ECONOMIC ISSUES

Astute Blogger has a good short post on the idiocy of farm subsidies -- pointing out that when New Zealand abandoned its subsidies, it actually gave New Zealand agriculture a new lease of life.

Lawsuit industry has hurt America "Americans are concerned about where the good jobs are going to come from -- and about their health coverage. These are understandable concerns. They should prompt voters to take a closer look at which would-be presidential administration is likely to take the nation in which direction. One of the things that is clearly hurting American manufacturing is litigation. Not only must U.S. companies compete in a tough world marketplace, they must constantly defend themselves here at home."

The aging "problem": "While the pessimists fret about the problems to come as if ageing is some new challenge, they ignore the fact that this has been a remarkably constant feature of industrialised countries since the latter part of the nineteenth century, and societies have had no difficulties 'coping' with it in the past.

Health, wealth and happiness : "How do we know when we're happy? Strange as it may seem, this philosophical question could come back to haunt you one April 15. Psychologists and 'happiness researchers' are using the finding that Calcutta slum-dwellers and Masai nomads are as happy as American businessmen to argue not only that wealth doesn't necessarily make you happy, but that this shows that investment in economic growth should be replaced by social programs. The trouble is that one conclusion doesn't necessarily lead to the other." [See also my post of Sept. 14th]

UK invents another way to discourage people from employing anybody: ""The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is attempting to block a new law that would punish negligent employers with heavy fines or imprisonment in cases of deaths or injury at work. The Guardian has obtained details of a letter sent by Mr Straw 10 days ago to John Prescott, deputy prime minister and chair of the domestic affairs cabinet committee. In it, the foreign secretary casts doubt on the need to create a new crime of corporate manslaughter. ... The unexpected intervention into a domestic controversy will infuriate trades unions which have been campaigning for the reform for many years. The commitment for a draft bill was a cornerstone of the agreement between the government and unions reached at this summer's crucial Warwick forum."

What's the answer for high gasoline prices? Nothing: "What, if anything, should government do about the sustained increase in gasoline prices? Not a thing. For both practical and theoretical reasons, politicians and regulators should resist the temptation to monkey around with fuel markets. No matter how well intentioned, intervention to protect consumers will only make matters worse."

Stupid socialists: "A wave of regulation is burdening Britain's financial services industry and threatening its ability to compete internationally, the UK's biggest business group has said. In the next two years, more than 20 European Union measures will be imposed on companies, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said in a report on Monday. The CBI called for a moratorium on new rules, to let firms concentrate on their businesses. "Companies are being battered by the impact of relentless new legislation," CBI Deputy Director John Cridland said in a statement. "It's forcing a dramatic and wasteful diversion of effort away from the daily battle to keep the UK ahead of its competitors." Britain's finance industry employs more than 1 million people and contributes 5.3 percent to gross domestic product, the CBI said."

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ELSEWHERE

The Islamicist/Nazi connection: "It should be pointed out that National Socialism had a profound impact on the political philosophies of many radical Islamic political organization, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in Egypt in 1928), Nasser`s Young Egypt movement, the Social Nationalist Party of Syria founded by Anton Sa`ada, and the Ba`ath Party of Iraq. One of the main leaders of the 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Iraq was Khairallah Tulfah, the uncle and guardian of Saddam Hussein. When Saddam failed in his attempt to assassinate the Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qassim in 1959, he fled to Egypt where he was given protection by Grand Mufti-protege Nasser and ODESSA-connected former Nazis. The rest, as they say, is history."

There is a painful letter from Iran here about the tyranny inflicted on innocent Iranians by the Muslim theocracy there.

Media silence about Kerry: "Here we are, on the brink, possibly, of electing a self-confessed war criminal to the Oval Office -- a man who, as an American officer, parlayed with the enemy, and... nothing. No questions, no stories. No thoughts, no curiosity. We contemplate a new wartime leader whose political epiphany -- the famous Christmas in Cambodia, "seared, seared" into Mr. Kerry's memory -- never happened. Questions, stories in the MSM? Not a one. We consider trusting our very lives to a man who has consistently hewed to the wrong side of history, favoring appeasement and disarmament over democratic principle and strength, but we know nothing of his current thinking on those old positions."

Why Howard Stern got outsourced: "I'm not sure about this, but judging from the college students I teach, few people know why Howard Stern decided to leave the country and send us his show from 'abroad' -- he is moving to satellite radio. Most folks do not realize, I think, that this country has a socialist broadcast system."

Blogger "Let's Try Freedom" used to be "pro-choice". Having seen ultrasound pictures of his daughter in the womb, he is now pro-life. He also has a good post on why all Americans now must be citizen-soldiers.

One of my Australian readers has got very irritated at the pro-Palestinian slant of our television. She wrote our "60 Minutes" program a letter of protest. You can read the letter here

Wayne Lusvardi says that it was FDR who originally got America involved in the Middle East.

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

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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.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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.

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SOME HISTORY

American Leftists claim to be deathly afraid that a second term for GWB will allow him to appoint Supreme Court judges who uphold the constitution instead of making the law up as they go along. I would like to think it is true but from the way the Senate Democrats recently filibustered Estrada, I fear it is unlikely. And you don't always get what you expect with judicial appointments. Power can easily go to the head of the enthroned one. We might recollect the time when a Republican President appointed a Republican governor to the court and the nation got out of it one of its most determined judicial dictators -- Earl Warren.

Condemnation of the President: "What has [the president done] to entitle him to re-election? We contend he has done nothing to earn this high distinction but that, on the contrary, in the conduct of the war, his deplorable mismanagement of our most important armies, with the disastrous and alarming consequences, have furnished evidence sufficient to convince the country he is not the pilot to carry us through the perils of this war..." But the President concerned was Lincoln, not Bush.

"Neocons" in 1944: "Jewish government officials secretly manipulating the president? That accusation, heard recently in connection with the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein, was also raised sixty years ago, in the heat of the 1944 presidential race. The lightning rod for criticism in 1944 was Sidney Hillman, a prominent labor leader and aide to President Franklin D. Roosevelt."

There is some discussion here of how the welfare state "colonised" Britain's formerly self reliant and mutually supporting working class: "the extensive culture of privately run working-class schools was destroyed by the board-schools founded by the 1870 Education Act, which were not free, but were effectively subsidised to a point where they put their private competitors out of business. All of this was part of a process in which 'the working classes are firmly tagged as the patients, never the agents.'... The state,... by taking away the working classes' means of providing for themselves, and especially by creating catastrophic "Downer" ghettos in housing estates, has created a culture of dependency.

