ELSEWHERE
I do occasionally get derisive emails from unwary Leftists who don't expect the sort of effective response that they get from me. One of the most amusing such Leftists lately has been Steve Getto (gettos@fdn.uq.edu.au) -- apparently an academic or student from my Alma Mater (the University of Queensland) in my home town of Brisbane. He initially emailed me to express great scorn for my demonstration that Nazism was Leftist. I gave him more to think about than he expected, however, and he has been in continual backdown mode since. His most recent email to me was most amusing. He was trying to defuse the trenchant criticisms of the Left by George Orwell and this is what he wrote: "Oh hehe ... so does this mean you are sincerely interested in a fairer and more equitable society? Gimme a break. Orwell *was* deeply incensed at the behaviour of elements of the Left, yes. And some of your criticisms of socialists and socialism are valid. But Orwell never gave up on the idea of the basic principles of socialism. Some socialists have no right to quote Orwell, agreed. But right wing champions of capitalism like you have even less. How about replacing the Orwell references to a more suitable one like Andrew Bolt. Trying to glorify your crap with literary citations is absurd and offensive to people's intellect. Ugh. Intellectual fascism. Give me Nazism any day. At least they had the guts to admit they were scumbags. Yours to the strains of the Internationale (by way of waving a red rag to the bull)". [Talk about being condemned out of your own mouth! He denies that Nazism was Leftist and then, as a Leftist, expresses a liking for it! What a laugh.] Update: In a subsequent email Getto described himself as being of a "general revolutionary Marxist political persuasion". How unsurprising!
There is a good post here on how the moral degeneracy of the French (and the French Left in particular) has got them into their present pickle.
There is a huge debunking here of this attention-seeker: "For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who will listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq. In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians... Massey was discharged in December 2003, shortly after returning from Iraq due to depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome." The media of course lapped it all up without doing any checks on the truth of his stories at all
Socialist envy thriving in Britain: "Having a nice view or living next door to a golf course are going to cost householders more in council tax under Labour plans. Taxpayers are set to be charged hundreds of pounds extra a year if they are in a conservation area, next to an open space, have a swimming pool or tennis court or enjoy full or partial views of the sea, hills, mountains, lakes or rivers. Extra charges are also expected to be levied on homes with more bedrooms than average, conservatories, large patios or gardens, roof terraces or balconies. Homes in "gated communities" will also face higher bills. Official documents show that ministers are going to extraordinary lengths to build a detailed database of properties across England, with the intention of placing them in a higher council tax band.... A whole range of details - from "equestrian facilities" to patio size - will be tabulated. No fewer than 10 "value-significant codes" detail a range of possible views that a property can offer".
Socialist stupidity in Scotland: "Last month must have seen an especially potent full moon, because several Scottish economic bigwigs started behaving distinctly out of character. First, Sir John Ward, the chairman of Scottish Enterprise, declared that, according to his agency's own calculations, the post-devolution public sector now accounted for no less than 55 per cent of the Scottish economy. Ward was rightly scathing of this development. In booming Ireland, the figure is around 34 per cent. He went further and claimed that in certain areas of Scotland three-quarters of the local economy is dominated by public spending."
Anti-Americanism is now the Left's only real ideology: "After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the Left everywhere stopped offering options for governance or serious theories about development and equity and sought refuge in protest. The enemies of globalization explain their ideas by stoning McDonald's to smithereens. Anticapitalists hurl pies at the president of the International Monetary Fund. Anti-Americanism has turned into ideology. The communists have exchanged Das Kapital for T-shirts with the image of Che Guevara and choruses of brief (and badly rhymed) slogans. The Left today is nothing but circus and street violence. But that strategy, along with the corruption and follies of many governments, has burrowed deeply, especially in Latin America, where a growing number of citizens despise democracy as a method to organize coexistence and reject the market economy as a way to create and assign wealth".
Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort". Officer's Club thinks some of the pro-Jihadi American Left have gone so far as to be guilty of treason by that definition.
China Hand has a new post up about how personal helpfulness overcomes bureacracy in Chinese banking.
Ovi Magazine is out again with its usual broad coverage of interesting topics.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 10, 2005
LA BELLE FRANCE
What is really happening in France: "It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularised welfare states of Old Europe. It is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The "youths" do not blame the French, they despise them. Most observers in the mainstream media (MSM) provide an occidentocentric analysis of the facts. They depict the "youths" as outsiders who want to be brought into Western society and have the same rights as the natives of Old Europe. The MSM believe that the "youths" are being treated unjustly because they are not a functioning part of Western society. They claim that, in spite of positive discrimination, subsidies, public services, schools, and all the provisions that have been made for immigrants over the years, access has been denied them. This is the marxist rhetoric of the West that has been predominant in the media and the chattering classes since the 1960s. But it does not fit the facts of the situation in Europe today... Those media that tell us that the rioting "youths" want to be a part of our society and feel left out of it, are misrepresenting the facts. As the insurgents see it, they are not a part of our society and they want us to keep out of theirs..... the insurgents are viewing the politicians and the pundits with contempt and amusement. If there is "anger" of a kind, it is no more than infuriation at the, from their point of view, arrogant presumption of the French politicians that Muslims would even consider adopting, let alone abiding by rules that the French have set".
Eurabian fights: "The banlieues are not equivalent to American inner cities. This is not a replay of 'the fire next time.' The outcome will not be the kind of affirmative action that brought black stockbrokers to Wall Street and black actors to starring roles in TV commercials and sitcoms. What we are seeing is a jihad-style insurgency waged against a country that has fervently fostered the Eurabian fusion project."
Even the socialists are begining to stir: "Yesterday, Michel Pajon, the mayor of Noisy-le-Grand near Paris, asked for the French army to intervene and stop the violence which is taking over France. The mayor - a Socialist - went on French radio to say that what is happening in his country is absolutely appalling"
A different view: "Most commentators see the recent riots in Paris (and, it now seems, throughout much of the rest of the country) as evidence of France's failure to assimilate immigrants into the body politic. But perhaps it is just the opposite, that the riots, in fact, signify that these immigrants have assimilated French culture and politics. I don't mean to be flip, but to a great extent and perhaps more than any developed nation, the history of France has been written in the streets. My quick and dirty recall of French history suggests that many of its most pivotal moments (both good and bad) have resulted from popular uprising."
It had to happpen: Some people on Daily Kos are saying that GWB is to blame for the riots in France! (Hat Tip to Pubcrawler)
Maybe the French should ask their Swiss neighbours about how to run an immigration policy. You can read here how hard it is to become a Swiss. They actually require immigrants to INTEGRATE into Swiss society! Of course pro-immigration lobbyists will say Swiss style regulations will 'harm' the economy and undermine global integration, yet Swiss per capita income is greater than most of their West European neighbours and their unemployment rate is approximately half.
Stating the now obvious: "In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the US media became preoccupied with a key question: "Why do they hate us so much?" A fair-minded people, the Americans believed there must be a good, rational explanation why 19 educated, economically comfortable young men would ram planes into buildings, killing themselves along with thousands of innocents. Among the many reasons proffered, one that appeared frequently - and drew concern in Jerusalem - was that it was all due to US support for Israel. If the US would only toe a more pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian line, this argument ran, then the Arab and Muslim masses wouldn't hate it so. The events in Paris over the last 12 days have confirmed the vacuity of this argument. Since the mid-1960s, France has consistently been among the most pro-Arab countries in western Europe".
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What is really happening in France: "It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularised welfare states of Old Europe. It is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The "youths" do not blame the French, they despise them. Most observers in the mainstream media (MSM) provide an occidentocentric analysis of the facts. They depict the "youths" as outsiders who want to be brought into Western society and have the same rights as the natives of Old Europe. The MSM believe that the "youths" are being treated unjustly because they are not a functioning part of Western society. They claim that, in spite of positive discrimination, subsidies, public services, schools, and all the provisions that have been made for immigrants over the years, access has been denied them. This is the marxist rhetoric of the West that has been predominant in the media and the chattering classes since the 1960s. But it does not fit the facts of the situation in Europe today... Those media that tell us that the rioting "youths" want to be a part of our society and feel left out of it, are misrepresenting the facts. As the insurgents see it, they are not a part of our society and they want us to keep out of theirs..... the insurgents are viewing the politicians and the pundits with contempt and amusement. If there is "anger" of a kind, it is no more than infuriation at the, from their point of view, arrogant presumption of the French politicians that Muslims would even consider adopting, let alone abiding by rules that the French have set".
Eurabian fights: "The banlieues are not equivalent to American inner cities. This is not a replay of 'the fire next time.' The outcome will not be the kind of affirmative action that brought black stockbrokers to Wall Street and black actors to starring roles in TV commercials and sitcoms. What we are seeing is a jihad-style insurgency waged against a country that has fervently fostered the Eurabian fusion project."
Even the socialists are begining to stir: "Yesterday, Michel Pajon, the mayor of Noisy-le-Grand near Paris, asked for the French army to intervene and stop the violence which is taking over France. The mayor - a Socialist - went on French radio to say that what is happening in his country is absolutely appalling"
A different view: "Most commentators see the recent riots in Paris (and, it now seems, throughout much of the rest of the country) as evidence of France's failure to assimilate immigrants into the body politic. But perhaps it is just the opposite, that the riots, in fact, signify that these immigrants have assimilated French culture and politics. I don't mean to be flip, but to a great extent and perhaps more than any developed nation, the history of France has been written in the streets. My quick and dirty recall of French history suggests that many of its most pivotal moments (both good and bad) have resulted from popular uprising."
It had to happpen: Some people on Daily Kos are saying that GWB is to blame for the riots in France! (Hat Tip to Pubcrawler)
Maybe the French should ask their Swiss neighbours about how to run an immigration policy. You can read here how hard it is to become a Swiss. They actually require immigrants to INTEGRATE into Swiss society! Of course pro-immigration lobbyists will say Swiss style regulations will 'harm' the economy and undermine global integration, yet Swiss per capita income is greater than most of their West European neighbours and their unemployment rate is approximately half.
Stating the now obvious: "In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the US media became preoccupied with a key question: "Why do they hate us so much?" A fair-minded people, the Americans believed there must be a good, rational explanation why 19 educated, economically comfortable young men would ram planes into buildings, killing themselves along with thousands of innocents. Among the many reasons proffered, one that appeared frequently - and drew concern in Jerusalem - was that it was all due to US support for Israel. If the US would only toe a more pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian line, this argument ran, then the Arab and Muslim masses wouldn't hate it so. The events in Paris over the last 12 days have confirmed the vacuity of this argument. Since the mid-1960s, France has consistently been among the most pro-Arab countries in western Europe".
************************
ELSEWHERE
Looks like Californians have voted to keep their gerrymandered Democrat legislature. Not so surprising in kooky California, I suppose.
Another Leftist myth exploded: "Middle-class youths, not the poor, are providing the bulk of wartime recruits to the armed forces, according to a new study by a conservative think tank. The Heritage Foundation research paper found that a higher percentage of middle-class and upper-middle-class families have been providing enlistees for the war on Islamic militants since the September 11 attacks on the United States. Researchers matched the ZIP codes of recruits over the past five years with federal government estimates of household incomes in those neighborhoods. Contrary to complaints from some liberal lawmakers and pundits, the data show that the poor are not shouldering the bulk of the military's need for new soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines".
Louisiana cash goes to the dogs, cows and goats : "Louisiana will spend $45 million on sports and livestock facilities and other new projects in spite of a looming deficit, frustrating some officials who say the frivolity reinforces the state's history of political patronage. 'We're in Washington with our hands out asking for $2 billion plus, and rather than holding on to the money to see what the needs are, they're spending it on local projects financing goat shows and lawn-mower races,' says state Sen. Robert Barham, Oak Ridge Republican. Supporters of the $4 million Morehouse Parish Equine Center say it will give a much-needed boost to the economy. Jimmy Christmas, center chairman, says it will be used for horse, cow, dog, goat and art shows; rodeos; auctions; crawfish festivals; lawn-mower races; religious functions; an animal shelter; and a community center."
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a huge range of reading.
I have just put up here a detailed comment from a reader about how Australia's public broadcasters foster Islamic unrest.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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.
