ELSEWHERE
RivrDog has some pretty scathing comments on Goldman Sachs -- saying that they were largely to blame for the 1929 stockmarket crash. He concludes that stockmarket investing is an unsafe destination for retirement funds and that real estate is a much better bet. I used to think that way myself and I still do own substantial real estate but seeing that my stockmarket investments (all in blue chips) have nearly doubled in value in the last 4 years, I am now much more positive about stocks. But I too would avoid any managed funds or stockbroker advice. There is far too much crookedness and self-serving there. Retirement savers should be allowed to invest in companies directly. If you invest in blue chips the few crashes will be greatly outnumbered by the gains. If GWB's retirement accounts ever become reality, the list of approved investments should be companies, not "funds".
A very graphic reminder here of what the Communist takeover of Cambodia led to.
Another defeat for socialism: It looks like the Airbus A380 superjumbo programme will be as big a loser for the European taxpayer as the Concorde was.
Theodore Dalrymple has a big essay on the degradation of the character of the British people that socialism has brought about: "Hayek thought he had observed an important change in the character of the British people, as a result both of their collectivist aspirations and of such collectivist measures as had already been legislated. He noted, for example, a shift in the locus of people's moral concern. Increasingly, it was the state of society or the world as a whole that engaged their moral passion, not their own conduct. "It is, however, more than doubtful whether a fifty years' approach towards collectivism has raised our moral standards, or whether the change has not rather been in the opposite direction," he wrote. "Though we are in the habit of priding ourselves on our more sensitive social conscience, it is by no means clear that this is justified by the practice of our individual conduct." In fact, "It may even be . . . that the passion for collective action is a way in which we now without compunction collectively indulge in that selfishness which as ind! ividuals we had learnt a little to restrain." Thus, to take a trifling instance, it is the duty of the city council to keep the streets clean; therefore my own conduct in this regard is morally irrelevant-which no doubt explains why so many young Britons now leave a trail of litter behind them wherever they go. If the streets are filthy, it is the council's fault"
Antisemitism among Leftist British academics: "Union delegates calling for a boycott of Israeli academics were condemned yesterday by the Board of Deputies of British Jews for damaging the Middle East peace process. Jon Benjamin, the director-general of the board, said that a boycott would create an extra obstacle to peace at a time when Israelis and Palestinians are building bridges. The motion is to be debated this week by the Association of University Teachers (AUT). Closer links with the Palestinians will also be debated. Mr Benjamin said: "A boycott of Israeli academics, and Israeli academics alone, has worrying signs of anti-Semitism".
Does this dummy realize that her "good deed" is going to get high-risk borrowers (which minorities often are) denied loans altogether? "Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager on Saturday called for changes to state law to allow her office to seek remedies for black and Latino car buyers who are charged higher rates than their white counterparts for auto loans from dealers in Wisconsin".
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Marx approved of British rule over India.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
WHAT DOES "LIBERAL" MEAN?
Joe Engel thinks the term is now used in a way that is totally out of touch with what the term used to mean in the days of JFK, Truman and others. Some excerpts:
* Rooting against the United States and for "insurgents" who delight in slaughtering innocents is many things (stupid, for one, also sad, evil, and short-sighted), but it is assuredly not liberal.
* Decrying the American "religious right" for advocating a "culture of life" while simultaneously praising the neck-slicing Islamofascists is many things (start with pathetic), but it is not liberal.
* Calling 3,000 workers who died when the buildings fell "little Eichmanns" is many things (vile, as well as repulsive and morally repugnant), but it is not liberal.
* Marching against war every time the United States is involved--in fact only when the United States is involved--regardless of the war's purpose, is many things (reactionary for sure), but it is not liberal.
* Crying that you're being persecuted for exercising your right of free speech, when what happened was that other people less famous than you reacted to your ill-considered and offensive comments by exercising their own First Amendment rights, is many things (solipsistic comes to mind), but it is not liberal.
* Pretending that the abuses committed by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison were on a par with the wholesale torture, rape, and murder committed there over decades is many things (overwrought, unenlightened, an insult to intelligence), but it is not liberal.
* Depicting Condoleezza Rice in editorial cartoons as a big-lipped mammy who speaks Ebonics to her massa is many things (offensive, sickening), but it is not liberal.
* Marching if you're gay in support of "Palestine"--from which gay Palestinians try to escape to Israel before they're tortured and murdered for their sexual orientation--is many things (nuts, as well as hilariously ill-informed), but it is far from liberal.
* Equating Israeli self-defense measures against bombers who hide among civilians to the murders committed by the bombers who intentionally target civilians is many things (foolish, and probably anti-Semitic), but it is not liberal.
* Believing that ethnicity determines identity--and accusing anyone of being "a disgrace to his race" because his views fall outside what's considered orthodoxy--is many things (primarily racist), but it is definitely not liberal.
* Shouting down speakers in the name of free speech is many things (fascistic, tyrannical, churlish), but it is not liberal.
* Excusing Kofi Annan and the United Nations for the worst palm-greasing scandal in history--one that lengthened the reign of a tyrant and led to the deaths of countless thousands--is many things (inexcusable, also shameful), but it is not liberal.
********************************
Joe Engel thinks the term is now used in a way that is totally out of touch with what the term used to mean in the days of JFK, Truman and others. Some excerpts:
* Rooting against the United States and for "insurgents" who delight in slaughtering innocents is many things (stupid, for one, also sad, evil, and short-sighted), but it is assuredly not liberal.
* Decrying the American "religious right" for advocating a "culture of life" while simultaneously praising the neck-slicing Islamofascists is many things (start with pathetic), but it is not liberal.
* Calling 3,000 workers who died when the buildings fell "little Eichmanns" is many things (vile, as well as repulsive and morally repugnant), but it is not liberal.
* Marching against war every time the United States is involved--in fact only when the United States is involved--regardless of the war's purpose, is many things (reactionary for sure), but it is not liberal.
* Crying that you're being persecuted for exercising your right of free speech, when what happened was that other people less famous than you reacted to your ill-considered and offensive comments by exercising their own First Amendment rights, is many things (solipsistic comes to mind), but it is not liberal.
* Pretending that the abuses committed by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison were on a par with the wholesale torture, rape, and murder committed there over decades is many things (overwrought, unenlightened, an insult to intelligence), but it is not liberal.
* Depicting Condoleezza Rice in editorial cartoons as a big-lipped mammy who speaks Ebonics to her massa is many things (offensive, sickening), but it is not liberal.
* Marching if you're gay in support of "Palestine"--from which gay Palestinians try to escape to Israel before they're tortured and murdered for their sexual orientation--is many things (nuts, as well as hilariously ill-informed), but it is far from liberal.
* Equating Israeli self-defense measures against bombers who hide among civilians to the murders committed by the bombers who intentionally target civilians is many things (foolish, and probably anti-Semitic), but it is not liberal.
* Believing that ethnicity determines identity--and accusing anyone of being "a disgrace to his race" because his views fall outside what's considered orthodoxy--is many things (primarily racist), but it is definitely not liberal.
* Shouting down speakers in the name of free speech is many things (fascistic, tyrannical, churlish), but it is not liberal.
* Excusing Kofi Annan and the United Nations for the worst palm-greasing scandal in history--one that lengthened the reign of a tyrant and led to the deaths of countless thousands--is many things (inexcusable, also shameful), but it is not liberal.
********************************
ELSEWHERE
Sowell: "Liberalism at one time referred to liberty, to making people as free as possible from the control of their presumed betters, and especially free of excessive control by the government. More broadly, liberals tended to favor change while conservatives defended the status quo. All that has been turned upside down. Liberals today are for preserving not only historic landmarks but also the status quo in the welfare state, obstructing the building of new housing, fighting against letting parental choice be introduced into the school system, and are digging in their heels against letting even a small fraction of Social Security be privatized. As for freedom from government controls, liberals have pushed ever more regulation of ever more details of people's homes and businesses. In some places where liberals have been politically dominant for years, you don't dare cut down a tree on your own property, even if it is about to fall over and smash your house or smash you. Whatever the merits or demerits of any of these policies, the liberal label would never fit if the word still meant what it once meant. Meanwhile, on the other end of the political spectrum, conservatives are pushing all sorts of sweeping changes. Milton Friedman is widely regarded as the epitome of conservatism, yet for 50 years he has been arguing for radical change in our school systems by providing vouchers to let parents choose where they want to send their children to school, whether public schools or private".
A blogger has caught out the The New York Times in a bit of deceptive reporting. The NYT portrayed a critic of Tom DeLay as a Republican when she in fact has a long history of Democrat sympathies. Where was that fact-checking that is supposed to make the MSM so superior to bloggers?
The Democrats generally are in a well-justified panic over new Supreme Court appointments. They love the existing judicial dictatorship. So it is no surprise that The L.A. Times gets it exactly backwards: "Now, the battle over the confirmation process has become enmeshed with this third and most extreme stage of conservative thinking. What we are seeing, for the first time, is a fundamental challenge to the rule of law itself". It's not the GOP that is undermining the rule of law. The GOP want the rule of law back. It is arrogant Left-leaning judges who have ignored the law and replaced it by rule of their own opinions that are the problem.
With relentless use of awkward facts, Andrew Bolt puts the boot into the sick Leftist claim that the late Pope killed people by opposing the use of condoms to prevent AIDS.
Socialism impoverishes even oil-rich Norway: "In Oslo, library collections are woefully outdated, and public swimming pools are in desperate need of maintenance. News reports describe serious shortages of police officers and school supplies. When my mother-in-law went to an emergency room recently, the hospital was out of cough medicine. Drug addicts crowd downtown Oslo streets, as The Los Angeles Times recently reported, but applicants for methadone programs are put on a months-long waiting list..... After I moved here six years ago, I quickly noticed that Norwegians live more frugally than Americans do. They hang on to old appliances and furniture that we would throw out. And they drive around in wrecks. In 2003, when my partner and I took his teenage brother to New York - his first trip outside of Europe - he stared boggle-eyed at the cars in the Newark Airport parking lot, as mesmerized as Robin Williams in a New York grocery store in "Moscow on the Hudson.""
V.D. Hanson has a good roundup of past Leftist "wisdom" about Iraq so that we don't forget how comprehensively wrong they were.
There is a pathetic Leftist anthropologist here who manages to compare America today with Cambodia under Pol Pot. If they can convince us that the socialist Hitler was a Rightist, anything is possible, I guess.
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Engels thought the French conquest of the North African Arabs to be a triumph for civilization.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Sowell: "Liberalism at one time referred to liberty, to making people as free as possible from the control of their presumed betters, and especially free of excessive control by the government. More broadly, liberals tended to favor change while conservatives defended the status quo. All that has been turned upside down. Liberals today are for preserving not only historic landmarks but also the status quo in the welfare state, obstructing the building of new housing, fighting against letting parental choice be introduced into the school system, and are digging in their heels against letting even a small fraction of Social Security be privatized. As for freedom from government controls, liberals have pushed ever more regulation of ever more details of people's homes and businesses. In some places where liberals have been politically dominant for years, you don't dare cut down a tree on your own property, even if it is about to fall over and smash your house or smash you. Whatever the merits or demerits of any of these policies, the liberal label would never fit if the word still meant what it once meant. Meanwhile, on the other end of the political spectrum, conservatives are pushing all sorts of sweeping changes. Milton Friedman is widely regarded as the epitome of conservatism, yet for 50 years he has been arguing for radical change in our school systems by providing vouchers to let parents choose where they want to send their children to school, whether public schools or private".
A blogger has caught out the The New York Times in a bit of deceptive reporting. The NYT portrayed a critic of Tom DeLay as a Republican when she in fact has a long history of Democrat sympathies. Where was that fact-checking that is supposed to make the MSM so superior to bloggers?
The Democrats generally are in a well-justified panic over new Supreme Court appointments. They love the existing judicial dictatorship. So it is no surprise that The L.A. Times gets it exactly backwards: "Now, the battle over the confirmation process has become enmeshed with this third and most extreme stage of conservative thinking. What we are seeing, for the first time, is a fundamental challenge to the rule of law itself". It's not the GOP that is undermining the rule of law. The GOP want the rule of law back. It is arrogant Left-leaning judges who have ignored the law and replaced it by rule of their own opinions that are the problem.
With relentless use of awkward facts, Andrew Bolt puts the boot into the sick Leftist claim that the late Pope killed people by opposing the use of condoms to prevent AIDS.