Some interesting statistics about the lead-up to World War II from Jim Lindgren: A Gallup poll taken in 1938 showed that the support for an anti-Jewish campaign was quite low in America but that Democrat voters were 50% more likely to support such a campaign than were Republicans (14.7% versus 9.8%). Those "racist" conservatives again!

"Genghis Khan may not sound like a compassionate conservative, but Weatherford argues that his subject was a great deal more tolerant and far-sighted than his barbaric reputation suggests. Suborned peoples, of all creeds and cultures, were permitted to conduct their affairs autonomously - so long as they recognized his paramountcy. He was the first of the great free traders, a meritocrat, and, by the lights of his time, a nicely enlightened despot. You could do worse than being ruled by Genghis Khan, and many did".

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ELSEWHERE

In academe, Brian Leiter is probably second only to Noam Chomsky for half-truths and twisted reasoning. Because he seems to be widely-read, it is probably time someone took on the job of shooting him down regularly -- as various people do for Chomsky. Being a humble psychologist rather than a high-flying lawyer, I am not the man for the job but even I am tempted to point out the odd bit of shallow rhetoric emanating from him. Take this post. He says the very name "Constitution Restoration Act" is Orwellian. The U.S. constitution is Orwellian? How twisted can thinking be? The provisions of U.S. constitution are about as opposite to a socialist dictatorship (which is what Orwell describes) as you can get! And restoring elements and assumptions of that constitution that have been eroded by an arbitrary "progressive" judiciary must surely be similarly anti-Orwellian. So it is Leiter who is Orwellian. He is calling black white. Once again we note that familiar Leftist "projection" -- seeing your own faults in others. Leiter also heads up his discussion of the Act as "Theocracy anyone?" -- implying (apparently) that the Act concerned is designed to introduce some sort of Christian dictatorship. The whole point of the Act, however, is simply to protect people from being harassed in the courts just because they are Christians. So in Leiter's strange world protecting people from official harassment is equivalent to setting up a dictatorship! Again, he claims something is the opposite of what it is. With scholarship as atrocious as that, it is clear that Leiter's popularity derives from his Leftist ideological correctness rather than any intellectual stature. His reasoning is such garbage that I suppose it is no wonder that nobody bothers to critique it regularly.

The poll of conservative bloggers says that George Bush will defeat John Kerry hands-down.

Another stupid (psychopathic) lie: "U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq."

The myth of the disenfranchised: "Already, in state after state, the Democrats have said that voter confusion over how to vote constitutes voter disenfranchisement. But, as George Will recently noted, disenfranchisement is something the government does to you. It's not something you do to yourself. If you can't figure out how to fill in the ovals or punch the chads -- and some minority of voters will always botch it -- that doesn't mean your right to vote was rescinded. It means that you didn't take your right to vote seriously enough to pay attention to the instructions."

Sweden "As early as 1977, Swedish relative income fell below the average for the twenty-three rich OECD countries. Swedish economic growth has been below the OECD average since 1970. The accumulated effect of the slower growth rate is large. From 1970 to 1998, fifteen countries surpassed or caught up with Sweden in terms of GDP per capita, while Sweden did not overtake a single one.... In the early 90's Sweden's extensive sick-leave system resulted in 30% of the working population being "sick" at any point in time. Unemployment rose to 13%. Taxes rose to 55% of GNP, with deficits of 15% of GNP.... It isn't difficult to conclude that Sweden took a resource-rich land, a hardy and resourceful citizenry, avoided the expense and destruction of wars, and then proceeded to smother those advantages with a socialistic welfare state. It's hard to imagine a more ideal testing ground for an ideological experiment, yet socialism has failed there as well".

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

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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.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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.

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UNIONS VERSUS THE WORKERS

A good email from Australian philosopher/economist Rafe Champion below:

"With John Howard's recent victory in the elections, the stage is set in Australia for a re-run of all the arguments about the use and abuse of trade union [labor union] power and influence. As I write, I hear the voice of former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke pleading to save the priviliges of the trade unions on the specious argument that giving the workers more power over their own pay and conditions is confrontational and divisive!

The late Bill Hutt is one of the most important writers on these matters and some of his work can be found on line. For an overview of Hutt's career, see here. Below is an extract from Hutt's book on collective bargaining where he draws upon statements from the working class leaders to indicate that the combinations of workers at that time generally disadvantaged the mass of workers. He wrote:

"This should not allow the modern student to ignore the fact that the interests of the unionists were almost universally antagonistic to those of the labouring masses. Had historians of the trade-union movement been orthodox economic theorists they might have laid the strongest emphasis on this point. As it happens, however, they have been practically without exception persons with an undisguised hostility to orthodox theory; and this may account for their failure to stress what might have struck other economists most forcibly. The Webbs frankly admit the frequent existence of monopolistic tendencies on the part of unions, but the general impression they leave is misleading for they have obviously written as union advocates."

One of Hutt's major books was The Strike Threat System which is the history of the trade union use of strike action to undermine the rule of law and disadvantage the poor and indeed all of society apart from the favoured few in the most powerful and reckless unions. The paradigm case in Australia is the waterside workers (longshoremen). Central to the trade union defence is the myth of the "bitter struggle" that workers had to fight against capital and management to get a fair go. This myth is subjected to devastating historical appraisal in this chapter from the book. The chapter begins with some turgid prose, but do persist!"

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ELSEWHERE

I have just put up on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS a few comments about the British journalist who has recently called for President Bush to be assassinated.

The Left have recently put out another "survey" that purports to prove that GOP voters live in fantasyland and Kerry supporters are realists. Evangelical Outpost demolishes it nicely. The whole thing was blatantly rigged of course. Distortion is just normal for the Left. The straight truth would be too awkward for them.

A ringing endorsement of GWB from a newspaper in the heart of the Left Coast. A small excerpt: "This election year, America is at a crossroads. Under the current president, we forwarded America's duty to both beat back the forces that would end democracy here and abroad and sent a strong message to those who would destroy our way of life: "Don't tread on me.'"

If anyone is an intellectual, it would have to be David Gelernter (He is a professor of computer science at Yale University, among other things, and in German/Yiddish his surname even means "learned"!) yet he is voting for GWB because he sees Bush as having a sense of humour where Kerry has none. He sees humour as humanizing and as a sign of genuine humility.

Fun: "A report recommending English become a compulsory subject in all schools in France has raised the ire of teachers' unions and supporters of linguistic diversity. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is said to back the proposal, which was put forward a week ago by a commission looking into the future of France's education system, according to Le Monde. Such a move would help French pupils catch up with their counterparts in other EU countries who enjoy a big lead in using what the commission's report called the language of "international communication"."

