ELSEWHERE

"Gay gene" a myth: "A study to be published in the March 2005 issue of the journal Human Genetics, and available online now, actually undermines the commonly held view that homosexual orientation is determined by genetic factors. The study's lead author Brian Mustanski from University of Illinois at Chicago said in a UIC news release that "There is no one 'gay' gene. Sexual orientation is a complex trait, so it's not surprising that we found several DNA regions involved in its expression." However, a thorough examination of the actual report reveals no statistically significant findings for any of these DNA regions".

Sense from the Saudis! "Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi thinks extremist teachings, not unemployment, are the root causes of terrorism in Saudi Arabia. Gosaibi blamed the spread of terrorism on the "indoctrination that teaches young people they can kill justifiably" and the training some extremists received in terror camps in Afghanistan. "I don't believe that terrorist movement has anything to do with unemployment," the minister told reporters in Riyadh. Unemployment has long been regarded as a major source of frustration in a region possessing one of the world's youngest populations. Many also argue that economic hardships also drive young people from the region toward militancy. As you know Osama Bin Laden is a very rich man and all of his cronies are quite rich," Gosaibi said. "(Venezuelan-born terrorist) Carlos (the Jackal) wasn't exactly a beggar and I am not aware that somebody has been driven to terrorism simply because he could not find a job."

Another Leftist antisemite: "Ken Livingstone was accused last night of having "lost the plot" after an angry confrontation with a Jewish journalist who, he said, was behaving "just like a concentration camp guard". The Mayor clashed with Oliver Finegold, a reporter from the London Evening Standard, on Wednesday night at a party marking the 20th anniversary of Chris Smith becoming the first openly gay MP. His "concentration camp" remark came after being told that the reporter was Jewish, it was claimed..... The Board of Deputies of British Jews said: "We are appalled by this latest outburst by a man whose insensitivity seems to know no bounds."

Given me Irish blood, I've got to note this report: "It was not so long ago, even less than a generation, that Ireland was a threadbare nation, barely relevant in European affairs. Finding a job meant hopping an aircraft out of the country. People counted their pennies, not their commuter miles, and poverty, for many, was a stubborn component of Irish life. But Ireland's jump into the European Union and aggressively pro-business economic policies changed all that. In little more than a decade the so-called Celtic Tiger was transformed from one of the poorest countries in Western Europe to one of the richest in the world. Its gross domestic product per person, not quite 70 per cent of the EU average in 1987, sprung to 136 per cent of the EU average by 2003, while the jobless rate sank to 4 per cent from 17 per cent. In November The Economist cemented Ireland's powerhouse reputation by declaring it the country with the best quality of life in the world."

I often point out (e.g. here) that degree of happiness is a fairly lasting disposition rather than something that is affected by how much money you have and this rather confirms it: "Most people who live with serious disability or illness, such as kidney failure, appear to adapt well and maintain a healthy outlook on life, new research reports. This trend may be surprising to some -- the report also found that people without serious illnesses tended to underestimate the level of happiness in these patients. "We think it is encouraging that for at least some illnesses, life seems to (eventually) go on and that people come to experience good and even normal mood levels," study author Dr. Jason Riis of Princeton University in New Jersey told Reuters Health. "We cannot adapt to anything. But we are generally more resilient than we think," he said. In the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Riis and his colleagues note that this is not the first study to show that people can adjust to good and bad life events. For instance, a nearly 30-year old study found that paraplegics were not that much less happy than lottery winners."

Wicked Thoughts has been putting up a lot of odd and amusing news items lately -- many proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction. The one on Microsoft and the EU really is amazing.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx talks of "dogs of democrats and liberal riff-raff". My latest posting on "A scripture blog" asks what sort of Hell "gehenna" is.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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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I would like to add my congratulations to those of the many who will be congratulating His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, on his recently-announced forthcoming marriage.




CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Leftists claim that there is no such thing as right and wrong because what is right in one culture may be wrong in another. And to Leftists all cultures are equal, of course. It is true that values do differ to some degree between cultures but there do also appear to be some inborn moral instincts. Blogger Turin pursues that point. Excerpt below:

The claims of cultural relativism rests upon two assumptions. The first assumption is that there no common human nature shared by all human beings. By human nature is meant a substantive constitution of mind and body that is uniform in all humans across racial, ethnic, cultural, and political groupings. If human nature were to exist, some values would arise out of it, as humans operationalized their human nature in living in diverse conditions; and these values would the same for all humans. This notion is denied by the principle of cultural relativism. The concept of human nature lies behind the opposition of the anthropologist, Clyde Kluckhohn, to cultural relativity, as expressed in this quotation:

"Contrary to the statements of ... exponents of extreme cultural relativity, standards and values are not completely relative to the cultures from which they derive. Some values are as much givens in human life as the fact that bodies of certain densities fall under specified conditions. These are founded, in part, upon the fundamental biological similarities of all human beings. They arise also out of the circumstance that human existence is invariably a social existence. No society has ever approved suffering as a a good thing in itself. As a means to an end (purification or self-discipline), yes; as punishment--as a means to the ends of society, yes. But for itself--no. No culture fails to put a negative valuation upon killing, indiscriminate lying, and stealing within the in-group. There are important variations, to be sure, in the conception of the extent of the in-group and in the limits of toleration of lying and stealing under certain conditions. But in the core notion of the desirable and nondesirable is constant across all cultures. Nor need we dispute the universality of the conception that rape or any achievement of sexuality by violent means is disapproved. This is a fact of observation as much as the fact that different materials have different specific gravities."

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ELSEWHERE

Aha! We now have an independent report of what CNN Chief Eason Jordan said at Davos. He DID make a scurrilous accusation against American troops but immediately started to backpedal when what he said came under scrutiny. Should anyone trust a "news" organization headed by such a sleaze? I think that question answers itself.

It has always been a common Leftist tactic to take some single thing out of context and draw amazing conclusions from it that ignore all the other facts relevant to the matter. And The Guardian really does us proud with this example of such totally dishonest and deceptive argument -- written by Neil Clark, who is said to be "a writer and broadcaster specialising in east European affairs". I am sure he is just that, regrettably. Tim Worstall goes to the trouble of demolishing the sorry tripe concerned.

Offensive peacenik feels the heat: "Some Sacramento residents are reacting with outrage over a homeowner's controversial war protest in Land Park. When they saw the American soldier display, they decided to do something about it.... What got people so upset? A fake U.S. soldier in uniform hung by the neck with a noose, with a sign on it that says "your tax dollars at work." .... This young man, who would not identify himself, was just walking down the street when he decided he had seen enough. He climbed onto the house and tore down part of the display..... Another man was riding his motorcycle when he decided to stop and do something about the rest of the display, the soldier's hanging pants. So he took them down, and grabbed the torso and took off."