Socialism impoverishes even oil-rich Norway: "In Oslo, library collections are woefully outdated, and public swimming pools are in desperate need of maintenance. News reports describe serious shortages of police officers and school supplies. When my mother-in-law went to an emergency room recently, the hospital was out of cough medicine. Drug addicts crowd downtown Oslo streets, as The Los Angeles Times recently reported, but applicants for methadone programs are put on a months-long waiting list..... After I moved here six years ago, I quickly noticed that Norwegians live more frugally than Americans do. They hang on to old appliances and furniture that we would throw out. And they drive around in wrecks. In 2003, when my partner and I took his teenage brother to New York - his first trip outside of Europe - he stared boggle-eyed at the cars in the Newark Airport parking lot, as mesmerized as Robin Williams in a New York grocery store in "Moscow on the Hudson.""
V.D. Hanson has a good roundup of past Leftist "wisdom" about Iraq so that we don't forget how comprehensively wrong they were.
There is a pathetic Leftist anthropologist here who manages to compare America today with Cambodia under Pol Pot. If they can convince us that the socialist Hitler was a Rightist, anything is possible, I guess.
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Engels thought the French conquest of the North African Arabs to be a triumph for civilization.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Sunday, April 17, 2005
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BLOG
I have started reading the blog associated with the Orange County Register newspaper recently. Like a lot of newspaper blogs it is more conservative than the paper it is associated with. With less managerial censorship hanging over their heads, even journalists can be surprisingly down-to-earth sometimes. I reproduce below a few recent excerpts that I liked. The headings are mine:
Health Fascists
"The American Lung Association, one of those mammoth, anti-freedom charities, now is pushing to ban smoking in your own apartment. The ALA "will roll out plans today to make smoke-free complexes more widespread." The article notes that apartment complexes already are offering more non-smoking areas. So why the campaign? Because these sorts of health campaigns always end up with legislation mandating no-smoking areas, then total smoking bans. Indeed, an L.A. councilman is sponsoring legislation to mandate non-smoking apartments. Pretty soon, tobacco is going to be as illegal as crack cocaine".
A good summary of FDR
"Today marks the 60th anniversary of one of the world's worst tyrants: Franklin "D. for Dictator" Roosevelt." Elected on a 1932 platform that promised to end the Great Depression with cuts in taxes, tariffs, government programs, and regulations, he did the opposite -- and extended and deepened the Great Depression. In 1935, he imposed on America a German- (as in Third Reich by way of Bismarck) retirement scheme, Socialist Security, which to this day has plagued young famlies with strangulating taxes and soon will go broke. In World War II, Franklin "D. for Dictator" allied closely with his good friend, Josef Stalin, affectionately dubbing him "Uncle Joe," to defeat Uncle Joe's own former close ally, Hitler. At the Yalta conference, FDR "gave" Uncle Joe Eastern Europe -- enslaving those people until the Berlin Wall fell.
Unions destroy business again
It's not just taxpayers who are footing the bill for out-of-control union pensions, but car buyers. Today's Wall Street Journal had an excellent column by Holman Jenkins Jr. on why GM cars are so awful and show no sign of getting better (except for Cadillac). Outdated engines, old-style transmissions, horrible styling, dreadful performance -- that summarizes GM. Only Caddy got a huge new infusion of dollars to allow it to compete with other companies. GM, according to Jenkins, dropped its plans for the new Zeta platform because it has to spend the bulk of its money paying up for pension deals that are busting the bank. GM isn't a car company, argues Jenkins, but a social welfare agency dedicated to providing benefits to retired union workers. And GM's market share fades away. A well deserved fate. Unfortunately, in the public sector, the taxpayer rather than the shareholder has to pay up to deal with monumental overpayments to government workers. Note that San Diego is facing bankruptcy because of pension deals, and city attorney Aguirre last week called for new taxes.
***************************************
I have started reading the blog associated with the Orange County Register newspaper recently. Like a lot of newspaper blogs it is more conservative than the paper it is associated with. With less managerial censorship hanging over their heads, even journalists can be surprisingly down-to-earth sometimes. I reproduce below a few recent excerpts that I liked. The headings are mine:
Health Fascists
"The American Lung Association, one of those mammoth, anti-freedom charities, now is pushing to ban smoking in your own apartment. The ALA "will roll out plans today to make smoke-free complexes more widespread." The article notes that apartment complexes already are offering more non-smoking areas. So why the campaign? Because these sorts of health campaigns always end up with legislation mandating no-smoking areas, then total smoking bans. Indeed, an L.A. councilman is sponsoring legislation to mandate non-smoking apartments. Pretty soon, tobacco is going to be as illegal as crack cocaine".
A good summary of FDR
"Today marks the 60th anniversary of one of the world's worst tyrants: Franklin "D. for Dictator" Roosevelt." Elected on a 1932 platform that promised to end the Great Depression with cuts in taxes, tariffs, government programs, and regulations, he did the opposite -- and extended and deepened the Great Depression. In 1935, he imposed on America a German- (as in Third Reich by way of Bismarck) retirement scheme, Socialist Security, which to this day has plagued young famlies with strangulating taxes and soon will go broke. In World War II, Franklin "D. for Dictator" allied closely with his good friend, Josef Stalin, affectionately dubbing him "Uncle Joe," to defeat Uncle Joe's own former close ally, Hitler. At the Yalta conference, FDR "gave" Uncle Joe Eastern Europe -- enslaving those people until the Berlin Wall fell.
Unions destroy business again
It's not just taxpayers who are footing the bill for out-of-control union pensions, but car buyers. Today's Wall Street Journal had an excellent column by Holman Jenkins Jr. on why GM cars are so awful and show no sign of getting better (except for Cadillac). Outdated engines, old-style transmissions, horrible styling, dreadful performance -- that summarizes GM. Only Caddy got a huge new infusion of dollars to allow it to compete with other companies. GM, according to Jenkins, dropped its plans for the new Zeta platform because it has to spend the bulk of its money paying up for pension deals that are busting the bank. GM isn't a car company, argues Jenkins, but a social welfare agency dedicated to providing benefits to retired union workers. And GM's market share fades away. A well deserved fate. Unfortunately, in the public sector, the taxpayer rather than the shareholder has to pay up to deal with monumental overpayments to government workers. Note that San Diego is facing bankruptcy because of pension deals, and city attorney Aguirre last week called for new taxes.
***************************************
ELSEWHERE
Blue Staters want to cut a tax that hits them: "Miracles happen, even to liberals, and the latest proof is their discovery of the horrors of the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. They've finally found a stealthy, soak-the-rich tax increase they don't like--and, better yet on this annual tax-payment day, their revelation may make tax reform possible. As our readers understand all too well, the AMT is a kind of IRS surprise double jeopardy. Claim too many deductions against a high income under the regular tax code, and the AMT sweeps you into its maw.... the AMT is biting hardest in the most liberal, high-tax states. That's because the AMT doesn't allow deductions for state and local taxes the way the regular code does. So middle-class taxpayers in New York, California and other states with high income-tax rates are getting hit sooner than people in, say, Florida or Wyoming. It is the ultimate blue-state tax. This helps to explain why people who normally thrill to higher tax rates are suddenly up in arms. Liberal newspapers are now denouncing the AMT as a "tax increase" and blaming the White House for not doing more to stop it. "The AMT needs to be fixed," moans Senator Barbara Boxer's spokesman, in what has to be a tax-reform first. "We need to address the AMT, which is trickling down to catch more and more middle-class families in New York," says Empire State Senator Chuck Schumer, another Saul on the road to Tarrytown".
Statement by a 1950s tax commissioner: "The income tax is bad because it has robbed you and me of the guarantee of privacy and the respect for our property that were given to us in Article IV of the Bill of Rights. This invasion is absolute and complete as far as the amount of tax that can be assessed is concerned. Please remember that under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100% of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, right now it is imposing a tax as high as 91%. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any other grounds. The income tax is bad because it was conceived in class hatred, is an instrument of vengeance and plays right into the hands of the communists. It employs the vicious communist principle of taking from each according to his accumulation of the fruits of his labor and giving to others according to their needs, regardless of whether those needs are the result of indolence or lack of pride, self-respect, personal dignity or other attributes of men. The income tax is fulfilling the Marxist prophecy that the surest way to destroy a capitalist society is by steeply graduated taxes on income and heavy levies upon the estates of people when they die."
A good article on the socialist origins of the income tax here
There is an interesting summary of the current big corruption scandal in Canadian politics here which foresees a new Canadian election soon. It looks like Canadian voters will be offered a choice between corrupt Liberals and pro-American Conservatives. Given the childish envies of many Canadians, it seems possible that they will choose corruption. By contrast, Australians feel perfectly confident of their own identity and culture and so envy no-one.
Moronic Leftist Senator: "President George W. Bush traveled April 5 to Parkersburg, West Virginia to visit the so-called Social Security Trust Fund: a filing cabinet filled with paper. "There is no trust fund - just IOUs," backed by no economic assets whatsoever, Bush noted. Senator Jon Corzine (D., N.J.) called the president's remarks misleading. In a conference call with journalists, Corzine said: "U.S. Treasury securities have the ability to be paid under any circumstances based on the ability of the government to print money." While Corzine's press secretary denies this comment was a concrete proposal, at this writing, the senator proudly highlights this quote on the front page of his website. So, as Corzine sees it, come 2041, when the federal government's plunging tax revenues will cover only 70 percent of its exploding pension obligations, Washington will trigger Treasury Department printing presses to finance Social Security checks. Inflating the currency is a dreadful idea that has landed much of Latin America in massive trouble. Like a latter-day Evita Peron, Corzine smiles upon the Argentine economic model: skyrocketing prices, a currency as disposable as Kleenex, and rising social chaos. Democrats have said many silly things in their crusade to scuttle President Bush's personal retirement accounts, but this must be the stupidest. And to think that Jon Corzine once ran Goldman Sachs! Corzine's statement has left economists aghast".
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows Marx managing to denigrate Jews and blacks all at once.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Blue Staters want to cut a tax that hits them: "Miracles happen, even to liberals, and the latest proof is their discovery of the horrors of the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. They've finally found a stealthy, soak-the-rich tax increase they don't like--and, better yet on this annual tax-payment day, their revelation may make tax reform possible. As our readers understand all too well, the AMT is a kind of IRS surprise double jeopardy. Claim too many deductions against a high income under the regular tax code, and the AMT sweeps you into its maw.... the AMT is biting hardest in the most liberal, high-tax states. That's because the AMT doesn't allow deductions for state and local taxes the way the regular code does. So middle-class taxpayers in New York, California and other states with high income-tax rates are getting hit sooner than people in, say, Florida or Wyoming. It is the ultimate blue-state tax. This helps to explain why people who normally thrill to higher tax rates are suddenly up in arms. Liberal newspapers are now denouncing the AMT as a "tax increase" and blaming the White House for not doing more to stop it. "The AMT needs to be fixed," moans Senator Barbara Boxer's spokesman, in what has to be a tax-reform first. "We need to address the AMT, which is trickling down to catch more and more middle-class families in New York," says Empire State Senator Chuck Schumer, another Saul on the road to Tarrytown".
Statement by a 1950s tax commissioner: "The income tax is bad because it has robbed you and me of the guarantee of privacy and the respect for our property that were given to us in Article IV of the Bill of Rights. This invasion is absolute and complete as far as the amount of tax that can be assessed is concerned. Please remember that under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100% of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, right now it is imposing a tax as high as 91%. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any other grounds. The income tax is bad because it was conceived in class hatred, is an instrument of vengeance and plays right into the hands of the communists. It employs the vicious communist principle of taking from each according to his accumulation of the fruits of his labor and giving to others according to their needs, regardless of whether those needs are the result of indolence or lack of pride, self-respect, personal dignity or other attributes of men. The income tax is fulfilling the Marxist prophecy that the surest way to destroy a capitalist society is by steeply graduated taxes on income and heavy levies upon the estates of people when they die."
A good article on the socialist origins of the income tax here
There is an interesting summary of the current big corruption scandal in Canadian politics here which foresees a new Canadian election soon. It looks like Canadian voters will be offered a choice between corrupt Liberals and pro-American Conservatives. Given the childish envies of many Canadians, it seems possible that they will choose corruption. By contrast, Australians feel perfectly confident of their own identity and culture and so envy no-one.