Australia's Cardinal Pell sums it up: "Recently, I was interviewed on radio about the role of religion in public life. The suggestion seemed to be that if you were irreligious, that was okay, that being secular meant you were fair and reasonable, but religious principles should not intrude into public affairs. I pointed out that Christians had the same rights as anyone else in our democracy and could propose whatever policies they chose. If people didn't like their policies, they could vote for another party. The interviewer professed to be scared of the prospect of Christian political parties, although he didn't say why. He then moved on to George W. Bush who, he claimed, not only set out to do God's will, but claimed to be given special godly instructions or revelations. I do not claim that all President Bush's policies are prudent and right. They may or may not be. But he must not be condemned simply because he's a serious Christian. The interviewer conceded there was no evidence that Bush was claiming to hear voices, and lapsed into silence when I explained that for me, it was a consolation if a world leader was trying to do God's will rather than setting out to do whatever he could get away with. Isn't it better, I asked, to have a leader who believes that in the next life, he will have to answer for the decisions he makes in the here and now?"

Satanic Presbyterians: "I am neither an 'end-timer' nor a messianic, but these groups do have the most accurate way of describing recent events. And who knows, maybe they're right. This week, a group that does not follow the core precepts of Christianity yet call themselves 'Christians' had a friendly meeting with one of the most heinous Islamist terror groups on the planet. Those people who call themselves 'Christian' yet ignore a very core belief of that religion are the Presbyterians, and the group they had a comfy sit-down with is Hizbollah."

Although the U.S. Congress defeated the U.S. military in Vietnam, Lancelot Finn has got a good argument to say that the larger strategic objectives of that war were still attained. In the big picture, America did win.

A good comment on the recent conservative victory in the Australian elections: "I was once a bit concerned about bookshops flooded with tottering towers of tomes attacking the Howard Government and the Bush Administration. I have since come to the conclusion that seeing large bundles of them unopened, unsold and unread in the bookshops might actually be the best possible outcome".

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

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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.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

The hatred and loathing that the media are expressing for President Bush has astonished many people. This week's issue reproduces seven articles from the 2000 election. These articles show that media hatred of Bush goes back many years. We believe that this hatred stems from a hatred of America. It is, in fact, the brutal end product of several decades of vicious anti-Americanism that has corrupted the media to the extent that their dishonesty and ideologically driven reports and commentary now threaten the democratic process.

Another Rupert Murdoch journalist maligns Bush and his record Susan Mitchell is another particularly nasty example of that breed of leftwing reporters who makes no attempt to hide the hate and sneering loathing she feels for George Bush
A Borgia journalist strikes at Bush The US election has helped expose just how bigoted and dishonest many of our journalists really are, which brings me to the 'The Australian Financial Review'
Murdoch's Australian roots for Gore again Cameron Forbes' squalid and bigoted report on the Florida recounts
Murdoch journalist libels Bush and his Texas record The malevolence of the Australian press toward Bush is striking in its intensity. One is even tempted to call it pathological
Aussie journalist joins Gore's election campaign Roy Eccleston, from Rupert Murdoch's 'Australian' railed against Republican demonstrators, falsely accusing them of intimidation
Media hack spins for Gore The American election has provided graphic and somewhat sickening examples of just how ideologically corrupt most of our journalists are
Al Gore's shameless journalists Leftwing journalists are relentless. No matter how much one exposes their political bigotry and hypocrisy they still continue to push the party line. And that brings me back to Gay Alcorn, 'Sydney Morning Herald'

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

There is an article here reporting the ongoing claims by psychologists to the effect that conservatives are nutty --- yet another example of Leftist "projection" of course. The spotlight this time is on claims by a buffoon called Altemeyer. Altemeyer's claims were demolished academically long ago but that is conveniently ignored. See here. Psychologists have always been good at ignoring their own literature if it suits them. See here and here.

I mentioned yesterday an ignorant Leftist "intellectual" who thought that conservatives want to abolish all government. A reader commented: "I took at look at that Matt Young post on "The Panda's Thumb" ... oy vey. More straw men than in your average Nebraska wheatfield"

Such "loving" relationships! "The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association is launching a first-of-its-kind "LGBT Relationship Violence Project" to educate medical professionals about domestic violence in lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender communities.... "Domestic violence is a hugely ignored health issue in the LGBT communities, affecting one in three LGBT relationships," said Susan Holt, an expert on LGBT domestic violence prevention.... The upcoming presentations in Palm Springs will "mark the beginning of GLMA's essential work to educate the medical community about the often-hidden but brutal reality of <> relationship violence," said GLMA President Kenneth Haller, MD.

Great to be welfare dependant: "A woman stayed on hold for more than six hours when she rang her benefits office. Patricia Pattison, 54, clung on to the phone while doing housework, chatting to a friend and having her nails painted. The Leicester grandmother said: 'They said they were busy but I'm not looking forward to my phone bill. The Department for Work and Pensions has apologised.'"

ADHD is genetic too: "Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the controversial "bad behaviour" syndrome, are suffering from a medical condition linked to abnormal development of the brain, scientists said yesterday. Brain scans of children with the disorder - which some critics allege has been invented or exaggerated by drug companies seeking lucrative markets - have revealed a common pattern of changes, providing evidence that ADHD is a genuine biological phenomenon. According to studies, its origins are largely genetic and it is not the result of poor parenting. Growing up in a "chaotic environment", to which parents with poor skills can contribute, may trigger the condition among children who are already genetically susceptible. The condition, which involves restlessness, impulsive behaviour and a short attention span, is thought to affect up to one in twenty British children"

Lancelot Finn on Andrew Sullivan. One excerpt: "If you have guessed by now that the reason I am bringing up Judas Iscariot in an essay about Andrew Sullivan is because Sullivan has turned against Bush, that's not quite it. For one thing, George W. Bush is certainly not Jesus Christ, nor did Sullivan's support for Bush ever amount to discipleship, nor should it have. But when I think about my erstwhile hero Andrew Sullivan, the rock star of the blogosphere, it seems that he and Judas Iscariot share certain fatal flaws. Each was too impetuous, too willful. Each seemed idealistic, principled at any given moment, yet in the end his path was zig-zagging and contradictory and led him nowhere. Judas destroyed the cause he believed in. Andrew Sullivan may yet do so".

Libertarian Party stalwart, Prof. John Hospers has endorsed President Bush on the grounds that America is in great danger and that Kerry cannot be relied upon to act decisively. I actually met Hospers once. He seemed very level-headed. He is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California and was also for 17 years a professor of astronomy

About flaming time! "Federal prosecutors charged three Kansas City-area residents Thursday with using fraudulent records to vote in both Kansas and Missouri in the Nov. 5, 2002, general election."