A small but welcome step towards immigration control: "Hoping to keep drivers licenses out of the hands of terrorists, the House voted Thursday to make states verify that applicants are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. Republicans pushed the measure through on a 261-161 vote despite protests from governors and state motor vehicle departments that it would be too costly and would require them to take on the role of immigration officers. The bill also would make it easier for judges to deport immigrants seeking political asylum if they think they might be terrorists."

They got the America-hating bitch: "veteran civil rights lawyer was convicted Thursday of crossing the line by smuggling messages of violence from one of her jailed clients - a radical Egyptian sheik - to his terrorist disciples on the outside. The jury deliberated 13 days over the past month before convicting Lynne Stewart, 65, a firebrand, left-wing activist known for representing radicals and revolutionaries in her 30 years on the New York legal scene.

Leftists: Masters of empty rhetoric: "The Virginia Senate yesterday approved a constitutional amendment that defines traditional marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The Senate voted 30-10 to pass the amendment after an emotional 30-minute debate during which several Democrats likened the measure to the Holocaust" [normal marriage = mass-murder?]

Corrupt Russia (so what else is new?) "Russia's political class has amassed as much wealth as power under President Vladimir Putin, according to a new 'rich list' published yesterday. In revelations which will outrage many pensioners, who have recently campaigned against welfare cuts, Finance magazine reported that three regional presidents, 20 MPs, 11 senators, a regional governor and a deputy regional governor were among the country's 468 wealthiest individuals."

There is an amazing document by a psychologist here that "examines 155 scholarly investigations: 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 116,000". So much for the automatic "blame the man" one hears.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes again Marx's contempt for democracy. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at the NT conception of "hades".

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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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FROM BROOKES NEWS

The American economy: is the current account deficit a problem? America's current account deficits are really symptoms of dangerous economic undercurrents that will have to be confronted - the question is when
Great Depression: defending capitalism against anti-market myths, part II What really happened during the Great Depression?
Mr Brown's magical unemployment figures What the coming UK election tells us about Labour's record on jobs and taxes
Women of Iraq - rend your veils and begin Your shoe smacking! It was the night before the election in the land of Iraq, but all through the eastern seaboard bars Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy could be heard roaring, "President Bush your Iraq policies are a catastrophic failure"

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

There is a huge new study of DNA just come out of the Stanford School of Medicine which showed that genetics is almost a perfect predictor of self-described race. See here. In other words whether you are black, white, Asian or Hispanic can clearly be seen in your genes. It certainly knocks on the head the Leftist idea that race is a "social construct". And it's not the first DNA study to identify normal racial categories in the genes. There was a 2002 Yale University study that found the same thing. See here. So realism about race is not an ideology. It is just scientific truth. Anybody who ever thought all races were the same was always battling against the evidence though. It is race-equality that is the ideology.

Hate-filled Leftist professor Ward Churchill is living proof that Leftists mean it when they say there is no such thing as truth. There is certainly no such thing as truth in what he writes. Full details of his blatant lies about American history here

Fabulous: An arrogant bureaucrat being sued for manslaughter: "A council architect was responsible for causing Britain’s biggest outbreak of legionnaires’ disease which killed seven and infected 172 others, Preston Crown Court was told yesterday. Gillian Beckingham, 47, a middle-ranking executive for Barrow-in-Furness council, cancelled a maintenance contract governing the air-conditioning system of Forum 28, the town’s main arts centre.

Frogs rediscover work: "Much of France was due to bid farewell to its guaranteed short working week last night with parliament set to pass an unpopular labour reform bill that is feeding discontent with the Government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Mr Raffarin insisted yesterday that big protest marches at the weekend would not divert his drive to undo the compulsory maximum 35-hour week, the measure that was the prime legacy of the previous socialist government. The new legislation will allow people to work up to 48 hours a week if they and their employers agree."

Stupid Europeans again: "On January 28 the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced that the U.S. government will raise tariffs on European yogurt, cheese, fruit, vegetables, and spices in retaliation for increased European Union tariffs on American brown rice... Thus the higher EU tariffs on American rice will harm not only the narrow segment of rice producers as perhaps intended by the EU Commission, but also innumerable European consumers of rice, European producers in other markets, and European workers"

From a review of Ann Coulter's book: "The most interesting and probably most valuable part of Treason is Coulter's analysis of the immediate postwar era. She says the problem was not that the Democrats were given insufficient proof of communist spies in their administration but that "they didn't give a damn". Soviet spies in the government most certainly were not, as the liberal-left continued to maintain, a figment of right-wing imaginations.... McCarthy's allegations that some 57 persons in government were communist spies or security risks in every instance proved to be entirely accurate.... In her final chapter, Coulter poses and answers the question: why do liberals hate America? She points out that the liberal-left, much of the media and of academia continue to support savages as against civilisation and to support intrinsic evil. She concludes that "the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is conservatives believe man was created in God's image while liberals believe they are God - liberals believe they can murder the unborn because they are gods".

Does Islamophobia exist? "The trouble with the idea is that it confuses hatred of, and discrimination against, Muslims on the one hand with criticism of Islam on the other. The charge of "Islamophobia" is all too often used not to highlight racism but to silence critics of Islam, or even Muslims fighting for reform of their communities. In reality, discrimination against Muslims is not as great as is often claimed. When making a film on Islamophobia for Channel 4, I discovered a huge gap between perception and reality"

Smokers, shareholders escape taxation-through-litigation: "The Competitive Enterprise Institute applauds today's court ruling against the federal government's tobacco racketeering suit. 'The federal government's lawsuit to squeeze $280 billion out of the tobacco industry was nothing more than an effort to milk a politically disfavored industry,' said Sam Kazman, general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. 'Tobacco may be addictive, but tobacco money is even more addictive,' Kazman observed."

Lopsided moralizing: "The outrage at Lt. Gen. Mattis's comment is outright paradoxical, as well. On the one hand it suggests that there are no morally bad people at all and thus no joy may be experienced when one has helped rid the world of some of the worst such people, especially in the face of their relentless violent onslaught. On the other hand the outrage suggests that the likes of Lt. Gen. Mattis are evil people, deserving of scolding and rebuff. Well, you cannot have it both ways. Either there are evil folks and some so evil as to deserve killing under certain circumstances, or there are none, in which case those who have fun killing others simply need to be cured-they too aren't doing anything morally wrong".

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of reading

My latest posting on MarxWords notes how Marx wanted to hear bad news. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" asks: "Is there a Hell?

