ELSEWHERE

A "liberal" would rather choke on his latte than condemn Castro: "Director Oliver Stone ripped President Bush while praising Cuban dictator Fidel Castro before the premiere of his movie "Looking for Fidel," at the 52nd San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain. Stone charged that Bush stole the election with the help of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in Florida, according to a report in Cuba's Granma newspaper.... "George Bush will go down in history as one of the great baddies".... On the other hand, Stone had nothing but praise for Castro, who has clung to authoritarian power with no elections in Cuba for half a century"

Sheesh! Wotta lotta nonsense! "Ten-year olds who spend more time engaging in activities typically associated with their gender tend to have more stereotypical academic interests, skills and characteristics two years later, new research reports... These findings show that what children spend time on at age 10 can have a strong influence on their later years [according to] lead author Dr. Susan M. McHale of Penn State University" Girls who prefer girly games at age 10 are more girly later on too! What a discovery!

The Left are scraping the bottom of the barrel now: "George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The UK's Guardian newspaper has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism".

The French Betrayal of America seems to be a very well-researched book, giving a detailed account of just how amoral and hostile to any kind of decency France is.

A Frenchman disses the French: "The thirst for truth is not a French passion. In everything, what appears is more relished than what is, the outside than the inside, the style than the stuff, the glittering than the useful, opinion than conscience. . . "

Congratulations to Rafe Champion on the second birthday of his "Rathouse" site.

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANOTHER HUGE GOVERNMENT BUNGLE

"Australia's Child Support Agency is grossly mismanaged and driving dads onto the dole queue, according to a new report.

The PIR Independent Research group report found many dads were opting out of the workforce because they faced the prospect of losing up to 62 per cent of their after-tax wages in child support payments. As a result, the CSA system had driven up the unemployment rate for separated fathers to more than six times the national average, it said.

More than 70 per cent (221,375) of all unemployed men aged over 20 in Australia now pay child support. With more separated dads on welfare, children now received less money than before the CSA was set up in 1988 - just over $48 a week then to about $36 a week now. "PIR Independent Research has reached the conclusion that the child support scheme is the primary driver of unemployment in Australia," it said. "On top of high income tax rates cutting in at low levels, separated fathers can be left with less than 20 cents in the dollar".

More here.

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

ELSEWHERE

Krauthammer summarizes well the treacherous attitude of the Kerry campaign towards one of America's real allies -- Australia. Despite the efforts of the Kerry campaign, however, Australia is not likely to desert the USA in Iraq. We have heard the same bleats from our own Left ad nauseam.

A good summary here of possible Kerry campaign involvement with the forged "Rathergate" memos.

Laura Ingraham: "Intellectuals around the globe -- lost and adrift for years after the failure of socialism -- have largely settled on anti-Americanism as their new ideological vehicle of choice."

And a good saying from Winston Churchill: "'All men are created equal' says the American Declaration of Independence. 'All men shall be kept equal' say the Socialists."

The Czech farmer's goatsmilk cheese. Be glad you are not in the EU. EU officials are trying to prevent willing customers from eating the cheese.

Further to my post yesterday about Turkey joining the EU, it looks like it is not going to happen. This statement seems to typify the French attitude: ""We do not think accession negotiations should be opened with Turkey ... because to bring Turkey into the European Union is not consistent with our concept of the European project and it is not good for Europe," he told a news conference. Toubon called for a special partnership with Turkey rather than offering it EU membership" The French have already had a gutful of Muslims from North Africa so want no more of them.

Abortion. Typical Leftist inconsistency. Pro-Life Democrats get a hard time now: "The Democratic party is the party that should be pro-life," Day says. "We should be the ones to speak out for those vulnerable in our society --those who don't have a voice." Marginalized by their own party, overlooked by campaign donors, attacked by pro-choice groups and targeted by Republicans seeking to win their seats, many pro-life Democrats live out Hobbes's dictum that life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short..... "It is really tough for a pro-life Democrat," Day says. "There is so much pressure on members to change.".... In the 95th Congress (1977-78), the Democrats had a 292-seat majority that included 125 pro-life Democrats. In 1976, then-candidate Jimmy Carter opposed public funding for abortions. Emerging leaders like Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, and Jesse Jackson Sr. were all originally pro-life.

A good point from a reader: It is perfectly consistent for Christians to be opposed to both abortion and euthanasia. Both stances are pro-life. But how come Leftists are generally ANTI-euthanasia while being PRO-abortion? How come a mother is empowered to kill her baby but a sick person is not empowered to kill himself?

Looming retirement realities: "In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, President Bush revived several initiatives from his first presidential campaign. Not the least was a pledge to 'fix' Social Security by letting younger workers invest some of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts. Opponents of modernizing the Depression-era system quickly jumped on the proposal as too costly. But such criticisms are penny-wise and pound-foolish. Trying to keep the ailing system going another generation will wind up costing taxpayers far, far more than making reforms today. Demographic realities -- the increasing longevity of Americans and the mass, looming Baby Boomer retirements -- make it impossible to maintain the current system indefinitely."

Get government out of science: The big myth about scientific research is that government must fund it. The argument is that private companies will not fund science, especially pure science, for fear that their competitors will "capture" the fruits of that investment. Yet, in practice, companies fund pure science very generously, and government funding displaces private research money..... Zvi Griliches of Harvard University, in a study of 911 large American companies, discovered that the companies that engaged in basic research consistently outperformed those that neglected it... "Current Contents" magazine recently reviewed the institutions that produced the largest number of cited papers in biology, and two of the top seven were private companies.

Acidman very kindly recommended this blog yesterday but I was a bit amused at his comment: "Some people write really well, in spite of public schools". I did indeed go to a public school but that was 45 years ago and I actually learnt Latin grammar there: Hard to imagine in most of today's public schools. But, if it did happen today, it would still work to help people write clearly and logically.

I occasionally get grumbled at for not having a "comments" section on this blog. One reason why I do not is that there seems to be a great preponderance of low-quality comments on other people's blogs -- though Gene Expression is a notable exception to that. I am always pleased to get emails, though. Most of the links that I put up are in fact ones that readers have kindly mailed in to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ECONOMICS AGAIN

The excellent Arnold Kling takles a look at a whiny Leftist article in "The Washington Post" which claims that it is now harder for Americans to stay in the middle-earning income range than it once was. The article is right -- but not for the reason it implies. There are fewer middle-income people now because the number of people in the upper income brackets (adjusted for inflation) has roughly doubled in the last 35 years! The only "problem" is that more people are getting rich. I guess Leftists would see that as a big problem!