********************************
Looks like Californians have voted to keep their gerrymandered Democrat legislature. Not so surprising in kooky California, I suppose.
Another Leftist myth exploded: "Middle-class youths, not the poor, are providing the bulk of wartime recruits to the armed forces, according to a new study by a conservative think tank. The Heritage Foundation research paper found that a higher percentage of middle-class and upper-middle-class families have been providing enlistees for the war on Islamic militants since the September 11 attacks on the United States. Researchers matched the ZIP codes of recruits over the past five years with federal government estimates of household incomes in those neighborhoods. Contrary to complaints from some liberal lawmakers and pundits, the data show that the poor are not shouldering the bulk of the military's need for new soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines".
Louisiana cash goes to the dogs, cows and goats : "Louisiana will spend $45 million on sports and livestock facilities and other new projects in spite of a looming deficit, frustrating some officials who say the frivolity reinforces the state's history of political patronage. 'We're in Washington with our hands out asking for $2 billion plus, and rather than holding on to the money to see what the needs are, they're spending it on local projects financing goat shows and lawn-mower races,' says state Sen. Robert Barham, Oak Ridge Republican. Supporters of the $4 million Morehouse Parish Equine Center say it will give a much-needed boost to the economy. Jimmy Christmas, center chairman, says it will be used for horse, cow, dog, goat and art shows; rodeos; auctions; crawfish festivals; lawn-mower races; religious functions; an animal shelter; and a community center."
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a huge range of reading.
I have just put up here a detailed comment from a reader about how Australia's public broadcasters foster Islamic unrest.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 09, 2005
SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD?
(I am sure many people reading this will think that I should be talking about the Paris situation at the moment rather than hardy perennial questions such as the one above but everybody else seems to be talking about Paris so maybe some readers need a break from that at the moment. If you want a really down-to-earth discussion of the present French situation, try Fred Reed. I have also just put up a predictably outspoken comment from Chris Brand about the French situation. And the role of France's rigid socialistic economic system in creating their present problems is touched on here. I wonder if the French realize how much they are being laughed at by the "cowboys" from the other side of the Atlantic at the moment?)
I did myself have a very permissive upbringing and, as a libertarian, I always supported my son in whatever he wanted to do. Though I would not of course have supported him if he had wished to do anything destructive. But Christians are often taught that a more directive style of parenting is appropriate. Barring children from watching TV or certain parts of TV is, for instance, common. My son was and is a "Simpsons" devotee so I was delighted for him to watch as much of all that political incorrectness as he wished.
Now I am not going to pontificate on exactly what is the right child-rearing style. The genetics research tells us that what we do makes very little difference anyway. What I DO want to do is to make it known to parents who favour a stricter approach that attacks on such approaches are very poorly founded. Leftists are of course great advocates of "there is no such thing as right and wrong" and Leftist psychologists have been claiming for decades that a permissive approach founded on such thinking is far and away better for your child's psychological health. Such claims are rubbish and I want to examine just one example of the "research" supporting such claims in order to show what a crock the whole research tradition concerned is. Below is the centrepiece of one such set of findings, from "Self-Reported Narcissism and Perceived Parental Permissiveness and Authoritarianism" by Ramsey, Watson, Biderman and Reeves and reported in the Journal of Genetic Psychology, Volume: 157. Issue: 2 of 1996. Page Numbers: 227ff.
So the study purports to show that "authoritarian" parents produce Narcissistic children -- which would indeed be a matter of concern if it were true. But the study is hilariously flawed. The data for it were obtained by handing out a bunch of questionnaires to 370 Introductory Psychology students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga! Their report of how their parents treated them is accepted unquestioningly and data derived from a non-sample of Chattanooga students is assumed to tell us something about humanity in general!
The great advantage of such "research" from the point of view of the psychologist is that students are pretty alert to what the psychologist expects and tend to give him the answers he hopes for. But on this occasion even that did not work out. Look at the correlations reported. They average around .15, which is effectively zero. The correlations are "significant" in a statistical sense but that is simply a reflection of the large sample size. Even if we take the correlations seriously, they are telling us that there is only around a 2% overlap between the upbringing and the personality variables -- which means that knowing about the upbringing of the child gives you virtually no power to predict how the child will turn out. What a lot of nonsense it all is! I will back Solomon (Proverbs 13:24; 29:15) as a better guide to child-rearing than that any day.
As a Parthian shot, it might also be noted the the measure of Narcissism (OMNI) used by the researchers showed very poor internal consistency (alpha of .66) and also showed virtually no correlation with another measure of what should have been largely the same concept -- the widely-used Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale. So whether their measure of Narcissism did in fact measure Narcissism seems dubious. Try not to laugh!
Update
A reader has emailed me to make the interesting point that narcissism is intrinsically anti-authoritarian -- so anti-authority attitudes of themselves could taken as an indicator of narcissism. The email: "A narcissist will ALWAYS consider any 'authority' figure to be an 'authoritarian'. Part of the definition of narcissism is responding to anyone expressing any 'outside' [of their views] opinions with rage (they see any other opinion as repressive). It makes them 'feel' to not be in control / important.... ie, the fact that they have this response defines them as narcissists..."
**************************
(I am sure many people reading this will think that I should be talking about the Paris situation at the moment rather than hardy perennial questions such as the one above but everybody else seems to be talking about Paris so maybe some readers need a break from that at the moment. If you want a really down-to-earth discussion of the present French situation, try Fred Reed. I have also just put up a predictably outspoken comment from Chris Brand about the French situation. And the role of France's rigid socialistic economic system in creating their present problems is touched on here. I wonder if the French realize how much they are being laughed at by the "cowboys" from the other side of the Atlantic at the moment?)
I did myself have a very permissive upbringing and, as a libertarian, I always supported my son in whatever he wanted to do. Though I would not of course have supported him if he had wished to do anything destructive. But Christians are often taught that a more directive style of parenting is appropriate. Barring children from watching TV or certain parts of TV is, for instance, common. My son was and is a "Simpsons" devotee so I was delighted for him to watch as much of all that political incorrectness as he wished.
Now I am not going to pontificate on exactly what is the right child-rearing style. The genetics research tells us that what we do makes very little difference anyway. What I DO want to do is to make it known to parents who favour a stricter approach that attacks on such approaches are very poorly founded. Leftists are of course great advocates of "there is no such thing as right and wrong" and Leftist psychologists have been claiming for decades that a permissive approach founded on such thinking is far and away better for your child's psychological health. Such claims are rubbish and I want to examine just one example of the "research" supporting such claims in order to show what a crock the whole research tradition concerned is. Below is the centrepiece of one such set of findings, from "Self-Reported Narcissism and Perceived Parental Permissiveness and Authoritarianism" by Ramsey, Watson, Biderman and Reeves and reported in the Journal of Genetic Psychology, Volume: 157. Issue: 2 of 1996. Page Numbers: 227ff.
"A negative relationship appeared between the OMNI and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale ( r = -.18, p <.001), and the OMNI correlated directly with the PAQ maternal measure of permissiveness ( r = .18, p < .001), with the PAQ paternal measure of permissiveness ( r = .11, p < .05), but not with the combined ( r = .04, p < .15) measure of permissiveness. All three authoritarianism scales were associated with greater tendencies toward narcissism: PAQ maternal authoritarianism ( r = .11, p < .05), PAQ paternal authoritarianism ( r = .14, p < .01), and the combined index ( r = .16, p < .01). No significant linkages appeared between the OMNI and any measure of authoritativeness ( r s = -.07 to .05, p s < .15). When the data for men and women were examined separately, no significant gender differences appeared in the OMNI correlations with self-esteem or with any parenting style. The coefficient alpha for the OMNI was .66"
So the study purports to show that "authoritarian" parents produce Narcissistic children -- which would indeed be a matter of concern if it were true. But the study is hilariously flawed. The data for it were obtained by handing out a bunch of questionnaires to 370 Introductory Psychology students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga! Their report of how their parents treated them is accepted unquestioningly and data derived from a non-sample of Chattanooga students is assumed to tell us something about humanity in general!
The great advantage of such "research" from the point of view of the psychologist is that students are pretty alert to what the psychologist expects and tend to give him the answers he hopes for. But on this occasion even that did not work out. Look at the correlations reported. They average around .15, which is effectively zero. The correlations are "significant" in a statistical sense but that is simply a reflection of the large sample size. Even if we take the correlations seriously, they are telling us that there is only around a 2% overlap between the upbringing and the personality variables -- which means that knowing about the upbringing of the child gives you virtually no power to predict how the child will turn out. What a lot of nonsense it all is! I will back Solomon (Proverbs 13:24; 29:15) as a better guide to child-rearing than that any day.
As a Parthian shot, it might also be noted the the measure of Narcissism (OMNI) used by the researchers showed very poor internal consistency (alpha of .66) and also showed virtually no correlation with another measure of what should have been largely the same concept -- the widely-used Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale. So whether their measure of Narcissism did in fact measure Narcissism seems dubious. Try not to laugh!
Update
A reader has emailed me to make the interesting point that narcissism is intrinsically anti-authoritarian -- so anti-authority attitudes of themselves could taken as an indicator of narcissism. The email: "A narcissist will ALWAYS consider any 'authority' figure to be an 'authoritarian'. Part of the definition of narcissism is responding to anyone expressing any 'outside' [of their views] opinions with rage (they see any other opinion as repressive). It makes them 'feel' to not be in control / important.... ie, the fact that they have this response defines them as narcissists..."
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ELSEWHERE
A nice bit of sarcasm: "If France has these kinds of systemic problems with its Muslim population, then it is time to partition France. It's time for an independent Muslim state to be created. After all, isn't that what France and other European nations have determined is the proper solution for Israel? These are not just riots. This is an intifada - just like the one begun in 2000 within and around Israel. France and other countries, including the United States, have demanded that Israel meet those attacks with land concessions to the rioters and suicide bombers. That is the only viable, long-term solution, they say. They claim this violence will never cease until those oppressed by Israel are granted an independent, autonomous state of their own. Why should the solution be any different in France? The global jihad has come home to Paris. Let's see if French officials impose upon their own population the same solution they demand upon the population of the Jewish state. After all, isn't the key to addressing the concerns of the jihadists to appease them?"
For once Wonkette says something that really is amusing: "It's day 12 of the French riots but I still haven't heard anyone say how it's Bush's fault yet. Is the Left so apathetic about France they cannot cite a simple connection to the White House? .."
The evidence keeps piling up: "Nature beats nurture in determining how successful a child will be at school and university. Inherited intelligence accounts for 75 per cent of educational attainment while home environment is responsible for the rest, according to a new study. The research, published in the Royal Economic Society's Economic Journal, contradicts claims that upper or middle-class parents "buy" their children's success. The study looked at more than 15,000 children, almost 600 of whom had been adopted." [See also here for a more extensive summary and here for the full original paper ]
Just note this typically Leftist but still astounding bit of arrogance from a man who very nearly became President of the United States: "Kerry concluded by giving the students a little lesson in politics. "All politics is a reaction to felt needs. You need to get people to feel the need. Our job is to make sure the right felt need is taken into consideration."" [So Leftists adjudicate on which are the "right" needs! Stalin lives!]
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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.
********************************
A nice bit of sarcasm: "If France has these kinds of systemic problems with its Muslim population, then it is time to partition France. It's time for an independent Muslim state to be created. After all, isn't that what France and other European nations have determined is the proper solution for Israel? These are not just riots. This is an intifada - just like the one begun in 2000 within and around Israel. France and other countries, including the United States, have demanded that Israel meet those attacks with land concessions to the rioters and suicide bombers. That is the only viable, long-term solution, they say. They claim this violence will never cease until those oppressed by Israel are granted an independent, autonomous state of their own. Why should the solution be any different in France? The global jihad has come home to Paris. Let's see if French officials impose upon their own population the same solution they demand upon the population of the Jewish state. After all, isn't the key to addressing the concerns of the jihadists to appease them?"
For once Wonkette says something that really is amusing: "It's day 12 of the French riots but I still haven't heard anyone say how it's Bush's fault yet. Is the Left so apathetic about France they cannot cite a simple connection to the White House? .."