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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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AMERICA GOING FASCIST?

Americans have a "Hunger for dictatorship"? Spare us!

Historically, American conservatism has always been isolationist. Isolationism is the translation into international politics of the basic conservative deal, "You leave me alone and I'll leave you alone". And that's why it has in the past always been Leftists or "Progressives" who have got American into foreign wars. So it is no surprise that America's interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have always had opponents on the Right as well as on the Left. Old habits die hard and the fact that war was decisively declared on America by a new and dangerous foe on 9/11/2001 has not found its way into some thick old heads. And Patrick Buchanan and his American Conservative magazine have been the principal advocates of an isolationism that is in reality simply no longer possible. The Islamic fruitcakes are NOT going to leave America alone if America keeps letting them do what they like.

So it is no surprise that The American Conservative has now joined the Left in a cry that America is "going Fascist" under GWB. The article is however written by co-editor Scott McConnell rather than by Buchanan. Buchanan knows his history far too well to write such historically naive stuff. And a knowledge of what Fascism actually was is important if the accusation of "fascism" is to be taken as being more than just the routine and mindless swear-word that it has become among Leftists. And McConnell does make some claim to historical sophistication in his article. He quotes Fritz Stern, a retired professor of history at Columbia. Here is the nub of what McConnell says about Stern's views:

Stern had emigrated from Germany as a child in 1938 and spent a career exploring how what may have been Europe’s most civilized country could have turned to barbarism. Central to his work was the notion that the readiness to abandon democracy has deep cultural roots in German soil and that many Europeans, not only Germans, yearned for the safeties and certainties of something like fascism well before the emergence of fascist parties. One could not come away from his classes without a sense of the fragility of democratic systems, a deep gratitude for their success in the Anglo-American world, and a wary belief that even here human nature and political circumstance could bring something else to the fore.

This account of Fascism in terms of national character is however a very tired old one and is one that probably owes more to Stern's (understandable) antipathy to Germany than anything more profound. The great weakness of the account is its mismatch to Italy. To argue that Germans longed for order and stability is at least plausible for such a phlegmatic and orderly people but Italians are fundamentally an anarchic, fractious and volatile lot. Insofar as there are national characteristics, Italians and Germans are just about as opposite as you can get. (Ask almost any Italian if you doubt it). Yet both nations went heavily for Fascism, with Italy leading the way. So to attribute Fascism to a particular national character is just mindless.

The plain fact of the matter is that the appeal of Fascism was just a slightly different mix of politics as usual. Fascism appealed to and claimed to represent the workers with its socialistic promises and it kept everyone else onside with the second string to its bow -- strident nationalism. There is nothing mysterious and unique about Fascism or its appeal. Socialism and nationalism appeal to lots of people to this day. The Fascists were just clever enough to combine big dollops of both.

So where does that leave the claim that America is "going Fascist"? Given the criticism (if not hatred) of America that is taught in most American schools and which also pours out daily from most of America's mass media, America is about as opposite to a Fascist state as you could imagine. Any Fascist state worth its salt would have knocked all that on the head years ago. In a Fascist State you would be hearing nothing but patriotic and nationalist propaganda in your media and in your schools. So America lacks even the first precondition for "going Fascist". Despite big efforts, George Bush cannot even get American schools to teach phonics, let alone nationalism.

There are other idiocies in the article but what's the point....?

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ELSEWHERE

The poor old Leftists. They haven't got a clue. In Sawicky's abuse-filled attack on Intapundit, he tries to say that mainstream Leftists are really decent guys not at all like the fruitcakes we are always hearing about on the American Left. But to prove his point he says that Michael Moore and Chomsky are geat men and ends his own post by saying that if he had had his way Saddam would still be in power! If that's the moderate Left, they all have a bit missing. Scott Campbell comments more extensively on Sawicky than I think he deserves.

What a dilemma for the Left! "During America's commemoration of Black History Month, some pro-life activists are charging that legalized abortion has led to a "black genocide" of more than 14 million unborn African-American babies. They condemn, in particular, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, whose president Gloria Feldt announced last week that she's resigning. "For every five African-American women who get pregnant, three have an abortion," Clenard Childress Jr., director of the Northeast Chapter of the Life Education And Resource Network, told the Cybercast News Service. "This is a horrific injustice to women, and it's decimating our communities.""

More good news from Iraq: "With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and a greater willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq, political and security officials said. In the week since national elections, police officers and Iraqi National Guardsmen said they have received more tips from the public, resulting in more arrests and greater effectiveness in their efforts to weaken the violent insurgency rocking the country".

There is a most interesting site here showing what real patriots were the Hollywood stars of yesteryear. Most of them were WW2 veterans. A great contrast with the utter lack of experience among the empty vessels of today.

One of the more laughable claims of the MSM is that they do fact-checking whereas bloggers do not. "Powerline" has recently given two powerful examples of just who it is that does the fact-checking. See here and here. If something suits MSM biases, it immediately needs no fact-checking, apparently.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes how Marx admitted to being deliberately ambiguous in what he said. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" says Jesus was a conservative insofar as he was political at all.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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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TUESDAY ROUNDUP

Once again I pick out what I think are my best posts for the week:

On Dissecting Leftism I point out that what the racist "Far Right" believe today is virtually the same as what Leftists once believed.

On Political Correctness Watch I note evidence against the Leftist claim that self-esteem is all-important for mental health

On Greenie Watch I note that Greenies are the new imperialists

On Education Watch I note academic double standards. Freedom of speech is only for Leftists.

On Socialized Medicine I note that huge savings in health care costs can come from improved efficiencies

On Gun Watch I note the idiocy of ballistic fingerprinting

On Leftists as Elitists I point out what an elitist Michael Moore is

On A scripture blog I ask was Jesus a Leftist?

On MarxWords I note that Marx referred to one of his "friends" as a "Jewish Nigger"

On Majority Rights I point out that the founder of modern conservatism was a Jew

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ELSEWHERE

V.D. Hanson has a good takedown on the crazy California Leftie Senator Boxer: "The senator once went after erstwhile rival Bruce Herschensohn, Senator Packwood, and Clarence Thomas for their purported sexual insensitivities-but urged forgiveness for President Clinton's more egregiously inappropriate conduct, whose preemptive bombing of Milosevic she supported despite the absence of either Senate or UN approval... Then Boxer proclaimed of the professed reason to go to war: "It was WMD period.". Boxer's statement was simply not true. Read the joint congressional declaration that was approved on October 11, 2002 by Senator Boxer's colleagues".