Jobs and snow jobs: "Our current unemployment rate -- 5.4 percent -- is one of the lowest in the world and one of the lowest in our own history. Why then the hysteria about jobs? Because this is an election year and Senator Kerry is desperate for some issue that will rescue his faltering campaign. According to the Kerry campaign, President Bush has "lost" over a million jobs since taking office. This of course assumes that jobs are Presidents' to win or lose..... Few things have been more grossly distorted than tax cuts. Liberals in politics and the media seem to think that what matters is what happens to the money. In reality, what matters is how the cut in tax rates affects people's behavior. Time and again, lower tax rates have led to higher tax revenues. That is because lower tax rates make it profitable to take money out of tax shelters like municipal bonds and put it into something that is more productive, now that taxes are no longer taking such a big bite. When more money is invested in more productive economic activities, more output results -- and more jobs are created while generating that increased output. That is the whole point.... Jobs hysteria is only the latest in a series of evasions and distractions"

Sarcasm alert! Unions versus wages: "Somehow, over the last 50 years, while unions have become a less important force in the labor market, workers have managed to raise their wages and do better. This is one of the great mysteries of life. How can it be possible? It is not unrelated to the question as to how workers manage to earn so much more than the minimum wage. What protects workers from greedy employers? The simple answer is that there's more than one place we can work. Without unions, without minimum wages, workers thrive because of the competition of employers for our skills"

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

ELSEWHERE

Dennis Prager: "Second, whereas they cannot change God's laws, those on the Left can and do make many of society's laws. In fact, the Left is intoxicated with law-making. It gives them the power to mold society just as Judeo-Christian values did in the past. Unless one understands that leftist ideals function as a religion, one cannot understand the Left. Laws are the Left's vehicles to earthly salvation. Virtually all human problems have a legal solution.... In fact, since it lacks the self-control apparatus that is a major part of religion, the Left passes more and more laws to control people. That is why there is a direct link between the decline in Judeo-Christian religion and the increase in governmental laws controlling human behavior. Of course, the more laws that are passed, the less liberty society enjoys. But to the Left, which elevates any number of values above liberty -- e.g., compassion, equality, fairness -- this presents little problem. All this helps to explain the Left's preoccupation with controlling courts; passing laws; producing, enriching and empowering lawyers; filing lawsuits; and naming judges. Laws and the makers of laws will produce heaven on earth".

Profound Leftist irrationality: "Homosexuals face terrible persecution under the Palestinian Authority and yet, there are actually groups like "Queers for Palestine" that go to anti-Israel demonstrations to shout slogans in support of Palestinians and then they get roughed up and shouted down by the Muslims at the demonstration. There is something very mind-boggling here, and it is connected to the radical feminist who shows up almost nude at an anti-war demonstration taking the side of militant Islam, when the fact is that if she even showed her face under some of the regimes she supports she would be mutilated or raped or killed or burned alive." It looks like their burning hatred of their own society blinds them to all else.

The Nobel Peace and Literature prizes are so notoriously political that it is a wonder they get any respect at all these days. This story is one instance of how biased in favour of the Left they are. Even the economics prize is far from impartial. Apparently Hayek's Nobel in 1977 was another political fix. Hayek certainly deserved one but his co-winner was Gunnar Myrdal, whose merit was much more dubious. The terms of the Nobel prize in economics (actually the Bank of Sweden award for economics) prevented a Swede from getting the award until 7 years had passed from the time of initiation of the economics prize. Myrdal, a socialist, was a board member of the Bank of Sweden and in order to balance the ticket they gave Hayek the prize in a shared win. Myrdal was surprised he had to share with anyone. Hayek was surprised he got one at all.

Cut the military bureaucracy: "With commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, no one disputes that the Army has a lot on its plate. But the consensus collapses when it comes to easing the military's charge. The disagreement has turned political -- John Kerry says the Army needs two more divisions, while President Bush argues such an expansion would be unnecessary. To meet its commitments, the Army has had to delay soldiers' retirement from the service and has temporarily expanded its ranks by 33,000 men. But when it comes to more permanent solutions, the Defense Department and some military experts say that much can be accomplished by improving efficiencies within the service."

NYT perpetuates a myth: "In your Sept. 13 edition, a "New York Times" analysis of President Bush's and John Kerry's respective approaches to dealing with the war in Iraq contained this error: "Richard M. Nixon declared in 1968 that he had a 'secret plan.'". I not only worked on the 1968 campaign as a full-time researcher but also collaborated as a writer/ researcher with Mr. Nixon on his memoirs. From its beginning in 1968, we have tried to correct the "secret plan" myth"

Michael Totten thinks that Israel has just about won its war against terrorists and says America will win in Iraq too if it sticks with it. Jewish World Review has an article saying that the Intifada is just about over too.

There is a new site up called Modern liberalism which uses graphics to give an explanation of what modern liberalism is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PRIMITIVE LEFTIST MALICE

First, the propaganda: "Life, liberals believe, is meant to be pleasurable, God is forgiving if He exists at all, and it's important to think about others' feelings and motivations as well as your own. You might not like the idea of abortion, but it is important to allow people who believe differently to make their own choice.... Liberals are mannered, sensitive, armed with intellectual cynicism, self-critical, eager to learn from other cultures, wanting there to be no pain in the world"

I really loved those mannered, sensitive "liberals" demonstrating outside the GOP convention and elsewhere! And only SOME choices seem to be allowed: There's a definite Leftist NO to school choice! And since when did Leftists show concern for the feelings of the conservative students they regularly give a hard time to on America's campuses?

And here is another example of those wonderful Leftist manners: Pro-Kerry goons tearing up a little girl's sign

It is in fact a general tendency of Leftists to feel free to destroy the property of conservatives. I posted on that recently. Another good example is the way Leftists have just attacked and destroyed Mike Jericho's new site -- because he was foolish enough to trust them. Leftists have a primitive "tribal" morality. If you are not "one of us", you are fair game. Sophisticated and "eager to learn" they are not.

No wonder Leftists romanticize the primitive: "There are several things to be said about this worship of the primitive. First, it is absolutely illegitimate to do, as Polanyi does, and infer the history of pre-Western civilization from analysis of existing primitive tribes. Let us never forget that the existing primitive tribes are precisely the ones that didn't progress -- that remained in their primitive state. To infer from observing them that this is the way our ancestors behaved is nonsense -- and apt to be the reverse of the truth, for our ancestors presumably behaved in ways which quickly advanced them beyond the primitive stage thousands of years ago."