The evidence keeps piling up: "Nature beats nurture in determining how successful a child will be at school and university. Inherited intelligence accounts for 75 per cent of educational attainment while home environment is responsible for the rest, according to a new study. The research, published in the Royal Economic Society's Economic Journal, contradicts claims that upper or middle-class parents "buy" their children's success. The study looked at more than 15,000 children, almost 600 of whom had been adopted." [See also here for a more extensive summary and here for the full original paper ]
Just note this typically Leftist but still astounding bit of arrogance from a man who very nearly became President of the United States: "Kerry concluded by giving the students a little lesson in politics. "All politics is a reaction to felt needs. You need to get people to feel the need. Our job is to make sure the right felt need is taken into consideration."" [So Leftists adjudicate on which are the "right" needs! Stalin lives!]
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 08, 2005
A VIEW FROM THE AUSTRALIAN LEFT
In my view, both the excerpt below from an article by a prominent Leftist Australian politician and the bipartisan legislation he is referring to show the Australian Left to be much more decent, realistic and responsible than American "liberals" will ever be -- sadly for the whole world
"We are seeing at the moment a strange state of affairs in Australian public life, in which the politicians and the people are in broad agreement both on the nature of the terrorist threat and on what ought to be done about it, while a large slice of the intellectual class is in furious disagreement. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, after Bali I and Bali II, after Madrid and London, most Australian politicians accept that the terrorist threat to Western society in general, and Australia specifically, is real and dangerous. That's why six Labor premiers [State governors] have worked co-operatively with a Liberal Party prime minister to come up with a balanced package of anti-terrorism legislation, one that will give our governments the necessary powers to protect Australia against terrorism, while preserving to the maximum extent the rights and freedoms that make Australia worth defending.
In working co-operatively to defeat terrorism, Australian politicians are doing what the Australian people want us to do. Every opinion poll shows that the Australian people expect us to do what is necessary, within the framework of our democratic system, to stop those who are planning to commit terrorist attacks as well as those who recruit, finance, organise or incite others to do so.
You would never know this from listening to some ABC [public broadcaster] commentary or reading some broadsheet commentators. In the world of Alan Ramsey and Phillip Adams and Michael Leunig, all the world's troubles an the fault of the Western democracies, or a witches' brew of Zionists and neo-conservatives; terrorism is a myth or a trick by George Bush and Tony Blair to divert our attention while they seize the world's oil. This strange disconnect between the people and the intellectual elite is dangerous and damaging.
My view is that Australia is at war - at war with a new form of totalitarian ideology as evil as the fascist and communist forms that the democracies fought during the 20th century. It is a not a war Australia sought, nor a war that we can escape by feeding others to the crocodiles in the hope that they will eat us last.... This week in Canberra, despite all the shouting, we saw a mature democracy at work. When the national interest is at stake, the parties work together to achieve an outcome that both protects Australia from terrorism and protects the safety of Australians".
***********************
In my view, both the excerpt below from an article by a prominent Leftist Australian politician and the bipartisan legislation he is referring to show the Australian Left to be much more decent, realistic and responsible than American "liberals" will ever be -- sadly for the whole world
"We are seeing at the moment a strange state of affairs in Australian public life, in which the politicians and the people are in broad agreement both on the nature of the terrorist threat and on what ought to be done about it, while a large slice of the intellectual class is in furious disagreement. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, after Bali I and Bali II, after Madrid and London, most Australian politicians accept that the terrorist threat to Western society in general, and Australia specifically, is real and dangerous. That's why six Labor premiers [State governors] have worked co-operatively with a Liberal Party prime minister to come up with a balanced package of anti-terrorism legislation, one that will give our governments the necessary powers to protect Australia against terrorism, while preserving to the maximum extent the rights and freedoms that make Australia worth defending.
In working co-operatively to defeat terrorism, Australian politicians are doing what the Australian people want us to do. Every opinion poll shows that the Australian people expect us to do what is necessary, within the framework of our democratic system, to stop those who are planning to commit terrorist attacks as well as those who recruit, finance, organise or incite others to do so.
You would never know this from listening to some ABC [public broadcaster] commentary or reading some broadsheet commentators. In the world of Alan Ramsey and Phillip Adams and Michael Leunig, all the world's troubles an the fault of the Western democracies, or a witches' brew of Zionists and neo-conservatives; terrorism is a myth or a trick by George Bush and Tony Blair to divert our attention while they seize the world's oil. This strange disconnect between the people and the intellectual elite is dangerous and damaging.
My view is that Australia is at war - at war with a new form of totalitarian ideology as evil as the fascist and communist forms that the democracies fought during the 20th century. It is a not a war Australia sought, nor a war that we can escape by feeding others to the crocodiles in the hope that they will eat us last.... This week in Canberra, despite all the shouting, we saw a mature democracy at work. When the national interest is at stake, the parties work together to achieve an outcome that both protects Australia from terrorism and protects the safety of Australians".
***********************
ELSEWHERE
The Iranian Mein Kampf: "Eighty years ago, Adolf Hitler published an autobiography-cum-manifesto. Its title translates as "My Struggle." In it, Hitler talked of his desire for revenge against France, the German nation's need to control more land, and the means by which his National Socialist Party could gain power. It also included, of course, a clear indication of his genocidal intentions against the Jews. Last week, Iran's president echoed those themes. He talked about his "struggle" - the word translate into both Arabic and Persian as "jihad" -- his desire for revenge against America and the West, the Islamic nation's need to control more land, and the means by which his Militant Islamist movement could gain global power. He also included his genocidal intention to wipe Israel "off the map." Of course, there are differences between Hitler in 1925 and Ahmadinejad in 2005. Perhaps the biggest is this: When Hitler made his threats he was an obscure politician whom hardly anyone took seriously. By contrast, Ahmadinejad is the president of a large and wealthy nation that operates terrorist organizations and is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons. Had Hitler's threatening words inspired serious action then, millions of people - Jews, Gypsies, Czechoslovaks, Americans, British, Russians and others - would not have been slaughtered in the 20th Century."
A good post here about Leftist bias in the French media coverage of the Paris riots.
There is a good fisking by a blunt Dutchman here of the creepy way the American Leftist media are covering the Paris riots. Excerpt: "Somehow these revolting youngsters started to think that it was normal to want it all and to want it now without sweating for it. They drop out of school in masses but nevertheless demand the welfare state to fulfill their dreams, whatever they may be. They look down at going to work as baggage handlers or asparagus diggers, and they feel they have the right to do the same things and own the same things as the kids in the better neighborhoods – the state should give it them. They have a natural right, they apparently believe, not to be neglected, not to be overlooked, not to be abandoned, not to be counted out. They think it is the state’s obligation to prevent them from being bored, from being poor and uneducated".
Mark Steyn on French folly: "Ever since 9/11, I've been gloomily predicting the European powder keg's about to go up. ''By 2010 we'll be watching burning buildings, street riots and assassinations on the news every night,'' I wrote in Canada's Western Standard back in February. Silly me. The Eurabian civil war appears to have started some years ahead of my optimistic schedule. As Thursday's edition of the Guardian reported in London: ''French youths fired at police and burned over 300 cars last night as towns around Paris experienced their worst night of violence in a week of urban unrest.'' ''French youths,'' huh? You mean Pierre and Jacques and Marcel and Alphonse? Granted that most of the "youths" are technically citizens of the French Republic, it doesn't take much time in les banlieus of Paris to discover that the rioters do not think of their primary identity as ''French'': They're young men from North Africa growing ever more estranged from the broader community with each passing year and wedded ever more intensely to an assertive Muslim identity more implacable than anything you're likely to find in the Middle East. After four somnolent years, it turns out finally that there really is an explosive ''Arab street,'' but it's in Clichy-sous-Bois."
There is a rather witty commentary here on an utterly stupid anti-Israel book (The Question of Zion). Excerpt: "Rose claims that an important part of Zionism's psychopathology is its inability to criticize itself. And yet because she has little firsthand knowledge of the country, and even less of its language, she draws her critique from an impressive array of leftist Israeli critics, academics, peace activists, conscientious objectors, post-Zionists, and non-Zionists both past (Scholem, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon) and present (Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Uri Avnery, Amos Elon, David Grossman, Baruch Kimmerling), each of whom she quotes denouncing Zionism. She thereby implicitly--and, as it happens, accurately--gives the impression of an extremely lively tradition of Israeli self-criticism".
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
The Iranian Mein Kampf: "Eighty years ago, Adolf Hitler published an autobiography-cum-manifesto. Its title translates as "My Struggle." In it, Hitler talked of his desire for revenge against France, the German nation's need to control more land, and the means by which his National Socialist Party could gain power. It also included, of course, a clear indication of his genocidal intentions against the Jews. Last week, Iran's president echoed those themes. He talked about his "struggle" - the word translate into both Arabic and Persian as "jihad" -- his desire for revenge against America and the West, the Islamic nation's need to control more land, and the means by which his Militant Islamist movement could gain global power. He also included his genocidal intention to wipe Israel "off the map." Of course, there are differences between Hitler in 1925 and Ahmadinejad in 2005. Perhaps the biggest is this: When Hitler made his threats he was an obscure politician whom hardly anyone took seriously. By contrast, Ahmadinejad is the president of a large and wealthy nation that operates terrorist organizations and is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons. Had Hitler's threatening words inspired serious action then, millions of people - Jews, Gypsies, Czechoslovaks, Americans, British, Russians and others - would not have been slaughtered in the 20th Century."
A good post here about Leftist bias in the French media coverage of the Paris riots.
There is a good fisking by a blunt Dutchman here of the creepy way the American Leftist media are covering the Paris riots. Excerpt: "Somehow these revolting youngsters started to think that it was normal to want it all and to want it now without sweating for it. They drop out of school in masses but nevertheless demand the welfare state to fulfill their dreams, whatever they may be. They look down at going to work as baggage handlers or asparagus diggers, and they feel they have the right to do the same things and own the same things as the kids in the better neighborhoods – the state should give it them. They have a natural right, they apparently believe, not to be neglected, not to be overlooked, not to be abandoned, not to be counted out. They think it is the state’s obligation to prevent them from being bored, from being poor and uneducated".
Mark Steyn on French folly: "Ever since 9/11, I've been gloomily predicting the European powder keg's about to go up. ''By 2010 we'll be watching burning buildings, street riots and assassinations on the news every night,'' I wrote in Canada's Western Standard back in February. Silly me. The Eurabian civil war appears to have started some years ahead of my optimistic schedule. As Thursday's edition of the Guardian reported in London: ''French youths fired at police and burned over 300 cars last night as towns around Paris experienced their worst night of violence in a week of urban unrest.'' ''French youths,'' huh? You mean Pierre and Jacques and Marcel and Alphonse? Granted that most of the "youths" are technically citizens of the French Republic, it doesn't take much time in les banlieus of Paris to discover that the rioters do not think of their primary identity as ''French'': They're young men from North Africa growing ever more estranged from the broader community with each passing year and wedded ever more intensely to an assertive Muslim identity more implacable than anything you're likely to find in the Middle East. After four somnolent years, it turns out finally that there really is an explosive ''Arab street,'' but it's in Clichy-sous-Bois."
There is a rather witty commentary here on an utterly stupid anti-Israel book (The Question of Zion). Excerpt: "Rose claims that an important part of Zionism's psychopathology is its inability to criticize itself. And yet because she has little firsthand knowledge of the country, and even less of its language, she draws her critique from an impressive array of leftist Israeli critics, academics, peace activists, conscientious objectors, post-Zionists, and non-Zionists both past (Scholem, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon) and present (Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Uri Avnery, Amos Elon, David Grossman, Baruch Kimmerling), each of whom she quotes denouncing Zionism. She thereby implicitly--and, as it happens, accurately--gives the impression of an extremely lively tradition of Israeli self-criticism".
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 07, 2005
MORE SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA FROM THE 1930s
Below is a picture of an original Nazi propaganda poster ("Flaggenspruch" or "flag motto") that was often publicly displayed during World War 2. An original copy is presently being advertised for sale on eBay. Its basic message is that help for the poor is not charity but something which the poor have a right to -- which is of course a common Leftist claim to this day.
