ELSEWHERE
The London outrage: This is of course the sort of multiple attack that Bin Laden specializes in so there is no doubt of its origin. Hostility to the West is so widespread among Muslims in Britain, however, that catching the culprits and preventing recurrences seems unlikely to be achievable by normal police methods. London already had extensive security measures in place which appear to have achieved nothing. It seems to me that Britain could only make itself safe from more of this sort of thing by exporting all its Muslims to their ancestral homelands. Given the enormous British tradition of restraint and moderation, that won't happen this time but a drastic response such as that will surely happen if such attacks continue.
Another crooked poll. Look at the source: "A vast majority of Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's stance on global warming, a new poll said Tuesday amid reports of a widening rift over climate change between the United States and its partners in the Group of Eight (G8) dominant countries. ''Going into the G8 Summit, nearly all Americans feel that the U.S. should not be a laggard, but should be ready to do as much as most other developed countries to reduce emissions that cause climate change,'' said Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), which surveyed 812 people late last month." The Locker Room has some germane comments too.
Good comment from The Locker Room: "As they say on lucianne.com when a particularly offensive lefty-bias story is posted, "Barf alert!" This latest one is from The Guardian and it reports on a UN "human development report" that finds that rich countries spend 25 times more on their defense budgets than they give away to benighted socialist hell holes in the Third World (that's my characterization, not The Guardian's). First reaction: This is news? You might as well write a story saying that American middle-class families spend 10,000 times more on their kids' educations than they give to burnt-out winos begging at freeway ramps. That "study" would be just as relevant to anything in the real world".
There is a good brief summary here of the issues surrounding the next Supreme Court appointment. It notes that even a thoroughly conservative appointment would not mean a reliable conservative majority.
There has long been a view that the American Indians were unlikely to have been the first human occupants of the Americas. It looks like we now have proof of that. So the American Indians were "invaders" too. I guess that that should upset the simplistic moralizing of the Left a bit.
Bureaucrats determined to get Scrushy: "The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to press its civil fraud case against HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy despite his acquittal on criminal charges of orchestrating a $2.7 billion accounting fraud. The SEC's case, seeking nearly $800 million from Scrushy, has been on hold for two years because it was deemed to be in conflict with the Justice Department's criminal prosecution of HealthSouth, the medical rehabilitation services chain he once led."
I have just had posted on Conservative Philosopher a brief article about the meaning (or lack of it) of the word "liberal". I would be interested in any comments on it. Note that you have to register first to use the comment boxes on that site. Emailing me might be easier for those who do not regularly visit that site.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, July 08, 2005
Thursday, July 07, 2005
AID TO AFRICA?
African economist says aid is poisonous: "The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.... Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid"
Africa already choking on aid: "Rambak threatens to become a bitter example of how development aid doesn't really help. Again and again finance is hurriedly provided for one project after another, without any evidence of a convincing overall concept. The money is just thrown at projects as quickly as possible. In this case, Norway has made $500,000 available for just 500 refugees in the camps. The windfall immediately sparked off further need and a second camp, this time home to 345 people, has sprung up. It is the Italians who are footing the bill for the new camp. Money is, for the Europeans, the solution to all of Africa's problems. But despite yearly payments of, at last count, some $26 billion, the majority of the continent resembles something approaching one big emergency military hospital. Already today there are increasing numbers of Africans who call for an end to this sort of support"
Even the L.A. Times says it: "Africa is filled with good intentions that ended badly. Half-completed hydroelectric dams covered with weeds, empty irrigation pipes decaying in the equatorial sun and roads that literally lead to nowhere dot the continent, testaments to corruption and bad judgment. Despite billions of dollars in aid, Africa has gone backward since the 1970s on every measurable level"
Africa's vast corruption: "The example of Nigeria says it all. Figures released last month by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, as reported in the London Daily Telegraph, reveal that in the 45 years since Britain granted independence in 1960 a succession of despots squandered $387 billion (that's a "b," not an "m"), almost to the dollar the sum of all Western aid to all of Africa between 1960 and 1997. One of the despots, Gen. Sani Abacha, now safely dead, is believed to have looted Nigeria's vast oil reserves of more than $5 billion in just five years. William Bellamy, the U.S. ambassador to neighboring Kenya, startled the guests at his Fourth of July garden party yesterday with just the kind of bluntness needed to keep African aid in realistic perspective. "Turning on the fire hose of international compassion and asking Kenya and other African nations to drink from it is not a serious strategy for promoting growth or ending poverty."
A view from South Africa: "African countries, including South Africa, have refused to give even the vaguest criticism of the almost unimaginably abusive Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, maintaining that the crimes committed by that government are an internal matter. It is difficult to understand why no African leader will speak out and condemn such a clear case of evil, but in remaining silent they give their tacit approval and encouragement of the destruction of peoples' lives and livelihoods. Perhaps African leaders are just so removed from the lives of ordinary Africans that they cannot fathom any individual's need to provide for him or herself, to be self reliant and to take pride in what he or she produces.... So when the G8 countries, encouraged by Geldof and his platitudinous popstar friends, give money to Africa, they are rewarding the very people that cause poverty, destruction and death. If Africa wants to advance, it does not need more money.... They should be removing the harmful laws that give power to brutal policemen and frustrate enterprise and self-reliance. But of course it suits this political elite to get handouts from rich countries as it means they have to do less work to reform themselves and means they don't have to muddy their shoes by being concerned with the little people"
Australia thinks handouts are no answer: "Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has strongly defended Australia's foreign aid contributions, amid opposition claims the nation is not doing enough to eliminate global poverty..... Mr Downer said setting financial targets alone would not solve the problem of global poverty. "We think that the central issue here is targeting the quality of governance in countries and the quality of public administration, because that is why these countries are poor," he told ABC radio. "It's not the volume of aid, it's the quality of government on the ground which is the issue. "If governance is bad, if corruption is high, then issues like the volume of aid or debt relief ... they're just going to be meaningless."
************************************
African economist says aid is poisonous: "The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.... Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid"
Africa already choking on aid: "Rambak threatens to become a bitter example of how development aid doesn't really help. Again and again finance is hurriedly provided for one project after another, without any evidence of a convincing overall concept. The money is just thrown at projects as quickly as possible. In this case, Norway has made $500,000 available for just 500 refugees in the camps. The windfall immediately sparked off further need and a second camp, this time home to 345 people, has sprung up. It is the Italians who are footing the bill for the new camp. Money is, for the Europeans, the solution to all of Africa's problems. But despite yearly payments of, at last count, some $26 billion, the majority of the continent resembles something approaching one big emergency military hospital. Already today there are increasing numbers of Africans who call for an end to this sort of support"
Even the L.A. Times says it: "Africa is filled with good intentions that ended badly. Half-completed hydroelectric dams covered with weeds, empty irrigation pipes decaying in the equatorial sun and roads that literally lead to nowhere dot the continent, testaments to corruption and bad judgment. Despite billions of dollars in aid, Africa has gone backward since the 1970s on every measurable level"
Africa's vast corruption: "The example of Nigeria says it all. Figures released last month by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, as reported in the London Daily Telegraph, reveal that in the 45 years since Britain granted independence in 1960 a succession of despots squandered $387 billion (that's a "b," not an "m"), almost to the dollar the sum of all Western aid to all of Africa between 1960 and 1997. One of the despots, Gen. Sani Abacha, now safely dead, is believed to have looted Nigeria's vast oil reserves of more than $5 billion in just five years. William Bellamy, the U.S. ambassador to neighboring Kenya, startled the guests at his Fourth of July garden party yesterday with just the kind of bluntness needed to keep African aid in realistic perspective. "Turning on the fire hose of international compassion and asking Kenya and other African nations to drink from it is not a serious strategy for promoting growth or ending poverty."
A view from South Africa: "African countries, including South Africa, have refused to give even the vaguest criticism of the almost unimaginably abusive Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, maintaining that the crimes committed by that government are an internal matter. It is difficult to understand why no African leader will speak out and condemn such a clear case of evil, but in remaining silent they give their tacit approval and encouragement of the destruction of peoples' lives and livelihoods. Perhaps African leaders are just so removed from the lives of ordinary Africans that they cannot fathom any individual's need to provide for him or herself, to be self reliant and to take pride in what he or she produces.... So when the G8 countries, encouraged by Geldof and his platitudinous popstar friends, give money to Africa, they are rewarding the very people that cause poverty, destruction and death. If Africa wants to advance, it does not need more money.... They should be removing the harmful laws that give power to brutal policemen and frustrate enterprise and self-reliance. But of course it suits this political elite to get handouts from rich countries as it means they have to do less work to reform themselves and means they don't have to muddy their shoes by being concerned with the little people"
Australia thinks handouts are no answer: "Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has strongly defended Australia's foreign aid contributions, amid opposition claims the nation is not doing enough to eliminate global poverty..... Mr Downer said setting financial targets alone would not solve the problem of global poverty. "We think that the central issue here is targeting the quality of governance in countries and the quality of public administration, because that is why these countries are poor," he told ABC radio. "It's not the volume of aid, it's the quality of government on the ground which is the issue. "If governance is bad, if corruption is high, then issues like the volume of aid or debt relief ... they're just going to be meaningless."
************************************
ELSEWHERE
Phenomenal!: "Japan's lower house of parliament has narrowly approved plans to privatise the country's huge postal system. The move is set to create the world's largest bank, as Japan Post controls 350 trillion yen ($3.2 trillion) in savings and insurance funds. The 233-228 vote was a victory for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who had pledged to push the reforms through before leaving office in 2006. But it was a tight call, with members of his own party voting against him. Under the proposed reforms, Japan Post would be split into four entities in 2007 in the hope of stimulating competition. Its savings and insurance arms would have to be sold by 2017. Advocates of the reforms claim that privatisation will make more efficient use of the service's huge funds for investment. But the country's 300,000 postal employees - a powerful lobbying group who are also instrumental in mobilising rural voters - opposed the bill, fearing for their jobs."
The Iranian election: Most Westerners seem to have accepted the recent election as in some sense legitimate and as representing the will of the Iranian people. That is incredibly naive. The election was thoroughly rigged. Some of the overlooked factors: "Most of the Iranian people rejected the elections and even stayed home in order to avoid being forced to go to the polls; The minimum age requirement to vote was reduced from sixteen to fourteen; The use of food coupons and admission in high school, college and university examinations required a seal on one's birth certificate indicating that the person had participated in the elections; Threatening hospitalized patients that if they did not vote, they would not receive their medications and other services; Threatening government employees that if they did not vote, they would lose their jobs; Increasing the hours of voting during the last minutes of the election day and transporting regime agents by bus from one polling place to others in order to increase the number of votes; Printing more than three million birth certificates with fake names and announcing that birth certificates without pictures would also be accepted as well as passports; Cheating in counting of votes which caused different voting results being announced by the Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry".
In case you have not seen it, there is a 2002 report here from country music star Charlie Daniels about what he saw when he visited Guantanamo Bay to entertain the troops. One thing I had not realized is that the Red Cross have people there watching everything.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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.
********************************
Phenomenal!: "Japan's lower house of parliament has narrowly approved plans to privatise the country's huge postal system. The move is set to create the world's largest bank, as Japan Post controls 350 trillion yen ($3.2 trillion) in savings and insurance funds. The 233-228 vote was a victory for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who had pledged to push the reforms through before leaving office in 2006. But it was a tight call, with members of his own party voting against him. Under the proposed reforms, Japan Post would be split into four entities in 2007 in the hope of stimulating competition. Its savings and insurance arms would have to be sold by 2017. Advocates of the reforms claim that privatisation will make more efficient use of the service's huge funds for investment. But the country's 300,000 postal employees - a powerful lobbying group who are also instrumental in mobilising rural voters - opposed the bill, fearing for their jobs."
