what the Scots would call "trews": pants with a sort of loud tartan check in them. I gather that he was a rock musician of some sort (I know nothing about popular music. I am a Bach man). I am searching for the right word to describe the impression I got of him: "Eccentric" comes close but only in a way that is in my experience rather to be expected of pop musicians. I was for a time involved in selling music computers (Atari STs) so I got to see a lot of pop musicians at that time. And they do rather seem to live in a world not much influenced by convention.

He had VERY red hair which he wore VERY long -- and a short red beard to go with it. And his skin was VERY fair -- the sort of light-red colour that I recollect my father as having. My father was also a redhead. So how was this unusual person greeted by those present? He was greeted with great affection by many people. They had obviously known him for some time and loved him for the individual that he is.

I was greatly impressed by that. I too value individuality greatly and tend to find eccentrics most interesting. And I am MOST biased in favour of red hair. My first girlfriend was a redhead; The first lady I lived with was a redhead and two of the four ladies I married were redheads. And it gives me great joy to see redheaded children -- which I often do in the places that I frequent. I am most pleased with my son the mathematician (Yiddisher Mommas stereotypically like to refer to "My son the doctor" but I have a feeling that "My son the mathematician" trumps that) but there is a tiny twinge of regret that he is a blond rather than a redhead. There is red hair on his mother's side as well as on mine so it could have been.... I don't really know why I am mentioning these things but why not?

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The Democrats Have a Nominee

Says Dan Henninger of the WSJ

So what? Other than ensuring the Greatest Show on Earth will continue, does it matter that Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama Tuesday in Pennsylvania by nine-plus points? Barack Obama is the nominee. No matter how many kicks the rest of us find in such famously fun primary states as Indiana and South Dakota, it's going to be McCain versus Obama in 2008.

I believe the cement set around the Clinton coffin last Friday. The Obama campaign announced it had received the support of former Sens. Sam Nunn of North Carolina and David Boren of Oklahoma. Both are what some of us nostalgically call Serious Democrats. They represent what the party was, but is no more: sensible on national security, spending and middle-class values. Obama receiving their imprimatur is like hands reaching out from the graves of FDR, JFK and LBJ to announce: "Enough is enough. This man is your nominee. Go forth and fight with the Republicans." Make no mistake: Superdelegates with sway took notice.....

Sam Nunn and David Boren by political temperament should be in her camp. Instead, they threw in with Obama, who calls his campaign "post-partisan," a ludicrous phrase. The blowback at ABC's debate makes clear that Obama is the left's man. So what did Messrs. Nunn and Boren see? The biggest event was the Clinton Abandonment. In a campaign of surprises, none has been more breathtaking than the falling away of Clinton supporters, loyalists . . . and friends. Why? Money. Barack Obama's mystical pull on people is nice, but nice in modern politics comes after money. Once Barack proved conclusively that he could raise big-time cash, the Clintons' strongest tie to their machine began to unravel. Today he's got $42 million banked. She's got a few million north of nothing....

Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania prove it won't be easy. Barack Obama himself said Tuesday night, "I'm not perfect." He heads to the nomination freighted with all the familiar Democratic tensions that keep a Sam Nunn off the ballot: race and gender obsessions, semipacifism and you bet, bitter white voters. So be it. For modern Democrats, winning the White House always requires some sort of magic to get near 50%. For the Clintons, that bag is empty. The Democrats have a new magician. It's Obama.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Where's the food?: "In the 1830s, Richard Cobden and John Bright started a campaign against the protectionist laws that were keeping food prices high in Britain. After sustaining abuse for many years, they persuaded the government in 1846 to repeal the infamous Corn Laws, a move that helped usher in a long period of prosperity. I have been thinking intensely about these 19th-century heroes lately. The world needs a new Anti-Corn Law League, the movement they founded, if it wants to put a stop to the madness of escalating food prices and save millions of people, from Haiti to Bangladesh and from Cameroon to the Philippines, from starvation."

Britain: Five cases of lost personal data a week : "Five security breaches a week have been reported to the privacy watchdog since the loss last year of two government discs containing details of 25 million families. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, said he had been notified of 94 data breaches over the past five months. Two thirds - 62 - were committed by government and other public sector bodies. The material included a wide range of personal details, including health records. The data was recovered in only three of the 94 cases. Mr Thomas described the scale of the incidents, which come after HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) mislaid discs carrying details of child benefit claimants in November, as "alarming".