Greenie gets it right for once: "African leaders agreed bold plans at the weekend to preserve the world's second biggest rainforest area but Kenya's Nobel prize-winning environmentalist told them they would need to root out corruption to succeed. At a conference in Brazzaville, central African heads of state signed a treaty pledging to protect the forests of the Congo Basin from massive poaching and illegal or irresponsible logging which threaten the flora and fauna of the region".

This article shows what a crock the "mentally retarded" defence is. It mentions a murderer saved from executuion because of his low IQ. But his IQ has now risen substantially. IQ does not change much so the earlier low scores were just malingering.

How pesky for the Dems. Their great hero, FDR, seems to have wanted private savings accounts for Social Security purposes too: "Second, old-age benefits, including compulsory and voluntary annuities"

Protestor motivations: "Protesters shout about the tragedy of death in war, to be sure. But according to their own Godless worldviews, their reasons for opposing war are without foundation. Why would death or suffering be wrong or worth opposing if, according to atheism or materialistic science, it's been happening as a natural part of the bloody evolutionary process for millions of years?... D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, no friend of the Bush administration, nevertheless was quoted in the Washington Post as saying in so many words that these people make him very angry because they're "so selfish that they can't give him this one day." Often, when the police swarm in after things get especially rowdy, protesters will shout in exact unison the common canard, "These are our streets!" while they struggle mightily in the officers' clutches, perhaps attempting to reach into their pockets and present their deeds for the property. No, they're not your streets. They belong to all of us. Didn't your parents ever teach you to share? Rooted in that selfishness is an extreme closed-mindedness as well. They're convinced their opposition to war is just, but refuse to acknowledge that others feel the same way about defending their beliefs - and defending their nation from those who would do it harm".

The FCC backslides on unbundling: "The FCC has been one of the most rogue agencies in recent memory. Charged with writing regulations to carry out the will of Congress in the Telecom Act of 1996, the agency has been rebuked by the D.C. District Court no fewer then three times for writing regulations that flew directly in the face of the act's deregulatory intentions.... Finally this year, the commission seemed to get religion. In the last months of 2004, the commission made the correct decision on voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), determining states could not regulate this transforming new technology.... In December, the FCC announced the results of its fourth attempt at network-sharing rules. Until recently, the assumption was that, chastened by the courts and driven by the free-market convictions of Chairman Michael Powell, the commission would do the right thing and quickly phase out line-sharing and unbundling regulations. But the FCC has backslid. Oddly, although the commission acknowledges the damage done by unbundling regulations, it can't resist leaving them in place for another year on mass-market lines and indefinitely on high-capacity lines used by businesses... It is unbelievable that almost a decade after the 1996 act, the FCC still has not carried it out."

My latest posting on MarxWords notes some more ferocious antisemitic abuse from Engels. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at texts which tend to show Jesus as a Leftist.

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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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THE VALIDITY OF THE IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST

There are two articles here and here that summarize some research by Indian psychologist Mazharin Banaji on a "covert" measure of racism called the Implicit Associations Test (IAT). A common finding from use of the test is that all sorts of people are quicker to pair "good" words with whites and "bad" words with blacks. The most surprising thing about the test is that many people who are conspicuously anti-racist show the same quickness to associate good with white.

Finding "covert" measures of anything -- and racism in particular -- has long been a "holy grail" for psychologists and there have been some conspicuous failures in the quest. So is the IAT the holy grail? Sadly, No. The first thing a psychometrician asks about any test of anything is: Is it valid? -- meaning, does it measure what it purports to measure? But there is another question logically prior to that: What does it purport to measure? And the answer in this case seems to be straightforward: It purports to ascertain whether a person has prejudiced, negative or antagonistic attitudes towards various minorities. That being so, the test is obviously NOT valid. It is not valid on what psychologists call a "criterion groups" examination. And it is precisely the feature of interest in the IAT that lots of people who are by any criterion either non-racist or actively anti-racist get high scores on racism according to the test. So the IAT does NOT pick out non-racist or anti-racist people accurately.

So does the test measure anything? Anybody who is familiar with the stereotyping literature will find that easily answered. There have now been many decades of research into stereotyping and the findings about it are roughly the opposite of what is popularly believed. There are two literature surveys here and here which document that. The important point for our present purposes is that stereotypes have long been found to have a "kernel of truth", as Allport put it. Far from being rigid or fixed, they are highly responsive to modification through fresh information. They are our first and most immediate response to any new situation -- but to be useful, they also have to be continually modified as information about the situation comes in -- and they are.

So what the IAT findings show is that the experience white people have of blacks is generally negative. Whites know from experience or observation that blacks in general are (for instance) more dangerous to them. Given the enormously disproportionate incidence of violent crime among blacks, it would be a sad day indeed if no-one had noticed that. So what the IAT measures is EXPECTATIONS of blacks, not ATTITUDES to blacks. It shows what we see as most probable about blacks but tells us nothing about any more complex attitudes we may have towards blacks. So the IAT simply records our experience of reality without telling us anything about how we interpret that reality.

That view of the IAT also explains why even many blacks associate badness with blacks. Blacks are of course the most frequent victims of black crime (for instance). Since it is very common for whites to shun blacks in various ways (no eye contact etc.) however, many blacks will still have most positive associations with their own kind. And the IAT shows that too.

There is an academic review article here (PDF) which also fairly effectively undermines the claims of the IAT as a measure of racially biased attitudes. See also here for comments on another study using the IAT.

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Amusing. Liberal Avenger noted my demonstration of his hypocrisy of two days ago but was completely unable to defend his stance. All he could manage was some ad hominem abuse. He said I must be "lonely". How typically Leftist! Abuse in lieu of rational argument. The emails I get from Leftists are dominated by abuse too. See LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS for the latest example.

Nepalling BBC ethics: "British Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of the recent developments in Nepal raises questions about ethics.... The anchor mentioned its Nepal stringer, Netra KC, by name. He also mentioned the fact that since telephone lines were disconnected in Nepal, KC was nipping across the border into India and making calls from there. Soon after that, there were unconfirmed reports that Netra KC had either gone into hiding or was missing. Today, an official intimation came from the International Federation of Journalists who issued a statement saying the president and general secretary of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists had been arrested. It further added that BBC representative Netra KC had also "disappeared" after being called to the army barracks in Nepalgunj. "The IFJ is calling for the international community to support our courageous Nepalese colleagues," the statement said. But if the report about KC is true, it raises questions about the BBC's ethics in disclosing the name and mode of operation of its representative in a country where emergency has been imposed and press freedom curtailed.