The Iranian election: Most Westerners seem to have accepted the recent election as in some sense legitimate and as representing the will of the Iranian people. That is incredibly naive. The election was thoroughly rigged. Some of the overlooked factors: "Most of the Iranian people rejected the elections and even stayed home in order to avoid being forced to go to the polls; The minimum age requirement to vote was reduced from sixteen to fourteen; The use of food coupons and admission in high school, college and university examinations required a seal on one's birth certificate indicating that the person had participated in the elections; Threatening hospitalized patients that if they did not vote, they would not receive their medications and other services; Threatening government employees that if they did not vote, they would lose their jobs; Increasing the hours of voting during the last minutes of the election day and transporting regime agents by bus from one polling place to others in order to increase the number of votes; Printing more than three million birth certificates with fake names and announcing that birth certificates without pictures would also be accepted as well as passports; Cheating in counting of votes which caused different voting results being announced by the Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry".
In case you have not seen it, there is a 2002 report here from country music star Charlie Daniels about what he saw when he visited Guantanamo Bay to entertain the troops. One thing I had not realized is that the Red Cross have people there watching everything.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, July 06, 2005
INTRODUCING THE ICJS
"ICJS Research formed to express the concerns of Australian citizens about a broad range of issues such as terrorism, appeasement, tolerance, war and justice in society. We note that these issues are not debated in the media, and where they are dealt with it is often done in an imbalanced manner. We struggle to redress imbalance in the media. ICJS Research has focused on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's recurring patterns of imbalance in many areas, such as the Iraq War, Middle East affairs, Green issues. ABC reporters and programming heads consistently make incorrect judgements on what is relevant to report in the Middle East".
Below are some of the more popular articles available on their site:
"T" is for Freedom fighter
Speech made at Columbia Uni by Brigitte Gabriel
Muslims join Jews to celebrate Passover
Daniel Scot's (in)credible testimony
Rabbi Groner
PA Corruption
ABA unwilling to confront imbalance
Faith in the path of the Tsunami
The question is: Can the ABC control its troops?
Secretary General's political capital
DiCaprio devastated by Tsunami
Pipes criticises Middle East leaders
Aunty won't be pleased!
*****************************
"ICJS Research formed to express the concerns of Australian citizens about a broad range of issues such as terrorism, appeasement, tolerance, war and justice in society. We note that these issues are not debated in the media, and where they are dealt with it is often done in an imbalanced manner. We struggle to redress imbalance in the media. ICJS Research has focused on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's recurring patterns of imbalance in many areas, such as the Iraq War, Middle East affairs, Green issues. ABC reporters and programming heads consistently make incorrect judgements on what is relevant to report in the Middle East".
Below are some of the more popular articles available on their site:
"T" is for Freedom fighter
Speech made at Columbia Uni by Brigitte Gabriel
Muslims join Jews to celebrate Passover
Daniel Scot's (in)credible testimony
Rabbi Groner
PA Corruption
ABA unwilling to confront imbalance
Faith in the path of the Tsunami
The question is: Can the ABC control its troops?
Secretary General's political capital
DiCaprio devastated by Tsunami
Pipes criticises Middle East leaders
Aunty won't be pleased!
*****************************
ELSEWHERE
How to piss on the Fourth of July . From a well-known anti-American rag: "There is an unwelcome comfort with the inequitable distribution of freedom even in our own country. There is a poisonous tolerance for the idea that freedom encompasses only the right to say positive things about America and its mission in the world". [Yech! HT Keith Burgess Jackson. That the NYT editorialist can freely say such poisonous things disproves what he says!]
British TV has just broadcast an interview with GWB in which they were absolutely determined to wrong-foot him. They failed. He gave some excellent blunt answers, particularly at the beginning. Worth a read.
Americans already donate hugely: "Private American citizens donated almost 15 times more to the developing world than their European counterparts, research reveals this weekend ahead of the G8 summit. Private US donors also handed over far more aid than the federal government in Washington, revealing that America is much more generous to Africa and poor countries than is claimed by the Make Poverty History and Live 8 campaigns. Church collections, philanthropists and company-giving amounted to $22bn a year, according to a study by the Hudson Institute think-tank, easily more than the $16.3bn in overseas development sent by the US government".
The latest Doonesbury cartoon has inspired Iraq Now to make some pointed comments on attempted put-downs of bloggers by journalists and others. Since an awful lot of journalists are now bloggers as well, such attempts are pretty amusing anyway. And, as "Iraq Now" points out, bloggers are often a lot more expert than journalists. I for instance blog a lot on political psychology and I have more academic expertise in that subject than any journalist I have ever heard of.
La Shawn Barber reports: "I told him the liberal media propped up [Sharpton, Jackson etc.] because it's easier to get quotes and sound bites from so-called black leaders speaking for a group than it is to actually deal with blacks as individuals. In response, the caller said as a person of African descent, he appreciates what Jackson and Sharpton do. I interrupted him (rude, I know) and said as someone also of African descent, I did not, and I resented the white media's perception that they represent me and my interests. I asked: Are we sheep? Why don't other racial groups have leaders? Why only blacks? Are we children who can't think for ourselves and be responsible for our own lives? I don't think he answered me
EU stupidity: "Patients' lives are being put at risk because thousands of doctors working in the UK may not have sufficient English language skills, doctors warn. All medics from outside Europe are tested by the General Medical Council before being allowed to work, but those from within Europe are exempted. The British Medical Association is seeking legal opinion on whether the EU labour law ruling can be overturned".
The party of defeat: "Col. Charles Beckwith, founder of the Delta Force, tells a story about White House planning in April 1980 for the mission to rescue our 53 hostages in Tehran. Beckwith had visited the White House Situation Room to brief President Carter. In the meeting, according to one writer, "Charlie mentioned that his Delta shooters would 'take out' the hostage guards. "Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher looked over at Charlie, eyebrows raised. 'Take them out,' Colonel?" Beckwith replied: "Yes, Mister Deputy Secretary. We're going to double-tap 'em. Shoot 'em each in the head - twice." Christopher protested: "Couldn't you just shoot them in the shoulder or something?" And liberals wonder why conservatives consider them weak. ... Karl Rove was 100 percent accurate with his June 22 comments: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9-11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9-11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Liberals are livid, mainly because, secretly, they know Rove has them nailed.... Democrats forbid America to fight. For 70 years, they refused to take communism seriously. Now, they refuse to take terrorism seriously."
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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.
********************************
How to piss on the Fourth of July . From a well-known anti-American rag: "There is an unwelcome comfort with the inequitable distribution of freedom even in our own country. There is a poisonous tolerance for the idea that freedom encompasses only the right to say positive things about America and its mission in the world". [Yech! HT Keith Burgess Jackson. That the NYT editorialist can freely say such poisonous things disproves what he says!]
British TV has just broadcast an interview with GWB in which they were absolutely determined to wrong-foot him. They failed. He gave some excellent blunt answers, particularly at the beginning. Worth a read.
Americans already donate hugely: "Private American citizens donated almost 15 times more to the developing world than their European counterparts, research reveals this weekend ahead of the G8 summit. Private US donors also handed over far more aid than the federal government in Washington, revealing that America is much more generous to Africa and poor countries than is claimed by the Make Poverty History and Live 8 campaigns. Church collections, philanthropists and company-giving amounted to $22bn a year, according to a study by the Hudson Institute think-tank, easily more than the $16.3bn in overseas development sent by the US government".
The latest Doonesbury cartoon has inspired Iraq Now to make some pointed comments on attempted put-downs of bloggers by journalists and others. Since an awful lot of journalists are now bloggers as well, such attempts are pretty amusing anyway. And, as "Iraq Now" points out, bloggers are often a lot more expert than journalists. I for instance blog a lot on political psychology and I have more academic expertise in that subject than any journalist I have ever heard of.
La Shawn Barber reports: "I told him the liberal media propped up [Sharpton, Jackson etc.] because it's easier to get quotes and sound bites from so-called black leaders speaking for a group than it is to actually deal with blacks as individuals. In response, the caller said as a person of African descent, he appreciates what Jackson and Sharpton do. I interrupted him (rude, I know) and said as someone also of African descent, I did not, and I resented the white media's perception that they represent me and my interests. I asked: Are we sheep? Why don't other racial groups have leaders? Why only blacks? Are we children who can't think for ourselves and be responsible for our own lives? I don't think he answered me
EU stupidity: "Patients' lives are being put at risk because thousands of doctors working in the UK may not have sufficient English language skills, doctors warn. All medics from outside Europe are tested by the General Medical Council before being allowed to work, but those from within Europe are exempted. The British Medical Association is seeking legal opinion on whether the EU labour law ruling can be overturned".
The party of defeat: "Col. Charles Beckwith, founder of the Delta Force, tells a story about White House planning in April 1980 for the mission to rescue our 53 hostages in Tehran. Beckwith had visited the White House Situation Room to brief President Carter. In the meeting, according to one writer, "Charlie mentioned that his Delta shooters would 'take out' the hostage guards. "Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher looked over at Charlie, eyebrows raised. 'Take them out,' Colonel?" Beckwith replied: "Yes, Mister Deputy Secretary. We're going to double-tap 'em. Shoot 'em each in the head - twice." Christopher protested: "Couldn't you just shoot them in the shoulder or something?" And liberals wonder why conservatives consider them weak. ... Karl Rove was 100 percent accurate with his June 22 comments: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9-11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9-11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Liberals are livid, mainly because, secretly, they know Rove has them nailed.... Democrats forbid America to fight. For 70 years, they refused to take communism seriously. Now, they refuse to take terrorism seriously."
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, July 05, 2005
TUESDAY ROUNDUP
Once again I list what I think were the best posts on my various blogs in the preceding week.
On Dissecting Leftism I look at Leftism as motivated by a primitive longing for the hunter-gatherer tribe
On Political Correctness Watch I look at the naughty Mexican stamps with a Mexican "Sambo" on them.
On Greenie Watch I note that European governments are giving up on energy-use targets
On Education Watch I note that private schooling works best -- even in Africa
On Socialized Medicine I report that British public hospitals are seen as "war zone" by some of their staff
On Gun Watch I tell of a Trinidad granny defeating a gunman by sitting on him
On Leftists as Elitists I note that H.G. Wells was a very nasty Leftist elitist
On Majority Rights I discuss Booms and Busts and how to do well in real estate
On Blogger News I respond derisively to feminist claims about female friendships
*******************************
Once again I list what I think were the best posts on my various blogs in the preceding week.
On Dissecting Leftism I look at Leftism as motivated by a primitive longing for the hunter-gatherer tribe
On Political Correctness Watch I look at the naughty Mexican stamps with a Mexican "Sambo" on them.
On Greenie Watch I note that European governments are giving up on energy-use targets
On Education Watch I note that private schooling works best -- even in Africa
On Socialized Medicine I report that British public hospitals are seen as "war zone" by some of their staff
On Gun Watch I tell of a Trinidad granny defeating a gunman by sitting on him
On Leftists as Elitists I note that H.G. Wells was a very nasty Leftist elitist
On Majority Rights I discuss Booms and Busts and how to do well in real estate
On Blogger News I respond derisively to feminist claims about female friendships
*******************************
ELSEWHERE
I have known for years that psychologists are not really interested in the evidence for or against their theories and in recent years I have had to add most climate scientists to the league of the evidence ignorers. But yesterday's collision with comet Tempel 1 finally forces me to add astrophysicists to that list. In astronomical circles the description of comets as "dirty snowballs" is as regular as "global warming" talk is among research-grant-seeking climate scientists. So what happened to the dirty snowball when NASA flung a lump of metal at it? Did the lump sail right through the snowball without missing a beat? Far from it! It crashed into a big lump of rock, not a snowball. Rebel scientists have been producing evidence for years (e.g. here) proving that comets are electrically charged lumps of rock but the evidence keeps getting ignored. In the latest commentary, the orthodox crowd say of the blast triggered by the Tempel 1 impact that "Geez, and we thought it was going to be subtle... How a washing-machine sized impactor could produce such a large disturbance is going to take some explanation". It sure is -- for them. But they are STILL calling it a dirty snowball! I give up! Science and Voodoo have a lot in common. They both have fixed beliefs that are almost impossible to change.