The heading ("Opferwilligkeit") translates as: "Willingness for self-sacrifice" and the rest translates as: "Social works deserve no gratitude because they are not graciousness but the restoration of rights". The source of the quotation is blacked out in accordance with the rather ludicrous eBay rules but it is a quotation from Mein Kampf (around page 23 or 24 in most editions). I give the full context for the quote below (from the Manheim translation). I also give the full German original of the sentence from which the quote is taken as I think the Manheim translation is a bit clumsy. Hitler spoke a very colloquial "people's German" which it is very hard to translate so as to give exactly the same impact as the original.
*************************
Below is a picture of an original Nazi propaganda poster ("Flaggenspruch" or "flag motto") that was often publicly displayed during World War 2. An original copy is presently being advertised for sale on eBay. Its basic message is that help for the poor is not charity but something which the poor have a right to -- which is of course a common Leftist claim to this day.
The heading ("Opferwilligkeit") translates as: "Willingness for self-sacrifice" and the rest translates as: "Social works deserve no gratitude because they are not graciousness but the restoration of rights". The source of the quotation is blacked out in accordance with the rather ludicrous eBay rules but it is a quotation from Mein Kampf (around page 23 or 24 in most editions). I give the full context for the quote below (from the Manheim translation). I also give the full German original of the sentence from which the quote is taken as I think the Manheim translation is a bit clumsy. Hitler spoke a very colloquial "people's German" which it is very hard to translate so as to give exactly the same impact as the original.
"I do not know which is more terrible: inattention to social misery such as we see every day among the majority of those who have been favored by fortune or who have risen by their own efforts, or else the snobbish, or at times tactless and obtrusive, condescension of certain women of fashion in skirts or in trousers, who ' feel for the people.' In any event, these gentry sin far more than their minds, devoid of all instinct, are capable of realizing. Consequently, and much to their own amazement, the result of their social 'efforts' is always nil, frequently, in fact, an indignant rebuff, though this, of course, is passed off as a proof of the people's ingratitude.
Such minds are most reluctant to realize that social endeavor has nothing in common with this sort of thing; that above all it can raise no claim to gratitude, since its function is not to distribute favors but to restore rights. [In German: "Dass eine soziale Taetigkeit damit gar nichts zu tun hat, vor allem auf Dank ueberhaupt keinen Anspruch erheben darf, da sie ja nicht Gnaden verteilen, sondern Rechte herstellen soll, leuchtet einer solchen Art von Koepfen nur ungern ein"]."
*************************
ELSEWHERE
I probably should make a brief comment on the latest furore about male/female differences in IQ. I have not read either the original Irwing & Lynn paper nor the attack on it by Blinkhorn but Blinkhorn seems mightily confused from what I see reported. He seems to think that the undoubted fact mentioned by Irwing & Lynn to the effect that there are far more very bright men than women means that women ON AVERAGE are less bright. That is nonsense. There are also lots more very dumb men than there are very dumb women so the male/female average is the same. For a fuller explanation, see my previous posts on the matter here and here
Conor Friedersdorf argues that France has failed to assimilate its Muslim immigrants because the French Welfare State gives them no incentive to assimilate.
Decent Italians: "Ten to 15 thousand epople took to the streets of Rome last night to demonstrate against Iran's open threat to exterminate Israel. While not a massive number, it is 10 to 15 thousand more people than have taken to the streets of Paris or London in the same cause."
A good comment here on the lies that Wal-Mart haters resort to. One excerpt: "In the closing minutes of the new documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," triumphant activists proudly point to vacant lots in their various communities. Their message: They were going to build a Wal-Mart here, but we stopped it. Vacant lots. What a victory. And what a perfect symbol of what's wrong not just with the anti-Wal-Mart ideologues, but the whole anti-development, anti-globalization, anti-everything left. "High Cost," which opens today in New York City and Los Angeles, is only a documentary in the most generous sense. It's more propaganda"
Banagor looks at the strange selectivity Leftists show in what causes they agitate for and conclodes that it is only really stupid people that they side with.
Global capitalism: Curing oppression and poverty: "Although leftist agitators continue to protest global capitalism, they overlook the key points in the debate. Capitalism has been instituted on three continents -- in western Europe, North America, and Asia. These nations -- England, France, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and the others -- are among the world's wealthiest countries with per capita incomes in the range of at least $20,000-$30,000 annually. Additionally, even the prosperity of a so-called 'socialist' country like Sweden is based on significant elements of capitalism, including Volvo, Saab, and Ericsson, as well as countless private small shops."
The futility of non-stop relief: "No one can accept the idea of trying to fill a bottomless hole -- that people in these parts of the world will forever need to be taken care of, that they simply will never cope on their own. And this is quite rational -- if someone requires emergency support, to be helped back on his or her feet, after which a productive life will be resumed, helping makes sense. But if help simply goes to be consumed, after which more help is required, on and on and on, this is intolerable. At some point, no matter how much is given, it will reach an end and, once again, thousands will perish."
Ivar Berg long ago showed statistically that most education is pretty useless and not worth the money people spend on it. It looks like nothing has changed. This report ranks American States according to how well-educated their kids are -- with Vermont at the top and Arizona at the bottom. Yet, as Harry Hutton points out, Arizona is economically dynamic -- last year their economy grew by 7.1%, the second highest in the nation.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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 probably should make a brief comment on the latest furore about male/female differences in IQ. I have not read either the original Irwing & Lynn paper nor the attack on it by Blinkhorn but Blinkhorn seems mightily confused from what I see reported. He seems to think that the undoubted fact mentioned by Irwing & Lynn to the effect that there are far more very bright men than women means that women ON AVERAGE are less bright. That is nonsense. There are also lots more very dumb men than there are very dumb women so the male/female average is the same. For a fuller explanation, see my previous posts on the matter here and here
Conor Friedersdorf argues that France has failed to assimilate its Muslim immigrants because the French Welfare State gives them no incentive to assimilate.
Decent Italians: "Ten to 15 thousand epople took to the streets of Rome last night to demonstrate against Iran's open threat to exterminate Israel. While not a massive number, it is 10 to 15 thousand more people than have taken to the streets of Paris or London in the same cause."
A good comment here on the lies that Wal-Mart haters resort to. One excerpt: "In the closing minutes of the new documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," triumphant activists proudly point to vacant lots in their various communities. Their message: They were going to build a Wal-Mart here, but we stopped it. Vacant lots. What a victory. And what a perfect symbol of what's wrong not just with the anti-Wal-Mart ideologues, but the whole anti-development, anti-globalization, anti-everything left. "High Cost," which opens today in New York City and Los Angeles, is only a documentary in the most generous sense. It's more propaganda"
Banagor looks at the strange selectivity Leftists show in what causes they agitate for and conclodes that it is only really stupid people that they side with.
Global capitalism: Curing oppression and poverty: "Although leftist agitators continue to protest global capitalism, they overlook the key points in the debate. Capitalism has been instituted on three continents -- in western Europe, North America, and Asia. These nations -- England, France, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and the others -- are among the world's wealthiest countries with per capita incomes in the range of at least $20,000-$30,000 annually. Additionally, even the prosperity of a so-called 'socialist' country like Sweden is based on significant elements of capitalism, including Volvo, Saab, and Ericsson, as well as countless private small shops."
The futility of non-stop relief: "No one can accept the idea of trying to fill a bottomless hole -- that people in these parts of the world will forever need to be taken care of, that they simply will never cope on their own. And this is quite rational -- if someone requires emergency support, to be helped back on his or her feet, after which a productive life will be resumed, helping makes sense. But if help simply goes to be consumed, after which more help is required, on and on and on, this is intolerable. At some point, no matter how much is given, it will reach an end and, once again, thousands will perish."
Ivar Berg long ago showed statistically that most education is pretty useless and not worth the money people spend on it. It looks like nothing has changed. This report ranks American States according to how well-educated their kids are -- with Vermont at the top and Arizona at the bottom. Yet, as Harry Hutton points out, Arizona is economically dynamic -- last year their economy grew by 7.1%, the second highest in the nation.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 06, 2005
RACIAL PREFERENCE AS AN EXTENSION OF KIN PREFERENCE
French-Canadian psychologist J.P. Rushton has just put out a new paper elaborating on themes he has been discussing for some time. The Abstract of the paper is below:
The paper will of course arouse great ire in any Leftist who reads it on the grounds that it treats preference for one's own race as natural. And yet precisely that conclusion is in fact old hat among psychologists. There was for a while a controversy about it but by 1986 we find in Roger Brown's popular social psychology textbook (titled simply Social Psychology) the conclusion that "ethnocentrism" and its associated phenomena are "universal ineradicable psychological processes". And given the usual Leftist inclinations of psychologists, the evidence had to be pretty overwhelming for that conclusion to be arrived at. So it is only the know-all Leftists who in fact know nothing who would jib at Rushton's basic point. Where Rushton's work is interesting therefore is not his discovery of the naturalness of race-preference but rather his explanation for it. He shows where it fits into theoretical biology as an aspect of both kin preference and altruism. Bringing several different phenomena together within a single theoretical framework is of course a great goal in any science so Rushton's conclusions are impressive if only for that reason. The entire paper is quite readable and I think anybody who looks at the variety of evedence Rushton masrshalls in support of his conclusions will find it hard to argue with them. See here (PDF) or here for the full paper.
*****************************
ELSEWHERE
Senate OKs benefit cuts : "A battle over deep cuts to popular federal programs like Medicaid and food stamps promises to intensify next week in the House despite relatively smooth sailing in the Senate. On Thursday, the Senate passed a measure calling for mild cuts in the health care programs for the elderly, poor and disabled, while leaving the food stamp program untouched. For now, the House bill generates $54 billion in savings, in part by imposing new fees on Medicaid patients, eliminating about 300,000 people from food stamp rolls and cutting enforcement funds against parents who duck child support.... The Senate bill, which passed 52-47, also would permit exploratory oil drilling in the Alaskan refuge, prompting five Republicans in the GOP-controlled chamber to vote against the bill."
Airports: A glimmer of sense: "The government plans to offer airline passengers nationwide the chance to avoid extra security checks by paying a fee and agreeing to a background check. Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley, who announced the plan to Congress on Thursday, said his agency also is studying other ways to reduce security delays. That includes possibly rescinding the post-Sept. 11 prohibition on passengers' carrying scissors and small knives onto planes. ... The program, tested at five airports for more than a year, would allow most people to avoid random pat-downs if they pay a fee, clear a voluntary background check and provide some form of biometric identification, such as a fingerprint. The program is intended to let frequent air passengers avoid delays and to free up security screeners to focus on other travelers."
Feisty oldster gets probation in airport case: "A woman has been sentenced to a year of probation for responding to an airport pat-down search by grabbing the screener's breasts and asking, "How would you like it if I did that to you?" Phyllis Dintenfass, 63, also was fined $2,000 Tuesday by a federal judge and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. The retired technical-college teacher was convicted in July of assault on a federal employee. Prosecutors said Dintenfass' hairpins and trouser button set off a metal detector in 2004 at the airport in Appleton. A screening supervisor with the Transportation Safety Administration then placed the backs of her hands under Dintenfass' breasts. Dintenfass became offended and grabbed the screener".
Australian Leftist government gets tough on welfare: "The State Government's increasingly hard line on social services has been extended to public housing and tenants will no longer be guaranteed a home for life. Those waiting to get public housing will face tougher asset tests as the Labor Government tries to cut waiting lists and tackle the state's escalating housing crisis. Only the most needy will have access to subsidised housing.... The changes reflect Labor's plans to give priority in public hospitals to the poorest patients and to force wealthy patients to contribute more. Premier Peter Beattie has signalled an end to free public hospitals, including possible co-payments and means tests.... Nearly 36,000 people are on the waiting list for public housing. More than 105,000 people already live in about 52,000 subsidised homes and pay as little as 25 per cent of the household's gross weekly income in rent.... Under the most controversial change, tenants will be reviewed every few years to ensure they are still eligible for housing. Those whose circumstances have improved will be given a year to find housing in the private sector... The number of people on public housing waiting lists has increased by 47 per cent in the past five years".