Farm sanity good for U.S., good for Oz: "Australian farmers could reap big dividends from the Bush administration's "monumental" decision to slash US farm subsidies in an effort to reduce Washington's budget deficit, Trade Minister Mark Vaile predicted last night. Deep cuts in US farm and commodity programs were expected in the new Bush administration budget, limiting subsidies to individual farmers that can run up to $US2 million ($2.588 million) a year to just $US250,000 in some cases. Mr Vaile last night hailed the proposal as a significant breakthrough for Australian farmers, but warned it would face strong resistance from the US farm lobby. "This is a very positive signal that the Bush administration is going to bite the bullet and go ahead with a reduction of farm subsidies," he told The Australian".

The pathetic Dutch: "In the Netherlands the national flag is now banned on most schools. If a student wears the national flag of his own country he will be suspended or expelled from school. The reason for this is that this provokes the immigrants (the muslims) and therefore it is considered discrimination if you wear your country's flag in your own country. Even people who have an bumpersticker whit the flag on their car are harassed and called a facist by the Muslims. Most schools also ban certain clothing like the Lonsdale brand and combat boots with white or red laces. This is also concidered a sign of racism. There are of course no restrictions for the immigrants on clothing."

This article by Mathias Dapfner, Chief of the huge German publisher, Axel Springer, shows that some Germans do get it. It is titled: "Europe, thy name is cowardice". Excerpt: "Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly 500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, has the gall to issue bad grades to George Bush. Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of billions, in the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food program. And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement... How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany.....These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbor's house"

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx was paranoid about both Jews and Jesuits. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at arguments that Jesus was conservative.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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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Today is Ronald Reagan's birthday. There is a fitting tribute to him here




SOME ECONOMICS

Ireland leads the way: "European nations have been lowering corporate-tax rates as they compete for foreign investment, pressuring the U.S. for similar cuts, the Wall Street Journal said, citing John Breaux, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana on a White House-backed tax-reform panel. Ireland cut its rate to 12.5 percent from 24 percent between 2000 and 2003, prompting European countries to make similar changes, the newspaper said. This month, the Netherlands lowered its corporate-tax rate by three percentage points to 31.5 percent, the newspaper said".

Are tax rates a factor in job growth and economic development? "Nevada, which does not levy a state corporate or individual income tax, has recorded the highest percentage employment growth in the U.S. for the second consecutive year. Coincidence? Total Nevada nonfarm payroll employment expanded 4.8 percent in 2004, according to data recently released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the expansion is heating up in Nevada. Last year's blistering employment growth was actually higher than in 2003 when Nevada's labor market led the nation at 3.9 percent. Capital investment isn't fleeing to Nevada because of all that water in the desert. The Golden State's labor market expanded at a much lower rate of 1.1 percent in 2004. Tax rates in Arkansas on capital investment are among the highest in the South. That state's job-creation rate barely budged last year while the U.S. economy created 2.2 million jobs."

A good tax reform idea: "A tax scheme that would address these problems is the savings-exempt income tax (SEI tax), an idea associated with British Nobel prize-winning economist, the late Professor James E. Meade. A savings-exempt income tax, as the name suggests, is a form of income tax where the tax is levied only on that part of income that is spent, exempting the part that is saved. Instead of paying 20 or 40 per cent on whatever you earned, you would pay a progressive rate of tax on whatever you spent".

Laffer must be laughing: "When the capital gains tax rate was at its maximum in the late 1970s, capital-gains tax receipts averaged slightly under $8 billion annually. From 1998 to 2002, the maximum capital-gains tax rate was approximately half the rate of the late 1970s, yet capital-gains tax revenues averaged 11 times higher ($88.6 billion per year), though the economy (nominally) was only 4 times larger."

There is a big research paper here (PDF) comparing many countries which shows that governments which offer most security to private property preside over the greatest economic growth and the highest income levels: "The institutional approach to growth is based on the idea that both the availability and productivity of resources will be influenced by the institutional and policy environment. While there is some debate about the exact characteristics of the institutions that are most appropriate for economic growth and prosperity, there is considerable agreement that secure property rights are crucial, and that the impediments to exchange must be minimal. Institutions and policies are reflective of government actions. To promote economic growth, governments must not only follow actions that are supportive of secure property rights and freedom of exchange, they must also make a convincing and credible commitment that the policies will be maintained in the future."

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The following news item shows that the double standard about Communism and Fascism is still thriving right up to the present day in the socialistic EU: "A group of conservative European Union lawmakers from eastern Europe called Thursday for a ban on communist symbols, including the red star and the hammer and sickle, to match a proposed EU ban on the Nazi swastika. The group from Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic said the communist symbols should be included in any ban because of the suffering caused by Soviet-backed regimes in eastern Europe.... EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini has proposed a Europe-wide ban on display of the swastikas and other Nazi symbols as part of a campaign to combat anti-Semitism and intolerance... Frattini's spokesman, Friso Roscam Abbing, said the EU head office was not at this time pushing for a similar ban on communist symbols"

How absurd: "The preachers in England have fallen on hard times since they pretty much turned Jesus out of the church, but the archbishop of Canterbury has come up with a novel idea to make himself relevant: If you can't get 'em to church, get 'em to the greenhouse. The churches of England - the churches of the Church of England - are going eco-friendly. Dr. Rowan Williams wants his vicars to serve only organic bread and wine for holy communion, to urge parishioners to ride to service in car pools, recycle "waste products," and to sell only "fair trade products" at church fairs and Bingo suppers".

I agree with Deinonychus antirrhopus about firing the disgusting fraud Ward Churchill. If any conservative had said anything as offensive he would be on welfare for the rest of his life. I would link to Deinonychus antirrhopus more often except that it is too hard to spell. Perhaps I could just refer to him as "That Greek guy".

More Democrat hypocrisy: "In his State of the Union rebuttal, Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid attacked President Bush's call to allow younger workers to be allowed to voluntarily put a portion of their Social Security tax dollars into Personal Retirement Accounts. These accounts would be owned and controlled by workers, could be passed on to loved ones, and would most likely be invested in stocks and bonds. Sen. Reid said investing in such a manner is 'Social Security roulette.' If that is the case, Sen. Reid must think 'roulette' is a great way to save for retirement, considering he himself is heavily invested in stocks and bonds."

A Leftist who half gets it: "It is a week to do a liberal's heart good. The star of the show last week was Condoleezza Rice, a black woman. The chief supporting actor was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Jewish woman. The occasion was the ceremonial swearing in of Rice as U.S. secretary of state. Ginsburg is the Supreme Court justice who administered the oath. This week, if all goes as planned, Alberto Gonzales will win Senate approval to become our next attorney general. Gonzales is Hispanic and was born into poverty. And, ending yesterday, elections were held in Iraq. For these reasons, you'd expect liberals to be jumping up and down with joy. Don't liberals support diversity and racial equality? Don't liberals support free elections in other free nations? The answers are yes and yes. So why aren't we cheering? Well, in a small way, we are. No matter how you might suspect President George W. Bush's motives, you have to give him credit for his actions. He's done a marvelous job of putting minorities into positions of power. However, one could argue (and I do), that Rice and Gonzales are the wrong minorities."