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

ELSEWHERE

Oliver Kamm and the Anti-Chomskyite have been giving Noam Chomsky a thorough debunking recently. I suppose someone has to do it. I have no taste for cleaning out the Augean stables, myself. The AntiChomskyite's conclusion is spot on. He summarizes part of what makes most Leftist intellectuals tick, in fact: "What is important to Chomsky is not the facts, nor any fealty to moral principles, but his own ferocious rage and desperate belief - and need to believe - in his own moral righteousness. Like all fanatics, it is his faith in his own rectitude and his own purity that not only gives him license to violate basic tenets of truth and logic, but also justifies the extraordinary leaps of moral bankruptcy in which we see him here" (Via Marc Miyake).

The latest barefaced Leftist lie: "College students are receiving alarmist e-mails warning them they may be drafted if President Bush wins re-election"

Radio Islam is an amazing site. It openly circulates and promotes the ideas of Adolf Hitler -- mainly because their own ideas seem to be the same. And it's headquartered in Sweden. Where else?

The Federal leader of Australia's Left says he wants no special deals for unions. Good if it's true: "Mark Latham has rejected any special deal with the trade unions, denies that he will re-regulate the workplace and says that his business critics misunderstand him."

Contrary to current American policy, Steve Sailer says that letting Turkey into the EU would be against everybody's best interests. Randall Parker seems to agree. I normally agree with both gentlemen but I think I am a bit more Machiavellian than they are on this one. I think that, whether Turkey gets in or not, the whole issue will eventually force Europeans off their moral high-horse and make them admit to ethnic and religious differences. For their sakes, I hope they will have enough sense to realize the danger of letting in a horde of 20 million Muslim immigrants before it happens but if they do let them in I will just be laughing at the resultant upheavals. It could even be the death of political correctness about race and multiculturalism. Whoopee!

Mrs Kerry's elitist view of her fellow Americans: "Oh, there is a lot of scumbags everywhere. Not just in politics. In everything. There are a lot of immoral people everywhere."

Australian Christians are getting organized: ""Family First" is a new Christian-based party that - sadly - is scared to admit to being any such thing. But by not mentioning its God, it has whispered out of nowhere to be a chance to share the balance of power in the Senate. We are seeing the birth of a new and canny conservative party, out in the grasslands of a religion represented for too long by big-city clergy who shared the politics of the cultural elite -- far to the Left of the people in their pews..... And this time it's not big-government Catholics, but free enterprise Protestants -- Evangelicals, Pentecostals and charismatics. Christians whose churches are booming with certainty, not sinking in doubt"

Che Guevara is likely to remain a cult figure for the more brainless Left. But, says Daniel Wolf, the man was a thug and a fool, and he helped ruin Cuba.

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

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

New rubric below.

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ECONOMICS

The Third Way to happiness: "So-called 'happiness research' has been discussed at length recently with economist and TCS contributing editor Arnold Kling writing and blogging about it, and economist Tyler Cowen responding at his blog. That exchange, and the mention of a new book on the subject piqued my interest and some further research led me to the answer: 60% marginal tax rates, that's what will make society happy."

Some reasons businesses outsource to India: "Thanks to the public education system liberals have defended for the past forty years, many high school graduates are nearly functionally illiterate. Not so in India. Thanks to lobbyists and pro-union immigration laws, foreigners aren't allowed to stay in the country after they finish their Ph.D.s. So they're starting companies overseas instead of here. Thanks to our liberal tax system, employers have to pay extra for American workers to fund Social Security- which no one believes will be solvent in a few decades. Thanks to a legal system that favors the plaintiff, employers in the United States must worry about lawsuits over spilled hot coffee, trumped up sexual harassment charges, and other frivolous cases".

Recalling the 1998 tumble: "What was so terrible about 1998? It seemed a pretty good year to me. It was, after all, the sixth year after recession, so you would expect it to be better than 2003, merely the third year after a recession. As it happens, 1998 was also the fifth year of the Clinton administration. Yet I don't recall any rabid Republicans claiming 1998 was the worst economy in 50 years or the worst since Herbert Hoover."

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

ELSEWHERE

There is an excellent response from an Iraqi blogger here about the stupid accusation that the U.S. intervention in Iraq was just a "neocon" plot. A small excerpt: "He, as well as many "anti-war" people, do not understand how the war to topple Saddam and establish democracy in Iraq can be a part of the war on terror. I do believe, however, that the American official are not that stupid to deal so lightly with such a critical issue. Iraq is not an adventure. Toppling Saddam was never the main reason for the war and should never be thought of as this... This is not an adventure and this is not a neo-conservative dream. This is OUR dream". (Via Peg Kaplan).

Further to my post yesterday in which I derided the notion that "neocons" generally or "Straussians" in particular are running American foreign policy, it may be worth noting that Strauss himself did not believe in an imperial or a do-gooding foreign policy. Strauss's thought on the matter is summarized here as: "Thus according to Strauss, the purpose of foreign policy is or ought to be survival and independence, or self-preservation, and nothing else". As a classicist, Strauss could hardly have taught anything else, given the disaster that Alcibiades and the Syracusan expeditions brought upon the Athenians. So any influence from Strauss is in fact towards isolationism, rather than foreign involvements.

Good to see that even USA Today is calling Kerry a flip-flopper and describing his solution to the Iraq problems as "Murky"

Jeff Jacoby has a disturbing article on the rise of mail-in voting and the accompanying rise in electoral fraud.

Wow! Britain is ending its postal monopoly. One hopes it sets an example to others. "Royal Mail should face competition in the delivery of all post from 1 January 2006, regulator Postcomm has said."

Amazing: The Saudis have no respect for their own scriptures. They circulate an English-language version of the Koran that adds in heaps of extra anti-Western stuff that was not in the original.

Another ungodly priest: "A priest accused of bulldozing more than 2000 Tutsi villagers to death as they sought sanctuary in his church during Rwanda's 1994 genocide has gone on trial before a United Nations court charged with crimes against humanity. Father Athanase Seromba, 41, is the first Catholic priest to face charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda"

GWB needs to intervene to fix this: "According to many of the 27 million veterans who honorably served the nation during World War II and the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, being ordered to storm a beachhead or take the next hill or advance through minefields were not their most difficult assignments. Long after the memories of battle have faded, too many of the nation's veterans have found themselves in a no-win war to obtain benefits they were promised when they put on their country's uniform".

Why work in a socialist country? "In a country plagued by skyrocketing sick-leave costs, a new survey presented Friday found that 40% of Sweden's population believes it is acceptable to skip work because they feel tired or have trouble getting along with colleagues. The survey, by the National Social Insurance Board, also found that 65% of the 1,002 people interviewed think a stressful work situation is also a valid reason for calling in sick and collecting pay under Sweden's liberal social programs".