Hollywood shoots itself in the foot: "There’s no question Hollywood is reeling. Film attendance is down a wrenching 12 percent from last year, and a May USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that nearly half of American adults go to movies less often than they did in 2000. Some pundits have blamed the rising price of tickets, but in constant dollars a ticket costs less than it did 25 years ago. Others believe that it’s all those DVDs that people are buying—except that DVD sales are slumping, too. The most likely explanation is the left-wing politics. “You can date the recent box-office decline from the end of the summer last year, with the intensification of the presidential campaign,” notes conservative film critic and talk-radio host Michael Medved. “It wasn’t just Hollywood’s hostility toward President Bush; it was the naked, raw partisanship.”
American TV looks down on the worker: "Yet the economic explanation cannot fully account for the inordinate number of shows about doctors and lawyers. If the networks were seeking only to maximize their profits, they would air shows about corporate CEOs, business managers, and entrepreneurs. But they don't. Despite the best efforts of Virgin Music founder Richard Branson and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, only Donald Trump has succeeded with a show about the business class. Perhaps another explanation can fill in where economics fails: the cultural one. Screenwriters and producers come from the professional classes. So it makes sense that they would make shows about their own kind".
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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.
********************************
French-Canadian psychologist J.P. Rushton has just put out a new paper elaborating on themes he has been discussing for some time. The Abstract of the paper is below:
"Genetic Similarity Theory extends Anthony D. Smith's theory of ethno-symbolism by anchoring ethnic nepotism in the evolutionary psychology of altruism. Altruism toward kin and similar others evolved in order to help replicate shared genes. Since ethnic groups are repositories of shared genes, xenophobia is the `dark side' of human altruism. A review of the literature demonstrates the pull of genetic similarity in dyads such as marriage partners and friendships, and even large groups, both national and international. The evidence that genes incline people to prefer others who are genetically similar to themselves comes from studies of social assortment, differential heritabilities, the comparison of identical and fraternal twins, blood tests, and family bereavements. DNA sequencing studies confirm some origin myths and disconfirm others; they also show that in comparison to the total genetic variance around the world, random co-ethnics are related to each other on the order of first cousins."
The paper will of course arouse great ire in any Leftist who reads it on the grounds that it treats preference for one's own race as natural. And yet precisely that conclusion is in fact old hat among psychologists. There was for a while a controversy about it but by 1986 we find in Roger Brown's popular social psychology textbook (titled simply Social Psychology) the conclusion that "ethnocentrism" and its associated phenomena are "universal ineradicable psychological processes". And given the usual Leftist inclinations of psychologists, the evidence had to be pretty overwhelming for that conclusion to be arrived at. So it is only the know-all Leftists who in fact know nothing who would jib at Rushton's basic point. Where Rushton's work is interesting therefore is not his discovery of the naturalness of race-preference but rather his explanation for it. He shows where it fits into theoretical biology as an aspect of both kin preference and altruism. Bringing several different phenomena together within a single theoretical framework is of course a great goal in any science so Rushton's conclusions are impressive if only for that reason. The entire paper is quite readable and I think anybody who looks at the variety of evedence Rushton masrshalls in support of his conclusions will find it hard to argue with them. See here (PDF) or here for the full paper.
*****************************
ELSEWHERE
Senate OKs benefit cuts : "A battle over deep cuts to popular federal programs like Medicaid and food stamps promises to intensify next week in the House despite relatively smooth sailing in the Senate. On Thursday, the Senate passed a measure calling for mild cuts in the health care programs for the elderly, poor and disabled, while leaving the food stamp program untouched. For now, the House bill generates $54 billion in savings, in part by imposing new fees on Medicaid patients, eliminating about 300,000 people from food stamp rolls and cutting enforcement funds against parents who duck child support.... The Senate bill, which passed 52-47, also would permit exploratory oil drilling in the Alaskan refuge, prompting five Republicans in the GOP-controlled chamber to vote against the bill."
Airports: A glimmer of sense: "The government plans to offer airline passengers nationwide the chance to avoid extra security checks by paying a fee and agreeing to a background check. Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley, who announced the plan to Congress on Thursday, said his agency also is studying other ways to reduce security delays. That includes possibly rescinding the post-Sept. 11 prohibition on passengers' carrying scissors and small knives onto planes. ... The program, tested at five airports for more than a year, would allow most people to avoid random pat-downs if they pay a fee, clear a voluntary background check and provide some form of biometric identification, such as a fingerprint. The program is intended to let frequent air passengers avoid delays and to free up security screeners to focus on other travelers."
Feisty oldster gets probation in airport case: "A woman has been sentenced to a year of probation for responding to an airport pat-down search by grabbing the screener's breasts and asking, "How would you like it if I did that to you?" Phyllis Dintenfass, 63, also was fined $2,000 Tuesday by a federal judge and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. The retired technical-college teacher was convicted in July of assault on a federal employee. Prosecutors said Dintenfass' hairpins and trouser button set off a metal detector in 2004 at the airport in Appleton. A screening supervisor with the Transportation Safety Administration then placed the backs of her hands under Dintenfass' breasts. Dintenfass became offended and grabbed the screener".
Australian Leftist government gets tough on welfare: "The State Government's increasingly hard line on social services has been extended to public housing and tenants will no longer be guaranteed a home for life. Those waiting to get public housing will face tougher asset tests as the Labor Government tries to cut waiting lists and tackle the state's escalating housing crisis. Only the most needy will have access to subsidised housing.... The changes reflect Labor's plans to give priority in public hospitals to the poorest patients and to force wealthy patients to contribute more. Premier Peter Beattie has signalled an end to free public hospitals, including possible co-payments and means tests.... Nearly 36,000 people are on the waiting list for public housing. More than 105,000 people already live in about 52,000 subsidised homes and pay as little as 25 per cent of the household's gross weekly income in rent.... Under the most controversial change, tenants will be reviewed every few years to ensure they are still eligible for housing. Those whose circumstances have improved will be given a year to find housing in the private sector... The number of people on public housing waiting lists has increased by 47 per cent in the past five years".
Hollywood shoots itself in the foot: "There’s no question Hollywood is reeling. Film attendance is down a wrenching 12 percent from last year, and a May USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that nearly half of American adults go to movies less often than they did in 2000. Some pundits have blamed the rising price of tickets, but in constant dollars a ticket costs less than it did 25 years ago. Others believe that it’s all those DVDs that people are buying—except that DVD sales are slumping, too. The most likely explanation is the left-wing politics. “You can date the recent box-office decline from the end of the summer last year, with the intensification of the presidential campaign,” notes conservative film critic and talk-radio host Michael Medved. “It wasn’t just Hollywood’s hostility toward President Bush; it was the naked, raw partisanship.”
American TV looks down on the worker: "Yet the economic explanation cannot fully account for the inordinate number of shows about doctors and lawyers. If the networks were seeking only to maximize their profits, they would air shows about corporate CEOs, business managers, and entrepreneurs. But they don't. Despite the best efforts of Virgin Music founder Richard Branson and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, only Donald Trump has succeeded with a show about the business class. Perhaps another explanation can fill in where economics fails: the cultural one. Screenwriters and producers come from the professional classes. So it makes sense that they would make shows about their own kind".
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 05, 2005
THE CAUSES AND CURES OF ISLAMOFASCISM
Francis Fukuyama has a fairly reasonable article on the Islamic problem in Europe which points to Islamic terrorism as being more the product of Western Leftism than of traditional Islam. No argument there. But his ideas for solving the problem would seem to be good only in theory. His main proposal is that Europe should somehow put into practice the American "melting-pot" idea (which America has now abandoned, anyway). One of my Dutch readers comments:
"Francis Fukuyama's recipe for warding off Islamofascism in Western Europe includes such bromides as "fashioning a national identity that will connect citizens of all religions and ethnicities in a common democratic culture, as the American creed has served to unite new immigrants to the United States."
Well, pish. This is what the Netherlands have done for centuries. They welcomed Jews from Spain and from Eastern Europe, they welcomed Pilgrims from England, Chinese and Moluccans from the East Indies - the list goes on. While expecting everyone to pull their weight in their adopted society, they granted every new group full civil rights. The Islamists of the 20th century got the same deal. The key difference - and this is true elsewhere in Western Europe - is not the lack of "a common democratic culture"; it is the modern welfare state. In Holland, second and third generation Islamic teenagers no longer need to look for work after they finish school. The government will pay them a stipend until they find work - if ever. Thanks to this official generosity the murderer of Theo van Gogh was able to spend his days in a radical Islamist hangout in Amsterdam, to become properly brainwashed for his dirty deed. No need to go out and find a job.
Every radical philosophy of the past - the French revolutionary creed, Communism, Fascism, and whatever the Baader-Meinhof gang believed - was hatched and nurtured not among the oppressed but among the privileged, the people with leisure. "Idleness," as Hippocrates noted, "and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil."
***************************
Francis Fukuyama has a fairly reasonable article on the Islamic problem in Europe which points to Islamic terrorism as being more the product of Western Leftism than of traditional Islam. No argument there. But his ideas for solving the problem would seem to be good only in theory. His main proposal is that Europe should somehow put into practice the American "melting-pot" idea (which America has now abandoned, anyway). One of my Dutch readers comments:
"Francis Fukuyama's recipe for warding off Islamofascism in Western Europe includes such bromides as "fashioning a national identity that will connect citizens of all religions and ethnicities in a common democratic culture, as the American creed has served to unite new immigrants to the United States."
Well, pish. This is what the Netherlands have done for centuries. They welcomed Jews from Spain and from Eastern Europe, they welcomed Pilgrims from England, Chinese and Moluccans from the East Indies - the list goes on. While expecting everyone to pull their weight in their adopted society, they granted every new group full civil rights. The Islamists of the 20th century got the same deal. The key difference - and this is true elsewhere in Western Europe - is not the lack of "a common democratic culture"; it is the modern welfare state. In Holland, second and third generation Islamic teenagers no longer need to look for work after they finish school. The government will pay them a stipend until they find work - if ever. Thanks to this official generosity the murderer of Theo van Gogh was able to spend his days in a radical Islamist hangout in Amsterdam, to become properly brainwashed for his dirty deed. No need to go out and find a job.
Every radical philosophy of the past - the French revolutionary creed, Communism, Fascism, and whatever the Baader-Meinhof gang believed - was hatched and nurtured not among the oppressed but among the privileged, the people with leisure. "Idleness," as Hippocrates noted, "and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil."
***************************
ELSEWHERE
A good summary here of the big problems Western Europe is having with its Muslim population at the moment. Serves Europe right for invading Iraq and supporting Israel! Odd that there are no Muslim riots in the USA!
There is a good historical summary here showing that, despite all the media and Greenie hype, hurricane Katrina was far from being the worst U.S. hurricane in the last 100 years.
How these Leftist teachers hate little kids! "A Tulsa parent is outraged over how her child was disciplined at school for wearing a costume. Crystal Harris says her 5-year old son was forced to take off his costume, and go through the entire school day with only his underwear on. The incident happened Monday at Walt Disney Elementary. School officials acknowledge they have a policy that forbids costumes, and that's why the teacher did what she did. They say they've have apologized to the family. Harris says however the teacher should be disciplined for embarassing her son. Harris' son has not been back to school since the incident, and she says she's considering legal action". [How brave of them to traumatize a 5 year old boy! Their twisted ideologies are all that matters to Leftists, not people]
Crazy EU agricultural policies: "Prince Albert II of Monaco, whose fortune is estimated at €2 billion (£1.4 billion), received €287,308 in subsidies from the European Union Common Agricultural Policy last year. The Prince was given the grants for the 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of farmland he owns in northern France. He is among the 24 biggest recipients of CAP subsidies in France, according to a study by the World Economy Group. Another farmer, who has 1,733 hectares of rice fields, was paid €866,290, researchers found. “The bigger you are, the more you get,” La Tribune, the French daily, stated. “Is it right that European subsidies should be used to fill the accounts of luxury car dealerships in cereal-growing regions?” French farmers received €9.39 billion in European subsidies last year — more than any other country. British farmers received €3.99 billion. Tony Blair has urged reform of Europe’s agricultural policies but President Chirac is resisting him. The Queen received £545,897 in subsidies under the CAP last year and the Prince of Wales received £225,465."