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx abused a rival as a "Jewish nigger". My latest posting on "A scripture blog" notes more evidence from the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 6:4 that the Hebrew God was a single entity, not a trinity.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Communism

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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A SLIMY AVENGER

There is so much distortion and evasion on Left/liberal blogs that I mostly do not know where to start in commenting on it so I leave the job to other conservative bloggers. But in that spirit of loyalty to friends which I regard as a major conservative virtue, I am going to say something about an attack on Keith Burgess Jackson by Liberal Avenger. I am also moved to reply because the attack does illustrate something that is quite pervasive among Leftists -- slippery standards. Leftists have no fixed principles. If a principle suits their rhetorical needs of today they will proclaim their loyalty to it -- and then cheerfully adopt the opposite principle tomorrow if that happens to suit the rhetorical needs of that day.

Some context first: One of the most pervasive themes in Leftist apologetics is that good intentions are what really matters. Leftists go into paroxysms of condemnation of anybody who is or was a Nazi but smile indulgently on people who were or are Communists. To conservatives, of course, both Communists and Nazis were brutal mass-murderers who deserve no exculpation. But what Leftists say is that Communists were really "idealistic" and "well-intentioned" so cannot be held to blame for anything. Their good intentions are all that matters in any evaluation of them. So it is perfectly proper to wear shirts emblazoned with images of the murderous Che Guevara but worthy of a fainting fit if anybody wears a swastika armband. So at the height of the Cold War the Soviet Communists were often referred to as being simply "liberals in a hurry". The obvious corollary -- that "liberals" are just slowed-down Communists -- tended not to be mentioned.

So what is Liberal Avenger's explanation of why the Left do not celebrate anything to do with the American intervention in Iraq? He says that only results count! He says that Leftists/liberals will only applaud the American intervention in Iraq when all the difficulties there have been overcome and it is a peaceful democracy with no more American troops on its soil. The good intentions of the Bush administration -- such as the removal of a Fascist dictator, the protection of America from possible WMDs and the promotion of democracy -- do not matter at all and are no cause for praise. What is cause for praise in Communists is justification for nothing more than abuse in George W. Bush. It would be hard to find a clearer example of fake principles.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

The Great Depression - then and know It's 75 years later and our economic commentators still can't get their facts straight about the Great Depression
Condoleezza Rice branded a liar by journalist Eccleston's dishonest reporting on Condoleezza Rice has exposed him as a political bigot and a malicious liar
Elian raid excessive-force case begins `It wasn't Juan Miguel who wanted Elian back,' says Elian's uncle Lazaro in the indispensable book Unvanquished, by Enrique Encinosa. `It was Fidel.' And the media made sure he got him.
High taxes cripple economic growth Conservatives tend to instinctively realise that tax cuts stimulate savings and production. On the other hand, their opponents fully grasp that significant tax cuts weaken their power to bribe and punish
The gateway to the soul Greens and so-called progressives would tax and regulate Europe into abject poverty
Great Depression: defending capitalism against anti-market myths, part I Free market economics did not deepen and prolong the Great Depression - Hoover and Roosevelt did that
Associated Press put terrorist collaborators on its payroll We now have evidence that Associated Press has been collaborating with terrorists in Iraq

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

The psychopathic Left: ""Someone who does not know the difference between good and evil is worth nothing." -- Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, Polish rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust, New York Times, Jan. 30, 2005. It took a Polish rescuer of Jews in the Holocaust, cited this week 60 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and death camp, to best describe those people who cannot or refuse to know the difference between good and evil. They are "worth nothing." Since the 1960s, with few exceptions, on the greatest questions of good and evil, the Left has either been neutral toward or actively supported evil. The Left could not identify communism as evil; has been neutral toward or actually supported the anti-democratic pro-terrorist Palestinians against the liberal democracy called Israel; and has found it impossible to support the war for democracy and against an Arab/Muslim enemy in Iraq as evil as any fascist the Left ever claimed to hate... About 60 percent of the Iraqi people went to vote despite the fact that every Iraqi voter risked his or her life and the lives of their children, whose throats the Islamic fascists threatened to slit. Yet, the Left continues to label the war for Iraqi democracy "immoral" while praising the tyrant of Cuba. Leftists do so for the same reason they admired Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse-tung and condemned American arms as the greatest threat to world peace during and after the Cold War. The Left "does not know the difference between good and evil." And that is why it is worth nothing.

The put-down of the Iraq elections as similar to the 1967 Vietnam elections seems to have been grabbed as a liferaft by Leftists all over the place. I thought my post of 3rd demolished the comparison in double-quick time but if you want a really comprehensive demolition of the comparison, read Christopher Hitchens on the subject.

Capitalism is more moral: "I suggested that the application of the force needed to redistribute wealth and to enforce "positive (welfare) rights" inherent in socialist policies was what made socialism highly immoral. Of course a capitalist society uses force too, but it is a force that protects negative (Lockean) rights (such as enforcing business contracts and protecting citizens from arbitrary state intervention), so it affects only those who do not respect the freedom of others. Capitalism, I explained, is not only good for an economy; more important, it is also morally good for the whole society, which is why capitalism is sustainable and why it works as well as it does"

I deliberately did not blog on President Bush's SOTU yesterday as I knew that the rest of the blogosphere would be all over it but Taranto says most of what I would have said anyway. I did however jib at this statement of his about GWB: "If he has a successful second term, he will probably rank as the most consequential president since FDR". To my mind Ronald Reagan was the most consequential President since Washington! I suppose that view of Reagan will get me labelled as a "Cold Warrior" but I will wear that badge with pride any day. I have been appalled by the brutality of Communism since I was 13 -- and that was 48 years ago.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx had a stereotypical view of Jews. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" notes more evidence from the Hebrew that Genesis 1:1 is a lot more vague than it at first seems.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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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ARE "THE FAR-RIGHT" SIMPLY OLD-FASHIONED LEFTISTS?

I seem to be doomed to challenging conventional ideas about the nature of the political spectrum -- most notably in that I often point out that Hitler was a Leftist. I also however, have done a thorough empirical examination (via survey research) of the libertarian idea that the political spectrum is two dimensional -- and found that the evidence is against that as well. I now think I have a third rebellion to undertake. I think that the term "Far Right" is a misnomer altogether. The Far Right certainly does not describe Hitler and the Fascists but I don't think it even describes accurately the present-day racist groups who tend to attract that label. I think that the people so called are only another flavour of the Far Left. The so-called Far Right may say that they are against "Jews" whereas the Far Left say they are against "Zionists" but both are talking about essentially the same people. And even the "Anti-Zionist" mask of the Left tends to slip rather readily to reveal the real Jew-hatred underneath.