Great news: "American troops on the Syrian border are enjoying a battle they have long waited to see - a clash between foreign al-Qa'eda fighters and Iraqi insurgents. Tribal leaders in Husaybah are attacking followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who established the town as an entry point for al-Qa'eda jihadists being smuggled into the country. The reason, the US military believes, is frustration at the heavy-handed approach of the foreigners, who have kidnapped and assassinated local leaders and imposed a strict Islamic code. Shops selling music and satellite dishes had been closed. Women were ordered to wear all-enveloping clothing and men forbidden from wearing western clothes. Anyone considered to be aiding coalition forces was being killed or kidnapped. That included those with links to the government - seen as a US puppet - such as water or electricity officials. As a result local services had collapsed."
LOL: "Bush should nominate Ann Coulter [to SCOTUS]. She is constitutional scholar with a J.D. from a respectable law school. That's more than most of our Justices have had, historically. I'm serious. Either they confirm her, or they raise hell. Assuming they raise hell enough to block the nomination, anyone else Bush puts up as a replacement looks moderate by comparison. Then, he can name someone in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, and the opposition will have to give in, since the replacement will be soooooo much better than Ann Coulter. Heh".
Good post on poverty from Samizdata: "Next time you see a starving African child on the television, remember the culpability of Make Poverty History. MPH's will cause more poverty and more deaths than would otherwise have occurred. Socialism is killing the third world and Make Poverty History is going to make it worse. In a report by the Globalization Institute called More Aid, Less Growth, we learn that "for every 1% increase in aid received by a developing country, there is a 3.65% drop in real GDP growth per person. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in the aid industry, the study finds that even where recipients have good governance, the effect is also negative." So there you have it. The increase in aid prompted by Make Poverty History is going make things worse, not better."
More media fakery in Israel: "A young Palestinian boy lynched by Jewish rock-throwers is in mortal condition." So repeated public Israeli news reports late last week - while in fact, the entire affair was staged by reporters.... Israeli television stations showed footage of an Arab lying on the ground and then two Jewish boys running towards him and throwing rocks at him. "That's not the story!" said A.D. "I saw this same Arab get hit in the head with a rock - and yet he continued to throw rocks, like a tiger, for the next 15 minutes! And then I saw some reporters go over to him and tell him to lie down and act as if he was unconscious. Later on, he was taken out walking on his own, holding on to a soldier; all this talk of his being mortally wounded is total nonsense."
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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.
********************************
I have known for years that psychologists are not really interested in the evidence for or against their theories and in recent years I have had to add most climate scientists to the league of the evidence ignorers. But yesterday's collision with comet Tempel 1 finally forces me to add astrophysicists to that list. In astronomical circles the description of comets as "dirty snowballs" is as regular as "global warming" talk is among research-grant-seeking climate scientists. So what happened to the dirty snowball when NASA flung a lump of metal at it? Did the lump sail right through the snowball without missing a beat? Far from it! It crashed into a big lump of rock, not a snowball. Rebel scientists have been producing evidence for years (e.g. here) proving that comets are electrically charged lumps of rock but the evidence keeps getting ignored. In the latest commentary, the orthodox crowd say of the blast triggered by the Tempel 1 impact that "Geez, and we thought it was going to be subtle... How a washing-machine sized impactor could produce such a large disturbance is going to take some explanation". It sure is -- for them. But they are STILL calling it a dirty snowball! I give up! Science and Voodoo have a lot in common. They both have fixed beliefs that are almost impossible to change.
Great news: "American troops on the Syrian border are enjoying a battle they have long waited to see - a clash between foreign al-Qa'eda fighters and Iraqi insurgents. Tribal leaders in Husaybah are attacking followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who established the town as an entry point for al-Qa'eda jihadists being smuggled into the country. The reason, the US military believes, is frustration at the heavy-handed approach of the foreigners, who have kidnapped and assassinated local leaders and imposed a strict Islamic code. Shops selling music and satellite dishes had been closed. Women were ordered to wear all-enveloping clothing and men forbidden from wearing western clothes. Anyone considered to be aiding coalition forces was being killed or kidnapped. That included those with links to the government - seen as a US puppet - such as water or electricity officials. As a result local services had collapsed."
LOL: "Bush should nominate Ann Coulter [to SCOTUS]. She is constitutional scholar with a J.D. from a respectable law school. That's more than most of our Justices have had, historically. I'm serious. Either they confirm her, or they raise hell. Assuming they raise hell enough to block the nomination, anyone else Bush puts up as a replacement looks moderate by comparison. Then, he can name someone in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, and the opposition will have to give in, since the replacement will be soooooo much better than Ann Coulter. Heh".
Good post on poverty from Samizdata: "Next time you see a starving African child on the television, remember the culpability of Make Poverty History. MPH's will cause more poverty and more deaths than would otherwise have occurred. Socialism is killing the third world and Make Poverty History is going to make it worse. In a report by the Globalization Institute called More Aid, Less Growth, we learn that "for every 1% increase in aid received by a developing country, there is a 3.65% drop in real GDP growth per person. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in the aid industry, the study finds that even where recipients have good governance, the effect is also negative." So there you have it. The increase in aid prompted by Make Poverty History is going make things worse, not better."
More media fakery in Israel: "A young Palestinian boy lynched by Jewish rock-throwers is in mortal condition." So repeated public Israeli news reports late last week - while in fact, the entire affair was staged by reporters.... Israeli television stations showed footage of an Arab lying on the ground and then two Jewish boys running towards him and throwing rocks at him. "That's not the story!" said A.D. "I saw this same Arab get hit in the head with a rock - and yet he continued to throw rocks, like a tiger, for the next 15 minutes! And then I saw some reporters go over to him and tell him to lie down and act as if he was unconscious. Later on, he was taken out walking on his own, holding on to a soldier; all this talk of his being mortally wounded is total nonsense."
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, July 04, 2005
THE PEOPLE'S ROMANCE (TPR)
There is an interesting article by Daniel Klein here (PDF) that gives Leftism a somewhat more creditable motivation than I am usually inclined to give it. Klein argues that because of our evolutionary past, people long to be part of one big group or "community". They in fact like to feel that everyone around them is on their side in some sense. It is a sort of genetic memory of the hunter-gatherer tribe supporting one-another against the elements. So people in whom that need is strong try to convert the whole of their country into one big brotherly tribe. To me as an instinctive individualist, it all seems rather pathetic and I have myself never knowingly felt that way. Being on good terms with just a few like-minded individuals is plenty for me. Nonetheless it is easy to see how such feelings must have evolved and I suppose the wonder is that such feelings are not strong among us all. So the idea is that Leftists are really trying to satisfy their primitive yearning for unity at the expense of all those who want no part of any such social straitjacket. It certainly helps explain the straitjacket societies developed under Hitler's national socialism and Stalin's "socialism in one country". An excerpt from the article:
***************************
There is an interesting article by Daniel Klein here (PDF) that gives Leftism a somewhat more creditable motivation than I am usually inclined to give it. Klein argues that because of our evolutionary past, people long to be part of one big group or "community". They in fact like to feel that everyone around them is on their side in some sense. It is a sort of genetic memory of the hunter-gatherer tribe supporting one-another against the elements. So people in whom that need is strong try to convert the whole of their country into one big brotherly tribe. To me as an instinctive individualist, it all seems rather pathetic and I have myself never knowingly felt that way. Being on good terms with just a few like-minded individuals is plenty for me. Nonetheless it is easy to see how such feelings must have evolved and I suppose the wonder is that such feelings are not strong among us all. So the idea is that Leftists are really trying to satisfy their primitive yearning for unity at the expense of all those who want no part of any such social straitjacket. It certainly helps explain the straitjacket societies developed under Hitler's national socialism and Stalin's "socialism in one country". An excerpt from the article:
Many people, particularly ones who in the American context would tend to vote Democrat or Green, are inclined to support economic restrictions such union privileges, occupational licensing, the minimum wage, housing market-controls, the postal monopoly, and import restrictions. Yet knowledgeable economists agree that these restrictions are bad for humankind.
Perhaps their support arises because TPR requires, as Bukharin and Preobrazhensky put it, that activities be statified. [not stratified] What seems primary is not often how well the program or policy achieves stated goals of improving education, mobility, opportunity, and so on but instead the collective endeavor itself.
Why do people who claim to be concerned for the poor so often support or go along with policies that are obviously and predictably bad for society and especially the poor? Why do they support government schooling, antidevelopment land-use policies, rail transit projects, and policies to discourage the use of the private automobile? TPR provides an explanation: these policies bind people together (like a bundle of sticks).
Many populists, right and left, oppose free trade, alleging that it will hurt low-skilled workers. Even if that claim were true, however, why do they leave out of their consideration low-skilled Chinese or Brazilians? Answer: TPR is about we Americans. "The People" excludes "the other people." TPR helps explain why "distributive justice" reaches only to the border. If you scratch an egalitarian you'll often find TPR.
I suspect that a large part of the impetus behind the welfare state is the yearning for a collective enterprise: "We" taking care of "Ourselves." In this theater, some have to be cast as the needy, helpless, disadvantaged, inferior, and so on. I suspect that one reason coercive egalitarians feel that "the disadvantaged" deserve government support is that the scheme demeans and exploits them, so that the assistance is a sort of compensation.
Why are people uneasy about globalization? The communitarian Alasdair MacIntyre rightly says: "Patriotism cannot be what it was because we lack in the fullest sense a patria. . . . In any society where government does not express or represent the moral community of the citizens . . . the nature of political obligation becomes systematically unclear (1984, 254). Globalization blurs the "we," dissolves political obligation, and deflates TPR.
Why are government officials and enthusiasts often hostile to leading corporations like Microsoft, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and Martha Stewart? Why are they often hostile to other bases for independent private cultural power such as private builders, private schools, and talk radio? Part of the answer may be that they are jealous in guarding their role as medium and focal point in TPR. Why are they hostile to placeless "suburban sprawl," private communities, private shopping malls, the private automobile (especially big ones), gun ownership and toting, and home schooling? Because these practices are means of withdrawing from TPR and creating an autonomous circle of authority, power, and experience.
***************************
ELSEWHERE
It is the 4th of July in Australia as I post this so apologies if this note seems a bit premature. But, as always, Ronald Reagan said it best. There is nothing I can say that would improve on his tribute.
There is a wonderful story here about Ann-Margret and her support for U.S. troops in Vietnam -- quite the opposite of the despicable Jane Fonda. A must-read.
And see if you can read about Lt. Brian Chontosh USMC without a tear in your eye. America still produces real warriors.
Something nasty is happening to the Google listing of Steve Milloy's "Junk Science" site. See here. It looks at first like an ordinary Googlebomb but Steve's site does not come up among the top listings at all. The googlebombers must have linked heaps of sites as well as their main spoof site. Oddly enough, when I Google directly from Australia, Steve's site comes up first -- as it should. The above link uses an anonymizer so Google cannot tell where the query is coming from. That makes it look a bit as if Google themselves are involved in the prank. Anybody reading this who has a site should immediately link to Steve to help him out. Just reproducing this post would do the trick.
Amazing article here. A prominent American "liberal" journalist (Daniel Lazare of "The Nation") was asked: "Do you feel some sympathy for the so-called insurgents in Fallujah?" His reply: "Oh, absolutely yes, total sympathy, total solidarity." Next question to him: "So you're sticking with this comparison of the United States to Nazi Germany?". His reply: "I believe it. I believe it entirely". So how can anyone deny that the American Left is not only anti-American but also pro-Jihadi?
The disgusting Durbin not off the hook: "More than two weeks after citing Nazis and other brutal regimes in criticizing U.S. tactics at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) remains under fire from critics who claim the lawmaker's subsequent apology was insufficient. Move America Forward, a group affiliated with the conservative political public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers, is planning a national ad campaign that scolds Durbin for his June 14 statements and what the organization refers to as his "non-apology.".... Durbin's Senate floor remarks addressed the details of an FBI agent's e-mail describing heavy-handed interrogation tactics at Guantanamo. Among other things, the e-mail described detainees being chained to the floor in severe temperatures and denied food or water for excessive periods. "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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.