Moronic Leftist Senator: "President George W. Bush traveled April 5 to Parkersburg, West Virginia to visit the so-called Social Security Trust Fund: a filing cabinet filled with paper. "There is no trust fund - just IOUs," backed by no economic assets whatsoever, Bush noted. Senator Jon Corzine (D., N.J.) called the president's remarks misleading. In a conference call with journalists, Corzine said: "U.S. Treasury securities have the ability to be paid under any circumstances based on the ability of the government to print money." While Corzine's press secretary denies this comment was a concrete proposal, at this writing, the senator proudly highlights this quote on the front page of his website. So, as Corzine sees it, come 2041, when the federal government's plunging tax revenues will cover only 70 percent of its exploding pension obligations, Washington will trigger Treasury Department printing presses to finance Social Security checks. Inflating the currency is a dreadful idea that has landed much of Latin America in massive trouble. Like a latter-day Evita Peron, Corzine smiles upon the Argentine economic model: skyrocketing prices, a currency as disposable as Kleenex, and rising social chaos. Democrats have said many silly things in their crusade to scuttle President Bush's personal retirement accounts, but this must be the stupidest. And to think that Jon Corzine once ran Goldman Sachs! Corzine's statement has left economists aghast".
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows Marx managing to denigrate Jews and blacks all at once.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Saturday, April 16, 2005
FROM BROOKES NEWS
The Left and John Paul II's Death How Phillip Adams and the ABC tried to diminish Pope John Paul II, even as he was being prepared for burial
Castro Spies on Hollywood Celebrities Has Castro blackmailed Hollywood celebrities like Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, Kate Moss and Steven Spielberg into supporting his regime?
Clinton fuelled Beijing's militarism It is true that President Bush is no Clinton, for which the rest of the world - if it had any sense - would thank God. However, Beijing knows that eventually Democrats will regain the Oval Office
US economy: why the recession stumped Alan Greenspan With all the resources at his disposal Alan Greenspan felt forced to publicly admit that he did not know what was happening to the economy
The day the American Eagle was castrated There should be dignity in our passing.Terri Schiavo wasn't allowed that dignity. She wasn't even allowed last communion, or the comforting hands of a mother's love
Details here
*************************
The Left and John Paul II's Death How Phillip Adams and the ABC tried to diminish Pope John Paul II, even as he was being prepared for burial
Castro Spies on Hollywood Celebrities Has Castro blackmailed Hollywood celebrities like Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, Kate Moss and Steven Spielberg into supporting his regime?
Clinton fuelled Beijing's militarism It is true that President Bush is no Clinton, for which the rest of the world - if it had any sense - would thank God. However, Beijing knows that eventually Democrats will regain the Oval Office
US economy: why the recession stumped Alan Greenspan With all the resources at his disposal Alan Greenspan felt forced to publicly admit that he did not know what was happening to the economy
The day the American Eagle was castrated There should be dignity in our passing.Terri Schiavo wasn't allowed that dignity. She wasn't even allowed last communion, or the comforting hands of a mother's love
Details here
*************************
ELSEWHERE
Message from David Horowitz (via email): "What happened at Butler: As I stepped to the podium, a group of four students -- juvenile delinquents, really -- rushed the stage and slammed a chocolate cream pie into my face. Fortunately my glasses weren't broken. Officials caught and arrested three of the students -- including a female who spewed racial epithets at Butler professor Marvin Scott, a good friend of mine and yours in this battle, and the Republican candidate for Senate in last November's election. There was nothing comedic about it. This attack was one in an increasing string of violence against conservative speakers. Ann Coulter, William Kristol and Pat Buchanan have suffered similar assaults as well in recent weeks. These assaults are in addition to leftist attacks on armed services and Homeland Security recruiters at campus job fairs in an effort to silence them, too. This type of thuggish behavior is not only being encouraged by radical faculty members who regularly deride conservatives and conservative students but tacitly condoned by school administrations that tolerate these acts, as well! This is precisely what you and I are fighting against! These students and their academic consorts are underscoring our point -- and they've taken to violence in response to the success of our National Campaign for Academic Freedom! But here is some great news! I received heartfelt apology from Butler University President Dr. Bobby Fong following the assault. Dr. Fong told me that contrary to what the mainstream media reports, there is widespread support in the academic community for our Academic Bill of Rights. Our opposition consists mainly of radical ideologues."
Another triumph of Dutch liberalism: "A survey has indicated that 32 percent of Dutch people want to emigrate abroad and that just 51 percent are proud of the Netherlands.... The research indicated that Dutch people think more positively about China than they do the Netherlands. Some 46 percent of people think negatively about the Netherlands, compared with 35 percent for China. A large amount of the spontaneous reactions over the Netherlands were negative. This was due to political developments, multiculturalism, over-population, criminality and socially distant people".
Blacks and Muslims in France despise French Leftists too: I noted this article on April 2nd. but lots of my readers have subsequently drawn my attention to it so perhaps I too should draw attention to it again. Excerpt: "On March 8, tens of thousands of high school students marched through central Paris to protest education reforms announced by the government. Repeatedly, peaceful demonstrators were attacked by bands of black and Arab youths--about 1,000 in all, according to police estimates. The eyewitness accounts of victims, teachers, and most interestingly the attackers themselves gathered by the left-wing daily Le Monde confirm the motivation: racism. Some of the attackers openly expressed their hatred of "little French people." One 18-year-old named Heikel, a dual citizen of France and Tunisia, was proud of his actions. He explained that he had joined in just to "beat people up," especially "little Frenchmen who look like victims." He added with a satisfied smile that he had "a pleasant memory" of repeatedly kicking a student, already defenseless on the ground".
Kissinger on the current scene: "When I started in government 35 years ago, one had many opponents. But there was a bedrock of people who were quite well informed at the outset of many of the aspects of the issues. But it's much less today. People take positions before they've studied the issues. Their views on issues reinforce set positions rather than the other way around.".... "When I was a graduate student and a young professor at Harvard, we used to have faculty seminars with scientists and political scientists and others to discuss the implications of the nuclear age," Mr. Kissinger said. "Most of them were Democrats, but the emphasis was national, not partisan. And it was never personal. Every point of view was welcomed."... But as the 1960s and 1970s evolved, he said, America's intellectual community split into two groups: "Job applicants - people who wanted government jobs- and revolutionaries, who denied that anything valid could be done unless the system was changed or destroyed. "It was really about access to power," Mr. Kissinger said. "It was no longer about access to ideas. The nature of the intellectual community has changed. If more and more see themselves as advocates rather than as generators and debaters of ideas, then it's a different society"
There is a categorized list of political blogs here that should be a good aid to finding your way around the blogosphere.
Another choice quote from far-Left cartoonist Ted Rall: "My theory is that essentially, people don't like to think they're living in a country that's led by an evil, dictatorial madman. But they are, they are living in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia.". Les Bates has some appropriate comments. I think Ted would not be out of place in one of his own cartoons. He has long ago abandoned reality.
Patriot Act hysteria: "When the Patriot Act was introduced 45 days after the events of September 11, liberals were up in arms. They claimed that, in the hysteria which followed the attacks, a hasty policy was being passed which impeded upon the civil liberties of American citizens. For the next four years, the very mention of the Patriot Act incited anger or demeaning scoffs from the left. Now that this important piece of legislation is up for renewal, liberals cling to their same tired points of contention, all of which have been proven false during the years when the Patriot Act was in effect. The most controversial points of the legislation seem to the provisions that allow the FBI to expedite its proceedings by obtaining evidence before their search is authenticated by a court, the fear that governmental organizations would have access to information such as library and medical records, and the "delayed notification" policy in which the FBI is only required to provide a search warrant after searching a premises. While much of the information regarding the use of the Patriot Act must be kept quiet, the Justice Department has released the following information. The power to seize personal records has been used 35 times, none of which involved medical, library, bookstore or gun sale records. In addition, the delayed notification search warrants have been used only 115 times. The Justice Department also released information regarding specific instances when the Patriot Act has been used. In addition to preventing international terrorist attacks, the policy has been used to prevent many local acts of terrorism."
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Marx considered negroes to be a degenerate race.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Message from David Horowitz (via email): "What happened at Butler: As I stepped to the podium, a group of four students -- juvenile delinquents, really -- rushed the stage and slammed a chocolate cream pie into my face. Fortunately my glasses weren't broken. Officials caught and arrested three of the students -- including a female who spewed racial epithets at Butler professor Marvin Scott, a good friend of mine and yours in this battle, and the Republican candidate for Senate in last November's election. There was nothing comedic about it. This attack was one in an increasing string of violence against conservative speakers. Ann Coulter, William Kristol and Pat Buchanan have suffered similar assaults as well in recent weeks. These assaults are in addition to leftist attacks on armed services and Homeland Security recruiters at campus job fairs in an effort to silence them, too. This type of thuggish behavior is not only being encouraged by radical faculty members who regularly deride conservatives and conservative students but tacitly condoned by school administrations that tolerate these acts, as well! This is precisely what you and I are fighting against! These students and their academic consorts are underscoring our point -- and they've taken to violence in response to the success of our National Campaign for Academic Freedom! But here is some great news! I received heartfelt apology from Butler University President Dr. Bobby Fong following the assault. Dr. Fong told me that contrary to what the mainstream media reports, there is widespread support in the academic community for our Academic Bill of Rights. Our opposition consists mainly of radical ideologues."
Another triumph of Dutch liberalism: "A survey has indicated that 32 percent of Dutch people want to emigrate abroad and that just 51 percent are proud of the Netherlands.... The research indicated that Dutch people think more positively about China than they do the Netherlands. Some 46 percent of people think negatively about the Netherlands, compared with 35 percent for China. A large amount of the spontaneous reactions over the Netherlands were negative. This was due to political developments, multiculturalism, over-population, criminality and socially distant people".
Blacks and Muslims in France despise French Leftists too: I noted this article on April 2nd. but lots of my readers have subsequently drawn my attention to it so perhaps I too should draw attention to it again. Excerpt: "On March 8, tens of thousands of high school students marched through central Paris to protest education reforms announced by the government. Repeatedly, peaceful demonstrators were attacked by bands of black and Arab youths--about 1,000 in all, according to police estimates. The eyewitness accounts of victims, teachers, and most interestingly the attackers themselves gathered by the left-wing daily Le Monde confirm the motivation: racism. Some of the attackers openly expressed their hatred of "little French people." One 18-year-old named Heikel, a dual citizen of France and Tunisia, was proud of his actions. He explained that he had joined in just to "beat people up," especially "little Frenchmen who look like victims." He added with a satisfied smile that he had "a pleasant memory" of repeatedly kicking a student, already defenseless on the ground".
Kissinger on the current scene: "When I started in government 35 years ago, one had many opponents. But there was a bedrock of people who were quite well informed at the outset of many of the aspects of the issues. But it's much less today. People take positions before they've studied the issues. Their views on issues reinforce set positions rather than the other way around.".... "When I was a graduate student and a young professor at Harvard, we used to have faculty seminars with scientists and political scientists and others to discuss the implications of the nuclear age," Mr. Kissinger said. "Most of them were Democrats, but the emphasis was national, not partisan. And it was never personal. Every point of view was welcomed."... But as the 1960s and 1970s evolved, he said, America's intellectual community split into two groups: "Job applicants - people who wanted government jobs- and revolutionaries, who denied that anything valid could be done unless the system was changed or destroyed. "It was really about access to power," Mr. Kissinger said. "It was no longer about access to ideas. The nature of the intellectual community has changed. If more and more see themselves as advocates rather than as generators and debaters of ideas, then it's a different society"
There is a categorized list of political blogs here that should be a good aid to finding your way around the blogosphere.
Another choice quote from far-Left cartoonist Ted Rall: "My theory is that essentially, people don't like to think they're living in a country that's led by an evil, dictatorial madman. But they are, they are living in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia.". Les Bates has some appropriate comments. I think Ted would not be out of place in one of his own cartoons. He has long ago abandoned reality.
Patriot Act hysteria: "When the Patriot Act was introduced 45 days after the events of September 11, liberals were up in arms. They claimed that, in the hysteria which followed the attacks, a hasty policy was being passed which impeded upon the civil liberties of American citizens. For the next four years, the very mention of the Patriot Act incited anger or demeaning scoffs from the left. Now that this important piece of legislation is up for renewal, liberals cling to their same tired points of contention, all of which have been proven false during the years when the Patriot Act was in effect. The most controversial points of the legislation seem to the provisions that allow the FBI to expedite its proceedings by obtaining evidence before their search is authenticated by a court, the fear that governmental organizations would have access to information such as library and medical records, and the "delayed notification" policy in which the FBI is only required to provide a search warrant after searching a premises. While much of the information regarding the use of the Patriot Act must be kept quiet, the Justice Department has released the following information. The power to seize personal records has been used 35 times, none of which involved medical, library, bookstore or gun sale records. In addition, the delayed notification search warrants have been used only 115 times. The Justice Department also released information regarding specific instances when the Patriot Act has been used. In addition to preventing international terrorist attacks, the policy has been used to prevent many local acts of terrorism."