A nasty one for the Democrats. It seems that Kerry has a lower IQ than GWB

The best conservative site in Portuguese now has an English version. For anyone who wants the truth about what is going on in Brazil...

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

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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.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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.

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ELECTION FRAUD

Voter registration in chaos: "In New Mexico, Albuquerque police officer Glen Stout became concerned when his 13-year old son received a voter registration card -- as did one of his son's 15-year old friends. What that means is that Stout's son and the 15-year old neighbor are legally entitled to vote in the State of New Mexico without the fear of being challenged since a law pushed through that State's Democratically-controlled legislature and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson earlier this year prevents precinct workers at any of New Mexico's polls from asking for any form of identification from any voter, or asking their age -- even if fraud is obvious."

Leftists abuse voter registration: "America Votes, a 32-member coalition of anti-Bush organizations - led by such groups as George Soros' MoveOn.org, America Coming Together and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - is spending $100 million on a campaign that voting officials say has resulted in a massive increase in voters nationwide. The aim of this door-to-door voter-registration drive is to identify undecided and potential Democratic voters in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and 11 other battleground states. One member of the coalition, a left-wing activist group known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), claims to have registered 1 million new voters since July 2003. The problem is that at least some of these were fraudulently registered.... Authorities in several states are investigating whether thousands of voter registrations have been fraudulently submitted - many of them by members of the America Votes coalition. In Florida, the Justice Department and state authorities are investigating charges by a former ACORN field director that workers for the organization routinely withheld Republican voter registrations, while thousands of invalid voter registration cards were submitted in their place.

And here is an hilarious example of Leftist "projection" (seeing your own faults in others). If you want to know what is true of Leftists, the simple rule is to look at what they say of conservatives! Excerpt: "The Republicans are out to steal the 2004 election -- before, during, and after Election Day. Before Election Day, they are employing such dirty tricks as improper purges of voter rolls, use of dummy registration groups that tear up Democratic registrations, and the suppression of Democratic efforts to sign up voters, especially blacks and students. On Election Day, Republicans will attempt to intimidate minority voters by having poll watchers threaten criminal prosecution if something is technically amiss with their ID, and they will again use technical mishaps to partisan advantage. But the most serious assault on democracy itself is likely to come after Election Day. Here is a flat prediction: If neither candidate wins decisively, the Bush campaign will contrive enough court challenges in enough states so that we won't know the winner election night."

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ELSEWHERE

There is a good example here of the utter depth of Leftist political ignorance. The author somehow believes that all conservatives are anarcho-capitalists, the most extreme form of libertarian -- who don't believe in any government at all! Libertarians would certainly be staggered to hear that. It shows what an airtight little intellectual cocoon the author lives in. Conservatives of course do believe in quite a lot of government, though not as much as Leftists do. We would scarcely have President George W. Bush otherwise. I guess the author is another exemplar of that simplistic, "black-and-white thinking" that is so characteristic of Leftists and which they often therefore "project" onto conservatives. Razib gives the ignoramus a good serve too. Needless to say, all the commentary and analysis that flows from such a warped definition of conservatism can safely be ignored. An intellectual who cannot even define his terms accurately is no intellectual at all.

What it means to be a Republican. Well worth reading. Another stereotype-buster for lockstep Leftists.

Bill Vallicella has a post saying that the Left are insensitive to danger. He says this is why they are always pretending that human nnature is good and ignoring the fact that some people can be evil and dangerous. I think it is a bit worse than that. I think Leftist ideologues don't care about reality at all. That's one reason why they often claim that reality does not exist. They are so preoccupied with puffing up their own image and self-esteem that everything else just has to go hang. And anything that threatens that image will simply be denied. They will do and say ANYTHING in order to sound good. Clinically, it is called "Narcissism" and in more extreme cases, it is part of "Psychopathy".

Leftist "principles" are a joke: "I have long insisted that the problem of radical Islam is not a liberal or conservative issue; it's a human rights issue. The unfortunate fact, however, is that largely it is only conservatives who care about it. In the face of the global jihad, the left is strangely silent: no protest marches, no angry full-page ads in the New York Times. When the Left does notice an adulterous woman being stoned to death under Sharia law, or some other outrage in the Islamic world, it is usually dismissed as an aberration or somehow blamed on their all-purpose bogeyman: the United States government.

Good comment on the so-righteous Giving Tree: "In giving to the boy-man at every opportunity, the tree thought it was doing right. Instead, it created a dependency relationship in his human friend that lasts his whole life and that leaves both impoverished. This is not a quality one would wish for a friend, and even more so, for one’s son or daughter"

There is a huge site here which completely demolishes the Leftist chant that Saddam "had no links to terror"

Lawrence Auster has a very comprehensive article here arguing against America's current de facto policy of allowing millions of illegal immigrants to flow into the country. Australia has a high immigrant inflow too but we insist on choosing whom we allow in. As a result we mainly get high-quality (hard-working, law-abiding) immigrants from East Asia. We were getting a rash of illegal Muslim immigrants for a short while but Australia's conservative government put a stop to that -- to great public acclaim.

White House chickens out on illegal immigration: "The White House yesterday asked Congress to reject an attempt by Republican House leaders to load an intelligence reorganization bill with measures designed to prevent illegal immigration. The White House is making the request because Democrats won't support the bill if it has the immigration measures. The administration wants 'an effective bill that both Houses can pass and the president can sign into law as soon as possible to meet the nation's security needs,'

I have put up a couple of posts on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS recently.

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.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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.

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SOME AUSTRALIAN NEWS EXCERPTS

A big difference to the way American schools treat innocent kids: "A teenager who sparked a gun scare at his high school sat patiently in a classroom as the drama unfolded, unaware he was the person police were scouring the school for. The school, north of Brisbane, went into lockdown late yesterday morning after the boy was seen entering school grounds with what appeared to be a gun... A police spokesman said it appeared charges would not be laid against the boy with the toy gun. "He was going to the school to pick up some school work and had bought the toy as part of a Halloween costume," he said. "He was taking part in the lockdown. He didn't even realise it was a result of his actions."

An excellent satire on the New York Times here. A small excerpt: "The international community is bracing for an influx of political refugees following the collapse of democracy in Australia. Last night the UN Security Council was in emergency session on the situation in Australia, where John Howard seized power in a bloodless election on Saturday. The defeat of democracy had been long foreshadowed by the country's artists and intellectuals, as well as by some prominent columnists..."