********************************
It is the 4th of July in Australia as I post this so apologies if this note seems a bit premature. But, as always, Ronald Reagan said it best. There is nothing I can say that would improve on his tribute.
There is a wonderful story here about Ann-Margret and her support for U.S. troops in Vietnam -- quite the opposite of the despicable Jane Fonda. A must-read.
And see if you can read about Lt. Brian Chontosh USMC without a tear in your eye. America still produces real warriors.
Something nasty is happening to the Google listing of Steve Milloy's "Junk Science" site. See here. It looks at first like an ordinary Googlebomb but Steve's site does not come up among the top listings at all. The googlebombers must have linked heaps of sites as well as their main spoof site. Oddly enough, when I Google directly from Australia, Steve's site comes up first -- as it should. The above link uses an anonymizer so Google cannot tell where the query is coming from. That makes it look a bit as if Google themselves are involved in the prank. Anybody reading this who has a site should immediately link to Steve to help him out. Just reproducing this post would do the trick.
Amazing article here. A prominent American "liberal" journalist (Daniel Lazare of "The Nation") was asked: "Do you feel some sympathy for the so-called insurgents in Fallujah?" His reply: "Oh, absolutely yes, total sympathy, total solidarity." Next question to him: "So you're sticking with this comparison of the United States to Nazi Germany?". His reply: "I believe it. I believe it entirely". So how can anyone deny that the American Left is not only anti-American but also pro-Jihadi?
The disgusting Durbin not off the hook: "More than two weeks after citing Nazis and other brutal regimes in criticizing U.S. tactics at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) remains under fire from critics who claim the lawmaker's subsequent apology was insufficient. Move America Forward, a group affiliated with the conservative political public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers, is planning a national ad campaign that scolds Durbin for his June 14 statements and what the organization refers to as his "non-apology.".... Durbin's Senate floor remarks addressed the details of an FBI agent's e-mail describing heavy-handed interrogation tactics at Guantanamo. Among other things, the e-mail described detainees being chained to the floor in severe temperatures and denied food or water for excessive periods. "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, July 03, 2005
BARRACKING FOR OBAMA
Although he has no slave ancestry (unlike Condoleeza Rice), Barack Obama seems to be the great black hope of the Democrats
The puffed-up Obama: "This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles." Oh. So that's what Lincoln's for. Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery. Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency."
Obama's stale New Deal: "Barack Obama's rousing oration at the August 2004 Democratic convention established America's favorite son of a goatherd as the shining hope of his desperate party. After humiliating the hapless Alan Keyes in November, he took his seat in Washington as the junior Senator from Illinois and set himself immediately to the thankless service of the workingman. On June 4, Obama appeared in Galesburg to deliver a commencement address at Knox College that has liberal scribes writing love poems and doodling hearts inscribed 'Obama 2008.' ... Jared Bernstein of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute quotes Obama, and asks, 'Did someone just open the window? Where's that breeze coming from?' A quick whiff suggests that it is coming from 1935 or thereabouts, which approximates the 'sell-by' date of Obama's vintage insights."
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
Stupid generalizations about America: "In fact while today’s armchair critics in Europe see America as a bloodthirsty warrior, its enemies have always seen precisely the opposite. Hitler thought Americans’ Aryan purity had been fatally weakened by immigration and ethnic diversity. The Russians thought years of capitalist decadence had sapped its resolve. Whatever else bin Laden and Saddam Hussein may or may not have had in common, they both believed Americans were essentially soft, would not have the stomach for a fight once engaged. Hit them hard and they may lash out at first, but they will bend and retreat at the first sign of a serious struggle — as they did in Beirut and Mogadishu".
The real abuse at Gitmo: "After speaking with soldiers, sailors, and civilians who collectively staff the Joint Task Force - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on my recent visit to that base, I left convinced that abuse definitely exists at the detention facilities. But not the slander and hyperbole about alleged mistreatment of the unlawful combatants confined there that we've all heard. There is far more serious abuse: the relentless, merciless attacks on American servicemen and women by these same terrorist thugs. Many of the orange jumpsuit-clad detainees fight their captors at every opportunity. They attack guards whenever the soldiers enter their cells, trying to reach up under protective face masks to gouge eyes and tear mouths. They make weapons and try to stab the guards or grab and break limbs as the guards pass them food."
America's perverse "public" media: "The Soviet Union had no free press, privately owned, politically independent, competing publications dealing with ideas and whatever else readers would find of interest. The old USSR had Pravda and other state run newspapers and broadcast outlets. This kind of media exists in other parts of the world but the United States of America was to be a haven for a completely free press. Sadly, even there broadcast media fell into the hands of government .... Still, even with this intrusiveness, radio and TV do not get funded by monies extorted via taxation. There is still a pretty good semblance of competition on the airwaves, especially with the arrival a few decades ago of cable TV and the Internet. One thing is, however, way over the top in American media affairs. This is the prominence of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service."
Homosexuals in the Islamic world: "This weekend's Gay Pride festivities in New York City climaxed with Sunday's 36th annual parade down Fifth Avenue. As usual, the raucous affair thrilled some and rattled others, but everyone walked away intact. One would have to fantasize about such an occasion, however, in most Muslim nations where homosexuality remains as concealed as a bride beneath a burqa. When it peeks through, it isn't pretty. While many liberals (and President G.W. Bush) call Islam a religion of peace, 'celebrating diversity' is hardly on its agenda."
Compulsory time-wasting for tenants with children: "Six newspapers in New Hampshire have agreed to stop running real estate ads that suggest children aren't welcome at the properties following complaints that the ads violated federal law. Several dozens landlords and real estate agents also agreed to stop placing ads targeting adult tenants and to submit future ads to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developmentfor review. Federal law prohibits landlords from discriminating against children. The ads included promotions like 'one mature person,' 'quiet adult location' and 'great for a single person.' They are discriminatory because they make it harder for families to rent out the locations, said Christine Lavallee of New Hampshire Legal Assistance." [All it will do is make it harder for families with children to find out that they will not be accepted]
Racial disadvantage fostered by Democrat "welfare" : "If you listened to the rhetoric of black politicians and civil rights leaders, dating back to the Reagan years, you would have been convinced that surely by now black Americans would be back on the plantation. According to them, President Reagan and later Presidents Bush I and II would turn back the clock on civil rights. They'd appoint "new racists" in three-piece suits to act through the courts and administrative agencies to reverse black civil rights and economic gains. We can now recognize this rhetoric as the political equivalent of the "rope-a-dope.".... The strategy liberal Democrats have chosen, to prevent loss of the black vote, is to keep blacks paranoid and in a constant state of fear.... Only 30 percent to 40 percent of black males graduate from high school. Many who do graduate emerge with reading and math skills of a white seventh- or eighth- grader. This is true in cities where a black is mayor, a black is superintendent of schools and the majority of principals and teachers are black... In 1960, only 28 percent of black females between the ages of 15 and 44 were never married. Today, it's 56 percent. In 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks was 19 percent, in 1960, 22 percent, and today, it's 70 percent".
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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.
********************************
Although he has no slave ancestry (unlike Condoleeza Rice), Barack Obama seems to be the great black hope of the Democrats
The puffed-up Obama: "This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles." Oh. So that's what Lincoln's for. Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery. Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency."
Obama's stale New Deal: "Barack Obama's rousing oration at the August 2004 Democratic convention established America's favorite son of a goatherd as the shining hope of his desperate party. After humiliating the hapless Alan Keyes in November, he took his seat in Washington as the junior Senator from Illinois and set himself immediately to the thankless service of the workingman. On June 4, Obama appeared in Galesburg to deliver a commencement address at Knox College that has liberal scribes writing love poems and doodling hearts inscribed 'Obama 2008.' ... Jared Bernstein of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute quotes Obama, and asks, 'Did someone just open the window? Where's that breeze coming from?' A quick whiff suggests that it is coming from 1935 or thereabouts, which approximates the 'sell-by' date of Obama's vintage insights."
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
Stupid generalizations about America: "In fact while today’s armchair critics in Europe see America as a bloodthirsty warrior, its enemies have always seen precisely the opposite. Hitler thought Americans’ Aryan purity had been fatally weakened by immigration and ethnic diversity. The Russians thought years of capitalist decadence had sapped its resolve. Whatever else bin Laden and Saddam Hussein may or may not have had in common, they both believed Americans were essentially soft, would not have the stomach for a fight once engaged. Hit them hard and they may lash out at first, but they will bend and retreat at the first sign of a serious struggle — as they did in Beirut and Mogadishu".
The real abuse at Gitmo: "After speaking with soldiers, sailors, and civilians who collectively staff the Joint Task Force - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on my recent visit to that base, I left convinced that abuse definitely exists at the detention facilities. But not the slander and hyperbole about alleged mistreatment of the unlawful combatants confined there that we've all heard. There is far more serious abuse: the relentless, merciless attacks on American servicemen and women by these same terrorist thugs. Many of the orange jumpsuit-clad detainees fight their captors at every opportunity. They attack guards whenever the soldiers enter their cells, trying to reach up under protective face masks to gouge eyes and tear mouths. They make weapons and try to stab the guards or grab and break limbs as the guards pass them food."
America's perverse "public" media: "The Soviet Union had no free press, privately owned, politically independent, competing publications dealing with ideas and whatever else readers would find of interest. The old USSR had Pravda and other state run newspapers and broadcast outlets. This kind of media exists in other parts of the world but the United States of America was to be a haven for a completely free press. Sadly, even there broadcast media fell into the hands of government .... Still, even with this intrusiveness, radio and TV do not get funded by monies extorted via taxation. There is still a pretty good semblance of competition on the airwaves, especially with the arrival a few decades ago of cable TV and the Internet. One thing is, however, way over the top in American media affairs. This is the prominence of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service."
Homosexuals in the Islamic world: "This weekend's Gay Pride festivities in New York City climaxed with Sunday's 36th annual parade down Fifth Avenue. As usual, the raucous affair thrilled some and rattled others, but everyone walked away intact. One would have to fantasize about such an occasion, however, in most Muslim nations where homosexuality remains as concealed as a bride beneath a burqa. When it peeks through, it isn't pretty. While many liberals (and President G.W. Bush) call Islam a religion of peace, 'celebrating diversity' is hardly on its agenda."
Compulsory time-wasting for tenants with children: "Six newspapers in New Hampshire have agreed to stop running real estate ads that suggest children aren't welcome at the properties following complaints that the ads violated federal law. Several dozens landlords and real estate agents also agreed to stop placing ads targeting adult tenants and to submit future ads to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developmentfor review. Federal law prohibits landlords from discriminating against children. The ads included promotions like 'one mature person,' 'quiet adult location' and 'great for a single person.' They are discriminatory because they make it harder for families to rent out the locations, said Christine Lavallee of New Hampshire Legal Assistance." [All it will do is make it harder for families with children to find out that they will not be accepted]
Racial disadvantage fostered by Democrat "welfare" : "If you listened to the rhetoric of black politicians and civil rights leaders, dating back to the Reagan years, you would have been convinced that surely by now black Americans would be back on the plantation. According to them, President Reagan and later Presidents Bush I and II would turn back the clock on civil rights. They'd appoint "new racists" in three-piece suits to act through the courts and administrative agencies to reverse black civil rights and economic gains. We can now recognize this rhetoric as the political equivalent of the "rope-a-dope.".... The strategy liberal Democrats have chosen, to prevent loss of the black vote, is to keep blacks paranoid and in a constant state of fear.... Only 30 percent to 40 percent of black males graduate from high school. Many who do graduate emerge with reading and math skills of a white seventh- or eighth- grader. This is true in cities where a black is mayor, a black is superintendent of schools and the majority of principals and teachers are black... In 1960, only 28 percent of black females between the ages of 15 and 44 were never married. Today, it's 56 percent. In 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks was 19 percent, in 1960, 22 percent, and today, it's 70 percent".