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Marx considered negroes to be a degenerate race.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Friday, April 15, 2005
POLICE STATE USA?
Some Leftists are having orgasms over this story:
"Police state"! They are crying. "Fascism!" "Censorship!"
It is of course nothing more than another example of zero tolerance -- the view that small threats and offences matter -- the strategy that drastically reduced crime in NYC and which is now applied nationwide in U.S. schools by Leftist teachers in their campaign against weapons of all sorts -- so that kids are sent home or expelled for possessing a butterknife or drawing a picture of a gun. So if zero tolerance is evidence of Fascism, America's Left-dominated schools are a hotbed of it. I somehow think that Leftists would not like to argue that. I personally think that zero tolerance is what it says -- intolerant -- and hence I dislike it, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
*********************************
Some Leftists are having orgasms over this story:
Secret Service visits art show "Organizers of a politically charged art exhibit at Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery thought their show might draw controversy. But they didn't expect two U.S. Secret Service agents would be among the show's first visitors. The agents turned up Thursday evening, just before the public opening of 'Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin,' and took pictures of some of the art pieces -- including 'Patriot Act,' showing President Bush on a mock 37-cent stamp with a revolver pointed at his head. The agents asked what the artists meant by their work and wanted museum director CarolAnn Brown to turn over the names and phone numbers of all the artists. .."
"Police state"! They are crying. "Fascism!" "Censorship!"
It is of course nothing more than another example of zero tolerance -- the view that small threats and offences matter -- the strategy that drastically reduced crime in NYC and which is now applied nationwide in U.S. schools by Leftist teachers in their campaign against weapons of all sorts -- so that kids are sent home or expelled for possessing a butterknife or drawing a picture of a gun. So if zero tolerance is evidence of Fascism, America's Left-dominated schools are a hotbed of it. I somehow think that Leftists would not like to argue that. I personally think that zero tolerance is what it says -- intolerant -- and hence I dislike it, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
*********************************
GRRR.... I HATE THESE MSM DISTORTIONS: BANKRUPTCY
This is the AP "news" report just out:
These robotic Leftist journalists don't mention that businesses are doing very well without this legislation. They just pass on their bad debts to everybody else in the form of higher charges. It is CONSUMERS who will benefit by not having to pay other people's debts.
**************************************
This is the AP "news" report just out:
"Tens of thousands of people who want to wipe out their debts in bankruptcy court would have to work out repayment plans instead under legislation Congress approved Thursday. A 302-126 vote by the House sent the legislation to President Bush, who said he was eager to sign the measure, the biggest rewrite of the bankruptcy code in a quarter-century. It marks the second major change in law to benefit business since Republicans increased their House and Senate majorities in last fall's elections... After eight years of strenuous efforts by congressional backers, banks and credit card companies, the legislation was catapulted toward enactment starting earlier this year. The legislation, which garnered some Democratic votes, cleared the Senate last month on a 74-25 vote. The measure would require people with incomes above a certain level to pay credit-card charges, medical bills and other obligations under a court-ordered bankruptcy plan."
These robotic Leftist journalists don't mention that businesses are doing very well without this legislation. They just pass on their bad debts to everybody else in the form of higher charges. It is CONSUMERS who will benefit by not having to pay other people's debts.
**************************************
ELSEWHERE
Wow! Steve Sailer seems to have totally shot down Steven Levitt's claim that legalized abortion was the cause of the drop in the crime rate
IQ tests revived in Britain (but not under that name, of course): "Teenagers face a nationwide examination to test their aptitude for university, in an attempt to identify the brightest students. The generic admissions test, to be piloted in September using 1,500 students across the country, adds to the burden of examinations that schoolchildren face and demonstrates a lack of confidence in A levels. Vice-chancellors have complained that the present admissions system, which relies on predicted grades, is no longer adequate. Half of predicted grades turn out to be wrong and many more A-level students are getting A grades than in the past. Designed and implemented by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and the Australian Council for Educational Research, the new test is intended to ease the problem of oversubscription and justify selection procedures".
Death tax on way out: "The House voted 272 to 162 yesterday to permanently repeal the estate tax, throwing the issue to the Senate where negotiations have begun on a deep and permanent estate tax cut that can pass this year, even if it falls short of full repeal." [Australia abolished it years ago]
Minutemen success: "There aren't many border-control success stories these days, but Arizona's Minuteman Project is quickly becoming one. ... How ironic that the people who President Bush derided as 'vigilantes' are acting as much-needed extra eyes and ears for law-enforcement officials. The Minutemen have all but sealed the U.S.-Mexico border in the 23-mile stretch they patrol. Their success suggests that, organized in larger scale with a cooperative federal government, groups like Project Minuteman could be a substantial contribution to border security. At the very least, the Minutemen are bringing some much-needed attention to the nation's woefully porous borders. We hope President Bush and others who prefer the status quo are watching."
Euro on the way out? "European Central Bank watchers have begun to speculate on the fate of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) should French voters reject the European constitution next month. "The euro at risk" was the headline of a Deutsche Bank report to its clients on Monday. "Its life expectancy may soon be regarded as finite," Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Munchau wrote the same day. Supporters of the constitution say it is vital for ensuring that the European Union functions properly after the bloc's expansion last year. But opinion polls show a clear majority of French voters plan to reject it in a referendum on May 29. The constitution needs backing from all 25 member states and some analysts say its failure could lead to a reversal of European political integration. "The EU could disintegrate toward a free-trade zone," said WestLB Financial Markets on Tuesday. "Such developments would spell disaster for EMU and the ECB.""
Reliapundit also has a roundup of news suggesting that the EU is in big trouble.
Nathan Tabor notes that the father of the unborn is the third victim of abortion.
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Marx thought the Russians were mainly Asiatics and should be chased out of Russia. Hitler, of course, tried to do put that into practice.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Wow! Steve Sailer seems to have totally shot down Steven Levitt's claim that legalized abortion was the cause of the drop in the crime rate
IQ tests revived in Britain (but not under that name, of course): "Teenagers face a nationwide examination to test their aptitude for university, in an attempt to identify the brightest students. The generic admissions test, to be piloted in September using 1,500 students across the country, adds to the burden of examinations that schoolchildren face and demonstrates a lack of confidence in A levels. Vice-chancellors have complained that the present admissions system, which relies on predicted grades, is no longer adequate. Half of predicted grades turn out to be wrong and many more A-level students are getting A grades than in the past. Designed and implemented by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and the Australian Council for Educational Research, the new test is intended to ease the problem of oversubscription and justify selection procedures".
Death tax on way out: "The House voted 272 to 162 yesterday to permanently repeal the estate tax, throwing the issue to the Senate where negotiations have begun on a deep and permanent estate tax cut that can pass this year, even if it falls short of full repeal." [Australia abolished it years ago]
Minutemen success: "There aren't many border-control success stories these days, but Arizona's Minuteman Project is quickly becoming one. ... How ironic that the people who President Bush derided as 'vigilantes' are acting as much-needed extra eyes and ears for law-enforcement officials. The Minutemen have all but sealed the U.S.-Mexico border in the 23-mile stretch they patrol. Their success suggests that, organized in larger scale with a cooperative federal government, groups like Project Minuteman could be a substantial contribution to border security. At the very least, the Minutemen are bringing some much-needed attention to the nation's woefully porous borders. We hope President Bush and others who prefer the status quo are watching."
Euro on the way out? "European Central Bank watchers have begun to speculate on the fate of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) should French voters reject the European constitution next month. "The euro at risk" was the headline of a Deutsche Bank report to its clients on Monday. "Its life expectancy may soon be regarded as finite," Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Munchau wrote the same day. Supporters of the constitution say it is vital for ensuring that the European Union functions properly after the bloc's expansion last year. But opinion polls show a clear majority of French voters plan to reject it in a referendum on May 29. The constitution needs backing from all 25 member states and some analysts say its failure could lead to a reversal of European political integration. "The EU could disintegrate toward a free-trade zone," said WestLB Financial Markets on Tuesday. "Such developments would spell disaster for EMU and the ECB.""
Reliapundit also has a roundup of news suggesting that the EU is in big trouble.
Nathan Tabor notes that the father of the unborn is the third victim of abortion.
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Marx thought the Russians were mainly Asiatics and should be chased out of Russia. Hitler, of course, tried to do put that into practice.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Thursday, April 14, 2005
THE EU DISASTER
Alarming for Brits: "Veritas at the London Assembly is calling on the Mayor to join its members in condemning the government's acceptance of EU police officers operating in Britain with lifetime immunity from prosecution. These Europol officers will have authority to steal, lie and even kill in the course of their duties. Members of the public will have no right of redress. The European Communities (Immunities and Privileges of the European Police Office) Order 1997, already in force, states: "such persons shall enjoy immunity from suit and legal process in respect of acts, including words written or spoken, done by them in the exercise of their official functions."
The good news (1) "Once they were seen as the most loyal of all Europeans, but this week President Jacques Chirac faces one of the biggest battles of his political career as he launches a crusade to persuade the French to vote 'Oui' in next month's referendum on the EU constitution. Chirac will use a televised debate on Thursday to lay out his arguments in favour of the draft European constitution, amid mounting hostility. Yesterday the president of the European parliament, Josep Borrell, warned the French that they would plunge Europe into crisis if they rejected the constitution. Alarmed by opinion polls which show the 'Non' campaign in the lead, Borrell warned that rejecting the treaty on 29 May would have far more serious implications for the future of Europe than they imagine."
The good news (2): "The CIA has predicted that the European Union will break-up within 15 years unless it radically reforms its ailing welfare systems. The report by the intelligence agency, which forecasts how the world will look in 2020, warns that Europe could be dragged into economic decline by its ageing population. It also predicts the end of Nato and post-1945 military alliances. In a devastating indictment of EU economic prospects, the report warns: "The current EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalisation could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role." It adds that the EU's economic growth rate is dragged down by Germany and its restrictive labour laws. Reforms there - and in France and Italy to lesser extents - remain key to whether the EU as a whole can break out of its "slow-growth pattern". Reflecting growing fears in the US that the pain of any proper reform would be too much to bear, the report adds that the experts it consulted "are dubious that the present political leadership is prepared to make even this partial break, believing a looming budgetary crisis in the next five years would be the more likely trigger for reform"."
***************************
Alarming for Brits: "Veritas at the London Assembly is calling on the Mayor to join its members in condemning the government's acceptance of EU police officers operating in Britain with lifetime immunity from prosecution. These Europol officers will have authority to steal, lie and even kill in the course of their duties. Members of the public will have no right of redress. The European Communities (Immunities and Privileges of the European Police Office) Order 1997, already in force, states: "such persons shall enjoy immunity from suit and legal process in respect of acts, including words written or spoken, done by them in the exercise of their official functions."
The good news (1) "Once they were seen as the most loyal of all Europeans, but this week President Jacques Chirac faces one of the biggest battles of his political career as he launches a crusade to persuade the French to vote 'Oui' in next month's referendum on the EU constitution. Chirac will use a televised debate on Thursday to lay out his arguments in favour of the draft European constitution, amid mounting hostility. Yesterday the president of the European parliament, Josep Borrell, warned the French that they would plunge Europe into crisis if they rejected the constitution. Alarmed by opinion polls which show the 'Non' campaign in the lead, Borrell warned that rejecting the treaty on 29 May would have far more serious implications for the future of Europe than they imagine."
The good news (2): "The CIA has predicted that the European Union will break-up within 15 years unless it radically reforms its ailing welfare systems. The report by the intelligence agency, which forecasts how the world will look in 2020, warns that Europe could be dragged into economic decline by its ageing population. It also predicts the end of Nato and post-1945 military alliances. In a devastating indictment of EU economic prospects, the report warns: "The current EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalisation could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role." It adds that the EU's economic growth rate is dragged down by Germany and its restrictive labour laws. Reforms there - and in France and Italy to lesser extents - remain key to whether the EU as a whole can break out of its "slow-growth pattern". Reflecting growing fears in the US that the pain of any proper reform would be too much to bear, the report adds that the experts it consulted "are dubious that the present political leadership is prepared to make even this partial break, believing a looming budgetary crisis in the next five years would be the more likely trigger for reform"."