Australian Left jolted rightwards by the election: "Mark Latham has promised to push ahead with a more aggressive pro-market reform agenda as he admitted that Labor had not done enough to win voter trust on economic management..... In his first post-mortem on the election, Mr Latham championed the need for a new wave of economic reforms - admitting Labor had to do more to enhance its "economic credentials" with the public... During a sometimes candid interview on the ABC's 7.30 Report, he signalled plans to press ahead with policies on further changes to competition laws and opening up the economy - even if it came at the expense of alienating some of his colleagues and the union movement. "We have to move forward with a new agenda for economic reform consistent with those values about competition, about productivity, about growing the market economy and building incentive and participation into the Australian economic framework," Mr Latham said."

Hooray! "The Government's grip on a historic Senate majority is tightening, with National Party candidate Barnaby Joyce steaming away in the count for Queensland's final Senate seat."

Antisemitism in the Australian Left too: "Former Bob Hawke government minister Barry Cohen has launched a stinging attack on critics of Israel within the Labor Party, saying anti-semitism is now rampant in the ALP. He said the number of Labor MPs who supported Israel were increasingly being drowned out by members of the party's hard left, whom he accuses of making exaggerated claims about the nation... Mr Cohen said his life and character were shaped by the anti-semitism he experienced in his youth. "I was proud to belong to a party [the ALP] that fought all forms of prejudice. Not any longer," he wrote."

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ELSEWHERE

Good to hear: "For the first time in the Iraq war, according to military officials, US aircraft last week directly bombed a mosque. The airstrike northwest of Ramadi ended an intense firefight in which insurgents, holed up inside the shrine with heavy weapons, held off the US Marines for three hours. Precision-guided munitions set the Sharqi mosque ablaze, but left it standing. 'The Marines couldn't even get close to the building to do anything because of the firepower that was coming out of there,' making the mosque a legitimate target, says a senior military official in Baghdad. 'The only way to stop this was with a strike.' The incident illustrates how US and Iraqi forces over the past three months have adopted increasingly tough tactics against a dug-in insurgency: raiding mosques, dropping bombs and firing rockets in cities, and conducting large-scale infantry sweeps into urban 'no-go zones.'"

This article sees Islamic terrorism as the last desperate gasp of a defeated civilization: "The madness of the Islamists' spectacular attack on the World Trade Center is self-evident; its despair lies in its inevitably annihilating impact on the plotters and perpetrators themselves, world Islamism in general, and the al Qaeda networks, organizations, and systems of support in particular (including the Taliban regime in Afghanistan).... Today the hard-core Islamists' spectacular terrorist violence reflects a no less desperate attempt to break out of the historical impasse and terminal structural crisis reached by the world Islamist movement in the second half of the 20th century. I predict this violence will be the prelude to the dissipation and final demise of militant Islamism in general. Like the armed factions in Europe who had given up on society, political parties, reform, proletarian revolution, and traditional communist organization in favor of violent action, militant Islamism has given up on contemporary Muslim society".

One result of favouring "minorities" in hiring. Loss of standards: "Five police officers in Los Angeles stand accused of pursuing a four-year armed robbery spree, using squad cars, uniforms and badges to make the brazen heists look like official raids. At least two men were shot with stun guns during the robberies, while another was beaten with a police baton, had a gun stuffed into his mouth and was burnt with a cigarette lighter. The five men, working with as many as fifteen accomplices, including a professional female boxer, stole 320kg (700lb) of marijuana and 50kg of cocaine, as well as cars, firearms and jewellery. The gang used Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) surveillance tactics to keep a look out for police or witnesses, and restrained victims with standard-issue handcuffs." See also here.

British socialism shoots itself in the foot: "Warnings that Gordon Brown will be forced to raise taxes quickly in the event of a victory in next year's general election increased yesterday after the emergence of the worst monthly public finance figures on record. Much weaker than expected tax revenues meant that government borrowing last month set a September record of œ4.8 billion, almost double the figure for the same month last year. The bleak September data was blamed by the Treasury on erratic factors affecting spending. But the bad news from last month ended a highly disappointing first half to the financial year, during which the Government borrowed œ22.75 billion - more than two thirds of the Chancellor's œ33 billion full-year forecast".

There is an article here pointing out at length that with John Kerry, what you see is NOT what you get. He will say and do anything to gain power -- even imitate 95% of GWB's policies -- but his voting record reveals him for the far-Leftist he is.

Good augury for GWB: "In a March 2003 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen dismissed worries that the American public would lose heart if there were too many casualties in the then-imminent Iraq war. "All the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. . .," Ledeen declared. "What we hate is not casualties but losing.""

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.

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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.

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BIG MAL IS JEWISH

I am a great fan of Professor Bunyip. His use of humour to deflate Australian Leftists is something that I can only aspire to. I note however that he seems to concur with the usual view among Australian conservatives that Malcolm Fraser was our worst Prime Minister in living memory. Fraser was in his younger days known as very Right-wing and as a fan of Ayn Rand but in office he did very little to introduce market-oriented reforms. These days he is best remembered for losing his trousers on a hot night in Memphis, Tennessee! Courtesy of Michael Darby, I once met Big Mal for a brief chat and it was a great struggle to keep the word "trousers" out of the conversation, I can tell you!

I agree that the Fraser years (1975-1983) were "lost years" as far as most market reforms were concerned but Fraser does have some reasonably good conservative credentials nonetheless. It is often forgotten that he was ahead of Margaret Thatcher in rolling back socialism -- in that he started de-nationalizing Australian health-care in 1976 (though the present dual system was not fully in place until 1981). Margaret Thatcher, of course, first came to office in 1979. And Fraser was a strong supporter of the United States and its policies -- and he also cut back government spending, which is more than G.W. Bush can claim.

And doing nothing whilst in office is not an entirely inappropriate thing for a conservative Prime Minister to do anyway. It beats constant government meddling and multiplication of laws! Australia's most revered conservative Prime Minister -- Sir Robert Menzies -- is also remembered for the paucity of his "initiatives" and the stability of Australian life during his long term in office.

On anything to do with race and ethnicity, however, Big Mal rivals the Left for "correctness" -- and he bears some responsibility for the installation of the ghastly Robert Mugabe as ruler of the unfortunate people of Zimbabwe. The reason behind that, however, seems never to be mentioned. Fraser is technically Jewish. Although his own religion is nominal Protestant, his mother was Jewish -- which makes Fraser Jewish under Jewish law. And Jews are of course understandably hypersensitive about matters to do with race. It is however remarkable testimony to the very low level of antisemitism in Australia that a man can become Prime Minister of Australia without his Jewishness ever even being mentioned. I think it also shows how "racist" Australian conservatives are that they chose Fraser to lead them -- rather like those "racist" British conservatives who chose Benjamin Disraeli to lead them in the 19th century and Michael Howard to lead them in the 21st.

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ELSEWHERE

Maybe some hope for the British Tories after all: "Michael Howard has recruited the man who helped his namesake, John Howard, win four elections in Australia to head his campaign for the general election expected next May. The Tories claimed they had pulled off a coup by appointing Lynton Crosby as their election campaign director".