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, July 02, 2005
INTERESTING REPORT FROM "THE PEOPLE'S CUBE" (A SITE SATIRIZING THE LEFT)
"This site, as well as the Mother Site (CFK) has been bombarded with righteous anti-American, Republican-bashing posts written in good English, without mentioning the posters' nationality. But site administrators have a way of checking IP addresses. Some of them came from the Netherlands, some from Germany, and all of them point to RIPE Network Coordination Centre in Amsterdam:
Good job, European activist comrades! The enemy is more tractable if he is confused about the source of the attack and thinks it may be coming from his next-door neighbor. We were forced to delete a few dozen of such posts as spam - they had no intrinsic value and added nothing to the site. As of late, however, angry spam has been replaced by "neutral" advertisements for the U.S. Democratic Party, which the DNC Chairperson, Howard Dean (a.k.a. Hao Tse-Dean), has initiated. But the IP addresses behind the posts are the same, ending up in Europe.
Why would the anti-American European Left support the American Democratic Party? Apparently for the same reason they support the anti-American Iraqi insurgency and Islamofascists. They don't? Oh yes they do! U.S. News & World Report writes about their latest campaign - "10 Euros per person for the Iraqi resistance." Observe European fundraising sites here and here. No need to mention the Left's propagandistic effort to give moral support to terrorists in the Middle East and around the globe, in which they thoroughly fill the gigantic shoes of the erstwhile KGB, picking up Stalin's methods and networks.
Why would they do that? To win, the Left needs to discredit and defeat the very idea of capitalism, individualism, and personal freedom. The simple litmus test here is this: would you like to own your government, or would you like your government to own you? This is the basic fault line and the starting point of all reasoning. America was the world's first nation to set up a system in which individuals owned their government - as opposed to the rest of the world were people remained slaves to their rulers. To exist, the American system requires capitalism, individualism, and personal freedom. These are the American values. The only significant force in today's world that still fights for them are American conservatives. The Left's ultimate model, on the contrary, implies that the individual is owned by the state. In such state humans become mere beasts of burden and are routinely sacrificed for the mythical "common good." This ideological divide makes the American conservatives the Left's worst enemies and best punching bags.
It's ironic that in order to make the world accept its "historically optimistic" vision, the Left needs to instill nihilism, fear, uncertainty, cynicism, and despair. In practical terms, that means to defeat the spreading of American values worldwide (by supporting Islamofascists) and at home (by supporting the U.S. Democratic Party represented by Howard Dean and Dick Durbin). And it looks like the desperate DNC leaders try their best to live up to such a high honor.
*********************************
"This site, as well as the Mother Site (CFK) has been bombarded with righteous anti-American, Republican-bashing posts written in good English, without mentioning the posters' nationality. But site administrators have a way of checking IP addresses. Some of them came from the Netherlands, some from Germany, and all of them point to RIPE Network Coordination Centre in Amsterdam:
Good job, European activist comrades! The enemy is more tractable if he is confused about the source of the attack and thinks it may be coming from his next-door neighbor. We were forced to delete a few dozen of such posts as spam - they had no intrinsic value and added nothing to the site. As of late, however, angry spam has been replaced by "neutral" advertisements for the U.S. Democratic Party, which the DNC Chairperson, Howard Dean (a.k.a. Hao Tse-Dean), has initiated. But the IP addresses behind the posts are the same, ending up in Europe.
Why would the anti-American European Left support the American Democratic Party? Apparently for the same reason they support the anti-American Iraqi insurgency and Islamofascists. They don't? Oh yes they do! U.S. News & World Report writes about their latest campaign - "10 Euros per person for the Iraqi resistance." Observe European fundraising sites here and here. No need to mention the Left's propagandistic effort to give moral support to terrorists in the Middle East and around the globe, in which they thoroughly fill the gigantic shoes of the erstwhile KGB, picking up Stalin's methods and networks.
Why would they do that? To win, the Left needs to discredit and defeat the very idea of capitalism, individualism, and personal freedom. The simple litmus test here is this: would you like to own your government, or would you like your government to own you? This is the basic fault line and the starting point of all reasoning. America was the world's first nation to set up a system in which individuals owned their government - as opposed to the rest of the world were people remained slaves to their rulers. To exist, the American system requires capitalism, individualism, and personal freedom. These are the American values. The only significant force in today's world that still fights for them are American conservatives. The Left's ultimate model, on the contrary, implies that the individual is owned by the state. In such state humans become mere beasts of burden and are routinely sacrificed for the mythical "common good." This ideological divide makes the American conservatives the Left's worst enemies and best punching bags.
It's ironic that in order to make the world accept its "historically optimistic" vision, the Left needs to instill nihilism, fear, uncertainty, cynicism, and despair. In practical terms, that means to defeat the spreading of American values worldwide (by supporting Islamofascists) and at home (by supporting the U.S. Democratic Party represented by Howard Dean and Dick Durbin). And it looks like the desperate DNC leaders try their best to live up to such a high honor.
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
Whoopee! The dreadful Sandra Day O'Connor is going from SCOTUS. Now the hijinks start. I predict Estrada will be GWB's nominee to replace her. GWB has already renominated "rejects" for the circuit courts.
Do you know what the ultimate symbol of Republican corruption is? Have a guess: Money? Power? Sex? Nope. You've got it all wrong. It's golf! Yes. Golf. Don't believe me? It's all explained here. Seems to me a pretty big compliment, actually. If a love of golf is all the Left can dredge up to criticize, then the GOP are doing very well indeed. I wonder what the ultimate symbol of Leftist corruption is? Multi-million dollar fortunes, perhaps? Think John Kerry, John Edwards, George Soros, Ted Kennedy, Ted Turner, etc etc.
There is a big comment thread here about that sad mini-Chomsky, Brian Leiter. Leiter admits that his blog is just a Leftist rant that makes no attempt at rational persuasion on political matters. I am actually quite amused by Leiter's far-Left dogmatism. It means he has despaired of persuading anybody. All he can do is preach to the choir. It is a confession of defeat. And it is no good saying that nobody can be persuaded. There are heaps of libertarians in the blogosphere who could (and do) go either way on Left/Right issues. But I am sure that Leiter is getting his rocks off over just the fact that people are discussing him -- no matter how derisive the comments might be (and generally are). [Links from Keith Burgess-Jackson]
A claim of good intentions can excuse anything: "Now will someone explain the moral difference between enthusiasm for Fidel Castro and enthusiasm for Augusto Pinochet? Both are appalling Latin American dictators. Both have bad human rights records. Both have had their misdeeds winked at, one way or another, by Uncle Sam. Tell me, O ye coolers and groovers, why is it OK to wear a badge with Fidel on it, but very much not OK to wear a badge showing Pinochet? How is it possible that in Lithuania there is now a Stalin theme park, complete with 13 giant effigies of Lenin (remember: he killed five million)? Why is it somehow post-modern and ironic and slick to commemorate these thugs, while any theme park in honour of the Nazis would be rightly denounced as mad and in the height of bad taste? Why is it so obvious to everyone that [Soviet spy Melita Norwood] should be left to a quiet old age in Bexleyheath - with not even a whiff of a prosecution - when we continue to chivvy out every last collaborator with the Nazis, now matter how decrepit, and herd them into the courts? Lefties are somehow assumed to be doing things for idealistic reasons, and for the collective good, and their high motives excuse their appalling solutions. That is why the servants of communist tyranny get sympathetic obits, and modern British girls wear CCCP T-shirts, and that is why a Labour Government can enact a series of authoritarian measures that a Conservative government could not contemplate. I cannot explain this injustice: I merely point it out".
The Irish triumph: "Here's something you probably didn't know: Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg. Yes, the country that for hundreds of years was best known for emigration, tragic poets, famines, civil wars and leprechauns today has a per capita GDP higher than that of Germany, France and Britain. How Ireland went from the sick man of Europe to the rich man in less than a generation is an amazing story.... In a quite unusual development, the government, the main unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 per cent, far below the rest of Europe, moderating wages and prices and courting foreign investment. In 1996 Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even more educated workforce. The results have been phenomenal. Today, nine out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have operations in the country, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and seven out of the top 10 software designers. And overall tax receipts are way up. In 1990 Ireland's workforce was 1.1 million. This year it will hit 2 million, with no unemployment and 200,000 foreign workers (including 50,000 Chinese)."
Chris Brand has just done a new post on causes of wealth and poverty. See here.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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.
********************************
Whoopee! The dreadful Sandra Day O'Connor is going from SCOTUS. Now the hijinks start. I predict Estrada will be GWB's nominee to replace her. GWB has already renominated "rejects" for the circuit courts.
Do you know what the ultimate symbol of Republican corruption is? Have a guess: Money? Power? Sex? Nope. You've got it all wrong. It's golf! Yes. Golf. Don't believe me? It's all explained here. Seems to me a pretty big compliment, actually. If a love of golf is all the Left can dredge up to criticize, then the GOP are doing very well indeed. I wonder what the ultimate symbol of Leftist corruption is? Multi-million dollar fortunes, perhaps? Think John Kerry, John Edwards, George Soros, Ted Kennedy, Ted Turner, etc etc.
There is a big comment thread here about that sad mini-Chomsky, Brian Leiter. Leiter admits that his blog is just a Leftist rant that makes no attempt at rational persuasion on political matters. I am actually quite amused by Leiter's far-Left dogmatism. It means he has despaired of persuading anybody. All he can do is preach to the choir. It is a confession of defeat. And it is no good saying that nobody can be persuaded. There are heaps of libertarians in the blogosphere who could (and do) go either way on Left/Right issues. But I am sure that Leiter is getting his rocks off over just the fact that people are discussing him -- no matter how derisive the comments might be (and generally are). [Links from Keith Burgess-Jackson]
A claim of good intentions can excuse anything: "Now will someone explain the moral difference between enthusiasm for Fidel Castro and enthusiasm for Augusto Pinochet? Both are appalling Latin American dictators. Both have bad human rights records. Both have had their misdeeds winked at, one way or another, by Uncle Sam. Tell me, O ye coolers and groovers, why is it OK to wear a badge with Fidel on it, but very much not OK to wear a badge showing Pinochet? How is it possible that in Lithuania there is now a Stalin theme park, complete with 13 giant effigies of Lenin (remember: he killed five million)? Why is it somehow post-modern and ironic and slick to commemorate these thugs, while any theme park in honour of the Nazis would be rightly denounced as mad and in the height of bad taste? Why is it so obvious to everyone that [Soviet spy Melita Norwood] should be left to a quiet old age in Bexleyheath - with not even a whiff of a prosecution - when we continue to chivvy out every last collaborator with the Nazis, now matter how decrepit, and herd them into the courts? Lefties are somehow assumed to be doing things for idealistic reasons, and for the collective good, and their high motives excuse their appalling solutions. That is why the servants of communist tyranny get sympathetic obits, and modern British girls wear CCCP T-shirts, and that is why a Labour Government can enact a series of authoritarian measures that a Conservative government could not contemplate. I cannot explain this injustice: I merely point it out".
The Irish triumph: "Here's something you probably didn't know: Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg. Yes, the country that for hundreds of years was best known for emigration, tragic poets, famines, civil wars and leprechauns today has a per capita GDP higher than that of Germany, France and Britain. How Ireland went from the sick man of Europe to the rich man in less than a generation is an amazing story.... In a quite unusual development, the government, the main unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 per cent, far below the rest of Europe, moderating wages and prices and courting foreign investment. In 1996 Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even more educated workforce. The results have been phenomenal. Today, nine out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have operations in the country, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and seven out of the top 10 software designers. And overall tax receipts are way up. In 1990 Ireland's workforce was 1.1 million. This year it will hit 2 million, with no unemployment and 200,000 foreign workers (including 50,000 Chinese)."