Overspending causes and cure : "Perhaps no issue, outside of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, has angered conservatives more than the growth in federal spending during George W. Bush's presidency. Granted, Mr. Bush began his tenure by effectively slashing more than $1.4 trillion from the government's 10-year revenue projections through his tax cuts. Few of his critics see this as a spending cut, but if those tax cuts had not been passed, that money would have been spent, instead of remaining in the private sector where it fueled investment, job-creation and economic growth. That growth has paid off handsome dividends in the form of increased tax revenues that this year shrank the federal budget deficit by $100 billion. Still, there is no getting around the fact that spending has risen over the last five years, in many areas dramatically. But are the increases excessive or is there a reasonable justification for much of it?"
Bipartisan action on terrorism in Australia: "Police are expected to move within days against a group of terror suspects in Sydney and Melbourne after the Senate rushed through new anti-terror laws yesterday. A group of radical Muslim youths linked to controversial Melbourne cleric Nacer Benbrika fear they will be arrested under the emergency legislation, which received vice-regal assent from Governor-General Michael Jeffery in Sydney last night.... In a special sitting yesterday, the Senate approved government amendments to the criminal code designed to help police arrest people planning a terrorist attack. While Labor backed the changes, the party warned the Government that it expected results. It fears that the publicity of recent days may have prejudiced police operations.... The new law will allow people to be charged with terrorist offences even if they have not decided on a specific target for an attack.... Mr Howard said on Wednesday that he had received specific intelligence which "gives cause for serious concern about a potential terrorist threat".
Relentless negativity from the MSM: "What was the most important news out of Iraq last week? That depends on what you consider ''important." Do you see the war against radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism as the most urgent conflict of our time? Do you believe that replacing tyranny with democratic self-government is ultimately the only antidote to the poison that has made the Middle East so dangerous and violent? If so, you'll have no trouble identifying the most significant development in Iraq last week: the landslide victory of the new Iraqi Constitution. The announcement on Oct. 25 that the first genuinely democratic national charter in Arab history had been approved by 79 percent of Iraqis was a major piece of good news. It confirmed the courage of Iraq's people and their hunger for freedom and decent governance.... But that isn't how the mainstream media saw it. Consider The Washington Post. On the morning after the results of the Iraqi referendum were announced, the Post's front page was dominated by a photograph, stretched across four columns, of three daughters at the funeral of their father, Lieutenant Colonel Leon James II, who had died from injuries suffered during a Sept. 26 bombing in Baghdad."
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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.
********************************
A good summary here of the big problems Western Europe is having with its Muslim population at the moment. Serves Europe right for invading Iraq and supporting Israel! Odd that there are no Muslim riots in the USA!
There is a good historical summary here showing that, despite all the media and Greenie hype, hurricane Katrina was far from being the worst U.S. hurricane in the last 100 years.
How these Leftist teachers hate little kids! "A Tulsa parent is outraged over how her child was disciplined at school for wearing a costume. Crystal Harris says her 5-year old son was forced to take off his costume, and go through the entire school day with only his underwear on. The incident happened Monday at Walt Disney Elementary. School officials acknowledge they have a policy that forbids costumes, and that's why the teacher did what she did. They say they've have apologized to the family. Harris says however the teacher should be disciplined for embarassing her son. Harris' son has not been back to school since the incident, and she says she's considering legal action". [How brave of them to traumatize a 5 year old boy! Their twisted ideologies are all that matters to Leftists, not people]
Crazy EU agricultural policies: "Prince Albert II of Monaco, whose fortune is estimated at €2 billion (£1.4 billion), received €287,308 in subsidies from the European Union Common Agricultural Policy last year. The Prince was given the grants for the 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of farmland he owns in northern France. He is among the 24 biggest recipients of CAP subsidies in France, according to a study by the World Economy Group. Another farmer, who has 1,733 hectares of rice fields, was paid €866,290, researchers found. “The bigger you are, the more you get,” La Tribune, the French daily, stated. “Is it right that European subsidies should be used to fill the accounts of luxury car dealerships in cereal-growing regions?” French farmers received €9.39 billion in European subsidies last year — more than any other country. British farmers received €3.99 billion. Tony Blair has urged reform of Europe’s agricultural policies but President Chirac is resisting him. The Queen received £545,897 in subsidies under the CAP last year and the Prince of Wales received £225,465."
Overspending causes and cure : "Perhaps no issue, outside of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, has angered conservatives more than the growth in federal spending during George W. Bush's presidency. Granted, Mr. Bush began his tenure by effectively slashing more than $1.4 trillion from the government's 10-year revenue projections through his tax cuts. Few of his critics see this as a spending cut, but if those tax cuts had not been passed, that money would have been spent, instead of remaining in the private sector where it fueled investment, job-creation and economic growth. That growth has paid off handsome dividends in the form of increased tax revenues that this year shrank the federal budget deficit by $100 billion. Still, there is no getting around the fact that spending has risen over the last five years, in many areas dramatically. But are the increases excessive or is there a reasonable justification for much of it?"
Bipartisan action on terrorism in Australia: "Police are expected to move within days against a group of terror suspects in Sydney and Melbourne after the Senate rushed through new anti-terror laws yesterday. A group of radical Muslim youths linked to controversial Melbourne cleric Nacer Benbrika fear they will be arrested under the emergency legislation, which received vice-regal assent from Governor-General Michael Jeffery in Sydney last night.... In a special sitting yesterday, the Senate approved government amendments to the criminal code designed to help police arrest people planning a terrorist attack. While Labor backed the changes, the party warned the Government that it expected results. It fears that the publicity of recent days may have prejudiced police operations.... The new law will allow people to be charged with terrorist offences even if they have not decided on a specific target for an attack.... Mr Howard said on Wednesday that he had received specific intelligence which "gives cause for serious concern about a potential terrorist threat".
Relentless negativity from the MSM: "What was the most important news out of Iraq last week? That depends on what you consider ''important." Do you see the war against radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism as the most urgent conflict of our time? Do you believe that replacing tyranny with democratic self-government is ultimately the only antidote to the poison that has made the Middle East so dangerous and violent? If so, you'll have no trouble identifying the most significant development in Iraq last week: the landslide victory of the new Iraqi Constitution. The announcement on Oct. 25 that the first genuinely democratic national charter in Arab history had been approved by 79 percent of Iraqis was a major piece of good news. It confirmed the courage of Iraq's people and their hunger for freedom and decent governance.... But that isn't how the mainstream media saw it. Consider The Washington Post. On the morning after the results of the Iraqi referendum were announced, the Post's front page was dominated by a photograph, stretched across four columns, of three daughters at the funeral of their father, Lieutenant Colonel Leon James II, who had died from injuries suffered during a Sept. 26 bombing in Baghdad."
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 04, 2005
SOME RECENT ARTICLES UP ON ICJS
Anti-Semitic poem wins British prize
Jews and the Jewish Birthrate
An Islamist threat like the Nazis
A History of Violence
Where are the good Jews today?
Israel can bank on Australia's support
Where cronies on the left can be found
Osama bin Laden: more media whore than guerrilla warrior
Egyptian Ambassador at Brandeis
Pretoria Calling
More Palestinians killed in internal strife this year
ABC board gets elusive powerbroker
Rulebook for reporting on Israel
War by prejudice from the BBC
Iraq's message to Mr Blair: we still need the troops...
An ABC investigation that could bite
Gaza Speech
When Young Jews Major in Anti-Semitism
The Mouse
Essay on Anti-Semitism
Seeking rationaliy is futile
BBC hangs on the balance
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ELSEWHERE
A liberal Bahraini journalist argues that hatred is a general phenomenon in the Arab and Muslim world: "...Hatred in the Arab and Muslim world is a general phenomenon that is not limited only to the Americans. It is possible that the Arabs and Muslims hate each other no less than they hate others... "In the 1990s, over 200,000 citizens were killed in Algeria - most of them by extremist Islamic groups. What was the response of most of the Arabs and Muslims? A mixture of amusement and of presenting justifications for the murderers and terrorists. During those years, the Taliban movement also abused Shi'ites, Azeris, Tajikis, and other minorities, and no one did anything [to stop it]. "In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, occupied it, and expelled its residents. What was the response of the Arabs and Muslims? Nothing. On the contrary: Most Arabs and Muslims supported Saddam... And in 1991, Saddam murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites and Kurds, and most Arabs and Muslims did not condemn it."
Some things need to be "profiled": "Five Muslim football fans were detained and questioned during a game at Giants Stadium because they were congregating near an air duct on a night former President Bush was in the stadium, the FBI said Wednesday. Some of the Muslims said they did not know they were in a sensitive area, and they complained that they were subjected to racial profiling while they were praying"
Long live free Catalonia!: "Plans by Catalonia to achieve greater independence from Spain are set to test the authority of Spain's Socialist Prime Minister. The rich northeast region wants to be called a nation and have greater control over its own taxes, paying less towards poorer parts of Spain. But other regions have condemned the plan, calling on their people to boycott goods and services from Catalonia. The debate leaves Jos‚ Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister, with a dilemma: whether to honour his election pledges and grant key Catalan coalition partners autonomy from Madrid; or to heed calls from within his own party and try instead to stifle independence claims. Under a statute devised by Catalonia's regional politicians last month, the region would also have more control over police, the judiciary, the prison service, ports and airports. Catalonia would administer European Union funds and Madrid would have to ask permission if international issues affected the region".
Holy Ireland: "The crisis in the Irish Catholic Church over sex abuse deepened yesterday as another diocese revealed figures for the number of priests facing allegations. Fifteen priests have been accused of sex abuse over a fifty-year period in the largest Catholic diocese in Northern Ireland, according to figures released by the Diocese of Down and Connor. The figures come on top of the 21 priests identified in an Irish government report published three days ago on the Diocese of Ferns, Co Wicklow, and the 26 priests facing allegations in the Diocese of Derry. Yesterday the Irish Independent published the details of its own all-Ireland survey, finding that more than 241 priests have been accused of child sexual abuse in the past 40 years".
Big Muslim riots in Paris continuing. (Must be because of the French invasion of Iraq and its support for Israel): "Jacques Chirac called for calm today after six nights of rioting in the suburbs of Paris threatened to spread and ministers argued over the French government's response to the crisis. A total of 34 people were arrested last night after setting fire to 15 cars and clashing with riot police in the poor, crime-ridden suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois to the east of Paris. No one was injured. Police have fought with protesters every night since last Thursday, when two teenagers were electrocuted after running into an electricity sub-station in the mistaken belief that they were being chased by the police. More than 150 fires have been reported, and tensions were increased after police fired tear gas into a mosque".
Taxpayer revolt starts with state bill of rights: "A taxpayer revolt is sweeping the nation with a battle cry for a 'Taxpayers' Bill of Rights.' The latest count finds activists working with legislators in at least 22 states, from Georgia to Alaska, California to Vermont, to enact a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), a tax-and-expenditure limit on state government that requires voter approval of spending over certain reasonable benchmarks. Taxpayers are up in arms because politicians are wasting too much of their hard earned money, and they want it to stop. Taxpayers agree with Armey's Axiom: No one spends someone else's money as wisely as he spends his own."
An amusing story here about the sheer awfulness of the French bureaucracy. After reading it, I don't think that I should ever complain about Australia's bureaucracy again.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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.
********************************
Anti-Semitic poem wins British prize
Jews and the Jewish Birthrate
An Islamist threat like the Nazis
A History of Violence
Where are the good Jews today?
Israel can bank on Australia's support
Where cronies on the left can be found
Osama bin Laden: more media whore than guerrilla warrior
Egyptian Ambassador at Brandeis
Pretoria Calling
More Palestinians killed in internal strife this year
ABC board gets elusive powerbroker
Rulebook for reporting on Israel
War by prejudice from the BBC
Iraq's message to Mr Blair: we still need the troops...
An ABC investigation that could bite
Gaza Speech
When Young Jews Major in Anti-Semitism
The Mouse
Essay on Anti-Semitism
Seeking rationaliy is futile
BBC hangs on the balance
**********************************
ELSEWHERE
A liberal Bahraini journalist argues that hatred is a general phenomenon in the Arab and Muslim world: "...Hatred in the Arab and Muslim world is a general phenomenon that is not limited only to the Americans. It is possible that the Arabs and Muslims hate each other no less than they hate others... "In the 1990s, over 200,000 citizens were killed in Algeria - most of them by extremist Islamic groups. What was the response of most of the Arabs and Muslims? A mixture of amusement and of presenting justifications for the murderers and terrorists. During those years, the Taliban movement also abused Shi'ites, Azeris, Tajikis, and other minorities, and no one did anything [to stop it]. "In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, occupied it, and expelled its residents. What was the response of the Arabs and Muslims? Nothing. On the contrary: Most Arabs and Muslims supported Saddam... And in 1991, Saddam murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites and Kurds, and most Arabs and Muslims did not condemn it."