Should we detain terrorists without trial? "A forthright policy of preventive detention is an idea whose time has come. This is the most important implication of the historic rulings issued by the Supreme Court in the enemy combatant cases of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush, and Rumsfeld v. Padilla. In Hamdi, five justices agreed that the president has the authority to detain terrorists, even when they are not charged under the criminal law and are not held as either POWs or war criminals under international law."

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

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

Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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

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

THE "NEOCON" MYTH

There is another book here condemning "neocons" generally and "Straussians" in particular. These wicked souls are said to be behind a push to make America some sort of "empire". They LIKE big government and want to expand its influence worldwide.

I have no doubt that there are some "conservative" intellectuals who think like that -- particularly those who have migrated from the Left. But to say that such people are the power behind the throne in the current administration is absurdity of a high order. No doubt some of GWB's advisers do favour broadly "neocon" thinking, though I am sure there are big differences among them over actual policy. The point is, however, that GWB receives a wide range of policy advice from many sources. Practically every newspaper and TV station for a start is keen to give him advice, to say nothing of his many official staff. And it is GWB who decides what advice to take from the menu that is offered to him. And one thing nobody claims is that GWB is a "neocon". He is plainly a Christian conservative and that is of course the major theme of his policies. The idea that a handful of neocons would have more weight with him than would the many millions of Christian conservatives who put him into office is absurd.

The big obsession among the propagators of the "neocon ascendancy" myth is the current military involvement of the USA overseas. That is their "Aha!" factor. Neocons want a more activist foreign policy so the present involvements abroad must be an outcome of that. I suppose the involvement of Wilson in World War I, Truman in Korea, Johnson in Vietnam and Clinton in Serbia were "obviously" the product of a fiendish neocon plot too! The point I want to make, then, is that there are many reasons why America might take up military involvements abroad and "neocon" thinking is only one of them. And to attribute the present involvements to neocon thinking is quite simply perverse. The reason for America's present activist foreign policy is as plain as a pikestaff and is known to everybody. It is the outcome of one event: The fact that America was grievously attacked by Muslim fanatics on 9/11/2001. No country will last long if it ignores attacks on it and America has finally got to the point where it can no longer do so. It now just has to hit back in some way if the attacks are not to escalate. So it has moved to take down two of the world's biggest and most assertive Muslim power centres and bases of support for Islamic aggression. The "neocon" theory for America's actions ignores all that and just shows that those who hold it are as much out of touch with reality as conspiracy theorists always are.

In the circumstances, I was rather amused to see that there is a recent article in The Public Interest (the premier journal of the neoconservatives) which points out at great length that the support-base for GWB and the GOP is overwhelmingly "cultural". In other words, among GOP voters, economics plays second fiddle to concerns about things like abortion, guns and military strength. It shows that it is GWB's voters who want him to hit back at America's attackers. Another proof of the vast neocon conspiracy? Far from it. The article is in fact written by a Left-leaning author and is little more than a parade of exit polls and other voting statistics -- statistics that are publicly available for anyone to check (and I have checked some of them). So it may suit the neocons that GWB's voters want an assertive military response to the 9/11 attacks but it is the voters who matter. And I am sure that intelligent people like the neocons are not stupid enough to think that American public opinion will ever support America becoming any sort of empire -- though some of them can be remarkably naive, as George Will points out.

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

ELSEWHERE

There is a long and well-informed article by Sherwin Nuland (a doctor) in the Left-leaning "New Republic" about the history of eugenics. He of course hardly mentions that the support for eugenics in the 1920s and 1930s mainly came from the Left of the day but he does at least note that people like himself would probably have supported eugenics if they had been around in the Hitler era. He also notes that America was well ahead of Germany in introducing eugenic policies such as the forcible sterilization of the "unfit". His conclusion is perverse, however. He compares pre-war eugenics with the possibilities of genetic engineering today and implies that the two are just as dangerous. He concludes: "It all sounds very familiar. Looking backward, we can now see the danger in state-enforced policies of improvement, but too many of us have yet to awaken to the equally dangerous reality of improvement that is self-determined. We are once again standing on the slope, from the top of which the future we may be wreaking is already visible". In other words, he cannot see the difference between something that is voluntary and something that is State-enforced! How Leftist!

I made some disparaging remarks about Harry Truman a little while back designed to show that conservatives accept too uncritically the claims to fame of former Democrat Presidents. There often seems to be a view that the Democrats of yesteryear were really good guys who were not nearly as Leftist as Democrats today. I think there is something in that if we are talking of J.F. Kennedy but certainly not if we are talking about FDR, LBJ or Truman. I liked this summary of Truman's domestic policies by Oliver Kamm: "In the wider context of domestic as well as international policy, there has never been a President as hostile to business as Harry Truman. In November 1947, he proposed an economic programme of extensive price and credit controls, federal direction of capital to business, and rationing of consumer goods. The next year - Congress having refused to go along with the programme - he sent one bill after another to what he termed a "do nothing Congress" proposing price controls, a massive federal housing programme, a law requiring the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low, and subsidised utilities".

Another indication of how far-Left the BBC is. Note this description of the ghastly North Korea: "North Korea emerged in 1948 amid the chaos following the end of World War II. Its history is dominated by its Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, who shaped political affairs for almost half a century." Note that the regime "emerged" rather than being the product of a Moscow-backed takeover by Communists and that the grisly Kim Il Sung is unapologetically assigned his own claimed title of "Great Leader".

Davids Medienkritik asks whether Saddam's WMDs were "fake but accurate" too.

New blog! Mike Jericho has just started a new group blog called "The Man Blog". There are lots of established bloggers in the group so there should be new stuff popping up there all the time. Mike asked me to join in so I have put up a few posts there to help get the ball rolling.

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

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

Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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

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

SOME INTERESTING EMAILS FROM READERS

From an Australian reader: "Since arriving in Melbourne yesterday from bomb-scarred Jakarta, I've had an interesting re-introduction to Australian politics by my first three taxi drivers: (1) From the airport I was told by my (Punjabi-born) driver that the "Russian Jew" who owned his taxi was only interested in money and, in some connection, Israel had manipulated the USA, UK and Australia into invading Iraq; (2) From my apartment to office, my (Turkish-born) driver argued that the secular state had no future . not in Turkey, not in Australia, nowhere!; and (3) Returning from the office, my (Iranian-born) driver criticised John Howard's government for oppressing the poor people in Australia (various reasons) and saw no difference between federal and [ALP] state taxation as all governments are being manipulated by a secret elite. No doubt these views are in no way representative of Melbourne's cabbies but I am sure I've not previously experienced them so forcefully aired in Australia."