Chris Brand has just done a new post on causes of wealth and poverty. See here.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, July 01, 2005
THINK ISRAEL
There is a BIG selection of essays up on Think Israel at the moment. Just a few of them:
U.S. SHOWING LACK OF UNDERSTANDING - OR HONESTY by Douglas J. Hagmann
ISLAM AND THE WEST: THE THREAT, THE DEFENSE Interview with Srdja Trifkovic by Al Kresta
JIHAD THROUGH HISTORY by Daniel Pipes
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE ANTI-SEMITES! by Julia Gorin
KINGDOM'S RELIGIOUS WRONGS by Nina Shea
HAMAS AND THE REBIRTH OF ILLUSION by Jonathan Spyer
NAZI HAVENS ENDORSE KILLING JEWS by Beth Goodtree
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S CONQUEST OF EUROPE by Lorenzo Vidino
THE NEED TO HATE THE JEWS by Emanuel A. Winston
ON THE FUTURE OF THE JEWS: And its dependence on the future of Christianity by Barbara Lerner
WHAT IS ALL THIS INSURGENT/MILITANT STUFF? THEY ARE TERRORISTS! by Arlene Peck
WHAT CAUSED THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE? by Yashiko Sagamori
I was amused by this quote from the site: "It has no heart. It has no spine. Its mouth serves as its anus. It has a diffuse net of nerves instead of a brain. Is it a jelly fish or an Israeli politician? Pick one. Whichever one you picked, you were right." -- Eliezar Edwards, June 20, 2005
**********************************
ELSEWHERE
Socialist nonsense lives: "The House on Wednesday rejected a big proposed cut in Amtrak subsidies that would have led to major cutbacks in rail service. By voice vote during debate on a spending bill that covers Amtrak's budget, the House approved an amendment by Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, to add $626 million for Amtrak. That would bring Amtrak's budget to its current level of $1.2 billion."
More good economic news: "The US economy buried fears of an oil-related slowdown to grow by a robust 3.8 per cent in the first quarter, the US government said overnight. The Commerce Department's third and final release for gross domestic product (GDP) equalled the 3.8 per cent posted in the final quarter of 2004, and was up on the two previous estimates of 3.1 per cent and then 3.5 per cent.... "The economy is showing solid and sustained growth and job creation. The policies we have put in place are working and our economy is growing stronger," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said."
British Methodists scrap the Bible: "The Methodist church yesterday became the first big Christian denomination in Britain to offer the prospect of blessings services for same-sex couples. Although adamant that such services would not be regarded by the church as marriages, officials admitted that they could well be seen as such by the couples themselves and by the wider society. In stark contrast to the Anglican communion, which is tearing itself apart over its attitude towards homosexuality, the annual Methodist conference voted unanimously to continue its 'pilgrimage of faith' towards gay people."
Change coming in China? "Thousands of Chinese rioted in a dispute sparked by a lopsided roadside brawl, set fire to cars and wounded six police officers in an outburst likely to worry communist leaders in Beijing desperate to cling on to power.The official Xinhua news agency, in a rare report on a local disturbance, blamed Sunday's riot in Chizhou in dirt-poor eastern Anhui province on a few criminals who led the 'unwitting masses' astray. The violence was the latest in a series of protests which the Communist Party, in power since 1949, fears could spin out of control and become a channel for anger over corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor."
Banish Spanish!: "Like most Americans, I am sick and tired of being force-fed all things in Spanish, and being Hispanified and Latinized as part of my everyday experience. ... As a European-American who is fluent in Spanish (and English), thanks to our now rapidly disintegrating public school system, I say: Banish Spanish! The truth is, Spanish is a classist, elitist, sexist language reflecting a social structure that has no place in America. Spanish is as un-American as ... well, Montezuma. 'Non-Hispanic White' is the outrageous, insulting label that U.S. federales now use ... to define [me], a descendant of our nation's courageous, hardworking, liberty-loving Anglo-Saxon Protestant Founders. ... I and many self-respecting American will not tolerate being defined by the failures of the Spanish Armada and Conquistadors to conquer and dominate us. No thanks, we're Yanks. Comprende?"
Surprise! Cuba cannot house its people: "Cuba says it was facing a massive housing shortage and must build a half million homes over the next decade to deal with the crisis, according to a government report. The National Housing Institute said in a report released Monday at a conference that despite the need for about 50,000 new homes a year, only about 15,000 were built during 2004. Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said at the opening of the U.N.-sponsored conference, which deals with sustainable development, that housing has become one of the communist government's most serious challenges. According to the report, some 43 percent of Cuban housing is in mediocre or poor shape. Population growth, tropical weather and poor maintenance contribute to the crisis."
New Victorian notes that "diversity" can now include a diversity of European backgrounds. Progress? I always thought "diverse" meant "black".
Good summary by Ollie North: ""Those on the far left are employing the same kind of rhetoric and tactics that worked during the Vietnam War -- where overheated rhetoric and the most vile slander are acceptable if they tarnish the president and hurt our war effort. They have no shame. They play politics like the Islamo-fascists conduct warfare -- dirty, ruthless and reckless, with no discernible rules, no regard for fact and no compunction about stabbing people in the back."
More Australian Leftist backbiting: "Senior Labor figure John Faulkner has attacked the "toxic" culture of his own party in NSW for lacking "civility, decency, honesty, humanity and even legality" as it struggles to find direction after the failed Mark Latham era. Launching a tell-all book on Mr Latham's leadership, Senator Faulkner said yesterday that bullying and thuggery in Labor's NSW faction system often became lazy substitutes for party debate"
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with lots of reading
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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 BIG selection of essays up on Think Israel at the moment. Just a few of them:
U.S. SHOWING LACK OF UNDERSTANDING - OR HONESTY by Douglas J. Hagmann
ISLAM AND THE WEST: THE THREAT, THE DEFENSE Interview with Srdja Trifkovic by Al Kresta
JIHAD THROUGH HISTORY by Daniel Pipes
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE ANTI-SEMITES! by Julia Gorin
KINGDOM'S RELIGIOUS WRONGS by Nina Shea
HAMAS AND THE REBIRTH OF ILLUSION by Jonathan Spyer
NAZI HAVENS ENDORSE KILLING JEWS by Beth Goodtree
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S CONQUEST OF EUROPE by Lorenzo Vidino
THE NEED TO HATE THE JEWS by Emanuel A. Winston
ON THE FUTURE OF THE JEWS: And its dependence on the future of Christianity by Barbara Lerner
WHAT IS ALL THIS INSURGENT/MILITANT STUFF? THEY ARE TERRORISTS! by Arlene Peck
WHAT CAUSED THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE? by Yashiko Sagamori
I was amused by this quote from the site: "It has no heart. It has no spine. Its mouth serves as its anus. It has a diffuse net of nerves instead of a brain. Is it a jelly fish or an Israeli politician? Pick one. Whichever one you picked, you were right." -- Eliezar Edwards, June 20, 2005
**********************************
ELSEWHERE
Socialist nonsense lives: "The House on Wednesday rejected a big proposed cut in Amtrak subsidies that would have led to major cutbacks in rail service. By voice vote during debate on a spending bill that covers Amtrak's budget, the House approved an amendment by Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, to add $626 million for Amtrak. That would bring Amtrak's budget to its current level of $1.2 billion."
More good economic news: "The US economy buried fears of an oil-related slowdown to grow by a robust 3.8 per cent in the first quarter, the US government said overnight. The Commerce Department's third and final release for gross domestic product (GDP) equalled the 3.8 per cent posted in the final quarter of 2004, and was up on the two previous estimates of 3.1 per cent and then 3.5 per cent.... "The economy is showing solid and sustained growth and job creation. The policies we have put in place are working and our economy is growing stronger," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said."
British Methodists scrap the Bible: "The Methodist church yesterday became the first big Christian denomination in Britain to offer the prospect of blessings services for same-sex couples. Although adamant that such services would not be regarded by the church as marriages, officials admitted that they could well be seen as such by the couples themselves and by the wider society. In stark contrast to the Anglican communion, which is tearing itself apart over its attitude towards homosexuality, the annual Methodist conference voted unanimously to continue its 'pilgrimage of faith' towards gay people."
Change coming in China? "Thousands of Chinese rioted in a dispute sparked by a lopsided roadside brawl, set fire to cars and wounded six police officers in an outburst likely to worry communist leaders in Beijing desperate to cling on to power.The official Xinhua news agency, in a rare report on a local disturbance, blamed Sunday's riot in Chizhou in dirt-poor eastern Anhui province on a few criminals who led the 'unwitting masses' astray. The violence was the latest in a series of protests which the Communist Party, in power since 1949, fears could spin out of control and become a channel for anger over corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor."
Banish Spanish!: "Like most Americans, I am sick and tired of being force-fed all things in Spanish, and being Hispanified and Latinized as part of my everyday experience. ... As a European-American who is fluent in Spanish (and English), thanks to our now rapidly disintegrating public school system, I say: Banish Spanish! The truth is, Spanish is a classist, elitist, sexist language reflecting a social structure that has no place in America. Spanish is as un-American as ... well, Montezuma. 'Non-Hispanic White' is the outrageous, insulting label that U.S. federales now use ... to define [me], a descendant of our nation's courageous, hardworking, liberty-loving Anglo-Saxon Protestant Founders. ... I and many self-respecting American will not tolerate being defined by the failures of the Spanish Armada and Conquistadors to conquer and dominate us. No thanks, we're Yanks. Comprende?"
Surprise! Cuba cannot house its people: "Cuba says it was facing a massive housing shortage and must build a half million homes over the next decade to deal with the crisis, according to a government report. The National Housing Institute said in a report released Monday at a conference that despite the need for about 50,000 new homes a year, only about 15,000 were built during 2004. Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said at the opening of the U.N.-sponsored conference, which deals with sustainable development, that housing has become one of the communist government's most serious challenges. According to the report, some 43 percent of Cuban housing is in mediocre or poor shape. Population growth, tropical weather and poor maintenance contribute to the crisis."
New Victorian notes that "diversity" can now include a diversity of European backgrounds. Progress? I always thought "diverse" meant "black".
Good summary by Ollie North: ""Those on the far left are employing the same kind of rhetoric and tactics that worked during the Vietnam War -- where overheated rhetoric and the most vile slander are acceptable if they tarnish the president and hurt our war effort. They have no shame. They play politics like the Islamo-fascists conduct warfare -- dirty, ruthless and reckless, with no discernible rules, no regard for fact and no compunction about stabbing people in the back."
More Australian Leftist backbiting: "Senior Labor figure John Faulkner has attacked the "toxic" culture of his own party in NSW for lacking "civility, decency, honesty, humanity and even legality" as it struggles to find direction after the failed Mark Latham era. Launching a tell-all book on Mr Latham's leadership, Senator Faulkner said yesterday that bullying and thuggery in Labor's NSW faction system often became lazy substitutes for party debate"
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with lots of reading
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, June 30, 2005
SCRUSHY ACQUITTED!
Pretty amazing news: "A federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., stunned observers Tuesday when it acquitted Richard Scrushy, the former HealthSouth CEO, of all criminal charges stemming from a $2.7 billion accounting fraud at the company he founded. And so the executive whose imperial lifestyle and dictatorial workplace demeanor once earned him the nickname King Richard has been spared the life prison sentence that has threatened him since his ouster from HealthSouth and subsequent indictment two years ago".
This is fabulous news. Federal prosecutions like this are a travesty of justice -- with plea bargains being used as straight-out subornation of witnesses. Who wouldn't testify the way the government wanted with the alternative being a long prison sentence? Fortunately, the jury saw it that way too. This article from last February tells in detail how unjust is the Federal prosecution system that Scrushy had to beat. With the acquittal of Arthur Anderson and Scrushy and the recent defeat of Spitzer in New York, business might be heartened to fight the government standover men in future instead of giving hundreds of millions of shareholders' money to parasites who have done nothing to create those assets.