I am of course far from original in noting that there are very considerable similarities between the present-day Far Right and Far Left in what they say. When I have the stomach for it, I do read bits of what both of them say -- and on many occasions what the two groups say seems virtually interchangeable. And both of course have the same rage-filled tone. And both see themselves as a Herrenvolk, to use Hitler's word ("Master people"). The justification that the Right give for their claimed superior status is racial whereas the Left claim not only superior intellect but also (quite incredibly in view of their chronic rage) superior "compassion". But both see themselves as a misunderstood elite and as victims of conspiracies against them. It certainly shows Hitler's cleverness in claiming BOTH greater compassion and racial superiority. He got the full range of nuts on his side that way. What I see is that the alleged Far Right are in fact simply old-fashioned Leftists -- Leftists who have been stranded by history, if you like. What they believe would have made them normal Leftists in the early 20th and late 19th centuries. There is certainly nothing that they believe that cannot be found in Marx & Engels -- even the call for racial unity is there and Engels was very nationalist and a believer in racial superiority. And of course Marx was vehement in his hatred of Jews.

And the Chomsky-like disrespect for facts is there in the "Rightists" too. A recent personal experience of mine illustrated that rather vividly for me: As well as posting to my own blogs, I also post to Majority Rights, which attracts frequent comments from vehement Far Rightists who constantly rave on about Jews. Being an awful tease, I posted something there recently under the heading "The neocons were right!" To both Far Left and Far Right, "neocons" = "Jews" so I expected eruptions in the comments boxes and I got them. And one of the eruptions was this: "Ray and Schwarz share an employer: David Horowitz Frontpage magazine"

Old guy though I am, I was still amazed that a lie could be so immediate, blatant, unfounded and shameless. For the record, David Horowitz has never paid me a cent, though in the last 12 months or so I have donated several times to appeals he has sent out in aid of his various causes. So rather than David paying me, I pay HIM! Just as Chomsky and his ilk do, however, my "Rightist" critic has taken a fact and distorted it. He sees deep meaning in the fact that David Horowitz did on five occasions in 2002 and 2003 publish articles that I wrote and then submitted to him. The idea that David had to pay me to write what I did is a laugh, though. We academics are thoroughly used to not being paid a cent for our writings and so it was with the articles I submitted to David Horowitz. So I don't think that even the remarkably inventive U.S. Supreme Court would be able to use any of that to deduce that David is or was in any sense my "employer".

I used to think that the "Far Right" differed from the Fascists and Communists in being anti-socialist. But when it comes to actual policy that is just not true. The "Far Right" are as heavily into autarky (national self-sufficiency) and against free-trade as the Fascists and Communists are. Both are thoroughly paternalistic economically.

I think the conclusion that I draw from it all is a very basic conservative one: All theories about society are oversimplifications and hence wrong but there is a great need that many people feel for oversimplifications and the the Left caters to that. So the oversimplifiers are all Leftists in the end, regardless of what their starting point may be and regardless of any claims to the contrary. And all the groups concerned seem to agree that if the facts don't suit the oversimplification, change the facts!

An important implication of what I am saying is that I don't think there CAN BE such a thing as an extreme conservative. Extremes are for theorists and conservatives are people whose modus operandi is to go by what can be shown to work for the good of people over the long haul, rather than going by any theories. And I just don't see how you can be extreme about that. So my (slightly) revisionist view of the political spectrum is that it has conservatives at one end and a motley assortment of dreamers at the other.

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The "cowboys" were right! "The European Union has abandoned its target of becoming the world’s most dynamic economy by the end of the decade, and instead adopted as its next “big project” a less ambitious programme aimed at cutting the Continent’s massive unemployment. The European Commission’s new economic strategy, which promotes deregulation and free markets, draws heavily on the experience of Britain, the EU’s most successful large economy. It marks a sharp change of tack for the Commission, the EU’s executive body, which previously put more priority on social protection, as demanded by countries such as France and Germany.... The report suggests reducing regulations on business and deepening the single European market by reducing barriers to trade in services.... Socialist leaders in the European Parliament complained that it was “mimicking the American approach”."

The "cowboys" win again: "The productivity of American workers, the critical component for rising living standards, increased by 4.1 percent in 2004, capping a remarkable three-year period in which worker efficiency climbed at the fastest pace in a half century"

Libertarian Girl notes some research findings which show that the brain is not fully mature until age 25. Sure suggests some thoughts about youthful radicalism, doesn't it? Libertarian Girl also has some very sensible comments about the need for libertarians to be more inclusive and less fanatical. She's got brains as well as beauty, that girl.

Nathan Tabor has the story of the Leftist attack on Sinclair Broadcasting -- demonstrating the usual Leftist "tolerance" and respect for free speech, of course.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes how Marx celebrated the death of a relative. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at Old Testament references to God in the plural.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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 ECONOMICS

Economic freedom greatest in middle America: "If you want to start a business but are not sure where to set up shop, should you head for a vibrant megalopolis like New York City? A nucleus of brainpower and venture capital like Silicon Valley? Or a city of flamboyant creativity like Miami? Actually, whether you're writing software or whipping up candy bars, chances are you would be better off in Kansas, according to The U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2004 Report, published by the Pacific Research Institute and Forbes magazine. The report says Kansas is the state with the greatest level of economic freedom in the country, as measured by tax rates, business regulation, the behavior of the courts, and how the government spends its money."

America is not facing an unavoidable energy shortage: "The year 2004 will be remembered as a year of high prices for gasoline and natural gas, and Americans are understandably worried about the cost of energy for 2005 and beyond. But the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released a preliminary version of its Annual Energy Outlook 2005, and it paints a surprisingly optimistic picture for the decades ahead. With regard to petroleum, EIA acknowledges that global demand will remain strong, especially with China's growing need for motor fuels unlikely to subside. Nonetheless, the report does not predict runaway prices."

There is a very well-researched article here which shows that countries with British legal traditions do a lot better economically than countries which use French-based law.