From an American reader: "Isn't it strange that the Left only seems to condemn John Ashcroft to be the Attorny General, but they never seem to condemn Reno for obstructing individual rights? What about cases to which the FBI under Reno committed such harsh tactics that resulted in civilian death like those of Ruby Ridge and Waco? Now I know that just because Reno made those tactics happen doesn't make people like Weaver or the cult in Waco a bunch of saints. Perhaps if Reno took a different approach other than using tanks or using FBI snipers, the results might have been different. Reno was also involved in forcibly taking Elian Gonzelez from his home in Florida. Why couldn't his family from America be allowed to adopt the child? The Left has the nerve to claim that Ashcroft is a danger to America and never seem to condemn any of Reno's tactics that were used in these cases. Gee, Ashcroft really sounds like a dangerous Attorney General to me -- Not. Under Ashcroft, none of these types of scenarios have ever happened. All Ashcroft ever did was look into if there were any terror sleeper cells. And all of a sudden the ACLU and other groups like that are pounding on him. Yet they never pounded on Reno for her unlawful tactics. The Left certainly favors fascist tactics, at least when it's one of their own up in a high place in the government."

And an email from a Leftist. I got one of the usual sort of leftist hate-mails from a Kerry fan called Suzee, to which I replied: "Only a hate-filled person would send such an email to someone they did not know. Try Valium" She replied: "Hmmm, valium is used to treat anxiety - not anger. Seems - your website was filled with a lot of hate and anger towards a man you obviously know nothing about. I'm not angry - just surprised at how stupid people can be. And when you create a factless website for anyone, on the Net to view you leave yourself open for criticism. The scary thing is, your probably a registered voter. They really should revoke voting privileges for those who can't pass a competency test or for those who can't answer a multiple choice test, showing they know all the facts about each candidate." Note the elitist dislike of democracy that is so typical of the Left: "They really should revoke voting privileges for those who can't pass a competency test". And someone who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" thinks she is competent? Typical Leftist ignorance, more like it. The worst sort of ignorance, in fact: Ignorance that thinks it is competent. And her assumption that I am a registered voter is amusing too. If she had really looked at my site, she would have soon noticed that I am an Australian! Or perhaps she thinks Australians can vote in U.S. elections! All in all, I think she gives quite a good demonstration of Leftist "competence".

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

ELSEWHERE

That good old generous taxpayer again: "Before federal flood insurance became available in 1968, there was little incentive to build on barrier islands since no private insurance companies would take the risk, and no banks would provide mortgages without flood insurance. But once the feds started offering the insurance (for an average $300-per-year premium), real-estate developers found mortgage bankers more than willing to lend them money, setting off a tsunami of new high-risk coastal construction. When Hurricane Frederick struck barrier islands off Alabama in 1979, for example, shattered beach cottages at Gulf Shores were quickly replaced by 14-story fully mortgaged condominiums. Federal flood insurance covers up to $250,000 for property damage to homes and $500,000 for businesses."

Good to see Czech leaders calling Cuba what it is. Note that in this report the BBC puts Havel's description of Cuba as a "dictatorship" in quotes -- indicating that the BBC does not think Cuba is a dictatorship. What the hell does the BBC think it is? A democracy?

The myth of voluntary unions: "But a basic understanding of the elementary economics of unionism, and of the history of unionism, explains why violence against competitors has always been an inherent feature of unionism, even apart from the 'violence' of state-imposed legislative privileges that unions enjoy. Historically, the main 'weapon' that unions have employed to try to push wages above the levels that employees could get by bargaining for themselves on the free market without a union has been the strike."

Trying to have that cake and eat it, too: "One of my colleagues back at SUNY Fredonia in the early 70s had been dabbling in real estate and finally bought a nice historical building in the middle of this little town. He not only liked to earn some income from his thoughtful investments in local buildings but also enjoyed the fact that he was instrumental in preserving a bit of the history of the town as he did so. No sooner had he bought his piece of history, however, my colleague had to face the city bureaucracy that wanted him to both preserve the building intact and to renovate it to conform with all sorts of government regulations."

That's Tinseltown: "There are many Israel-haters on the Left, but none more persistent, or rabid, than far-Left British actress Vanessa Redgrave. The mummified Marxist is a longtime enemy of the Jewish state. In 1977, Redgrave did a "documentary" titled "The Palestinians" that showed her in a PLO training camp, dancing as she waved a rifle over her head... In 1980, Redgrave proclaimed, "The State of Israel must be overthrown, there is no room for such a state.""

Middle-aged Madness does not seem to have permalinks but he has lots of good pictures up. If you scroll down to his post of 15th, you will see some particularly good ones of Mrs Bush and Mrs. Kerry. The pictures persuade me that John Kerry married for money.

The Usurer vigorously dissents from the view of Immanuel Kant being a libertarian. He is probably right. Kant is a pretty confused thinker in my view.

EDUCATION WATCH seems to have become my second most active blog. I always have heaps of stuff to put up there.

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

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

Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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

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

AUSTRALIA HAS A FEDERAL ELECTION SOON TOO

If John Kerry leaves a lot to be desired in the character stakes, his Australian counterpart (Mark Latham) is not much better. Christopher Pearson sums up Latham's history at some length. One excerpt: "He has never resiled from the class warrior's description of himself he gave The Bulletin: "I'm a hater. Part of the tribalness of politics is to really dislike the other side with intensity. And the more I see of them, the more I hate them." Although it's not the way well-adjusted people work, Latham -- who once described himself as "a maddie" -- sees it as normal.... The journalists' nickname for him, "Biff", is jokey recognition of Latham's violent hoon streak" Pearson also notes that Latham has said of himself: "I'm a narcissist.". So we have a violent egomaniac on offer: How Leftist!

Latham's education policy also has American echoes: "Mark Latham's schools strategy has worked well to protect one of Labor's core constituencies – the public education unions. Instead of addressing why parents have been deserting state schools for a decade, and explaining what he will do to stop the rot, Mr Latham is playing the class-war warrior in a debate that ducks this essential question. Labor's strident attack on rich private schools – as if their very existence denied public school children the right to learn – is polemical politics. And it is very poor policy that will do nothing to improve the education on offer in state schools... The reason why the non-government school sector accounts for about 30 per cent of all pupils is because ordinary Australian parents have lost faith in public education. More money in itself will not change this. What will is real reform that allows parents and school communities to make decisions that suit their own circumstances. Such as giving schools the power to pay their best teachers more and to fire the duds. And giving parents vouchers for the benchmarked cost of classes, valid at any public or private school. Not to mention encouraging a culture of accountability by publicly ranking schools so we can compare their performance. But all these measures are anathema to the teacher unions, a lobby Mr Latham evidently dares not defy".