Pretty amazing news: "A federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., stunned observers Tuesday when it acquitted Richard Scrushy, the former HealthSouth CEO, of all criminal charges stemming from a $2.7 billion accounting fraud at the company he founded. And so the executive whose imperial lifestyle and dictatorial workplace demeanor once earned him the nickname King Richard has been spared the life prison sentence that has threatened him since his ouster from HealthSouth and subsequent indictment two years ago".
This is fabulous news. Federal prosecutions like this are a travesty of justice -- with plea bargains being used as straight-out subornation of witnesses. Who wouldn't testify the way the government wanted with the alternative being a long prison sentence? Fortunately, the jury saw it that way too. This article from last February tells in detail how unjust is the Federal prosecution system that Scrushy had to beat. With the acquittal of Arthur Anderson and Scrushy and the recent defeat of Spitzer in New York, business might be heartened to fight the government standover men in future instead of giving hundreds of millions of shareholders' money to parasites who have done nothing to create those assets.
Brookes News Update
US productivity and investment: some truths and fallacies : Those who argued that all the US economy needed was the Net never thought about what it really takes just to supply it with cables and electricity let alone those little things called chips
The Society of St Vincent de Paul's Marxist claptrap and its attack on the free market: The Society of St Vincent de Paul recently released a study on inequality that was unadulterated Marxist claptrap
Technology, investment, risk and the state: Interventionists seem incapable of grasping the fact that savings fuel an economy and entrepreneurship drives it. Cripple both or only one of these factors and you cripple growth
China and its generals: The texts of Marx and Engels are the worst evils the West ever visited on an Asian country
The ownerships society: the animating principle of the 21st Century: The 20th Century's energizing dynamic was totalitarian socialism. Leading the parade were dictators like Stalin, Hitler and Chairman Mao
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
I pointed out yesterday how economically illiterate are the fears of Chinese economic success. So I guess I should reply to the rumbles over the attempted Chinese purchase of an American oil company. There are two excellent articles for putting that scare to rest here and here but I particularly like this one.
Interesting quote from Hobsbawm -- Britain's famous Communist historian -- about prewar Germany: "If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist. I could see how they'd become passionate about saving the nation. It was a time when you didn't believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed." That is of course a implicit acknowledgment of how close psychologically Nazism and Communism were. Hobsbawm also says that he saw the basis of his Communism as a sense of "mass ecstasy"; "pity for the exploited"; the "aesthetic appeal of a perfect and comprehensive intellectual system - dialectical materialism"; a "Blakean vision of the new Jerusalem"; and "intellectual anti-philistinism". So again we see that the main appeal of Communism was the psychological satisfactions it gave him. Whether it was right or benevolent was incidental.
Jeff Jacoby has a good comment on the constant Leftist claims that Bush and the GOP are "like Hitler": "But all they really accomplish is a kind of Holocaust-denial. After all, if congressional Republicans are ‘‘worse than Hitler,’’ then Hitler must have been no worse than congressional Republicans. Which means that the tyrant who drenched Europe in blood, created a hellish network of concentration camps, and sent more than a million Jewish children to their deaths is roughly equal to — maybe even better than — a political party that calls for tax cuts and welfare reform. Anyone who can say (or imply) such a thing is guilty of trivializing the Nazis’ crimes and of cheapening the agony of their victims".
The un-American death tax, the bell tolls for thee: "'The Congress needs to make sure that the Death Tax is gone forever ...' So declared President Bush last week, effectively launching one of the most important debates that will come before the nation this year. Indeed, upcoming deliberations in the Senate over permanently repealing the Death Tax will explore one of the fundamental questions of our time: Do Americans work for the U.S. Government or does the U.S. Government work for us? Do we own the fruits of our labor or are they just on loan from Uncle Sam while we are alive?" [All such taxes were abolished in Australia years ago so why not emigrate when you retire?]
Death tax diagnosis: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's designation of Sen. Charles Schumer [D-NY] to be his chief negotiator on the Death Tax issue is extraordinarily revealing. The Democrats are scared to death of the issue which provided the margin of defeat for Tom Daschle and has become a powerful issue in other states, as well. The marching orders to Schumer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chief, are to defuse the issue before it takes down other small red-state Democrats up for re-election in 2006. Apparently Reid and company have been reviewing the polls that portend disasters in certain states for votes to keep the death tax. Recently, Frank Luntz polled in Maine, North and South Dakota, Indiana, Colorado and Arkansas and found 85 percent support for killing the death tax outright or significantly reducing it."
Individual rights a Christian idea: "The modern roots of our individual rights and freedoms in the Western world are found in Christianity. The recognition by law of the intrinsic value of each human being did not exist in ancient times. Among the Romans, law protected social institutions such as the patriarchal family, but it did not safeguard the basic rights of the individual, such as personal security, freedom of conscience, of speech, of assembly, of association, and so forth. For them, the individual was of value "only if he was a part of the political fabric and able to contribute to its uses as though it were the end of his being to aggrandise the state". According to Benjamin Constant, a great French political philosopher, it is wrong to believe that people enjoyed individual rights prior to Christianity. In fact, as Fustel de Coulanges put it, the ancients had not even the idea of what such rights meant".
Stupidity rules! For now: "Bursting into tears, eighth-grader Anurag Kashyap of California became the U.S. spelling champ Thursday. Tied for second place were 11-year-old Samir Patel, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, a Pleasanton, California, student." Indian kids have won first place in five of the last seven years". Might be there's a pattern here? Nah. A friend in California has an Asian wife (which both he and I recommend), and so is among the few whites plugged into the state's Asian community. He reports that the Asians are contemptuous of whites. ("Lazy, not very smart.") The evidence supports them. They also believe that the chief aim of schooling in America is to coddle blacks and Latinos, which baffles them. Me too, but it isn't my problem: "Top twelve students on the USA Math Olympiad 2003: Boris Alexeev, Jae Bae, Daniel Kane, Anders Kaseorg (home-schooled), Mark Lipson, Tiankai Liu, Po-Ru Loh, Po-Ling Loh, Aaron Pixton, Kwokfung Tang, Tony Zhang, Yan Zhang." Take out Asians and Jews out of measures of high intellectual performance in America, and you aren't left with much. The foregoing doesn't look much different from staffing lists I have encountered for such things as research teams at Bell Labs. A friend, writing a book on Harvard, calculates that Asians and Jews make up about forty-five percent of the school. The Asians know this, of course. They figure the future is theirs. So do I".
I have just put up a new post on my Scripture blog -- saying why I like the book of Ecclesiastes so much -- for rather the wrong reasons from a Christian viewpoint.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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.
********************************
US productivity and investment: some truths and fallacies : Those who argued that all the US economy needed was the Net never thought about what it really takes just to supply it with cables and electricity let alone those little things called chips
The Society of St Vincent de Paul's Marxist claptrap and its attack on the free market: The Society of St Vincent de Paul recently released a study on inequality that was unadulterated Marxist claptrap
Technology, investment, risk and the state: Interventionists seem incapable of grasping the fact that savings fuel an economy and entrepreneurship drives it. Cripple both or only one of these factors and you cripple growth
China and its generals: The texts of Marx and Engels are the worst evils the West ever visited on an Asian country
The ownerships society: the animating principle of the 21st Century: The 20th Century's energizing dynamic was totalitarian socialism. Leading the parade were dictators like Stalin, Hitler and Chairman Mao
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
I pointed out yesterday how economically illiterate are the fears of Chinese economic success. So I guess I should reply to the rumbles over the attempted Chinese purchase of an American oil company. There are two excellent articles for putting that scare to rest here and here but I particularly like this one.
Interesting quote from Hobsbawm -- Britain's famous Communist historian -- about prewar Germany: "If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist. I could see how they'd become passionate about saving the nation. It was a time when you didn't believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed." That is of course a implicit acknowledgment of how close psychologically Nazism and Communism were. Hobsbawm also says that he saw the basis of his Communism as a sense of "mass ecstasy"; "pity for the exploited"; the "aesthetic appeal of a perfect and comprehensive intellectual system - dialectical materialism"; a "Blakean vision of the new Jerusalem"; and "intellectual anti-philistinism". So again we see that the main appeal of Communism was the psychological satisfactions it gave him. Whether it was right or benevolent was incidental.
Jeff Jacoby has a good comment on the constant Leftist claims that Bush and the GOP are "like Hitler": "But all they really accomplish is a kind of Holocaust-denial. After all, if congressional Republicans are ‘‘worse than Hitler,’’ then Hitler must have been no worse than congressional Republicans. Which means that the tyrant who drenched Europe in blood, created a hellish network of concentration camps, and sent more than a million Jewish children to their deaths is roughly equal to — maybe even better than — a political party that calls for tax cuts and welfare reform. Anyone who can say (or imply) such a thing is guilty of trivializing the Nazis’ crimes and of cheapening the agony of their victims".
The un-American death tax, the bell tolls for thee: "'The Congress needs to make sure that the Death Tax is gone forever ...' So declared President Bush last week, effectively launching one of the most important debates that will come before the nation this year. Indeed, upcoming deliberations in the Senate over permanently repealing the Death Tax will explore one of the fundamental questions of our time: Do Americans work for the U.S. Government or does the U.S. Government work for us? Do we own the fruits of our labor or are they just on loan from Uncle Sam while we are alive?" [All such taxes were abolished in Australia years ago so why not emigrate when you retire?]
Death tax diagnosis: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's designation of Sen. Charles Schumer [D-NY] to be his chief negotiator on the Death Tax issue is extraordinarily revealing. The Democrats are scared to death of the issue which provided the margin of defeat for Tom Daschle and has become a powerful issue in other states, as well. The marching orders to Schumer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chief, are to defuse the issue before it takes down other small red-state Democrats up for re-election in 2006. Apparently Reid and company have been reviewing the polls that portend disasters in certain states for votes to keep the death tax. Recently, Frank Luntz polled in Maine, North and South Dakota, Indiana, Colorado and Arkansas and found 85 percent support for killing the death tax outright or significantly reducing it."
Individual rights a Christian idea: "The modern roots of our individual rights and freedoms in the Western world are found in Christianity. The recognition by law of the intrinsic value of each human being did not exist in ancient times. Among the Romans, law protected social institutions such as the patriarchal family, but it did not safeguard the basic rights of the individual, such as personal security, freedom of conscience, of speech, of assembly, of association, and so forth. For them, the individual was of value "only if he was a part of the political fabric and able to contribute to its uses as though it were the end of his being to aggrandise the state". According to Benjamin Constant, a great French political philosopher, it is wrong to believe that people enjoyed individual rights prior to Christianity. In fact, as Fustel de Coulanges put it, the ancients had not even the idea of what such rights meant".
Stupidity rules! For now: "Bursting into tears, eighth-grader Anurag Kashyap of California became the U.S. spelling champ Thursday. Tied for second place were 11-year-old Samir Patel, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, a Pleasanton, California, student." Indian kids have won first place in five of the last seven years". Might be there's a pattern here? Nah. A friend in California has an Asian wife (which both he and I recommend), and so is among the few whites plugged into the state's Asian community. He reports that the Asians are contemptuous of whites. ("Lazy, not very smart.") The evidence supports them. They also believe that the chief aim of schooling in America is to coddle blacks and Latinos, which baffles them. Me too, but it isn't my problem: "Top twelve students on the USA Math Olympiad 2003: Boris Alexeev, Jae Bae, Daniel Kane, Anders Kaseorg (home-schooled), Mark Lipson, Tiankai Liu, Po-Ru Loh, Po-Ling Loh, Aaron Pixton, Kwokfung Tang, Tony Zhang, Yan Zhang." Take out Asians and Jews out of measures of high intellectual performance in America, and you aren't left with much. The foregoing doesn't look much different from staffing lists I have encountered for such things as research teams at Bell Labs. A friend, writing a book on Harvard, calculates that Asians and Jews make up about forty-five percent of the school. The Asians know this, of course. They figure the future is theirs. So do I".