United Nations corruption (1): It not only refused to prosecute one of their staff who took part in the Rwandan genocide, but paid him handsomely as well.

United Nations corruption (2): "This month, the United Nations Security Council voted to condemn terrorism. The resolution was introduced by Russia, still grieving over the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan, and perhaps the unanimous vote will give it a measure of solace. But the convoluted text and the dealings behind the scenes that were necessary to secure agreement on it offer cold comfort to anyone who cares about winning the war against terrorism. For what they reveal is that even after Beslan and after Madrid and after 9/11, the U.N. still cannot bring itself to oppose terrorism unequivocally. The reason for this failure is that the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which comprises 56 of the U.N.'s 191 members, defends terrorism as a right".

It looks like the bombing of the Atlanta Olympics was the work of Islamic terrorists and that the Clintons covered that up.

Homosexuals are great demanders of tolerance but don't seem so tolerant themselves. The "Log Cabin Republicans" (an allegedly conservative homosexual organization) have "excommunicated" one of their chapters because it dared to endorse GWB!

The EU is showing how tolerant it is too -- doing its best to block a traditional Italian Catholic from taking a high office in its administration.

Not all Democrats are out of touch with reality. This one is voting for GWB because he alone takes the Islamic threat seriously. Apparently even 9/11 in their own backyard was not enough to shake the appeasement delusions of most New York City Democrats.

Fabian's Hammer has been blogging up a storm about China recently. An important country to know about.

A rather amusing post on Che Guevara here.

Conservative Brazilian blogger Luis Afonso has started a blog in English here. The English is a bit fractured but is perfectly understandable. He wants people to know of the "Red Tide" that is washing over Brazil at the moment.

Let's Try Freedom has some evidence that Andrew Sullivan is on the slide. Sullivan's twisted attitude to his British homeland put me off him long ago so I think he deserves to be taken less seriously. Taranto noted his prejudiced attitudes recently too. And Keith Burgess-Jackson thinks Sullivan argues disreputably.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual selection of the best of the blogosphere.

I have a big post on the flu vaccine crisis up on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE.

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.

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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.

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SNERDS

Ian McFadyen has an excellent analysis of what the calls the "Snerds" or "sneering classes" -- educated Leftists who dominate the media and cultural institutions. Some excerpts: "It is not a snobbery based on wealth or aristocratic origins. It is the snobbery of people, usually from modest backgrounds who have created sense of class superiority for themselves on the basis of possessing the right attitudes rather than property or wealth. It is a snobbery based on being "well informed", of being "concerned" and "having a sense of social morality."... What makes this class of people snobbish rather than simply pretentious is their tendency to sneer. It is a tone which implies that certain thing in life are so axiomatic that no discussion of them is necessary or even possible...

What is difficult about conversing with a Snerd is the degree to which their attitudes are locked down.... Any such challenge to the basic tenets of their beliefs will simply be sneeringly discarded and the questioner relegated to one of the baskets of ratbag, fascist, racist, right wing reactionary, capitalist, Philistine or ill-informed... The inflexibility of the Snerd arises from a personal arrogance that he or she is a well-educated, well-informed and intelligent person who has "worked all this out" and come to - what they believe to be - the only possible solution. Snerds are characteristically blind to the fact that their belief systems are based, not on an independent intellectual of the issues, but on attitudes received from a very narrow range of sources, and shaped by the prejudices of a sub-culture.....

When they express opinions on a matter they do so more to define the boundaries of their own class than to actually change anything in the community..... Thus, while Snerds are quick to opinionate in areas which they feel will enhance their image as culturally superior - politics, law, the arts, they have no opinions at all on, and are careful not to get involved with, matters which they consider down-market like agriculture. Primary production, manufacturing and manual labour simply do not exist in the Snerd universe.

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ELSEWHERE

There was some crap science reported last year that encouraged older women to give up HRT. The science was crap because the differences between groups that it relied on were not statistically significant. See my post of October 27 last year. Nonetheless, everybody hates drug companies so doctors everywhere jumped on the bandwagon and tried to get women off their pills. We now see how dangerous crap science is. It looks like the advice could have killed a lot of women. Read this report: "Hormone replacement therapy significantly increases the life expectancy of older women, but only if they begin taking the drugs soon after the onset of the menopause, a major review of the evidence has found. A new analysis of 30 trials involving a total of 26,708 women has revealed that the benefits of the treatment substantially outweigh the risks, so long as it is started before a woman reaches the age of 60. In women who started HRT at 56, the risk of death from all causes was cut by 39 per cent". I had a big post on crap science on GREENIE WATCH yesterday too.

Leftists like those Chads! Should we hang him? "A Defiance County man has been arrested for allegedly filing more than 100 false voter registration forms in exchange for crack cocaine from a Toledo woman working on behalf of the NAACP's voter registration drive. Chad Staton, 22, of Stratton Ave., faces a fifth-degree felony charge of false registration after sheriff's deputies said he filled out the registration forms by himself -- using either fictitious names or addresses -- and gave them to Georgianne Pitts, 41".

Kerry excommunicated: "An unusual letter from the consultor to a Vatican agency rules that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights have already excommunicated themselves by their actions - a message that suggests Sen. John Kerry is no longer a member of the church. The Rev. Basil Cole, a Dominican theologian and consultor to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote the letter to Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles lawyer of canonical law... Catholic World News reported the letter potentially undercuts the entire debate over denying Communion to politicians who support abortion. An excommunicated Catholic may not receive any of the sacraments of the church, including the Eucharist, marriage and even Christian burial. According to the news service, the type of excommunication outlined in the new information is called latae sententiae, which means that it occurs automatically and does not require a formal pronouncement by any church official."

Belmont Club has a good post on the disgusting European attempt to avoid acknowledging Saddam's mass-murders.

An amusing account of the European far-Left at work here

Jeff Jacoby on why the definition of marriage should not be left to judges: "Bush is right: It is not in our national interest for so grave a question to be decided by judicial diktat. Far better that it be decided openly and fairly, with public debate and the participation of Congress and the states. Anything else would be profoundly undemocratic -- and unwise."

Discrimination in Hollywood: "For years, the actor Ron Silver was a partisan Democrat - a one-time president of the Actors' Equity union and co-founder, with colleagues like Susan Sarandon and Christopher Reeve, of the Creative Coalition, which encouraged left-leaning political activism among celebrities.... Everything changed for Silver after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Now he calls himself a "9/12 Republican." A strong supporter of Israel and the war in Iraq, Silver spoke at the Republican National Convention in New York and is featured prominently in a new documentary, "FahrenHYPE 9/11," a searing indictment of Michael Moore's blockbuster film. Silver says his political change of heart and outspoken support of President Bush has exacted a high professional cost in Hollywood, where Republicans are a decidedly rare breed. "It's affected me very badly. I can't point to a person or a job I've lost, but this community is not very pluralistic," Silver said. "I haven't worked for 10 months.""