Another brazen lie from a Leftist: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars. In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature." Distinguished biblical scholars, however, cast doubt on the existence of the passage. Claude Mariottini, a professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Cybercast News Service the passage not only doesn't exist - it's "fictional." "It is not in the Bible," Mariottini said. "There is nothing that even approximates that."

Official Mexican scum: "Whether he was up to no good or simply desperate to play BrickBreaker, a Mexican press attache was caught on camera by Secret Service pocketing several White House BlackBerries during a recent meeting in New Orleans. Sources with knowledge of the incident said the official, whose first name is Rafael, took six or seven of the handheld devices from a table outside a special room in the hotel where the Mexican delegation was meeting with President Bush. Everyone entering the room was required to leave their cell phones, BlackBerries and other such devices on the table, a commonplace practice when high-level meetings are held. American officials discovered their missing belongings when they were leaving the session. It didn't take long before Secret Service officials reviewed videotape taken by a surveillance camera and found footage showing "Rafael" absconding with the BlackBerries. Sources said "Rafael" made it all the way to the airport, where the Mexican president was preparing to leave New Orleans, before Secret Service officers caught up with him. He was forced to return the BlackBerries."

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

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

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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

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

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Rupert Murdoch on the betrayal of Columbia by the Democrats

Right now the U.S. has a test in its own backyard. Colombia is a nation that is fighting poverty, battling the drug lords, and taking on terrorists backed by foreign governments. Its citizens have suffered terribly from violence, and want peace and opportunity. So its brave and innovative president, Alvaro Uribe, is trying to bring the rule of law to people who have not known it.

All President Uribe asks of us is that we ratify the trade agreement we have negotiated with his nation. By ratifying this agreement, we would open an important market for American goods. We would demonstrate to millions in our hemisphere that the path to prosperity lies in freedom and democracy. And we would give strong moral support to a leader struggling to bring hope and opportunity to his people in an important part of the world.

Everyone knows this, Democrats as well as Republicans. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has effectively put off the bill by not scheduling a vote. We need to make clear to the leadership in Congress what killing this trade deal would mean.

Throughout Colombia, a defeat for the trade deal would be confirmation that the U.S. is not an ally you can count on. Throughout Latin America, a defeat for the trade deal would be exploited by thugs like Venezuela's Hugo Ch vez, who would tell the people, "See, the Americans will never accept you as equals and partners." And throughout the world, a defeat for the trade deal would be taken as another sign that the U.S. will not stand by its friends when the going gets tough. Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., puts it this way: "The most important geopolitical mistake the United States could do today . . . is not ratifying that treaty."

The world is watching. The same values that we are trying to uphold in the Atlantic alliance are at stake now in Colombia. And if we fail to support them in Colombia, it will be harder to revive them in the alliance. As a man who was born in Australia, went to university in Britain, and made my home in America, I have learned that shared values are more important than shared borders. If we continue to define "the West" or "the Alliance" as a strictly geographical concept, the alliance will continue to erode. But if we define the West as a community of values, institutions and a willingness to act jointly, we will revive an important bastion of freedom and make it as pivotal in our own century as it was in the last.

More here

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HILLARY TRYING TO BE NORMAL



This could almost be photoshopped but it is up on the MSM and it is only Palestinian photoshopping that they normally run

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ELSEWHERE

Obama's Chicago friends getting roasted: "In politically explosive surprise move, a former high-ranking state official has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about campaign fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko's role in getting him a state job. Ali Ata is a former executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority. The 56-year-old said in a plea agreement Tuesday that Governor Rod Blagojevich was there when Ata gave Rezko $25,000 in campaign money. He says Blagojevich then asked Rezko if he had talked to Ata about a job. Ata's plea agreement refers to Blagojevich as Public Official A. Blagojevich has not been charged with wrongdoing"

Hamas rebuts Carter's claim of concession: "Hamas said yesterday it was prepared to accept a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, but contradicted a statement by former President Jimmy Carter that it would accept Israel's right to exist if that was the will of the Palestinian people. ... Mr. Carter -- who infuriated Israeli leaders by meeting in Damascus, Syria, with Hamas' political leader, Khalid Mashaal -- announced what appeared to be a significant concession in an address yesterday to the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations. ... However, at a later press conference in Damascus, Mr. Mashaal backed away from the concession announced by Mr. Carter."