***************************
ELSEWHERE
Sounds good: "A measure to oust the four justices who voted for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts will be considered today by the state legislature's Joint Judiciary Committee. As WorldNetDaily reported, the Massachusetts-based group Article 8 Alliance is promoting a "bill of address," a Massachusetts provision allowing lawmakers to remove judges who fail to fulfill their duties. The measure, filed by Democratic state Rep. Emile Goguen filed in April 2004, contends the justices violated multiple articles in the state constitution prohibiting courts from nullifying existing laws and requiring that laws remain in effect until the legislature repeals them, regardless of the actions and opinions of the judiciary branch"
Maybe I am simply showing that I am an irrelevant old pedant but I am afraid I have to agree with this German court decision: "German prosecutors have provoked outrage by ruling that the 1945 RAF bombing of Dresden can legally be termed a "holocaust". The decision follows the refusal by the Hamburg public prosecutor's office to press charges against a Right-wing politician who compared the bombing raids to "the extermination of the Jews". German law forbids the denial or playing down of the Holocaust as an incitement to hatred. So delicate is the subject of the slaughter of Jews under Hitler that any use of the word "holocaust", or comparison with it, faces intense scrutiny and sometimes legal action. But prosecutors have declined to pursue further the case of Udo Voigt, the chairman of the far-Right NPD, who likened the RAF's raids to the Nazis' "final solution".. For a start, I have always been appalled by the mass-murder by fire-bombing of German civilans -- men, women and children -- in Dresden and Hamburg by the Allied airforces of WW2. The raids concerned had little military relevance and were in my view occasions when Britain and America descended to the moral standards of the Nazis. More to the present point however, the court is precisely correct in calling the result of both raids a "holocaust". The word "holocaust" means consumption by fire -- from the Greek "kausis", meaning burning. Originally "holokauston" was the Greek word for a burnt offering -- something common in primitive religions -- including the original Hebrew religion as recorded in the Old Testament.
For anybody who wants a good brief reference on why the Nazis were Leftists and not Rightists there is a neat summary here. The writer references quite a few of my articles but tells the story a lot more briefly than I do. At the other end of the scale Charles Coulombe has three articles here and here and here under the general heading "The Return of the Swastika" -- which largely go beyond what I have written in showing how derivatives of Nazi ideas are still influential among Leftists in our society today.
There is a new conservative site with lots of stuff on it here
Email received: "My name is Seth Spores; I am one of the three editors and co-founders of College Tree Publishing. We contacted hundreds of university and college conservative and liberal groups, political science departments, and university news papers and requested essay submissions from people in the 17 to 25 year old age group on political and social issues. The end result was What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out, which was put out nationally in late October. The book was meant to be a running forum for political expression of America's youngest voting demographic, and in that regard has been a success.... We are a non-partisan company possessing a Republican, Democrat and Libertarian leaning editor, trying to give fair and equal voice to all ideologies present among college age youth. We are currently accepting submissions for our next two books, What We Think 2 and What We Think About God and looking to increase the number of well written pieces". If you want to submit something, email: seth@collegetreepublishing.com
Carnival of the Vanities is up again in the hands of the very Leftist "Dr. Zen" (Freddy Vessant). He refers to a previous correspondence he had with me. You can read it here. When you have read it, you might be amused to note whether Freddy has comments on his blog or not.
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Engels admired America and scorned Mexico.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Sounds good: "A measure to oust the four justices who voted for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts will be considered today by the state legislature's Joint Judiciary Committee. As WorldNetDaily reported, the Massachusetts-based group Article 8 Alliance is promoting a "bill of address," a Massachusetts provision allowing lawmakers to remove judges who fail to fulfill their duties. The measure, filed by Democratic state Rep. Emile Goguen filed in April 2004, contends the justices violated multiple articles in the state constitution prohibiting courts from nullifying existing laws and requiring that laws remain in effect until the legislature repeals them, regardless of the actions and opinions of the judiciary branch"
Maybe I am simply showing that I am an irrelevant old pedant but I am afraid I have to agree with this German court decision: "German prosecutors have provoked outrage by ruling that the 1945 RAF bombing of Dresden can legally be termed a "holocaust". The decision follows the refusal by the Hamburg public prosecutor's office to press charges against a Right-wing politician who compared the bombing raids to "the extermination of the Jews". German law forbids the denial or playing down of the Holocaust as an incitement to hatred. So delicate is the subject of the slaughter of Jews under Hitler that any use of the word "holocaust", or comparison with it, faces intense scrutiny and sometimes legal action. But prosecutors have declined to pursue further the case of Udo Voigt, the chairman of the far-Right NPD, who likened the RAF's raids to the Nazis' "final solution".. For a start, I have always been appalled by the mass-murder by fire-bombing of German civilans -- men, women and children -- in Dresden and Hamburg by the Allied airforces of WW2. The raids concerned had little military relevance and were in my view occasions when Britain and America descended to the moral standards of the Nazis. More to the present point however, the court is precisely correct in calling the result of both raids a "holocaust". The word "holocaust" means consumption by fire -- from the Greek "kausis", meaning burning. Originally "holokauston" was the Greek word for a burnt offering -- something common in primitive religions -- including the original Hebrew religion as recorded in the Old Testament.
For anybody who wants a good brief reference on why the Nazis were Leftists and not Rightists there is a neat summary here. The writer references quite a few of my articles but tells the story a lot more briefly than I do. At the other end of the scale Charles Coulombe has three articles here and here and here under the general heading "The Return of the Swastika" -- which largely go beyond what I have written in showing how derivatives of Nazi ideas are still influential among Leftists in our society today.
There is a new conservative site with lots of stuff on it here
Email received: "My name is Seth Spores; I am one of the three editors and co-founders of College Tree Publishing. We contacted hundreds of university and college conservative and liberal groups, political science departments, and university news papers and requested essay submissions from people in the 17 to 25 year old age group on political and social issues. The end result was What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out, which was put out nationally in late October. The book was meant to be a running forum for political expression of America's youngest voting demographic, and in that regard has been a success.... We are a non-partisan company possessing a Republican, Democrat and Libertarian leaning editor, trying to give fair and equal voice to all ideologies present among college age youth. We are currently accepting submissions for our next two books, What We Think 2 and What We Think About God and looking to increase the number of well written pieces". If you want to submit something, email: seth@collegetreepublishing.com
Carnival of the Vanities is up again in the hands of the very Leftist "Dr. Zen" (Freddy Vessant). He refers to a previous correspondence he had with me. You can read it here. When you have read it, you might be amused to note whether Freddy has comments on his blog or not.
My latest quote on MARXWORDS shows that Engels admired America and scorned Mexico.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
SOME MORE ECONOMICS
There is a really brain-dead article about the current bankruptcy bill on Real Clear Politics by some woman who obviously knows nothing about either economics or business. She says banks are to blame for lending money to the poor at high interest rates. What she overlooks: People have to take responsibility for their own actions -- if you cannot afford the repayments, don't borrow; If the banks DIDN'T lend to the poor they would be condemned for "discrimination", "paternalism" or even "racism"; Poor people are frequent defaulters on their debts so banks have to charge high interest to cover all those who don't pay; The new bill will make it harder for people to dodge their debts so will reduce the interest that banks have to charge and thus make loans more affordable to the poor. What is wrong with any of that?
Competition is sweet: "If American consumers and taxpayers have learned any lesson over the years it's that sugar producers don't like competition. In fact, they loathe it. Always have. Since 1820, when Louisiana sugar planters successfully argued for high tariffs to prevent a collapse in the value of slaves, the industry has used political influence to fleece consumers and taxpayers and avoid competition. No other industry has used its deep pockets and vast political clout ($22 million of campaign contributions to both parties since 1990) to restrain trade and competition. American consumers have been the victims. In 2004, government price controls through trade quota restrictions and loan guarantees priced U.S. sugar at more than 20 cents a pound, about 2r times the world price. This means Americans spend about $2 billion more yearly ... than if we had a free market in sugar."
How awful! Cheap clothing for the people! "The Bush administration took a giant step yesterday toward imposing new caps on imports of Chinese clothing, responding to complaints that China's export juggernaut is starting to dominate the worldwide apparel market since the system governing the global industry was changed on Jan. 1. A U.S. interagency panel said it will initiate proceedings to determine whether new limits should be slapped on imports from China of underwear, cotton trousers, and cotton knit shirts and blouses"
The rich get richer and the poor really do get poorer in socialist Britain: "Britain's poorest 10% of households are becoming even poorer, according to devastating official figures revealing that Chancellor Gordon Brown's tax-and-spend agenda is hurting Middle Britain while failing to help the most vulnerable. The poorest 5.8m Britons are the only group whose take-home incomes are falling, according to figures discovered by The Business buried in a 357-page Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) study slipped out last week. The real income after tax, welfare and housing costs of the poorest 10% of households fell from 91 pounds (E131.90, $170.20) a week in 2001-02 to 90 pounds in 2002-03 and 88 pounds in 2003-04. Their annual incomes are down 3.3% to 4,576 pounds a year, suggesting that an underclass is being left behind despite a relatively strong and prosperous UK economy. The incomes of this poorest group are also down over the past two years before adjusting for housing costs. When housing costs are included, post-tax take-home pay of the top 10% of Britons rose by 1.4% between 2002-03 and 2003-04; during the same period, the poorest 10% saw their income drop by 2.2%. The next worst-affected group was the middle earners, who suffered from a 12.9% rise in council tax and a 1% rise in national insurance contributions over the year. NOTE: This article now seems to be offline so I have rescued it from the Google cache and reposted it in full here
Possibly the best explanation of economics ever written, Henry Hazlitt's Economics in one Lesson is now free online here (Big PDF).
********************************
There is a really brain-dead article about the current bankruptcy bill on Real Clear Politics by some woman who obviously knows nothing about either economics or business. She says banks are to blame for lending money to the poor at high interest rates. What she overlooks: People have to take responsibility for their own actions -- if you cannot afford the repayments, don't borrow; If the banks DIDN'T lend to the poor they would be condemned for "discrimination", "paternalism" or even "racism"; Poor people are frequent defaulters on their debts so banks have to charge high interest to cover all those who don't pay; The new bill will make it harder for people to dodge their debts so will reduce the interest that banks have to charge and thus make loans more affordable to the poor. What is wrong with any of that?
Competition is sweet: "If American consumers and taxpayers have learned any lesson over the years it's that sugar producers don't like competition. In fact, they loathe it. Always have. Since 1820, when Louisiana sugar planters successfully argued for high tariffs to prevent a collapse in the value of slaves, the industry has used political influence to fleece consumers and taxpayers and avoid competition. No other industry has used its deep pockets and vast political clout ($22 million of campaign contributions to both parties since 1990) to restrain trade and competition. American consumers have been the victims. In 2004, government price controls through trade quota restrictions and loan guarantees priced U.S. sugar at more than 20 cents a pound, about 2r times the world price. This means Americans spend about $2 billion more yearly ... than if we had a free market in sugar."
How awful! Cheap clothing for the people! "The Bush administration took a giant step yesterday toward imposing new caps on imports of Chinese clothing, responding to complaints that China's export juggernaut is starting to dominate the worldwide apparel market since the system governing the global industry was changed on Jan. 1. A U.S. interagency panel said it will initiate proceedings to determine whether new limits should be slapped on imports from China of underwear, cotton trousers, and cotton knit shirts and blouses"
The rich get richer and the poor really do get poorer in socialist Britain: "Britain's poorest 10% of households are becoming even poorer, according to devastating official figures revealing that Chancellor Gordon Brown's tax-and-spend agenda is hurting Middle Britain while failing to help the most vulnerable. The poorest 5.8m Britons are the only group whose take-home incomes are falling, according to figures discovered by The Business buried in a 357-page Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) study slipped out last week. The real income after tax, welfare and housing costs of the poorest 10% of households fell from 91 pounds (E131.90, $170.20) a week in 2001-02 to 90 pounds in 2002-03 and 88 pounds in 2003-04. Their annual incomes are down 3.3% to 4,576 pounds a year, suggesting that an underclass is being left behind despite a relatively strong and prosperous UK economy. The incomes of this poorest group are also down over the past two years before adjusting for housing costs. When housing costs are included, post-tax take-home pay of the top 10% of Britons rose by 1.4% between 2002-03 and 2003-04; during the same period, the poorest 10% saw their income drop by 2.2%. The next worst-affected group was the middle earners, who suffered from a 12.9% rise in council tax and a 1% rise in national insurance contributions over the year. NOTE: This article now seems to be offline so I have rescued it from the Google cache and reposted it in full here
Possibly the best explanation of economics ever written, Henry Hazlitt's Economics in one Lesson is now free online here (Big PDF).