Australia's Left are Green: "Labor's chances of winning the federal election are expected to receive a boost today when it announces a strong preference deal with the high-rating Greens."

This was on the front page of Saturday's "Australian" newspaper: "What followed was a complete sellout of Aboriginal people in the greatest act of racist political bastardry perpetrated by the Queensland government headed by Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The subsequent decades of misery are only now being redressed..... The actions of the Bjelke--Petersen government were what led to the introduction of liquor canteens on "missions." The canteens decimated entire Aboriginal families and communities through alcoholism and child neglect." It's "bastardry" for a conservative government to give blacks the same right to a drink that whites have? Only a Leftist would think so.

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

ELSEWHERE

The Dallas Protest Warriors have been having a lot of fun as "The Halliburton Defence Force", showing up what mental cripples the Leftist protesters are.

There is a review here of a Leftist historian who calls genocidal violence "the dark side of democracy". I guess Hitler and Pol Pot must have been great democrats! Elitist Leftists sure hate democracy!

Good to see a bit of official honesty about what an oppressive place Saudi Arabia is. Looks like Powell has been overruled. Dick McDonald has some good comments on the matter too.

Is Kerry moving left? "To the astonishment and dismay of Democratic politicians, John Kerry over the last weekend appeared to have forgotten his opponent for president. He did not seem to realize that he was running against George W. Bush, not Howard Dean. That was an understandable conclusion to be drawn from the Democratic nominee's course over four days."

Bad Deal: Review of Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race by Kevin J. McMahon and FDR's Folly by Jim Powell: "Two recent books, one generally liberal and the other libertarian, offer interesting and divergent viewpoints on what Roosevelt and his New Deal did, and did not do, to improve life for American blacks."

The biggest issue? "Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said voters should not forget the importance of the possibility of several U.S. Supreme Court justices retiring over the next four years as they vote for president in November. Calling it the 'unspoken importance of the 2004 elections,' Perkins wrote in an e-mail to supporters on Tuesday that people should not forget that the next president of the United States will make a lasting impact on the judicial rulings made by the high court. Perkins said he is surprised the potential vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court has not been an issue in the 2004 presidential election between President George W. Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry as it was in the 2000 contest."

Soviet USA? Mandatory mental health screening?: "On Sept. 9, the 'Ron Paul Amendment' was defeated in the House of Representatives by a vote of 95-315. The Amendment would have prevented the funds sought by an appropriations bill (HR 5006) from being used for the mandatory mental-health screening of Americans, including public schoolchildren. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a practicing physician for more than 30 years, campaigned against the new program on the grounds that it negates parental rights and would encourage the over-medication of children."

The not so Supreme Court: "Yes, Marbury established the Supreme Court as the Constitution's final arbiter, in much the same way as a pretender to the throne establishes himself as king by cramming the crown on his cranium and declaring, 'I'm king!' As long as the other pretenders -- or branches of government -- stand around and shuffle their feet and mutter, 'Uh, well, okay then' he's king. In other words, the Supreme Court declared itself supreme."

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

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

Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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

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

SOME PHILOSOPHY

The Maverick philosopher: "There are other people for whom truth counts for nothing, but power for everything.... They project their own lust for power into everyone else interpreting everything that is manifestly not a power-move as latently a power-move. There are plenty of leftists like this. Taking their cue from Nietzsche, they assume that everything is power at bottom. Die Welt ist der Wille zur Macht und nichts anders! "The world is the will to power and nothing besides!" Supported by this assumption, they set out to unmask (deconstruct) phenomena that manifestly are not power-driven, for example, attempts to state what is the case. Compare my comments on Stanley Fish in "Of Truth and Fish". Power-mad themselves, these leftists project lust for power into everyone and everything. It is a curious pars pro toto fallacy: one takes a phenomenon one finds in oneself, lust for power, and then interprets everything else in terms of it".

Kant was a libertarian! "Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is a highly significant resource for classical liberalism and libertarianism. Not only can one rely upon Kant's account of the foundations of morality to derive libertarian principles: Kant's own specifically political philosophy is written very much in a classical liberal vein that opposed paternalist government while emphasizing the centrality of the individual's property rights.... In the Metaphysics of Morals [Metaphysik der Sitten], Kant claims that each individual has only one innate right, that of freedom. It is because of this right that one's person may not be arbitrarily coerced, and not because of a right to property that covers self-ownership. "Freedom (independence from being constrained by another's choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity""

Human rights vs. animal rights: Review of Tibor R. Machan's "Putting Humans First": "The only book I have encountered that views today's environmental movement from a historical and philosophical perspective and convincingly argues why we have been on the wrong track. Machan then lays out a simple blueprint for man's future interaction with the planet and animal kingdom. "Putting Humans First" should become the gold standard for warm and friendly human beings endeavoring to understand and explain why, though we may love animals and nature, they are intrinsically inferior to humans."

"There does exist therefore, gentlemen, a law which is a law not of the statute-book, but of nature; a law which we possess not by instruction, tradition, or reading, but which we have caught, imbibed, and sucked in at Nature's own breast; a law which comes to us not by education but by constitution, not by training but by intuition-- the law, I mean, that should our life have fallen into any snare, into the violence and the weapons of robbers or foes, every method of winning a way to safety would be morally justifiable. When arms speak, the laws are silent; they bid none to await their word, since he who chooses to await it must pay an undeserved penalty ere he can exact a deserved one." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero:The Speeches with an English Translation, "On Behalf of Milo", infra, p. 17)

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

ELSEWHERE

Leftist journalists occasionally let their real thoughts out. Note this comment from one such elitist in her interview with Jay Leno: "But surely "Jaywalking" [Leno's man-in-the-street segment] shows you what morons Americans are." How Leftists hate ordinary people! I wonder how it is that "morons" have created one of the freeest, most dynamic, most prosperous, most powerful and most generous nations the world has ever known?

It looks like the "National Review" article about biased bookshops that I linked to yesterday has got some response at least. See here. Note that they do not deny that conservative customers are often treated contemptuously.

I guess President Wilson must have been a "neocon": "The world must be made safe for democracy," Woodrow Wilson declared in 1917. Ever since (and arguably before), that imperative has occupied a central place in U.S. foreign policy. Democratic and Republican presidents alike have seen the need to spread liberty abroad to protect liberty at home."