Another government-caused food shortage "The Canadian government announced that it would pay pork producers as much as $50 million to kill 150,000 pigs by fall. It's an effort to reduce supply in order to raise the price of pork and help struggling hog farmers, says Clare Schlegel, president of the Canadian Pork Council.... In order to bridge that gap between supply and demand, Schlegel says, Canada plans to eliminate 2 percent of the North American breeding swine. "Canada and the United States are about 50 percent of the world export market," he says, indicating the global significance of the North American market. Those "eliminated" hogs will be killed — and not all of the meat will end up on dinner tables. Schlegel says food banks in Canada will receive 25 percent of the rendered meat, and the rest will go to the pet food industry."

"We did it!" says Al-Qaida: "Egypt - Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. The comments reflected al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri's increasing criticism of Iran. Al-Zawahri has accused Iran in recent messages of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon. The authenticity of the two-hour audio recording posted on an Islamic Web site could not be independently confirmed. But the voice sounded like past audiotapes from the terror leader, and the posting where it was found bore the logo of Al-Sahab, al-Qaida's official media arm."

Maureen Dowd of the NYT thinks Obama is weak: "He’s never going to shake her off. Not all by himself. The very fact that he can’t shake her off has become her best argument against him. “Why can’t he close the deal?” Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday. She’s been running ads about it, suggesting he doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama? Now that Hillary has won Pennsylvania, it will take a village to help Obama escape from the suffocating embrace of his rival. Certainly Howard Dean will be of no use steering her to the exit. It’s like Micronesia telling Russia to denuke. “You know, some people counted me out and said to drop out,” said a glowing Hillary at her Philadelphia victory party, with Bill and Chelsea by her side. “Well, the American people don’t quit. And they deserve a president who doesn’t quit, either.” The Democrats are growing ever more desperate about the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman"

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

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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

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

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

Israeli wine

I don't know much about this subject but I imagine that some of my Jewish readers do so I anticipate updates.

Israel has of course produced wine from ancient times. It is a Mediterranean thing. But what amuses me is that Israel somehow seems to have got a lock on the market for communion wine -- horrible sweet stuff that most Christian churches from Anglicans to Catholics seem to use. To my knowledge all Methodist and Presbyterian churches use grape juice at communion so the Israelis have not penetrated that market but elsewhere in Christendom they reign supreme.

The Israeli influence there must stem in part from their traditional provision of passover wine -- which is also sweet stuff. I was delighted therefore that at the recent seder which I attended, they had abandoned that stuff and provided a bottle of good full-bodied Australian dry red instead. Four small cups (and the rest) of that went down well.

I imagine that Israel also these days produces some good dry reds but how did they get such dominance in providing communion wine for Christian churches? Is it a religious thing or what?

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Brookes News Update

Obama's capital gains tax is a tax on economic growth: Obama's proposal to raise capital gains taxes would directly strike at economic growth. It would strip the economy of a vital pool of savings and could even result in capital consumption. It is now perfectly clear that Obama is a dangerous ideologue whose economics could kill investment in the US economy
Surpluses won't save the Australian economy: From March 1996 to May 2005 currency expanded by 76 per cent, bank deposits by 109.6 per cent and M1 by 102 per cent. These are terrible figures and things have not got any better. From May 2005 to January 2008 bank deposits rose by 36.5 per cent and M1 by 33 per cent. Unfortunately, our economic commentariat can see no significance in these figures, For them, monetary theory and capital theory just don't matter
Mining industry caves in to fanatical greens: It is high time the mining industry rethought its 'tactics'. Only when its executives finally accept the moral imperative of their case and confront will they have any hope of successfully defeating the green barbarism and recapturing the moral high ground which rightfully belongs to the industry
Why economic modellng fails: Because of the unique nature of human beings economics can only be a qualitative discipline. There are no fixed values or constant physical elements in economics as there are in physics. Therefore, econometric modelling is nothing more than playing with numbers
Has the market failed?: With a breathtaking degree of effrontery, we are being asked to take seriously the idea that the Federal Reserve the organisation - the institution responsible for the current crisis - should henceforth be accorded unparalleled powers of oversight
Does the Democrat Party belong in jail?: Congress, by failing to act in the case of a clear and present danger to parts of the American financial system, could reasonably be considered engaging in willful misconduct. The Democrats, rather than learn from the Republicans' mistakes, are now engaged in even more willful misconduct
Soros plays politics: Soros is at it again, using his vast fortune to fund leftwing anti-American groups. In the meantime, America's corrupt media run interference for him
Israel and the chronology of friendship: For 60 years Israel has been living under the threat of Arab terror with its hands tightly held by the international hypocrites who did not want to see the existence of the Jewish state in the first place