There is an appalling story here about pervasive antisemitism in the Swedish media. The President of Sweden's Association of Journalists once wrote that Saddam Hussein's prisons were 'better than Swedish apartments'. What a sad apology for a human being he must be!

There's a good spoof of the New York Times here.

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.

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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.

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ECONOMICS AGAIN

"The Antitrust Paradox" continues: "Specifically, Judge Bork explained that the overzealous application of the antitrust laws and the resulting intervention into otherwise free markets did not maximize consumer welfare by ensuring lower prices, as is the purpose of antitrust policy. Instead, such an approach achieved the opposite effect by sacrificing potential consumer savings in order to level the playing field between admittedly unevenly matched competitors. In other words, the economic reality of antitrust enforcement is to prevent consumers from reaping the benefits of lower prices ..."

Globalization: "Why Globalization Works is one of the best books within the huge literature on globalisation. Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times and avid free marketer, sets out to demolish the arguments of the 'anti-globalisation' campaigners. He has several advantages over the anti-globalisation campaigners. Perhaps most important is his belief, stated at the beginning of the book, that ideas matter. He is fully immersed in the literature on globalisation, from technical economic texts to anti-globalisation tracts, and even quotes Marx and Lenin. He also has an excellent empirical grasp of the world economy, a quality authors on globalisation frequently lack".

Crazy: Borrowing to put off cutbacks: "Conservative activists vowed Thursday to sue the state if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proceeds next week with his $920 million, 20-year borrowing plan to pay off part of one year's pension obligations. Attorneys for the Pacific Legal Foundation said Schwarzenegger's widely expected move would violate a state constitutional ban on governments borrowing more than $300,000 without a popular vote. The foundation represents a Fullerton taxpayers group aiming to derail the idea..... This, said Thom Babcock, an Orange County business owner and president of the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers, is "the Enronization of California. They're borrowing money to pay daily debts. It's not for a single purpose, to build freeways, hospitals or bridges. It's borrowing to pay daily bills."

Globalization gives prosperity AND peace: "Critics of globalization forget that free trade fosters prosperity and know almost nothing about its most important benefit-its tendency to prevent war. Quantitative studies have shown that trade fosters peace both directly, by reducing the risk of military conflict, and indirectly, by promoting prosperity and democracy." [And it is poor nations that desperately need it]

U.S. poverty is mostly among illegal immigrants: "Many middle-class families achieved large income gains in the 1990s and -- despite the recession and halting recovery -- have kept those gains... The increase in poverty in recent decades stems mainly from immigration. Until our leaders acknowledge the connection between immigration and poverty, we'll be hamstrung in dealing with either. Let's examine the Census numbers. They certainly don't indicate that, over any reasonable period, middle-class living standards have stagnated. Mostly, the middle class is getting richer"

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ELSEWHERE

Mark Steyn has a very complimentary article about Australian Prime Minister John Howard. I liked this line: "Howard's a more consequential figure in world affairs these days than Chirac". Steyn has however fallen for the Leftist slur that Howard is short. He is not. He is 5'10" tall. Steyn does however rightly mock the Leftist spin that the Iraq war was not an issue in the election. The promise by the Left to get the troops out by Christmas was all over the papers. Can you imagine the Left NOT making a big issue out of Iraq? One generally overlooked factor in Howard's appeal is his characteristic humility -- a big contrast with Leftist arrogance. See here for instance.

How times change: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned terrorist attacks in Iraq and around the world will increase if George W Bush is not re-elected in next month's presidential poll. The Russian leader's comments are a tacit endorsement of his American counterpart. Mr Putin says the terrorist attacks in Iraq are aimed personally at President George W Bush. He says international terrorist groups want to cause maximum damage to the American President's campaign for re-election and prevent him from winning the November 2 poll".

Why Kerry is bad for Israel: "So why am I still exercised about John Kerry? It's the ramifications of his foreign policy in general, especially his fixation on the United Nations as the arbiter of international legitimacy, proctor of that "global test." Save for the U.S. veto in the Security Council, Israel loses every struggle at the U.N. against lopsided majorities. In the General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission, Muslim states trade their votes to protect aggressors and tyrannies from censure in exchange for libels against the Jewish state. The body's bloated and dishonest bureaucracies are no better, as evidenced most recently by the head of the U.N. Palestine refugee organization, who defended having Hamas militants on his staff. I've searched to find one time when Kerry - even candidate Kerry - criticized a U.N. action or statement against Israel. I've come up empty"

Social Security. Lying Leftists again: "First, the NY Times ran a Bush quote from an event the reporter did not attend, then within hours of the piece running, the Kerry campaign managed to put an ad together and have the press releases done and all the media reporting on it. "New Kerry Ad Exposes Bush's January Surprise - Social Security Privatization...." There's only one problem. The reporter in question, Ron Suskind, did not attend the event he got the quote from. Further, it was not televised, it was a private event and there were no transcripts available. Yet he reports the quote as fact.... For their part, the Bush campaign is denying the quote and some even claimed Suskind made the quote up from whole cloth. In the end, it is of little use, the media is running wild with the story, facts be damned". More here.

In case you have not seen it already, the email about Iraq that George Soros first posted and then deleted is still up here. Clearly, George saw that he had lost the argument.

There's nothing new under the sun. Further to my lightbulb story yesterday, a reader tells me: "Queensland had a light globe changing organisation over a decade ago. It was called Many Hands and was operated by Adrian Collings, a former postmaster from Fernvale. It was started primarily to service high rise rental properties on the Gold Coast but also serviced pensioners, handicapped and anyone else who required it".

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.

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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.

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SOME MORE ECONOMICS

The real job figures: "U.S. job creation continued to move ahead at a steady pace with the announcement Friday that 96,000 non-farm payrolls were added to the economy. Over the past thirteen months 1.9 million new jobs have been created. The unemployment rate stands at a historically low 5.4 percent"

Sowell: "Those who vote on the basis of what the government can do for them are especially short-sighted during a war against worldwide terror networks. What good would it do to get free prescription drugs forever if your forever is likely to be cut short by more attacks like those on September 11, 2001?"