Some things need to be "profiled": "Five Muslim football fans were detained and questioned during a game at Giants Stadium because they were congregating near an air duct on a night former President Bush was in the stadium, the FBI said Wednesday. Some of the Muslims said they did not know they were in a sensitive area, and they complained that they were subjected to racial profiling while they were praying"
Long live free Catalonia!: "Plans by Catalonia to achieve greater independence from Spain are set to test the authority of Spain's Socialist Prime Minister. The rich northeast region wants to be called a nation and have greater control over its own taxes, paying less towards poorer parts of Spain. But other regions have condemned the plan, calling on their people to boycott goods and services from Catalonia. The debate leaves Jos‚ Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister, with a dilemma: whether to honour his election pledges and grant key Catalan coalition partners autonomy from Madrid; or to heed calls from within his own party and try instead to stifle independence claims. Under a statute devised by Catalonia's regional politicians last month, the region would also have more control over police, the judiciary, the prison service, ports and airports. Catalonia would administer European Union funds and Madrid would have to ask permission if international issues affected the region".
Holy Ireland: "The crisis in the Irish Catholic Church over sex abuse deepened yesterday as another diocese revealed figures for the number of priests facing allegations. Fifteen priests have been accused of sex abuse over a fifty-year period in the largest Catholic diocese in Northern Ireland, according to figures released by the Diocese of Down and Connor. The figures come on top of the 21 priests identified in an Irish government report published three days ago on the Diocese of Ferns, Co Wicklow, and the 26 priests facing allegations in the Diocese of Derry. Yesterday the Irish Independent published the details of its own all-Ireland survey, finding that more than 241 priests have been accused of child sexual abuse in the past 40 years".
Big Muslim riots in Paris continuing. (Must be because of the French invasion of Iraq and its support for Israel): "Jacques Chirac called for calm today after six nights of rioting in the suburbs of Paris threatened to spread and ministers argued over the French government's response to the crisis. A total of 34 people were arrested last night after setting fire to 15 cars and clashing with riot police in the poor, crime-ridden suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois to the east of Paris. No one was injured. Police have fought with protesters every night since last Thursday, when two teenagers were electrocuted after running into an electricity sub-station in the mistaken belief that they were being chased by the police. More than 150 fires have been reported, and tensions were increased after police fired tear gas into a mosque".
Taxpayer revolt starts with state bill of rights: "A taxpayer revolt is sweeping the nation with a battle cry for a 'Taxpayers' Bill of Rights.' The latest count finds activists working with legislators in at least 22 states, from Georgia to Alaska, California to Vermont, to enact a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), a tax-and-expenditure limit on state government that requires voter approval of spending over certain reasonable benchmarks. Taxpayers are up in arms because politicians are wasting too much of their hard earned money, and they want it to stop. Taxpayers agree with Armey's Axiom: No one spends someone else's money as wisely as he spends his own."
An amusing story here about the sheer awfulness of the French bureaucracy. After reading it, I don't think that I should ever complain about Australia's bureaucracy again.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 03, 2005
AUSTRALIA'S ECONOMIC PROWESS
Which country will have no government debt within a year, contributed the most to help those in need after the tsunami, and was described by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development as a "model for other countries", America or Australia? You've guessed it. Australia. For so long simply seen as an adventure playground for gap year students or a breeding ground for sportsmen, Australia has now graduated into the world of big players....
The Australian economy is now in the 15th year of the longest economic expansion in 50 years - perhaps, according to John Howard, the Prime Minister, "the longest since the gold rushes of the 19th century". Today this continent, much of it desert, ranks 53rd in terms of world population, but is the world's 13th largest economy; eighth in the world in income per head from 18th two decades ago.
John Howard (and to be fair, in some areas such as currency deregulation, his predecessor Bob Hawke) practised what he preached: the foundation of a nation's success is economic growth, and that growth is rooted in economic stability, free trade and rewarding hard work and investment. Out went tariff protection. It was no use hiding under the duvet, hoping that the growling Asian tigers on our doorstep would disappear. "Bring 'em on," became the Australian warcry. Down came the national debt and borrowing. Australia's net debt position has fallen from 20 per cent of GDP to 1.3 per cent. And within a year, Australia will have no net government debt at all. Read that again: no debt. Down from $96 billion to zero in a decade....
The burden on the private sector fell, helping it to create more jobs - more than 1.5 million new jobs since 1996 alone. Not bad for a country of just 20 million people. Today, unemployment is at a 30-year low - and inflation is under lock and key despite high oil prices.
Much more here
****************************
FROM BROOKES NEWS
What should we expect from Bernanke now that he is the Fed's chairman? : Why Bernanke's policy of stabilizing prices will generate a boom-bust situation
Liberal Party stuffs up its workplace reform arguments against the unions: Why has the Liberal Government failed to persuade the electorate that reform is good? Because disdainful arrogant economic illiterates have been in charge. This article lays out the case for reform by demolishing the unions' argument
How capital gains taxes retard economic growth: Shows how capital gains taxes damage economic growth by sapping investment and punishing success
The Great Depression and the paradox of thrift - another Keynesian fallacy: It is nonsense to claim that the Great Depression was caused by excess savings. The evidence flatly contradicts this view
Scooter Libby v Fitzblooey: a 'crime' against the process: Is it now normal practice for prosecuting attorneys to allege a crime and then set traps to elicit falsehoods upon which they can then indict a target without having to prove a crime was committed?
Iranians boycott regime's anti-Jewish rally: The Iranian regime's vicious anti-Jewish rally was ignored by the vast majority of Iranians
Mugabe unleashes his fanatical thugs against the poor: Mugabe has unleashed his infamous 5th Brigade on the poor. Having learnt well from their North Korean mentors the 5th Brigade murdered, tortured, and raped about 20,000 Zimbabweans in the early '80s
********************************
Which country will have no government debt within a year, contributed the most to help those in need after the tsunami, and was described by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development as a "model for other countries", America or Australia? You've guessed it. Australia. For so long simply seen as an adventure playground for gap year students or a breeding ground for sportsmen, Australia has now graduated into the world of big players....
The Australian economy is now in the 15th year of the longest economic expansion in 50 years - perhaps, according to John Howard, the Prime Minister, "the longest since the gold rushes of the 19th century". Today this continent, much of it desert, ranks 53rd in terms of world population, but is the world's 13th largest economy; eighth in the world in income per head from 18th two decades ago.
John Howard (and to be fair, in some areas such as currency deregulation, his predecessor Bob Hawke) practised what he preached: the foundation of a nation's success is economic growth, and that growth is rooted in economic stability, free trade and rewarding hard work and investment. Out went tariff protection. It was no use hiding under the duvet, hoping that the growling Asian tigers on our doorstep would disappear. "Bring 'em on," became the Australian warcry. Down came the national debt and borrowing. Australia's net debt position has fallen from 20 per cent of GDP to 1.3 per cent. And within a year, Australia will have no net government debt at all. Read that again: no debt. Down from $96 billion to zero in a decade....
The burden on the private sector fell, helping it to create more jobs - more than 1.5 million new jobs since 1996 alone. Not bad for a country of just 20 million people. Today, unemployment is at a 30-year low - and inflation is under lock and key despite high oil prices.
Much more here
****************************
FROM BROOKES NEWS
What should we expect from Bernanke now that he is the Fed's chairman? : Why Bernanke's policy of stabilizing prices will generate a boom-bust situation
Liberal Party stuffs up its workplace reform arguments against the unions: Why has the Liberal Government failed to persuade the electorate that reform is good? Because disdainful arrogant economic illiterates have been in charge. This article lays out the case for reform by demolishing the unions' argument
How capital gains taxes retard economic growth: Shows how capital gains taxes damage economic growth by sapping investment and punishing success
The Great Depression and the paradox of thrift - another Keynesian fallacy: It is nonsense to claim that the Great Depression was caused by excess savings. The evidence flatly contradicts this view
Scooter Libby v Fitzblooey: a 'crime' against the process: Is it now normal practice for prosecuting attorneys to allege a crime and then set traps to elicit falsehoods upon which they can then indict a target without having to prove a crime was committed?
Iranians boycott regime's anti-Jewish rally: The Iranian regime's vicious anti-Jewish rally was ignored by the vast majority of Iranians
Mugabe unleashes his fanatical thugs against the poor: Mugabe has unleashed his infamous 5th Brigade on the poor. Having learnt well from their North Korean mentors the 5th Brigade murdered, tortured, and raped about 20,000 Zimbabweans in the early '80s
********************************
ELSEWHERE
Theodore Dalrymple notes that suicide bombers and other Islamic terrorists are often fairly Westernized. He says that Leftist victim-talk makes them resentful of their failures in our society and Islam gives them an outlet for their anger. But this is definitely a "read the whole thing" article.
A good article here shows that the whole of Islam is complicit in Islamic terrorism. Excerpt: "So, here we are: part of the Muslim community is in the thrall of a totalitarian ideology which turns young Muslims into human bombs. Photos of Muslim and non Muslim civilian body parts flying in the middle of markets, mosques, discos and hotels have become routine. Beheadings of Christian and Jewish men and women are no longer surprising. And what do the ever-silent and passive-defensive Muslim countries, Organization of Islamic Conference and the Arab League vociferously condemn? They are condemning the publication of cartoons featuring Muhammad in a Danish paper. The absurdity of this action is only matched by its hypocrisy."
An amusing explanation here of how GWB's proposed tax changes would screw the "Blue-staters" who have made themselves his political enemies.
There is what is alleged to be a speech here by a Chinese general that speaks of attacking the United States. Is it just the fantasies of an old man or totally phony? I don't know but maybe we should try to find out. There are a lot of comments here that throw doubt on the story. The "learning from the Nazis" part of the speech does not sound to me like anything any Chinese Communist would say.
A good summary from Dennis Prager: "Judeo-Christian America -- American exceptionalism America -- loves John Bolton, has contempt for the United Nations, mistrusts the World Court, regards Amnesty International as another morally confused leftist organization, thinks little of the world's media and academic elites, and regards "world opinion" as morally confused and left-wing media manipulated. On the other side are those, like the ACLU, who regard even the smallest cross on any county or city seal as a religious threat to the secular republic, who think it America's fault that this country is not highly regarded in public opinion polls from Canada to Germany to South Korea, who passionately opposed John Bolton becoming ambassador to the U.N. because he is highly critical of that institution, and who believe that other nations' laws should be cited in U.S. Supreme Court decisions".
Carnival of the Vanities is up right on schedule this week with lots of goodies to read.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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.
********************************
Theodore Dalrymple notes that suicide bombers and other Islamic terrorists are often fairly Westernized. He says that Leftist victim-talk makes them resentful of their failures in our society and Islam gives them an outlet for their anger. But this is definitely a "read the whole thing" article.
A good article here shows that the whole of Islam is complicit in Islamic terrorism. Excerpt: "So, here we are: part of the Muslim community is in the thrall of a totalitarian ideology which turns young Muslims into human bombs. Photos of Muslim and non Muslim civilian body parts flying in the middle of markets, mosques, discos and hotels have become routine. Beheadings of Christian and Jewish men and women are no longer surprising. And what do the ever-silent and passive-defensive Muslim countries, Organization of Islamic Conference and the Arab League vociferously condemn? They are condemning the publication of cartoons featuring Muhammad in a Danish paper. The absurdity of this action is only matched by its hypocrisy."
An amusing explanation here of how GWB's proposed tax changes would screw the "Blue-staters" who have made themselves his political enemies.
There is what is alleged to be a speech here by a Chinese general that speaks of attacking the United States. Is it just the fantasies of an old man or totally phony? I don't know but maybe we should try to find out. There are a lot of comments here that throw doubt on the story. The "learning from the Nazis" part of the speech does not sound to me like anything any Chinese Communist would say.