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ELSEWHERE

Strange new respect for Hillary?: "Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on "Good Morning America" Tuesday. ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Giving these guys a State sure worked wonders: "The number of Palestinians who support attacks against Israelis continues to rise and more than half of them favor suicide bombings, according to a poll published this weekend. The survey also showed that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is still more popular than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The percentage of Palestinians who support "resistance operations" against Israeli targets rose from 43.1 percent in September 2006 to 49.5% at present. Support for this option was highest in the Gaza Strip, at 58.1%, with 24.5% in the West Bank agreeing. Palestinians who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006 and to 50.7% now. Again, more Gazans support these operations (65.1%), compared with 42.3% of Palestinians in the West Bank."

Anger Management: "Bob Kerrey defends John McCain against the absurd WaPo attack on his temper yesterday. "In a comment under my blog post last night noting McCain aide Mark Salter's aggressive rebuttal to a lengthy front-page Washington Post story examining the candidate's temper, Kerrey clarified his role in and explained the circumstances around the anecdote the paper used to lead its piece". We learn from Kerrey's comment that "The precise point of disagreement between the Senators was over a man name Robert Garwood", who is in fact quite controversial."

Be glad you are a conservative: "Chelsea Clinton stopped traffic Friday night as she wandered the streets of Philadelphia on a gay bar crawl, winning rave reviews for both her politics and her appearance. Led around the neighborhood by Gov. Ed Rendell, Chelsea was mobbed by local gays and lesbians, as she walked from one club to the next. They ran up to hug her, posed for pictures and certainly invaded her personal space. "I grabbed her ass," one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter."

Britain is becoming a 'why bother country': "Britain is suffering from a "why bother" economy because its benefits culture, high taxes and poor education system leave many people lacking the motivation or capability to succeed, according to a report. The cost to the economy of low social mobility is 32 billion pounds a year, or 1,300 to the average family, claims Reform, the independent think tank. This comes despite higher spending on benefits and public services that have served only to reinforce privilege, it says. Child poverty has risen, with the number of children classified as low income rising from 2.4 million to three million. State schools stand accused of a "dismal" record when it comes to educating the poorest in society, with school-leavers from poor backgrounds doing only half as well as average 16-year-olds.

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

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

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A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

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

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NYT Hilarity!

The editors of the NYT admit that people no longer trust their paper and say that this undermines democracy. What utter nitwits they are! I'll let the Pajama man fisk the nonsense:

What a self-serving pile of drivel. These clowns have the temerity to say because people are ignoring them in ever-increasing numbers that democracy is in peril.

Actually, democracy is threatened far more when the alleged paper of record spills national security secrets on its front page. Get a load of this pap:

It might seem a bit self-flagellating for the editorial board of the New York Times to bemoan the collapse of Americans' trust in the press over the last 30 years. But it seems that the media's fall from grace is undermining democracy.

Oh my. Now because people aren't getting their marching orders from this socialist rag, the bumpkins in flyover country may not vote the way the elitist snobs in Manhattan want them to. Perish the thought.

The news media is supposed to serve the voting public by providing information about candidates' positions, and thus help voters shape their preferences. But the function breaks down, apparently, when the voting public doesn't believe what the news media says.

No shit. Especially when what the news media says is seen through worldviews to the left of Joe Stalin. God, these people are blithering idiots.