********************************
ELSEWHERE
USA Today has an editorial defending the American judiciary from conservative dissatisfaction with it. The editorial makes what would in general be a reasonable point: "Frist is also considering an unprecedented ruling to prevent Democrats from blocking judicial nominees - crushing the valuable principle that judges appointed for life should be acceptable to a broad political mainstream and thus beholden only to the law and the Constitution.". That would be a reasonable point if America had a judiciary that stuck to judging instead of making the law up as it went along but what the paper says refers to an idealized past, not the present reality. It has got to the point now where tough action is needed. The existing system has failed.
Stories like this one from AP really give me the pip: "Iraqis are increasingly calling on U.S. forces to leave their troubled nation". A less biased lead would be: "Followers of a small minority group who got virtually no support in the recent Iraq elections are about the only visible opposition the US now has in Iraq"
Aggressive U.K. pacifists: "Anti-war activists are borrowing the tactics of animal-rights extremists to intimidate staff at a factory where weapon parts used in the Iraq war are made. They are the latest group of protesters whose activities could be stopped by High Court injunction..... Activists are accused of shining laser lights into employees' eyes when they are driving, putting glue in external locks, dumping concrete and manure in the reception area and throwing red paint bombs. They also allegedly assaulted a security guard, photographed staff and their vehicles, dismantled air conditioning vents and wrote to the neighbours of a director saying he was a mass murderer. Protesters set up a roadblock last May, preventing access to the site for five hours. In June an employee was boxed in his car for 15 minutes. In September demonstrators staged a 24-hour rooftop sit-in."
Eyewitness Border report from two "Minutemen": "Witnessing with our own eyes what is going on at the border has really been mind-boggling. Unless you see it for yourself down here you would never believe it. The local media reports some of what actually transpires on the border here but it never reaches the interior of our country and the majority of our citizens. In plain language we are being invaded, not by armies, but by literally thousands of illegal aliens every single day of the year. The Border Patrol doesn't even catch half of the people that come across and they catch an unbelievable number of them. I've heard the number 1 in 4 that come through. When they do catch them they send them back into Mexico where they try again the next day. ... I hear they don't have half the manpower they need so a lot of calls go unanswered. Of the hundreds arrested in March in this area alone the newspaper reported 20% of them had criminal records."
Germany: "When US President George W. Bush visited Germany last February, tens-of-thousands of angry demonstrators turned out in Mainz and all across Germany to vent their outrage at the Iraq war and the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Now, less than two months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Germany. And a whopping 30 protesters showed up to demonstrate the bloody Russian war and widespread human rights violations in Chechnya. Putin and Schroeder were all smiles as they tipped champagne glasses and signed multi-billion dollar business deals for everything from Russian natural gas imports to German bullet train exports in Schroeder's hometown of Hannover. Naturally, with the cash registers busily ringing away, Chechnya never came up and the German media has all but ignored the topic".
My latest quote on MARXWORDS finds Marx expressing contempt for the Indians.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
USA Today has an editorial defending the American judiciary from conservative dissatisfaction with it. The editorial makes what would in general be a reasonable point: "Frist is also considering an unprecedented ruling to prevent Democrats from blocking judicial nominees - crushing the valuable principle that judges appointed for life should be acceptable to a broad political mainstream and thus beholden only to the law and the Constitution.". That would be a reasonable point if America had a judiciary that stuck to judging instead of making the law up as it went along but what the paper says refers to an idealized past, not the present reality. It has got to the point now where tough action is needed. The existing system has failed.
Stories like this one from AP really give me the pip: "Iraqis are increasingly calling on U.S. forces to leave their troubled nation". A less biased lead would be: "Followers of a small minority group who got virtually no support in the recent Iraq elections are about the only visible opposition the US now has in Iraq"
Aggressive U.K. pacifists: "Anti-war activists are borrowing the tactics of animal-rights extremists to intimidate staff at a factory where weapon parts used in the Iraq war are made. They are the latest group of protesters whose activities could be stopped by High Court injunction..... Activists are accused of shining laser lights into employees' eyes when they are driving, putting glue in external locks, dumping concrete and manure in the reception area and throwing red paint bombs. They also allegedly assaulted a security guard, photographed staff and their vehicles, dismantled air conditioning vents and wrote to the neighbours of a director saying he was a mass murderer. Protesters set up a roadblock last May, preventing access to the site for five hours. In June an employee was boxed in his car for 15 minutes. In September demonstrators staged a 24-hour rooftop sit-in."
Eyewitness Border report from two "Minutemen": "Witnessing with our own eyes what is going on at the border has really been mind-boggling. Unless you see it for yourself down here you would never believe it. The local media reports some of what actually transpires on the border here but it never reaches the interior of our country and the majority of our citizens. In plain language we are being invaded, not by armies, but by literally thousands of illegal aliens every single day of the year. The Border Patrol doesn't even catch half of the people that come across and they catch an unbelievable number of them. I've heard the number 1 in 4 that come through. When they do catch them they send them back into Mexico where they try again the next day. ... I hear they don't have half the manpower they need so a lot of calls go unanswered. Of the hundreds arrested in March in this area alone the newspaper reported 20% of them had criminal records."
Germany: "When US President George W. Bush visited Germany last February, tens-of-thousands of angry demonstrators turned out in Mainz and all across Germany to vent their outrage at the Iraq war and the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Now, less than two months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Germany. And a whopping 30 protesters showed up to demonstrate the bloody Russian war and widespread human rights violations in Chechnya. Putin and Schroeder were all smiles as they tipped champagne glasses and signed multi-billion dollar business deals for everything from Russian natural gas imports to German bullet train exports in Schroeder's hometown of Hannover. Naturally, with the cash registers busily ringing away, Chechnya never came up and the German media has all but ignored the topic".
My latest quote on MARXWORDS finds Marx expressing contempt for the Indians.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
TUESDAY ROUNDUP
Once again I pick out what I think are my best posts for the week:
On Dissecting Leftism I lookat the problem of rogue judges and note that they CAN be sacked.
On Greenie Watch I note how Greenies depend on ad hominem arguments
On Political Correctness Watch I note that "tolerant" Sweden has re-banned prostitution
On Leftists as Elitists I report a survey showing that Leftist activists are mostly from privileged backgrounds
On Gun Watch I note an incident showing how lifesaving guns can be on yachts.
On Education Watch I have a report about another academic fruitcake
On Socialized Medicine I report how an incompetent Pakistani doctor known informally as "Dr Death" worked for years in a public hospital.
On Marx Words I have quotes showing that both Marx and Engels thought that the Chinese suffered from hereditary stupidity
On Majority Rights I look at "The Simpsons" as an antidote to political correctness
On Blogger News I ask whether the late Pope was a conservative. I have subsequently spelt that out a bit more here (or here)
****************************
Once again I pick out what I think are my best posts for the week:
On Dissecting Leftism I lookat the problem of rogue judges and note that they CAN be sacked.
On Greenie Watch I note how Greenies depend on ad hominem arguments
On Political Correctness Watch I note that "tolerant" Sweden has re-banned prostitution
On Leftists as Elitists I report a survey showing that Leftist activists are mostly from privileged backgrounds
On Gun Watch I note an incident showing how lifesaving guns can be on yachts.
On Education Watch I have a report about another academic fruitcake
On Socialized Medicine I report how an incompetent Pakistani doctor known informally as "Dr Death" worked for years in a public hospital.
On Marx Words I have quotes showing that both Marx and Engels thought that the Chinese suffered from hereditary stupidity
On Majority Rights I look at "The Simpsons" as an antidote to political correctness
On Blogger News I ask whether the late Pope was a conservative. I have subsequently spelt that out a bit more here (or here)
****************************
ELSEWHERE
The ADL has just put out its summary of antisemitic incidents for 2004. Most incidents occurred in that bigoted redneck South, of course. Any Leftist would tell you that. Just look at this list of the States with the most incidents and note how redneck they all are: New York; New Jersey; California; Florida; Massachusetts and Connecticut. Disgusting rednecks! Isn't America lucky to have all those "tolerant" blue States?
Tom Heard says the U.S. should pull out its troops. lock, stock and barrel -- not from Iraq but from Germany.
Les Bates delivers pizzas to help pay his bills. An interesting comment from him: "One thing that I noticed is that hardcore leftist activists are extremely parsimonious when it comes to tipping. One even laughed in my face when I suggested that he could write in a tip on the credit card slip. Shows how much they really love the real workers".
An insider comment on the BBC: "BBC journalists are aware of their duty to be impartial but they understand it intellectually not instinctively. While the BBC would never endorse one political party, its dominant attitudes are rigidly social democratic. Those values are so dominant that they are treated as virtues not opinions. It is why a BBC correspondent cried when Yassir Arafat died and a Today presenter referred to the Labour Party as "we". These political prejudices are innate because too few BBC employees have ever experienced life in the free market and those who have are often refugees from it. The corporation grows its own managers in preference to recruiting from outside and advertises for staff in left-wing newspapers".
The decay of the Democrats: "Those of us who label ourselves Democrats have stood for economic fairness since the New Deal, but in the last three decades our once-majority party has embraced a take-no-prisoners cultural agenda that now threatens to relegate Democrats to permanent minority status. The hostile takeover driving this drift to irrelevance is especially painful to cultural moderates, who remember that social democracy was born of traditional values.... Today's Democratic Party leaders have apparently forgotten, however, that the social programs that came of age during the New Deal had their origins in Judeo-Christian tradition, even more than in secular humanism. Indeed, it might be argued that popes were as influential as politicians in shaping policy."
There is a disgraceful story here about undemocratic goings-on in Canada. I can't say I am surprised. Leftists only put up wuith democracy to the extent to which they have to. Excerpt: "Murray was grilled by a Commons standing committee and he revealed how pathetically unqualified he is for the job. He even acknowledged his shortcomings and apologized to the committee for them. The House of Commons rejected Murray's appointment by a vote of 143-108. But junior Environment Minister Bryon Wilfert said Murray will keep his job anyway."
Why the Left hate Christians: "Left-wingers are fundamentalists of their own breed. Yes, it's true that despite mountains of evidence, some conservatives refuse to accept the theory of evolution. But so what? At the very same time, despite mountains of evidence, most liberals refuse to accept the theory of press bias. So what's the difference? Similarly, fundamentalist liberals "know" global warming is the world's greatest threat. Fundamentalist liberals "know" Israel brutalizes the Palestinians. Fundamentalist liberals "know" Fox News is fascist, even though it leans to the right just exactly as much as the New York Times leans to the left. And fundamentalist liberals "know" Bush is stupid, even though his IQ is 126, while John Kerry's is 122. Yes, they "know" all this stuff, and why? Because of blind faith. Nothing more. The very same kind of blind faith they attribute to their religious "inferiors." So tell me: What's the difference between a fundamentalist of the Religious Right and a fundamentalist of the Secular Left? Pot, have you met Kettle? I have a theory about religion mockers. Like me, they were raised to be faithful, but they gave up their beliefs in their teens..... But deep down, they doubt. Their gut says: "What if the priests and rabbis are right after all? What if there really is a heaven and hell? Man, am I going to be in deep (bleep) then." To hide their anxiety, they snark. It's unseemly. They pretend to be contemptuous of believers. But they're really contemptuous of themselves. They haven't the courage to walk their walk. In fact, you could call them self-hating atheists. Secretly they fear they're doomed to go to hell and burn".
My latest quote on MARXWORDS finds Engels saying that most Slavic nations have no past and no future (!).
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
The ADL has just put out its summary of antisemitic incidents for 2004. Most incidents occurred in that bigoted redneck South, of course. Any Leftist would tell you that. Just look at this list of the States with the most incidents and note how redneck they all are: New York; New Jersey; California; Florida; Massachusetts and Connecticut. Disgusting rednecks! Isn't America lucky to have all those "tolerant" blue States?
Tom Heard says the U.S. should pull out its troops. lock, stock and barrel -- not from Iraq but from Germany.
Les Bates delivers pizzas to help pay his bills. An interesting comment from him: "One thing that I noticed is that hardcore leftist activists are extremely parsimonious when it comes to tipping. One even laughed in my face when I suggested that he could write in a tip on the credit card slip. Shows how much they really love the real workers".
An insider comment on the BBC: "BBC journalists are aware of their duty to be impartial but they understand it intellectually not instinctively. While the BBC would never endorse one political party, its dominant attitudes are rigidly social democratic. Those values are so dominant that they are treated as virtues not opinions. It is why a BBC correspondent cried when Yassir Arafat died and a Today presenter referred to the Labour Party as "we". These political prejudices are innate because too few BBC employees have ever experienced life in the free market and those who have are often refugees from it. The corporation grows its own managers in preference to recruiting from outside and advertises for staff in left-wing newspapers".