I have just put up a new post on my Scripture blog -- saying why I like the book of Ecclesiastes so much -- for rather the wrong reasons from a Christian viewpoint.
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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, June 29, 2005
SOME ECONOMICS: CHINA
The latest red herring that the Dems are trying to drag across the consciousness of the American people is fear of China. Take the trade deficit: What it means is that China sends lots of goodies (industrial products) to America and for most of that all they get in return is bits of paper (U.S. dollars). THAT should worry Americans? It seems like a sweet racket that Americans should be rejoicing about to me!
And because the panic is so silly, the Dems have to get really shrill in an attempt to disguise their silliness. As economic journalist Martin Hutchinson comments: "The late unlamented Senator Reed Smoot (R.-UT) was spiritually in full flow at the New America Foundation's Forum on America's Economic Future Wednesday, as Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, ex-Senator Tom Daschle (D.-SD) and Senators Richard Durbin (D.-IL) and Byron Dorgan (D.-ND) competed as to who could say the nastiest things about China. Presumably trade policy is not covered by the "hate speech" laws these gentlemen favor, but any luckless Chinese exporter present must have felt like an African American from the old South who'd wandered into a Ku Klux Klan convention".
And Kristof of the NYT is at it too. He is getting hysterical about America's foreign debt. He is particularly concerned that the Chinese have been buying lots of U.S. bonds as a way of putting their trade surplus into a piggy bank. He says: "The biggest risk we Americans face to our way of life and our place in the world probably doesn't come from Al Qaeda or the Iraq war. Rather, the biggest risk may come from this administration's fiscal recklessness and the way this is putting us in hock to China.... Another issue is that three-fourths of our new debt is now being purchased by foreigners, with China the biggest buyer of all. That gives China leverage over us, and it undermines our national security"
It undermines American national security that China has lots of pretty bits of paper issued by the U.S. government? I'd like to know how! It's the other way around if anything. If real problems with China did develop, the U.S. government could cancel all those bits of paper and thus give China nothing in return for them. So the fact that China is putting its savings into U.S. paper SHOWS that China has no intention of permitting any serious future conflict between itself and the USA! It's the best peace treaty with China that the USA could have.
The above explanation is of course a bit simplified but it gives the essence of the story.
(I have also put this post up on Blogger News)
**********************************
The latest red herring that the Dems are trying to drag across the consciousness of the American people is fear of China. Take the trade deficit: What it means is that China sends lots of goodies (industrial products) to America and for most of that all they get in return is bits of paper (U.S. dollars). THAT should worry Americans? It seems like a sweet racket that Americans should be rejoicing about to me!
And because the panic is so silly, the Dems have to get really shrill in an attempt to disguise their silliness. As economic journalist Martin Hutchinson comments: "The late unlamented Senator Reed Smoot (R.-UT) was spiritually in full flow at the New America Foundation's Forum on America's Economic Future Wednesday, as Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, ex-Senator Tom Daschle (D.-SD) and Senators Richard Durbin (D.-IL) and Byron Dorgan (D.-ND) competed as to who could say the nastiest things about China. Presumably trade policy is not covered by the "hate speech" laws these gentlemen favor, but any luckless Chinese exporter present must have felt like an African American from the old South who'd wandered into a Ku Klux Klan convention".
And Kristof of the NYT is at it too. He is getting hysterical about America's foreign debt. He is particularly concerned that the Chinese have been buying lots of U.S. bonds as a way of putting their trade surplus into a piggy bank. He says: "The biggest risk we Americans face to our way of life and our place in the world probably doesn't come from Al Qaeda or the Iraq war. Rather, the biggest risk may come from this administration's fiscal recklessness and the way this is putting us in hock to China.... Another issue is that three-fourths of our new debt is now being purchased by foreigners, with China the biggest buyer of all. That gives China leverage over us, and it undermines our national security"
It undermines American national security that China has lots of pretty bits of paper issued by the U.S. government? I'd like to know how! It's the other way around if anything. If real problems with China did develop, the U.S. government could cancel all those bits of paper and thus give China nothing in return for them. So the fact that China is putting its savings into U.S. paper SHOWS that China has no intention of permitting any serious future conflict between itself and the USA! It's the best peace treaty with China that the USA could have.
The above explanation is of course a bit simplified but it gives the essence of the story.
(I have also put this post up on Blogger News)
**********************************
ELSEWHERE
I don't know if this study by Darius Maestipieri, a primate expert at the University of Chicago, is really worth commenting on. It purports to show that child abusers get that way not by genetic inheritance (e.g. by being born stupid, uncontrolled or aggressive) but by being abused themselves as children. The research concerned, however, was based on a small group of Macaque monkeys and I cannot see how the results can be statistically significant, let alone meaningful in any other way. And this finding would seem to contradict their conclusion anyway: "almost half of those raised by abusive mothers did not become abusers themselves." That seems to indicate genes at work to me. And I won't ask questions about measures taken to preclude observer bias. No good beating a dead horse.
Oh Boy! I have always thought that Leftists are humour-deprived. Now I have proof. The London chief of Fox news said this recently: "Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly." And the Left are all taking it seriously! See e.g. here. What a sad lot the Left are! That he was just mocking their accusations of bias seems not to have occurred to them.
What a moron! The Bundeskanzler has obviously not noted that Ronald Reagan initiated America's long boom by CUTTING the top rate of income tax. "Germany's embattled chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, yesterday unveiled his latest plan to win back disaffected voters by announcing an extra 3% tax on the rich. In the first of a series of manifesto commitments before September's election, Mr Schröder said that he would impose the tax on anyone earning 250,000 euros a year - or 500,000 if they were married. Germany's top rate of tax would go up from 42% to 45%, Mr Schröder said, adding that the extra revenue raised would be spent on research and development.
What fun! If you ever doubted that Leftists hate one another at least as much as they hate conservatives, you should read this or this -- where the previous leader of the Australian Labor party absolutely savages both the present leader and the party as a whole. Even I think he goes too far. I see the present leader as a decent man, if a bit dull. He is, for instance, a committed Christian and an opponent of abortion. The Australian Labor party is a lot more moderate than the U.S. Democrats.
Even in Sweden conservatives are happiest: One in four Swedes professes to be "very happy", according to a new survey. The happiest people in Sweden have high incomes, are in good health, and pray to God. The survey, carried out by researchers at Gothenburg University, showed that people who voted for the Christian Democrat or Moderate parties were more likely to think of themselves as happy. This despite seventy years of almost unbroken Social Democratic rule in Sweden. Happy people were also most likely to be young and be living with a partner or be married. Sixty-two percent of rich, healthy people said they were happy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, being poor and unhealthy is not so much fun. Only 7 percent of people in this category said they were happy. The researchers from the Society Opinion and Media (SOM) Institute at Gothenburg University, spoke to 3,000 randomly chosen people between the ages of 15 and 85.
Court: No Ten Commandments in Courthouses: "In a narrowly drawn ruling, the Supreme Court struck down Ten Commandments displays in courthouses Monday, holding that two exhibits in Kentucky crossed the line between separation of church and state because they promoted a religious message..... In his dissent, Scalia blasted the majority for ignoring the rule of law to push their own personal policy preferences. "What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle," Scalia wrote.... The cases marked the first time since 1980 the high court tackled the emotional issue, in a courtroom boasting a wall carving of Moses holding the sacred tablets.... Ten Commandments displays are supported by a majority of Americans, according to an AP-Ipsos poll. The poll taken in late February found that 76 percent support it and 23 percent oppose it."
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
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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I don't know if this study by Darius Maestipieri, a primate expert at the University of Chicago, is really worth commenting on. It purports to show that child abusers get that way not by genetic inheritance (e.g. by being born stupid, uncontrolled or aggressive) but by being abused themselves as children. The research concerned, however, was based on a small group of Macaque monkeys and I cannot see how the results can be statistically significant, let alone meaningful in any other way. And this finding would seem to contradict their conclusion anyway: "almost half of those raised by abusive mothers did not become abusers themselves." That seems to indicate genes at work to me. And I won't ask questions about measures taken to preclude observer bias. No good beating a dead horse.
Oh Boy! I have always thought that Leftists are humour-deprived. Now I have proof. The London chief of Fox news said this recently: "Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly." And the Left are all taking it seriously! See e.g. here. What a sad lot the Left are! That he was just mocking their accusations of bias seems not to have occurred to them.
What a moron! The Bundeskanzler has obviously not noted that Ronald Reagan initiated America's long boom by CUTTING the top rate of income tax. "Germany's embattled chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, yesterday unveiled his latest plan to win back disaffected voters by announcing an extra 3% tax on the rich. In the first of a series of manifesto commitments before September's election, Mr Schröder said that he would impose the tax on anyone earning 250,000 euros a year - or 500,000 if they were married. Germany's top rate of tax would go up from 42% to 45%, Mr Schröder said, adding that the extra revenue raised would be spent on research and development.
What fun! If you ever doubted that Leftists hate one another at least as much as they hate conservatives, you should read this or this -- where the previous leader of the Australian Labor party absolutely savages both the present leader and the party as a whole. Even I think he goes too far. I see the present leader as a decent man, if a bit dull. He is, for instance, a committed Christian and an opponent of abortion. The Australian Labor party is a lot more moderate than the U.S. Democrats.
Even in Sweden conservatives are happiest: One in four Swedes professes to be "very happy", according to a new survey. The happiest people in Sweden have high incomes, are in good health, and pray to God. The survey, carried out by researchers at Gothenburg University, showed that people who voted for the Christian Democrat or Moderate parties were more likely to think of themselves as happy. This despite seventy years of almost unbroken Social Democratic rule in Sweden. Happy people were also most likely to be young and be living with a partner or be married. Sixty-two percent of rich, healthy people said they were happy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, being poor and unhealthy is not so much fun. Only 7 percent of people in this category said they were happy. The researchers from the Society Opinion and Media (SOM) Institute at Gothenburg University, spoke to 3,000 randomly chosen people between the ages of 15 and 85.
Court: No Ten Commandments in Courthouses: "In a narrowly drawn ruling, the Supreme Court struck down Ten Commandments displays in courthouses Monday, holding that two exhibits in Kentucky crossed the line between separation of church and state because they promoted a religious message..... In his dissent, Scalia blasted the majority for ignoring the rule of law to push their own personal policy preferences. "What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle," Scalia wrote.... The cases marked the first time since 1980 the high court tackled the emotional issue, in a courtroom boasting a wall carving of Moses holding the sacred tablets.... Ten Commandments displays are supported by a majority of Americans, according to an AP-Ipsos poll. The poll taken in late February found that 76 percent support it and 23 percent oppose it."
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. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
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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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Tuesday, June 28, 2005
TUESDAY ROUNDUP
Once again I list what I think were the best posts on my various blogs in the preceding week.
On Dissecting Leftism I look at the links between abortion, crime and race
On Political Correctness Watch I report on anti-Americanism in Australia
On Greenie Watch I note that the Vice president of the IPCC (U.N. body) has dismissed human-caused global warming
On Education Watch I note statistics showing that college is a bad investment: Spending taxpayer money on education REDUCES the income of the population
On Socialized Medicine I note that Australia shows how corrupt and money-mad a GOVERNMENT health system can be
On Leftists as Elitists I have an explanation of why British intellectuals still love Karl marx
On Majority Rights I report on tolerance and respect for the individual in Tudor England.
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Once again I list what I think were the best posts on my various blogs in the preceding week.
On Dissecting Leftism I look at the links between abortion, crime and race
On Political Correctness Watch I report on anti-Americanism in Australia
On Greenie Watch I note that the Vice president of the IPCC (U.N. body) has dismissed human-caused global warming
On Education Watch I note statistics showing that college is a bad investment: Spending taxpayer money on education REDUCES the income of the population
On Socialized Medicine I note that Australia shows how corrupt and money-mad a GOVERNMENT health system can be
On Leftists as Elitists I have an explanation of why British intellectuals still love Karl marx
On Majority Rights I report on tolerance and respect for the individual in Tudor England.
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