A good summary from Dennis Prager: "Judeo-Christian America -- American exceptionalism America -- loves John Bolton, has contempt for the United Nations, mistrusts the World Court, regards Amnesty International as another morally confused leftist organization, thinks little of the world's media and academic elites, and regards "world opinion" as morally confused and left-wing media manipulated. On the other side are those, like the ACLU, who regard even the smallest cross on any county or city seal as a religious threat to the secular republic, who think it America's fault that this country is not highly regarded in public opinion polls from Canada to Germany to South Korea, who passionately opposed John Bolton becoming ambassador to the U.N. because he is highly critical of that institution, and who believe that other nations' laws should be cited in U.S. Supreme Court decisions".
Carnival of the Vanities is up right on schedule this week with lots of goodies to read.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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, November 02, 2005
RECENT ABORTION RESEARCH
Dear me! There is a lot of nonsense reported in abortion research. As far as I am concerned, abortion is an ethical issue and I have made my view of it clear elsewhere but various medical claims seem to get tangled up in it too. One claim is that women who have abortions are subsequently more depressed, which makes some intuitive sense and appears to be borne out by research. A recent piece of research has challenged that, however, and the BBC gives a reasonable summary of the controversy for the general reader. The abstract of the actual research report concerned is here and you can link from there to the full research report. I confess to not having read the article in full but it seems a rather silly article to me. They report that higher income women are more likely to abort and that such women are typically less depressed -- which rings true. But they apparently fail to control for that in assessing the effects of abortion. They really needed to compare women of SIMILAR income background (or control for income background statistically) in order to assess the effects of abortion. So I don't think we can conclude anything from their study at all.
And there is another study here which reports that women who have had abortions are more likely to become child abusers when they do eventually have children. The inference is that it is the abortion that makes the women more abusive. But isn't it the more obvious conclusion that women who are callous enough to have an abortion in the first place are also the types who would abuse children anyhow? Not all women who have abortions are callous but I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume that there are a lot more callous women among them than in the general population.
************************
THE IRISH FLOODS OF THE YEAR 2000
You can read a little about the floods here and the predictable Greenie comment is here but I think the picture below tells you most of all.
With an enormous effort at self-restraint, I will refrain from making any comparisons.
*************************
ELSEWHERE
Australia's major public broadcaster, the ABC, is getting very grand -- with the pride that come before a fall, I fancy. The Managing Director of the ABC has just failed to turn up for a Senate scrutiny of ABC operations -- sending an underling instead.
Targeted terrorist assassinations would spare innocent lives : "When Pat Robertson, the televangelist who once ran for president, suggested that the U.S. consider assassinating Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, he was roundly denounced by voices left and right. Robertson is, of course, known for saying impolitic things. But, based on the breaking news that Chavez is seeking nuclear technology, perhaps Robertson's assessment of the Venezuelan situation was more farsighted than impolitic. The Washington Times recently reported that Chavez is on the offensive, making 'overtures to various countries' including Iran 'about obtaining nuclear technology.' Even more troubling than rumors of the Venezuelan government discussing the obtainment of nuclear technology is Chavez's recent fraternization with Iran's ruling bad boy, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which has brought increased pugnacious policy choices in the southern hemisphere."
American and European car-makers both trailing on quality "Toyota, along with its Lexus division, makes more than half of the sedans and small cars that earned our highest Reliability Rating. All the others that earned this Rating were also Japanese, including the Honda Accord and previous-generation Civic; the 2006 Infiniti M35/M45; and nonturbo models of the Subaru Impreza. Most of the worst sedans in our rankings came from Europe, including several expensive luxury models such as the Audi A8, BMW 7 Series, Jaguar S-Type, and the Mercedes-Benz E- and S-Class. The rest of the bottom-rated small cars and sedans were from domestic manufacturers and included the Chevrolet Cobalt, the V8-powered Chrysler 300C, and the Lincoln LS".
Methodists rediscover the Bible: "In a denomination divided over the role of homosexuals in its ranks, a United Methodist Church court Monday defrocked a lesbian minister and reinstated a pastor suspended for denying church membership to a gay man. The nine-member Judicial Council, the denomination's highest court, released its decisions after hearings last week at Houston's First United Methodist Church Westchase campus. The council ruled that the Rev. Irene "Beth" Stroud of Pennsylvania had violated church law that prohibits "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" in the clergy. It also reinstated the Rev. Edward H. Johnson, pastor of South Hill United Methodist Church in Virginia, who had been suspended by his bishop after refusing to add a gay man to the church membership roster."
Reliapundit has a summary of the Muslim riots in Paris -- riots the French rather deserve, in my view. More background on the subject here
Brits still ruling some waves: "Royal Navy snipers shot out the engines of a speedboat carrying £200 million worth of cocaine during a drugs bust in the Caribbean, it was disclosed last night. The operation to intercept and arrest the drug trafficking gang was led by the Type 22 frigate Cumberland and a Lynx helicopter from her support vessel, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Wave Knight. They intercepted the speedboat as it raced across the ocean 100 miles off Nicaragua. The four-strong gang tried to outrun the helicopter but they were forced to surrender after specialist snipers in the Lynx fired bullets to disable the speedboat's engines. A team from Cumberland boarded the speedboat, arrested the crew and seized two tons of cocaine with a street value of £200 million.
I have just put up here a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand on recent events to do with race, IQ etc.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
**************************
Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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.
********************************
Dear me! There is a lot of nonsense reported in abortion research. As far as I am concerned, abortion is an ethical issue and I have made my view of it clear elsewhere but various medical claims seem to get tangled up in it too. One claim is that women who have abortions are subsequently more depressed, which makes some intuitive sense and appears to be borne out by research. A recent piece of research has challenged that, however, and the BBC gives a reasonable summary of the controversy for the general reader. The abstract of the actual research report concerned is here and you can link from there to the full research report. I confess to not having read the article in full but it seems a rather silly article to me. They report that higher income women are more likely to abort and that such women are typically less depressed -- which rings true. But they apparently fail to control for that in assessing the effects of abortion. They really needed to compare women of SIMILAR income background (or control for income background statistically) in order to assess the effects of abortion. So I don't think we can conclude anything from their study at all.
And there is another study here which reports that women who have had abortions are more likely to become child abusers when they do eventually have children. The inference is that it is the abortion that makes the women more abusive. But isn't it the more obvious conclusion that women who are callous enough to have an abortion in the first place are also the types who would abuse children anyhow? Not all women who have abortions are callous but I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume that there are a lot more callous women among them than in the general population.
************************
THE IRISH FLOODS OF THE YEAR 2000
You can read a little about the floods here and the predictable Greenie comment is here but I think the picture below tells you most of all.
With an enormous effort at self-restraint, I will refrain from making any comparisons.
*************************
ELSEWHERE
Australia's major public broadcaster, the ABC, is getting very grand -- with the pride that come before a fall, I fancy. The Managing Director of the ABC has just failed to turn up for a Senate scrutiny of ABC operations -- sending an underling instead.
Targeted terrorist assassinations would spare innocent lives : "When Pat Robertson, the televangelist who once ran for president, suggested that the U.S. consider assassinating Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, he was roundly denounced by voices left and right. Robertson is, of course, known for saying impolitic things. But, based on the breaking news that Chavez is seeking nuclear technology, perhaps Robertson's assessment of the Venezuelan situation was more farsighted than impolitic. The Washington Times recently reported that Chavez is on the offensive, making 'overtures to various countries' including Iran 'about obtaining nuclear technology.' Even more troubling than rumors of the Venezuelan government discussing the obtainment of nuclear technology is Chavez's recent fraternization with Iran's ruling bad boy, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which has brought increased pugnacious policy choices in the southern hemisphere."
American and European car-makers both trailing on quality "Toyota, along with its Lexus division, makes more than half of the sedans and small cars that earned our highest Reliability Rating. All the others that earned this Rating were also Japanese, including the Honda Accord and previous-generation Civic; the 2006 Infiniti M35/M45; and nonturbo models of the Subaru Impreza. Most of the worst sedans in our rankings came from Europe, including several expensive luxury models such as the Audi A8, BMW 7 Series, Jaguar S-Type, and the Mercedes-Benz E- and S-Class. The rest of the bottom-rated small cars and sedans were from domestic manufacturers and included the Chevrolet Cobalt, the V8-powered Chrysler 300C, and the Lincoln LS".
Methodists rediscover the Bible: "In a denomination divided over the role of homosexuals in its ranks, a United Methodist Church court Monday defrocked a lesbian minister and reinstated a pastor suspended for denying church membership to a gay man. The nine-member Judicial Council, the denomination's highest court, released its decisions after hearings last week at Houston's First United Methodist Church Westchase campus. The council ruled that the Rev. Irene "Beth" Stroud of Pennsylvania had violated church law that prohibits "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" in the clergy. It also reinstated the Rev. Edward H. Johnson, pastor of South Hill United Methodist Church in Virginia, who had been suspended by his bishop after refusing to add a gay man to the church membership roster."
Reliapundit has a summary of the Muslim riots in Paris -- riots the French rather deserve, in my view. More background on the subject here
Brits still ruling some waves: "Royal Navy snipers shot out the engines of a speedboat carrying £200 million worth of cocaine during a drugs bust in the Caribbean, it was disclosed last night. The operation to intercept and arrest the drug trafficking gang was led by the Type 22 frigate Cumberland and a Lynx helicopter from her support vessel, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Wave Knight. They intercepted the speedboat as it raced across the ocean 100 miles off Nicaragua. The four-strong gang tried to outrun the helicopter but they were forced to surrender after specialist snipers in the Lynx fired bullets to disable the speedboat's engines. A team from Cumberland boarded the speedboat, arrested the crew and seized two tons of cocaine with a street value of £200 million.
I have just put up here a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand on recent events to do with race, IQ etc.
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
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" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005
SUITCASE NUKES
One of my nuclear physicist readers has emailed me to offer the following technical correction to the "Suitcase nukes" story in the WSJ's Opinion Journal that I referred to below:
You are correct to note that the suitcase nukes story is bunk and that real suitcase nukes have an extremely limited shelf life - but the Opinion Journal article on why it is bunk gets the physics all wrong. A suitcase nuke has to make use of a small quantity of plutonium with isotopics that are referred to as "super-grade" well above the normal weapons grade level (super grade is around 97% Pu-239 as opposed to 93% Pu-239 for normal weapons grade) - the Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. The Opinion Journal's explanation of why the suitcase nukes have a limited shelf-life is simply ludicrous.
The real reason is that the nukes themselves operate at extremely fine tolerances and their yield is incredibly dependent upon the absolute perfection of their internal geometries. As the higher isotopes of the Pu decay (most importantly Pu-241 going to Am-241) the heat output of the Pu part of the core changes drastically and the geometry changes slightly - this makes the weapn prone to two problems that are referred to as spalling and jetting. As the weapon itself operates right on the limit of having too little material to give an actual nuclear explosion, any material lost to spalling or jetting will prevent the weapon from going off at all. The steps necessary to remake the suitcase weapon to get back its old yield are at least as complex as building it in the first place.
One of my nuclear physicist readers has emailed me to offer the following technical correction to the "Suitcase nukes" story in the WSJ's Opinion Journal that I referred to below:
You are correct to note that the suitcase nukes story is bunk and that real suitcase nukes have an extremely limited shelf life - but the Opinion Journal article on why it is bunk gets the physics all wrong. A suitcase nuke has to make use of a small quantity of plutonium with isotopics that are referred to as "super-grade" well above the normal weapons grade level (super grade is around 97% Pu-239 as opposed to 93% Pu-239 for normal weapons grade) - the Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. The Opinion Journal's explanation of why the suitcase nukes have a limited shelf-life is simply ludicrous.
The real reason is that the nukes themselves operate at extremely fine tolerances and their yield is incredibly dependent upon the absolute perfection of their internal geometries. As the higher isotopes of the Pu decay (most importantly Pu-241 going to Am-241) the heat output of the Pu part of the core changes drastically and the geometry changes slightly - this makes the weapn prone to two problems that are referred to as spalling and jetting. As the weapon itself operates right on the limit of having too little material to give an actual nuclear explosion, any material lost to spalling or jetting will prevent the weapon from going off at all. The steps necessary to remake the suitcase weapon to get back its old yield are at least as complex as building it in the first place.
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