The decay of the Democrats: "Those of us who label ourselves Democrats have stood for economic fairness since the New Deal, but in the last three decades our once-majority party has embraced a take-no-prisoners cultural agenda that now threatens to relegate Democrats to permanent minority status. The hostile takeover driving this drift to irrelevance is especially painful to cultural moderates, who remember that social democracy was born of traditional values.... Today's Democratic Party leaders have apparently forgotten, however, that the social programs that came of age during the New Deal had their origins in Judeo-Christian tradition, even more than in secular humanism. Indeed, it might be argued that popes were as influential as politicians in shaping policy."
There is a disgraceful story here about undemocratic goings-on in Canada. I can't say I am surprised. Leftists only put up wuith democracy to the extent to which they have to. Excerpt: "Murray was grilled by a Commons standing committee and he revealed how pathetically unqualified he is for the job. He even acknowledged his shortcomings and apologized to the committee for them. The House of Commons rejected Murray's appointment by a vote of 143-108. But junior Environment Minister Bryon Wilfert said Murray will keep his job anyway."
Why the Left hate Christians: "Left-wingers are fundamentalists of their own breed. Yes, it's true that despite mountains of evidence, some conservatives refuse to accept the theory of evolution. But so what? At the very same time, despite mountains of evidence, most liberals refuse to accept the theory of press bias. So what's the difference? Similarly, fundamentalist liberals "know" global warming is the world's greatest threat. Fundamentalist liberals "know" Israel brutalizes the Palestinians. Fundamentalist liberals "know" Fox News is fascist, even though it leans to the right just exactly as much as the New York Times leans to the left. And fundamentalist liberals "know" Bush is stupid, even though his IQ is 126, while John Kerry's is 122. Yes, they "know" all this stuff, and why? Because of blind faith. Nothing more. The very same kind of blind faith they attribute to their religious "inferiors." So tell me: What's the difference between a fundamentalist of the Religious Right and a fundamentalist of the Secular Left? Pot, have you met Kettle? I have a theory about religion mockers. Like me, they were raised to be faithful, but they gave up their beliefs in their teens..... But deep down, they doubt. Their gut says: "What if the priests and rabbis are right after all? What if there really is a heaven and hell? Man, am I going to be in deep (bleep) then." To hide their anxiety, they snark. It's unseemly. They pretend to be contemptuous of believers. But they're really contemptuous of themselves. They haven't the courage to walk their walk. In fact, you could call them self-hating atheists. Secretly they fear they're doomed to go to hell and burn".
My latest quote on MARXWORDS finds Engels saying that most Slavic nations have no past and no future (!).
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Monday, April 11, 2005
THE WASHINGTON BULL-SESSION ON THE JUDGE PROBLEM
This article by the egregious Dana Milbank, about a meeting of a small group of prominent conservatives in Washington, seems to have stirred up a hornet's nest in some circles -- which is, of course, what it was meant to do. Even Arthur Silber -- who is a pretty level-headed guy most of the time -- seems to have got his knickers in a knot over it. Milbank is very good at subtly slanting the news and hinting at things without actually saying them and this is a prime example. He reports a whole series of statements that are mostly not unreasonable by themselves and manages to weave them into a rather alarming tapestry. He also presents the report as if he were present and taking notes at the meeting but nowhere actually says that he was so the accuracy of what he does say is for a start a matter of some conjecture. But so far everybody seems (in my view unwisely) to be taking his report as gospel. One can only imagine what he has left out.
What transpired was apparently a general discussion about what should be done about America's current problem of lawless Supreme Court judges -- and different individuals suggested different solutions -- broadly falling into restrictions on what the judges can do or finding ways to remove the irresponsible judges from office. What seems to have induced near-ecstasy in some Leftist bloggers is that one of those present quoted Stalin to the effect that removing the man removes the problem -- implying that Stalin's METHOD of removing the man (execution) was being advocated. The fact that the person who quoted Stalin is a constitutional lawyer who wrote "How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary" LEGALLY was mentioned by Milbank but seems to have been glided over by everyone else.
The Left seem determined to take what was obviously a brainstorming session among a small group of people as proof of some heinous plot but that is to be expected, I guess.
The basic submission of those present at the meeting -- that recent constitutional decisions which turn to foreign opinions rather than to the text of the constitution are grossly unsatisfactory -- is a submission in which I myself would heartily concur. I might perhaps go along with the argument that the constitution should be treated as a "living document" but that is NOT what the Supreme Court is doing. They are in fact treating it as a blank slate -- finding in it all sorts of things (such as abortion rights) that are not remotely there. There is only one democratic way for the constitution to change with the times and that is via amendments voted for by the people.
(An earlier version of this post appeared on Blogger News)
************************************
NEWT GINGRICH SAYS YOU CAN SACK ROGUE JUDGES
(From an interview with Pat Robertson)
GINGRICH: I think we are a covenant society, and I think part of the message has to be to our elected officials that we expect Congress and the President to stand up to judges who don't understand America. And in the case of the two appeals court judges, of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who said they were going to outlaw saying `one nation under God' in the Pledge -- my position would be Thomas Jefferson's, which would be to abolish their two jobs. Let them go back into the private sector, because clearly those two judges do not understand America and should not be sitting on the federal bench.
ROBERTSON: Is it possible for Congress to selectively take out a couple of judges? You'd have to abolish the whole Ninth Circuit.
GINGRICH: No, in 1802, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who knew a fair amount about the Constitution, passed a law abolishing 18 out of the 35 federal circuit court judges. That is over half the federal circuit court judges. They were given unemployment slips, and told to go find work. So clearly there is a precedent. The Congress can say this particular office is now closed. You are not going to have hearings. You might have to pay their pension under a constitutional provision that's a lifetime appointment. But you don't have to let them have clerks, you don't have to let them have an office, you don't have to let them serve in court any more.
********************************
This article by the egregious Dana Milbank, about a meeting of a small group of prominent conservatives in Washington, seems to have stirred up a hornet's nest in some circles -- which is, of course, what it was meant to do. Even Arthur Silber -- who is a pretty level-headed guy most of the time -- seems to have got his knickers in a knot over it. Milbank is very good at subtly slanting the news and hinting at things without actually saying them and this is a prime example. He reports a whole series of statements that are mostly not unreasonable by themselves and manages to weave them into a rather alarming tapestry. He also presents the report as if he were present and taking notes at the meeting but nowhere actually says that he was so the accuracy of what he does say is for a start a matter of some conjecture. But so far everybody seems (in my view unwisely) to be taking his report as gospel. One can only imagine what he has left out.
What transpired was apparently a general discussion about what should be done about America's current problem of lawless Supreme Court judges -- and different individuals suggested different solutions -- broadly falling into restrictions on what the judges can do or finding ways to remove the irresponsible judges from office. What seems to have induced near-ecstasy in some Leftist bloggers is that one of those present quoted Stalin to the effect that removing the man removes the problem -- implying that Stalin's METHOD of removing the man (execution) was being advocated. The fact that the person who quoted Stalin is a constitutional lawyer who wrote "How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary" LEGALLY was mentioned by Milbank but seems to have been glided over by everyone else.
The Left seem determined to take what was obviously a brainstorming session among a small group of people as proof of some heinous plot but that is to be expected, I guess.
The basic submission of those present at the meeting -- that recent constitutional decisions which turn to foreign opinions rather than to the text of the constitution are grossly unsatisfactory -- is a submission in which I myself would heartily concur. I might perhaps go along with the argument that the constitution should be treated as a "living document" but that is NOT what the Supreme Court is doing. They are in fact treating it as a blank slate -- finding in it all sorts of things (such as abortion rights) that are not remotely there. There is only one democratic way for the constitution to change with the times and that is via amendments voted for by the people.
(An earlier version of this post appeared on Blogger News)
************************************
NEWT GINGRICH SAYS YOU CAN SACK ROGUE JUDGES
(From an interview with Pat Robertson)
GINGRICH: I think we are a covenant society, and I think part of the message has to be to our elected officials that we expect Congress and the President to stand up to judges who don't understand America. And in the case of the two appeals court judges, of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who said they were going to outlaw saying `one nation under God' in the Pledge -- my position would be Thomas Jefferson's, which would be to abolish their two jobs. Let them go back into the private sector, because clearly those two judges do not understand America and should not be sitting on the federal bench.
ROBERTSON: Is it possible for Congress to selectively take out a couple of judges? You'd have to abolish the whole Ninth Circuit.
GINGRICH: No, in 1802, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who knew a fair amount about the Constitution, passed a law abolishing 18 out of the 35 federal circuit court judges. That is over half the federal circuit court judges. They were given unemployment slips, and told to go find work. So clearly there is a precedent. The Congress can say this particular office is now closed. You are not going to have hearings. You might have to pay their pension under a constitutional provision that's a lifetime appointment. But you don't have to let them have clerks, you don't have to let them have an office, you don't have to let them serve in court any more.
********************************
ELSEWHERE
There is a Leftist law professor here who has had a bright idea about how to solve the judicial bias problem. He just redefines Left and Right to suit himself. Without one shred of supporting argument he redefines Left-leaning judges like Sandra Day O'Connor as "conservatives" and calls conservative judges "neo-cons". And neocons are people who "throw caution to the winds"! Do you want to know which parallel universe he is living in? It is called Yale.
There is an instructive story on PC Watch today about the re-banning of prostitution in Sweden. It shows what a sham is the Leftist defence of liberty in the moral sphere.
Hurray for Frankenstein! : "The 'Frankenstein Report,' is what outraged critics are calling a new report, Human Reproductive Technologies and the Law, that signals welcome sanity on the cloning front in Western world politics. The report was issued on March 24 by the cross-party Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons. What's got the critics' knickers in a twist? First, the U.K. Members of Parliament (MPs) dare to suggest that a wide range of current and potential interventions in human reproduction can, in fact, be done ethically."
NYC misses Giuliani "A woman with a three-month-old baby was mugged at gunpoint on a sunny morning in Central Park last week, heightening fears that New York is sliding back into disorder. Catherine Collins, 34, a freelance television producer, was walking with her son Jackson in a pushchair when a robber pulled out a gun and demanded her rings. "I was terrified," Collins said. "I was trained never to resist. I saw the gun and I saw my baby. There was nothing worth contemplating." Central Park, once a muggers' paradise which came to symbolise the breakdown of the city in the 1980s, has been cleaned up and reclaimed by families. It has rarely been safer. Yet there are signs that the city's public spaces are deteriorating. A 28-year-old actor was murdered in Manhattan in January when she challenged four muggers. "What are you going to do, shoot us?" she asked. One of the assailants fired a bullet into her chest and she died in her fianc,'s arms. Dealers are peddling drugs in city squares at night, the homeless are sleeping rough on subway benches, beggars are roaming the carriages and graffiti are returning to city walls."
One of my readers has sent in an essay about the moral corruption of academe and its consequences. See Here.
My latest quotes on MARXWORDS show that both Marx and Engels thought the Chinese to be hereditarily dumb!
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
There is a Leftist law professor here who has had a bright idea about how to solve the judicial bias problem. He just redefines Left and Right to suit himself. Without one shred of supporting argument he redefines Left-leaning judges like Sandra Day O'Connor as "conservatives" and calls conservative judges "neo-cons". And neocons are people who "throw caution to the winds"! Do you want to know which parallel universe he is living in? It is called Yale.
There is an instructive story on PC Watch today about the re-banning of prostitution in Sweden. It shows what a sham is the Leftist defence of liberty in the moral sphere.
Hurray for Frankenstein! : "The 'Frankenstein Report,' is what outraged critics are calling a new report, Human Reproductive Technologies and the Law, that signals welcome sanity on the cloning front in Western world politics. The report was issued on March 24 by the cross-party Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons. What's got the critics' knickers in a twist? First, the U.K. Members of Parliament (MPs) dare to suggest that a wide range of current and potential interventions in human reproduction can, in fact, be done ethically."
NYC misses Giuliani "A woman with a three-month-old baby was mugged at gunpoint on a sunny morning in Central Park last week, heightening fears that New York is sliding back into disorder. Catherine Collins, 34, a freelance television producer, was walking with her son Jackson in a pushchair when a robber pulled out a gun and demanded her rings. "I was terrified," Collins said. "I was trained never to resist. I saw the gun and I saw my baby. There was nothing worth contemplating." Central Park, once a muggers' paradise which came to symbolise the breakdown of the city in the 1980s, has been cleaned up and reclaimed by families. It has rarely been safer. Yet there are signs that the city's public spaces are deteriorating. A 28-year-old actor was murdered in Manhattan in January when she challenged four muggers. "What are you going to do, shoot us?" she asked. One of the assailants fired a bullet into her chest and she died in her fianc,'s arms. Dealers are peddling drugs in city squares at night, the homeless are sleeping rough on subway benches, beggars are roaming the carriages and graffiti are returning to city walls."