Condescension compulsory: "My DNA theory came to me on Monday evening last as I listened to Greta Van Susteren reporting. She had a ranting, angry liberal as a guest against the backdrop of the Republican convention. Said liberal complained of white males, Republicans and the dominance of the former in the latter. Susteren pointed out that Bush had Colin Powell, Rod Paige and Condi Rice in his Cabinet. Undaunted, the liberal DNA kicked in, "Bush just picked them, and they happened to be black. He didn't pick them because they were black." Blacks who are chosen for their competence don't count as true blacks?"

Arnold Kling: "The Democrats, in my view, are neither hawks nor doves. They are ostriches. Some of the ostriches disparage nations like Australia and Italy that stand with us and instead fantasize about forging a coalition out of the unwilling nations of France and Germany. They have faith in the United Nations, even as the Sudan and Iran thumb their noses at that body."

Old media and new media: "That's what is most fascinating about the elimination of media entry barriers, the rise of distributed journalism, and the new influx of reporting and commentary from outside the professional guild. The new outlets aren't displacing the old ones; they're transforming them. Slowly but noticeably, the old media are becoming faster, more transparent, more interactive -- not because they want to be, but because they have to be."

Invisible Heart questions this claim about Ralph Nader: "More than any other single person, Ralph Nader is responsible for the existence of automobiles that have seat belts, padded dashboards, air bags, non-impaling steering columns, and gas tanks that don't readily explode when the car gets rear-ended. He is therefore responsible for the existence of some millions of drivers and passengers who would otherwise be dead." He is permalink-deprived so scroll down to his post of March 4th. He shows that the steepest fall in deaths occurred long BEFORE St. Ralph.

Maybe I am a sentimental old fool but I was really touched by the blogger who found God's mercy even in the events of 9/11.

I seem to be posting a lot on EDUCATION WATCH lately and even SOCIALIZED MEDICINE seems to be getting almost daily postings.

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

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

Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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

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

LYING

Some excerpts from a very good article:

"You can no more expect the "rule of law" to function without a core precept centering on truth than you could expect your human body to function without a heart. The two are inseparable. Those who treat casually the truth governing a society formed around the "rule of law" are inviting a lawlessness (anarchy), which will inevitably follow. Law and order cannot coexist with condoned falsehood.

Lying is a particularly vicious and destructive fault. There is no doubting that in times of weakness or imprudence most all of us have employed a lie on occasion. But it is only the depraved or demented that would not come to realize its insidious properties. Indeed, lying is one evil equally condemned by not only God, beginning with the Eighth Commandment,1 but by all secular cultures that wisely give preeminence to the "common good" and "right reason," based on the natural law in their governing policies.

Any nation or culture that comes to granting license to lying has initiated its own death warrant. Yet, that very process is well on the way in our nation today....

Although lying is a fault that all of society has occasion to confront, it is noted to be particularly focused in our day with the practitioners of the ideology which is now popularly referred to as "liberalism." In fact, the ideologies of liberalism, socialism, Marxism, and communism are all wedded, and proceed from the same brood house. It should be pointed out that "liberal" is a term adopted by the socialists themselves in seeking to disassociate from the stigma that had become attached to that ideology. I need not here reiterate what recent history has revealed pertaining to the lethal properties of these particular "...ism's". "Evil empire(s)" is one apt description of their outcomes when allowed to assume power.

Lying is an acknowledged tool of socialism/Marxism as not only taught by Marx but as incorporated in certain Marxist constitutions. Vladimir Lenin, a devoted follower of Marx and a father of the societal and world-wide disaster that came to be known as Communism, had the following words to say of their governmental intentions: "The lie is sacred, and deception will be our principal weapon."....."

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

ELSEWHERE

WHAT? "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he hopes to be able to remove Saudi Arabia from the State Department list of religiously intolerant countries."

There is an article in "National Review" (full copy here) about American bookshops that I find quite amazing. It records the immense lengths American booksellers go to in order to suppress the circulation of conservative books. And the sales clerks in American bookshops appear to be the worst offenders. There is a heap of comments here from lots of other American conservatives confirming the truth of the story. I cannot imagine any such thing happening in Australia and I have certainly never encountered any shred of it. I guess Australia just is both a less polarized and more conservative country. But the story is of course yet another instance of how instinctively Leftists rely on censorship. They just cannot afford for the full truth on anything political to become known.

AOL users: A lot of your email is getting bounced back to the sender without being delivered at the moment. It has been happening to emails that I have sent to various AOL users over the last week or so. Get yourself a Yahoo address would be my advice.

An amusing article here about the editor of "Harpers" magazine. He says conservatives have no ideas despite the fact that he used to publish heaps of articles by conservatives when the magazine was independent. Now that the magazine depends on grants from Left-wing foundations for its survival, he has changed his tune, funnily enough! His only explanation for the influence that conservative ideas now have is the influence of conservative foundations. But Leftist foundations are miles bigger than conservative ones so he again reduces himself to absurdity. He is also the clown who wrote a report about what happened at the GOP convention before the convention had actually commenced! What loonies Leftist foundations hire! I guess they don't have much choice.

Scott Burgess has a report about an addled Left-wing journalist who found what she regarded as just about a perfect human society in southern Bavaria but who could not handle the fact that all the people concerned were white! Her "solution" to the non-existent "problem"? They need some blacks! Leftists just hate ordinary people so cannot bear to see them happily getting on with their own lives. Destroying people's happiness is their specialty. They are just fundamentally destructive people.

There is a great advertisement for an IBM electric typewriter here. Dan Rather will no doubt be bidding.

That good ol' "projection" again: "Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry accused President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of running a 'shameful and outrageous' campaign to win reelection. In an interview conducted by Time magazine, Kerry said Republicans are desperate to hold on to the White House and will use any means necessary to do so.... 'I think the president's unwillingness to walk away from those comments makes it clear that he and the vice president will say anything and do anything to get elected and hold onto power,' Kerry said"

Left-leaning and Nobel prize-winning South African novelist Nadine Gordimer is trying to censor a biography of her. A South African reader writes: "All because Roberts used certain quotes from her that reveal the serpent behind the mask. Gordimer always portrays Afrikaners as really dumb, low-class fools in her work - she is a racist. Even fellow lefties here in SA call her "humourless". Her books don't sell in SA. Only the Swedes think she's a great writer."

"One of Toronto's Jewish groups wants to tear a piece off PETA. The Canadian Jewish Congress is furious over a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaign called "Holocaust on Your Plate" that compares animals being slaughtered with Nazi death camps".