Myths about U.S. workers: "The claim that a large part of the American population can make ends meet only with the help of moonlighting falls on fertile ground among pundits and politicians who promote the view that something is profoundly wrong with U.S.-style capitalism. As John Kerry put it at the Democratic convention in Boston: "People are working weekends; they're working two jobs, three jobs, and they're still not getting ahead.... Also ignored is that only one-in-four multiple jobholders in America says he actually needed more than one job to meet expenses or pay off debt. This point is reinforced by the fact that the higher your formal education, the more likely you are to take a second job. Among Americans with a Master's degree or a Ph.D., multiple jobholding is almost three times as common as it is among high school dropouts."

Minimum wage myths : "Of all the economic myths my students bring to the first day of class, perhaps the most prevalent is that the minimum wage is desirable because, without it, employers would pay substandard wages. My new students -- by and large the products of public education -- have not yet had the benefit of being taught to think economically. If they had any economics education at all in high school, it involved being bombarded with graphs, charts, and curves, the meaning of which they never really were taught, perhaps because their teachers had never been taught either."

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ELSEWHERE

Another marvel of capitalism: "Hot on the heels of dog walkers, personal shoppers and errand runners, Queensland now has its first domestic light-bulb changing service.... For $44 - plus the cost of the bulb - one of four technicians from the Light Globe Doctor will come to your home. "My elderly grandmother couldn't change her lightbulbs and that's what gave me the idea for the business. "When I first started, I thought I'd be going around to little old ladies houses to change their bulbs for them. But since we started 12 months ago, I've only had a couple. "We've been doing about 180 jobs a week and a lot of my customers are just too busy making money at work and doing other things to change them. "Rather than going to the shop, finding the right light-bulb and then changing it, they call me to do it. "I've even been doing jobs after hours. People get home from work, find the light has blown and give us a call. "I did a job for a lady recently who only wanted the one bulb changed."

Leftist hate backfired in Australia: "Above all, what the federal election reaffirmed is that the public, in general, recoils from the rhetoric of hate. Latham, no matter how much he sought to sanitise his image, is an old-fashioned factional headkicker. So is Bob Brown, in his own way, despite being beatified by the media. But the leader of the Greens is the most uncompromising party leader in federal politics, along with the rest of the Permanently Outraged. In short, the progressive movement suffered a meltdown in the election.... All those people who went around Sydney painting signs, "Howard war criminal" and "Howard lies", and all the secular fundamentalism from Brown, and all those loud and proud Howard haters in the media, have yielded a bitter harvest. The public, in its totality, does not reward the rhetoric of hate. And hate is the only word for the undisciplined partisan bile that has spewed from people who should know better."

Privatizing local government works brilliantly: "Crestwood, Illinois [is] being billed as the best run town in America because it operates like a business. This article pointed out that Crestwood, Illinois, with a population of about 12,000, is run so efficiently that the citizens that year were to receive a 26% rebate on their property taxes. Wow! The town is so well off that residents over age 55 get free household repairs, their shrubs cut for free and the goal of this super efficient government was to one day totally eliminate property taxes altogether".

Voter turnout: "Every election year there are great alarms in the media that not enough Americans vote. Supposedly this shows that there is something wrong at the core of our society. In reality, societies where different groups are at each other's throats often have high voter turnout, as each fears the worst if some other group gains political power. Polarization is a high price for high voter turnout. But there are already efforts to scare old people that their Social Security is threatened in order to get out their vote. ... It is young people who are likelier to find their promised pensions are not there when they get old -- unless they get some private pension in the meantime, with or without Social Security privatization. Since 90 percent of the black vote goes to Democrats, it is especially important for Democrats to scare blacks, to get a large turnout."

There is now a book out called The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century . It shows why the English-speaking nations as a whole (including Israel) are likely to continue their cultural and intellectual dominance of the world.

Well-said: "Pardon our populism, but we're a lot more impressed by the views of millions of ordinary voters than by those of all the academics in the world. Democracy and human rights are safer in the hands of people who directly benefit from them, soberly appreciate their value and rightly fear the alternatives than they are in the hands of overpaid, overfed, overpraised intellectual snobs who take their considerable safety and excessive comfort for granted, and spend far too much of their time sneering at those who don't belong to their self-regarding little subculture, but are expected to pay their salaries nonetheless".

Maverick philosopher: "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It is is a mistake to suppose that the only support for an anti-abortion position must rest on religious premises. Senator John Kerry made this mistake last night during his third and final 'debate' with President Bush" [I agree. I view abortion with horror, even though I am an atheist].

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.

Leftism is for most Leftists a desire to sound good rather than a desire to do good

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.

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SOME ECONOMICS

Reduce poverty by reducing government: "The enemies of capitalism and economic freedom shed crocodile tears over poverty. Their policies do not alleviate it but worsen it. They deprive many workers of the very possibility of working, and when those workers are permitted to work, compel them to be confronted with the needless competition of other workers driven from other lines of work by the same kind of policies. And they compel all workers, especially the poorest, to pay needlessly higher prices: all are compelled to pay higher prices insofar as the productivity of labor is held down; and the poorest in particular are compelled to pay higher prices as the result of the same monopolistic privileges that drive their wages down. As I have shown, economic freedom, not government interference, is the means of overcoming poverty"

Moronic "activists": "The Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) has joined up with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to launch a nationwide boycott of Yum Brands Inc. Yum Brands is the owner of many successful fast food chains including; Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, A&W Root Beer, and Taco Bell. TacoBell is where CIW seems to have their beef with Yum Brands. Taco Bell is the largest purchaser of tomatoes from farms in Immokalee South Florida. These farms utilize local migrant laborers to harvest different crops of vegetables including, cucumbers, watermelon, and tomatoes. Most of the migrant laborers are not legal citizens and do not fall within the confines of minimum wage requirements and typical employment regulations. They receive per bushel wages rather than hourly or salaried compensation. For each bushel picked a migrant worker receives an average of 45 - 50 cents. .... Staging a boycott against Taco Bell does not change the guided self interest of taco eating teenagers. In the short run it has the exact opposite effect of its intended purpose. Boycotting Taco Bell lowers the demand for tacos, which in turn lowers the demand for the inputs required to make them, which in turn lowers the prices for wages paid to migrant workers needed to pick tomatoes."

The welfare state rewards liars: "Many bad things can be said about the welfare state -- the political arrangement, as the 19th-century French liberal Frederic Bastiat wrote, by which 'everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.' But one largely unnoticed feature is that it rewards people for suspending their moral sense. Frankly, it makes winners out of liars."

Outsourcing: "What you won't find on the Kerry website are any references to serious studies of outsourcing. The reason is that they all find the issue to be seriously overblown: Outsourcing is responsible for a trivial amount of job loss at most, and is generally a positive for the U.S. economy. Serious studies of outsourcing include ones by former Democratic administration officials."

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