One of my readers has sent in an essay about the moral corruption of academe and its consequences. See Here.
My latest quotes on MARXWORDS show that both Marx and Engels thought the Chinese to be hereditarily dumb!
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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.
********************************
Sunday, April 10, 2005
WHY THE LEFT SUPPORT SO MUCH EVIL
Excerpt from Evan Sayet. More wisdom from Evan here (or here)
"So, if they're not evil and they're not stupid what is it the Modern Liberal hopes to accomplish by siding always with evil over good, wrong over right, death over life (except in the case of child rapists and murderers) and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success? The answer can be found in the John Lennon song of the Sixties era (1970) "Imagine." Note the be all and end all of Lennon's paradise, a world in which everyone "lives for today."
Suddenly the childish "war is not the answer" makes sense. It's not the answer because war -- today -- is unpleasant and the terrorists are not likely to hit until tomorrow. Suddenly it makes sense why the leftist believes that children who fail tests should still get the reward of a promotion to the next grade. After all, their inability to read and write won't really affect them until they join the workforce somewhere down the line. For TODAY why not make them "feel good" with the gift of graduation?
This idea of "living for today" is what is behind the left's arguments for homosexual marriage -- something that may well destroy civilization TOMORROW but for today, well, it feels good. And it explains why the left's ideological brethren in France would refuse to get up from their Chablis to go check on their parents during a heatwave that saw 15,000 of their moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas suffocate to death two summers ago. Sure they'd have to bury their loved ones...tomorrow...but today? Well, they had just barely gotten a good buzz on.
Doing what is right often doesn't pay off immediately. Sacrificing today's pleasures for tomorrow's gain, well, that's just not what John Lennon -- or the Modern Liberal -- imagines".
***************************************
Excerpt from Evan Sayet. More wisdom from Evan here (or here)
"So, if they're not evil and they're not stupid what is it the Modern Liberal hopes to accomplish by siding always with evil over good, wrong over right, death over life (except in the case of child rapists and murderers) and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success? The answer can be found in the John Lennon song of the Sixties era (1970) "Imagine." Note the be all and end all of Lennon's paradise, a world in which everyone "lives for today."
Suddenly the childish "war is not the answer" makes sense. It's not the answer because war -- today -- is unpleasant and the terrorists are not likely to hit until tomorrow. Suddenly it makes sense why the leftist believes that children who fail tests should still get the reward of a promotion to the next grade. After all, their inability to read and write won't really affect them until they join the workforce somewhere down the line. For TODAY why not make them "feel good" with the gift of graduation?
This idea of "living for today" is what is behind the left's arguments for homosexual marriage -- something that may well destroy civilization TOMORROW but for today, well, it feels good. And it explains why the left's ideological brethren in France would refuse to get up from their Chablis to go check on their parents during a heatwave that saw 15,000 of their moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas suffocate to death two summers ago. Sure they'd have to bury their loved ones...tomorrow...but today? Well, they had just barely gotten a good buzz on.
Doing what is right often doesn't pay off immediately. Sacrificing today's pleasures for tomorrow's gain, well, that's just not what John Lennon -- or the Modern Liberal -- imagines".
***************************************
ELSEWHERE
There is a new site up which shows people how much better off they would be with even partial privatization of Social Security. And who benefit most? The poor, of course. No wonder Democrats hate the idea!
Wicked Thoughts has the story behind the recent blogger.com meltdown
Want a laugh? Read this Leftist nutjob's definition of "good" Christians. A few excerpts: "They are the legions of recovering Catholics, people for whom the radiant and positive aspects of this most intense of faiths still hold powerful sway but who just can't abide by the ridiculous and outdated and often homophobic and sexist doctrines hurled forth like so much flaccid manna from the unhappy red-robed automatons of Vatican City. They are the moderate Christians, the ones who do not support illegal wars or the killing of all doctors who perform abortions and who are all for social justice and who think Bush is a bit of an imbecile, and even if they find themselves for some unfortunate reason in support of the Republican cause overall, they still think it's rather abhorrent that the man dares invoke God to support his lie-ridden wars and the smashing down of women's rights and gay rights and abuse of the environment et al..... And these Christians -- let us call them "normal" or perhaps "natural" or even "organic" (i.e.;, devoid of poisons or preservatives or Sanctimonious Growth Hormones) -- they are filling all manner of funky or progressive (or Unitarian) churches across many a large city in America, right now. They are streaming into huge beautiful nonjudgmental buildings all over San Francisco and Chicago and New York and Boston, etc., places that welcome gays and oddballs and spiritual nomads and pantheists and anyone else who might be feeling a divine pull, and please leave your Jesus extremism at the door and let's talk about Sufism".
Poisonous judges: "The judiciary is supposed to be the ultimate protector of our freedoms, the Constitutional creature that guards us against the depredations of Congress and the presidency. Instead, it has become our greatest source of anguish. The other branches of government produce enough on their own. The President often reduces liberals to sputtering outrage and has the same effect on conservatives when the subject of illegal immigration comes up. Congress -- when it's not performing its primary role of inside-the-Beltway comic relief -- often leaves us scowling and mumbling (especially in April which, thanks to them, truly has become the cruelest month). But it falls to the courts, and not just the Supreme Court, to produce the gut-wrenching, feel it in your bones kind of anguish that simmers constantly. We feel powerless about what they do because, for decades, we have been."
Religiousness is genetic too: "A study published in the current issue of Journal of Personality studied adult male monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins to find that difference in religiousness are influenced by both genes and environment. But during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, genetic factors increase in importance while shared environmental factors decrease. Environmental factors (i.e. parenting and family life) influence a child's religiousness, but their effects decline with the transition into adulthood. An analysis of self-reported religiousness showed that MZ twins maintained their religious similarity over time, while the DZ twins became more dissimilar. "These correlations suggest low genetic and high environmental influences when the twins were young but a larger genetic influence as the twins age" the authors state."
Don't hold your breath: "Larry Summers hinted that women on average might not be as qualified as men to be science professors. Paul Krugman wrote that Republicans en masse are categorically not as qualified as everyone else to be professors. Larry Summers was almost universally condemned by academia for his comments, not because they were necessarily wrong, but because it was considered wrong for him to make negative generalizations about an under-represented group. In academia, Republicans are far more under-represented than women are. So if Paul Krugman is not widely condemned by academics it will constitute pretty strong evidence that academia is biased against Republicans."
Canadians rediscovering Christianity: "A Gallup poll late last year showed 37% of Canadians are attending church services at least on a monthly basis. It is a far cry from the old days when churchgoing was the Golden Rule, but it is the highest level seen since the early 1980s. Bibby's own national survey, done with the Vanier Institute, found weekly church attendance had increased to 26% in 2003 from from 21% in 2000.... A recent OMNI-Maclean's poll found 58% of Canadians consider themselves to be religious while 70% claim to be spiritual.... Evangelical churches have seen booming business for years, in part as a spillover from their soaring success in the United States. What is new, the sociologist says, is that his surveys show the decline in weekly attendance at mainline Protestant churches has "bottomed out" while the Anglicans and the United Church of Canada have actually seen an increase in the number of younger people becoming involved. Roman Catholics outside Quebec have also witnessed a similar spike among the young -- especially after the Pope's visit to Toronto for World Youth Day. It is a phenomenon Father Pat O'Dea has witnessed first hand as he looks out at overflowing pews as pastor at the Newman Centre Catholic Mission at the University of Toronto. He has seen attendance at his Sunday masses almost double in two years"
My latest quotes on MARXWORDS show that the hate-filled Friedrich Engels despised both Scandinavians and the Irish.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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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There is a new site up which shows people how much better off they would be with even partial privatization of Social Security. And who benefit most? The poor, of course. No wonder Democrats hate the idea!
Wicked Thoughts has the story behind the recent blogger.com meltdown
Want a laugh? Read this Leftist nutjob's definition of "good" Christians. A few excerpts: "They are the legions of recovering Catholics, people for whom the radiant and positive aspects of this most intense of faiths still hold powerful sway but who just can't abide by the ridiculous and outdated and often homophobic and sexist doctrines hurled forth like so much flaccid manna from the unhappy red-robed automatons of Vatican City. They are the moderate Christians, the ones who do not support illegal wars or the killing of all doctors who perform abortions and who are all for social justice and who think Bush is a bit of an imbecile, and even if they find themselves for some unfortunate reason in support of the Republican cause overall, they still think it's rather abhorrent that the man dares invoke God to support his lie-ridden wars and the smashing down of women's rights and gay rights and abuse of the environment et al..... And these Christians -- let us call them "normal" or perhaps "natural" or even "organic" (i.e.;, devoid of poisons or preservatives or Sanctimonious Growth Hormones) -- they are filling all manner of funky or progressive (or Unitarian) churches across many a large city in America, right now. They are streaming into huge beautiful nonjudgmental buildings all over San Francisco and Chicago and New York and Boston, etc., places that welcome gays and oddballs and spiritual nomads and pantheists and anyone else who might be feeling a divine pull, and please leave your Jesus extremism at the door and let's talk about Sufism".
Poisonous judges: "The judiciary is supposed to be the ultimate protector of our freedoms, the Constitutional creature that guards us against the depredations of Congress and the presidency. Instead, it has become our greatest source of anguish. The other branches of government produce enough on their own. The President often reduces liberals to sputtering outrage and has the same effect on conservatives when the subject of illegal immigration comes up. Congress -- when it's not performing its primary role of inside-the-Beltway comic relief -- often leaves us scowling and mumbling (especially in April which, thanks to them, truly has become the cruelest month). But it falls to the courts, and not just the Supreme Court, to produce the gut-wrenching, feel it in your bones kind of anguish that simmers constantly. We feel powerless about what they do because, for decades, we have been."
Religiousness is genetic too: "A study published in the current issue of Journal of Personality studied adult male monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins to find that difference in religiousness are influenced by both genes and environment. But during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, genetic factors increase in importance while shared environmental factors decrease. Environmental factors (i.e. parenting and family life) influence a child's religiousness, but their effects decline with the transition into adulthood. An analysis of self-reported religiousness showed that MZ twins maintained their religious similarity over time, while the DZ twins became more dissimilar. "These correlations suggest low genetic and high environmental influences when the twins were young but a larger genetic influence as the twins age" the authors state."
Don't hold your breath: "Larry Summers hinted that women on average might not be as qualified as men to be science professors. Paul Krugman wrote that Republicans en masse are categorically not as qualified as everyone else to be professors. Larry Summers was almost universally condemned by academia for his comments, not because they were necessarily wrong, but because it was considered wrong for him to make negative generalizations about an under-represented group. In academia, Republicans are far more under-represented than women are. So if Paul Krugman is not widely condemned by academics it will constitute pretty strong evidence that academia is biased against Republicans."
Canadians rediscovering Christianity: "A Gallup poll late last year showed 37% of Canadians are attending church services at least on a monthly basis. It is a far cry from the old days when churchgoing was the Golden Rule, but it is the highest level seen since the early 1980s. Bibby's own national survey, done with the Vanier Institute, found weekly church attendance had increased to 26% in 2003 from from 21% in 2000.... A recent OMNI-Maclean's poll found 58% of Canadians consider themselves to be religious while 70% claim to be spiritual.... Evangelical churches have seen booming business for years, in part as a spillover from their soaring success in the United States. What is new, the sociologist says, is that his surveys show the decline in weekly attendance at mainline Protestant churches has "bottomed out" while the Anglicans and the United Church of Canada have actually seen an increase in the number of younger people becoming involved. Roman Catholics outside Quebec have also witnessed a similar spike among the young -- especially after the Pope's visit to Toronto for World Youth Day. It is a phenomenon Father Pat O'Dea has witnessed first hand as he looks out at overflowing pews as pastor at the Newman Centre Catholic Mission at the University of Toronto. He has seen attendance at his Sunday masses almost double in two years"
My latest quotes on MARXWORDS show that the hate-filled Friedrich Engels despised both Scandinavians and the Irish.
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 Leftist movers and shakers 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.
Leftist ideologues 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 and can con "the masses" into giving them power.
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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