Indeed, new research underscores how the unpopularity of America's traditional news media has promoted political polarization by disconnecting voters from reality, as it were, and thus leaving them to vote exclusively on the basis of ideology and partisan affiliation.

Wow, what a novel concept. People making up their own mind based on what they see from candidates and voting accordingly. Can't have that in a democracy. Not only do people no longer trust a large portion of the media, but it's this smug, condescending arrogance and supercilious pomposity that leads people to go elsewhere in search of information.

Let's hope they never figure it out.

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Are "Christian Seders" Inappropriate for Passover?

I am rather pleased that some Bible-oriented Christians are at last taking Christ's command seriously and celebrating the Passover instead of the pagan Easter. My entire Scripture blog was devoted to noting how far away most Christians have drifted from what the New Testament actually says. Michael Medved comments wisely below:

Rabbi Mark Glickman of the very liberal Reform branch of Judaism recently wrote a Seattle Times column decrying Christian congregations that celebrate their own Passover Seders. Rabbi Glickman claims the Seder was developed long after the Exodus events it commemorates, and was supposed to convey powerful anti-Christian messages, making Christian participation inappropriate.

In truth, there's nothing in the ancient formulation of the Passover Haggadah-the book of Seder liturgy-that disrespects or contradicts Christianity or Jesus, and most Jews passionately disagree with Rabbi Glickman. Retelling the story Exodus and affirming Jewish faith doesn't amount to an attack on Christianity - any more than affirming Christian faith amounts to an attack on the Old Testament or Judaism.

The two religions certainly disagree on key theological points, but share a commitment to remembering God's deliverance from Egyptian bondage as a liberating moment in human history. Christian rediscovery of the Jewish roots of Christianity is actually good for Jews, Christians and humanity.

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ELSEWHERE



The French don't like the truth: "An unusual warning has been added to a Paris exhibition that has shocked some visitors and media, despite the absence of sex, violence or religion. The photographic show has caused offence by depicting the French capital in the Second World War as a sunny place, where people enjoyed life alongside their Nazi occupiers. Bertrand Delanoe, the Mayor, ordered a notice, in French and English, to be handed out at the door of the municipal exhibition of colour photographs that have stirred ghosts that Paris preferred to forget. The 270 never-published pictures avoid the "reality of occupation and its tragic aspects", says the warning. In the French collective memory, early 1940s Paris was a black-and-white hell of hunger, Nazi round-ups, humiliation and resistance. Films and books have in recent decades modified the cliche. The breathtaking colour series by Andre Zucca, a French photographer, show as never before a gay Paris that got on with life without great hardship."

Bureaucratic Brits keep denying an old lady her social security payments: "A blind and deaf woman has been forced to live off her savings for almost a year because the Post Office will not let her withdraw her pension as her signature does not match the one in its records. Joan Hopton, who is deaf and blind, has not been able to collect her pension for over a year Joan Hopton, 81, of Cheltenham, Glos, lost her pension card in May last year. However, when she applied for a new one she was told by the company that it could not be issued because the name on the bottom of the letter did not match her original signature. She used to collect a pension of 104 pounds a week and is now owed about 4,000 pounds since she lost her card. Despite repeated attempts by members of her family to come to some arrangement with Post Office Ltd the company will not let her access the money"

Police those credit cards: "The burdensome, patronizing, new credit card regulations proposed in the wildly misnamed 'Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights' will hurt just about every type of U.S. consumer. Indeed, the new restrictions that self-styled 'consumer advocates' and their trial lawyer allies envision will result in immediate, sizeable interest rate and fee increases for the majority of Americans who pay their credit card bills on time."

Greedy Muslim country endangers us all: "Over nearly 60 years, the World Health Organization has developed sophisticated systems for monitoring the emergence of seasonal influenza and possible pandemics as well as arming scientists with the tools to develop vaccines. Now, one country is jeopardizing all that, putting itself and the rest of the world at risk. The culprit: Indonesia. Its Health Ministry refuses to give the WHO avian flu virus samples taken from Indonesian victims. This matters because sample sharing allows experts around the world to track mutations of the virus and spot dangerous mutations. Even more important, sharing allows researchers to develop vaccines. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari asserts that Indonesian bird flu is a form of intellectual property, from which the country should benefit."

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

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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

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

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