What a nasty headline -- from Reuters, of course: "Miss America to Showcase More Skin, Less Talent"

There is a new blog called Catholic Kerry Watch.

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

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

Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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

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

SOME MORE ECONOMICS

Minimum wages destroy both jobs and employability: "When I discuss minimum wages in class I tell my students that one of the best ways to get a high-paying job is to get a low-paying job and work your way up. The minimum wage can put the least employable out of work and have permanent negative effects when training and work skills not acquired in youth are difficult to accumulate later on.... David Neumark and Olena Nizalova look at the how exposure to the minimum wage in the past impacts workers today. They find that teenagers who grow up in states with a minimum wage that is significantly and consistently higher than the federal minimum have lower earnings and work less a decade or more later when those workers are in their late twenties. The negative effects are larger for blacks, for whom the minimum wage tends to be more binding.... The bottom line? If you don't work at McDonald's when you are a teenager, don't expect to manage a McDonald's when you are middle-aged."

The origin of the income tax: "'The freedoms won by Americans in 1776 were lost in the revolution of 1913,' wrote Frank Chodorov. Indeed, a man's home used to be his castle. The income tax, however, gave the government the keys to every door and the sole right to change the locks. Today the American people are no longer the master and the government has ceased to be the servant.... Adjusting for inflation, in the 81 years between the enactment of the income tax in 1913 to 1994, government spending increased 13,592%!"

A reader writes: "This article shows that the number of Australians on full time welfare support has gone from 1 in 20 in the early 1960s to 1 in 5 today. The welfare lobby and 'social justice' advocates seem to be on a business as usual track. You don't have to be a libertarian or even a conservative to criticise these numbers. Many ordinary Australians would say that Australia was a fairer and more equal society in the 1960s than it is today. The welfare lobby needs to redirect their focus from welfare expansion to welfare targeting."

Walter E. Williams: "The truly rich don't deserve all the political hype we hear; they're only a tiny percentage of our population and not that important. According to recent U.S. Treasury statistics, the top 1 percent of income earners have an adjusted gross income that starts around $300,000. While $300,000 or $400,000 a year is nothing to sneeze at, it's a far cry from being rich; it's not even yacht-and-Gulfstream-jet money. The truly rich Americans are those with assets like Bill Gates ($46 billion), Warren Buffett ($43 billion) and Paul Allen ($21 billion). All told, there are about 275 Americans in the billionaire club. Having just a couple million dollars in assets doesn't merit much respect as riches.The 99 percent plus of the rest of us can safely ignore the truly rich."

What the Left won't tell you: "The twentieth century contrasts sharply with the record of the two preceding centuries. In every measure we have bearing on the standard of living, such as real income, homelessness, life expectancy and height, the gains of the lower class have been far greater than those experienced by the population as a whole, whose overall standard of living has also improved".

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

ELSEWHERE

Peg Kaplan says why the use of forged documents by CBS to discredit GWB is a big deal. I am amazed that they keep defending themselves. A quick "we were conned" would have saved a lot of their reputation. One wonders whom they are protecting -- i.e. did the documents come directly from the Kerry campaign? NRO has the story about a much earlier "Rathergate" scandal that now seems generally forgotten. (Via Dick McDonald).

Further to my post about the "Could America be Satan" seminar, Dave Huber has some information about how away with the fairies these guys really are.

An Islamic "spiritual leader" speaks about the recent bombing of the Australian embassy in Indonesia: ""I suspect that America and Australia themselves are behind the [embassy] bombing, for two reasons: one, the US issued a travel warning before the bombing. It means they already knew in advance; and two, the bomb intentionally exploded about the embassy gates which made victims of ordinary people, who are Muslim. It means it is aimed at pushing Islam into a corner. On these two indicators, I suspect the US and Australia are behind the bombing".

Film on Cat Torture Draws Protesters in Toronto: I love the conflict between animal rights protesters and the PC art nazis. Such decisions for Leftists: protest the animal cruelty, or support some disgusting so-called "artist's" right to expression?

O'Reilly selling out? "OK, I have finally had enough with Mr. Switzerland, aka Bill O'Reilly. I started getting annoyed when he made comments such as " I think Kerry is a good guy, I could sleep well at night if he were President." Then I became angry when he criticized the Swift vets and refused to have an open discussion about the topic... The more I listen to this blowhard the more I feel he is a wanna-be elitist. I get the feeling that he wished he could leave that damn 'right wing' Fox and become anchor for one of the big networks".

John Kerry has been criticizing the Bush administration's approach to North Korea. But even the New York Times has put up another view: "The Bush administration's customary approach to North Korea, based on consultation with North Korea's neighbors and skepticism of its motives, is exactly what is necessary." A "mulitilateral" approach is what Kerry keeps demanding for Iraq so a naive person might think that a multilateral approach to North Korea would be approved of. But who said Leftists have to be consistent? Not John Kerry!

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual survey of the week's blogospheric wisdom.

There is a very irate email up on EDUCATION WATCH about government funding for Australian private schools. New posts on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE too.

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

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

Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

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

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

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

ECONOMICS

Why Americans work longer: "It's become a common refrain: American workers are badly overworked, driven to a loss of leisure, sleep and possibly sanity by their material and status obsessions... Most U.S. workers positively still crave getting a shot at overtime hours during a boom period.... people do not want to trade off work for leisure beyond a certain point... A 40-hour week, despite inevitable time preference differences across population groups, seems overall a sensible, natural level. Moreover, it is the weekend that Americans seek to preserve more than the eight-hour workday."

Myths and legends of union accomplishments: "The bottom line is that no union can successfully get a compensation package beyond the market value of their members without resort to force. In a free and competitive market employees who demand more money than the state of the labor market indicates will end up jobless. It is that simple. Attempts to force the market to accept higher than market wages, are generally made by keeping other workers from participating in the artificially high-wage structure. Workers are hurt so others may prosper."

The truth about globalization: Review of Jagdish Bhagwati's In Defense of Globalization: "Globalization in fact reduces poverty and the use of child labor, fosters women's rights, promotes respect for democratic norms, enriches culture, and even sustains the environment. Multinational corporations are not wreaking havoc by leveling wages and labor standards across the globe. In fact, they raise them... Looking more closely at developments within Asia bolsters the point. Who can doubt, Bhagwati asks, that the dramatic reductions in poverty in China and India came about only when these countries began integrating with the world economy, mimicking the tactics of Japan, Korea, and Singapore? Trade and foreign direct investment boost growth, and growth reduces poverty".

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