In-sourcing to America. The Chinese invest in America too: "many local officials in the US are jockeying for position to win Chinese investments. Massachusetts officials, besides trying to secure investments in the fishing business, think the area is ripe for investments in medical products and pharmaceuticals. "Ultimately as they bring their products over here and need the full licensing and permitting that is required on the high-tech end of things, Massachusetts is the logical landing spot [because of the presence of legal personnel who can take care of it]," says Julian Muennich, treasurer of the Massachusetts International Trade Council. Last week, Philadelphia officials met with a Chinese delegation in New York for the Chinabrand 2005 expo. They talked about the city's educational facilities and an upcoming extravaganza called the Splendor of China, which will attract 400 Chinese companies to the city"

Federalism beats Oregon: "The McDonald's restaurant in Hermiston, Oregon is outsourcing customers drive-thru meals to North Dakota. The restaurant on Highway 395 has outsourced one of the most important jobs at the drive-through window -- order taking. When a customer drives through, they'll be patched through to Grand Forks, North Dakota to place the order. Why? Because the minimum wage in North Dakota is five-dollars and 15 cents, compared to Oregon's seven-dollars and 25 cents".

Rafe Champion has up some interesting histories of economists who deserved to have more notice taken of them.

Canadian farmers are taking action over the way their livelihood and lifestyle is being destroyed by ever-multiplying government regulations.

Government hurts family businesses: "Conservatives who believe in both tradition and the free market sometimes have struggles within their heart when they see Mom and Pop shutter their hardware store on Main Street in the massive shadow of a Goliath Home Depot. Family business is good for the family and the community, but can we really overturn the 'election' results when consumers vote with their dollars for Megacorp? On top of that, providing a greater selection of goods for lower prices frees up more capital in a community, providing an opportunity for new stores or businesses to come in and compete for that leftover cash."

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ELSEWHERE

Wishful thinking at work? The Guardian was one of the newspapers taken in by the "captured soldier" hoax. There is a wiser version of the story here. Powerline has some acerbic comments. There is a picture of the toy here

The Guardian has also at last found a way of putting an anti-U.S. spin on the Iraqi election turnout. They say that the turnout in the 1967 South Vietnam election was good too. From that they somehow manage to deduce that both the Vietnamese and the Iraqis really hate America! Would it not be just a tad simpler to conclude that BOTH the Iraqis and the Vietnamese want democracy but that the Vietnamese didn't get it? And why did they not get it? Because a peacenik U.S. Congress cut off aid to the South Vietnamese while Russia and China did NOT cut off aid to North Vietnam. There is nothing like that happening in Iraq today. TCS has some interesting comments on the matter too.

Isn't welfare wonderful? "The number of people out of work in Germany has risen above five million for the first time since reunification in 1990, the Government is expected to announce today. The rate of unemployment is likely to exceed 11 per cent, heaping pressure on the Government of Gerhard Schroeder, the Chancellor, to speed up the pace of reform to kickstart the country's faltering economy".

That's democracy: "A quarter of a century after Saddam Hussein executed its leaders and drove their comrades underground or into exile the Iraqi Communist party has resurfaced and looks set to make a respectable showing once votes are counted in Sunday's elections"

Tom Wolfe says that America's intervention in Iraq is part of a long line of American interventions abroad -- most which were in fact under Left-leaning Presidents. A good quote from the very popular Theodore Roosevelt (founder of the "Progressive" party) in 1904: ""The steady aim of this nation, as of all enlightened nations, should be to strive to bring ever nearer the day when there shall prevail throughout the world the peace of justice. ...Tyrants and oppressors have many times made a wilderness and called it peace. ...The peace of tyrannous terror, the peace of craven weakness, the peace of injustice, all these should be shunned as we shun unrighteous war. ... The right of freedom and the responsibility for the exercise of that right cannot be divorced." Very much like GWB's recent inaugural address.

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

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx despised the Russians. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at "In the beginning" in both Greek and Hebrew.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. 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 put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left 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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THE IRAQ ELECTIONS

Email about the election from an Iraqi doctor now living in America: "We have always known that the media has portrayed the Iraq liberation unfairly. On Jan , 14 , 2005 I gave my presidentail talk at the Louisiana Surgical Association: "Mesopotamia: The cradle nof civilization: From Hammurabi to Saddam and beyond". I clearly illustrated not just the negative side of the war but also the positive side of Iraqi liberation. I informed my friends at the meeting that that 80-85 % of Iraqis are very grateful to this nation for terminating Saddam and for staying the course so that the Iraqi people will establish a free, Federal and pluralistic government !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am glad to see that Iraqis very bravely went to the polls to let the world know that we are indeed grateful to the Americans and the British and to show our respect for our men and women in uniform ... etc. Iraqi success will bring a significant change in the Middle East".

Is this the biggest bit of bulldust ever? "World leaders have praised the conduct of Iraq's first multi-party elections for more than 50 years. ... French President Jacques Chirac described them as a "great success for the international community". [I kind of thought it was a great success for AMERICA!].

After the election turnout ordinary Iraqis now have a victory: "The Iraqis now have their heroic story of resistance. Americans could not vote for them. We could not walk down Iraq's most dangerous highway in their place. Iraqis seized their own future. They have their narrative, their symbols, their victory..... the heroic effort of millions of Iraqis to un-pry the clenched fists of murderers is the stuff nations are built on"

We won! "The news from Iraq is spectacularly good: local authorities estimate almost 75 percent of the electorate has voted. This is a triumph for every Iraqi, for America, for the Muslim world -- indeed, for the whole world. But it is a particular victory for an exceedingly small group in Washington: those who maintained confidence in the appeal of democracy, in the commonsense and intelligence of the Iraqis, and in the correctness of the path taken by President George W. Bush to Baghdad and beyond. As stated, the group of non-Iraqis in America entitled to exult is tiny: it consists of President Bush himself, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, certain other members of the cabinet and defense establishment, and a highly exclusive media list: Bill Kristol and crew at The Weekly Standard, myself and some others writing on TCS and a handful of other publications".

Michelle Malkin summarizes: "With the exception of Sullivan, the top bloggers on the left side of the blogosphere have decided to mark this historic day by hiding under their bedcovers. As of 1:45pm EST today, Talking Points Memo is silent on the Iraqi elections. Atrios is silent on the Iraqi elections. Crooked Timber is silent on the Iraqi elections. And Daily Kos has one post today from "Armando," who sneered: "This Election is simply, in my estimation, an exercise in pretty pictures.""

Leftists: The new party of the status quo: "There was a time when liberals would cheer at the prospect of freedom and democracy in places long under the stench of oppression. Today, any attempts to right past wrongs and free men from tyranny are looked on with scorn. Yesterday's idealistic liberals are today's realists; preferring the `stability' of dictators to the spread of democracy. They are fearful of asserting themselves on the world stage without the approval of the United Nations. They refuse to judge other cultures but are quick to judge American actions as immoral".

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