SOME WORD FUN

Readers may have gathered that language and languages is one of my great interests and entertainments. In a recent email to me, Scottish blogger Neil Craig (who writes lots of letters to Scottish newspapers) said: "A very short letter in the Herald today. I am glad of this since I was somewhat scunnered that they hadn't published anything of mine since Christmas"

I was delighted to see the word "scunnered". I don't know where I remember it from. Maybe my mother used it. Maybe my Scottish wife used it. It is not really translatable but it means something like disgusted, emptied-out or defeated. Neil was in fact being a little reserved in his use of the word. A more common construction would be "fair scunnered". An Australian would probably say "really shat" under the same circumstances.

There are a lot of foreign words that are not really translatable into English -- which is why English has adopted so many foreign words. Two German words that we have lost from English seem particularly useful to me: Reich and Volk. I discuss the meaning of Volk here. I sometimes use both words in my postings on Majority Rights -- where they are fairly likely to be understood. The reason why they are rarely used in English these days is probably that Hitler used both words a lot, and used them prominently. So part of the reason why I use them is to "stir the possum": I have been waiting for some Leftist to pounce on me and accuse me of being a Nazi for using them. But, sadly, nobody has given me that pleasure. So I have given up waiting and will outline here the crushing reply that I had ready:

On all the products exported from the old Communist East Germany, there was a "brand name" -- which was "VEB". And what does "VEB" stand for? It stands for "Volkseigene Betrieb", which translates as "The People's own Enterprise" (though that translation could be argued about too). So if Communist East Germany put the word "Volk" on everything it produced, how come it is a Nazi word? The truth, of course, is that it is an ordinary German word that was in common use for at least 2,000 years before the Nazis came along.

And as for "Reich": For starters, the East German State Railway was known as the "Reichsbahn".

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

GOOD POST FROM THE HORNY-HEADED ECONOMIST

Consider the following proposed amendments to the US constitution:

First, disallowance of immigrant participation in US political affairs. This includes a ban on participation in demonstrations and other public expression of political opinion.

Second, an "Americans first" employment policy, native born Americans having priority over foreigners for all positions in which status of citizenship is not deemed "indispensable."

Third, a ban on all immigrant or naturalized citizens' service as (a) federal elected officials, (b) members of the cabinet, or (c) justices of the Supreme Court.

Fourth, a ban on immigrant service in the clergy.

Fifth, a ban on immigrant ownership of land or aquisition of any rights to natural resources.

Sixth, authorization of private individuals to make citizen's arrests of any individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Seventh, unconditional right of federal officials -- whenever they deem such action appropriate -- to deport immediately and without due process any noncitizen

So, what do you think of these? Are you opposed? Upset? Well stop for a second. Actually, nobody's proposing these as ammendments to the U.S. Constitution -- they are, rather, firmly established features of the Mexican Constitution.

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

ELSEWHERE

Some linguistics researchers analysed speeches in the 2004 Presidential campaign and found (excerpt): "The vice president sounded the most honest of the four, and Kerry the least. Kerry's language also was most like that of a depressed person, followed by Edwards. Perhaps that's inevitable; after all, challengers must sound gloomy and doomy about their opponents' records, though in doing so they run clear risks. "Voters are most favorable toward those candidates who are the most optimistic," Slatcher said. "The depressive language that Kerry and Edwards used during the campaign may have contributed negatively to the way in which they were perceived by the public."

Flourishing Australian economy: Australia's unemployment rate was a seasonally adjusted 5.0 per cent in March, compared with a unrevised 5.2 per cent in February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said. Total employment rose 27,000 to 10.085 million, adjusted. Of this, full time employment decreased by 12,400 to 7.173 million and part-time employment rose 39,500 to 2.913 million. The participation rate in March was 64.4 per cent, compared with an unchanged 64.4 per cent in February.... The male unemployment rate decreased by two percentage points to 5.0 per cent, while the female jobless rate was also down two points to 5.1 per cent."

The pagan Anglican Left: "Then there was the much-publicized dust-up over William Melnyk, the Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, who was asked to resign his post as rector after it became clear he was moonlighting as a Druid priest... Now, thanks to some research by commenter Liz at TitusOneNine, it turns out that Maury Johnston, author of Gays Under Grace: A Gay Christian's Response to Homosexuality and the recent widely-publicized essay "Facing the Spectre of Schism" is also known as "Shadwynn" and belongs to a Wiccan order called "Keepers of the Cauldron." The coven is described as being in the "grail quest tradition," based on the Arthurian legends..."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

BRAINLESS LEFTISTS



Leftists are great projectors (tending to see their own faults in others) so to know what is true of them, you just have to look at what they say about conservatives. They even accuse conservatives of projection! So they are always trawling for utterances by conservatives that they can characterize as "hate speech", even though they themselves can hardly open their mouths without pouring out hatred of all those who oppose them.

One of their most constant ploys is to accuse conservatives of being stupid and they have done it so often that conservatives seem to be somewhat abashed by it and rarely treat it as the projection it is. For the record, the ONLY adult general population survey I know of that obtained both IQ scores and a record of political attitudes was Martin's study (which I helped write up for the academic journals). And that study showed that it was LEFTISTS who were most likely to be dumb.

One reason why the accusation that conservatives are dumb gains some weight is the great preponderance of Leftists among professors. That overlooks, however, that the situation was not always thus. Up until the 1960s, the professoriate was in general politically moderate. There were of course exceptions. The elite universities have always tended Left. The best known examples of that are England's two great universities, Oxford and Cambridge. We have all I think heard of the Cambridge spies (Philby et al.), and the Bloomsberries were far Left too. Such leftism can perhaps most economically be described as a "spoilt brat" syndrome. Less well known is the prewar fascination of Harvard with Nazism -- which was a popular form of socialism in its day.

The general moderation of the pre-1960s professoriate was however its undoing. Precisely because of its moderation, it came under ferocious attack from the 1960s student radicals and it responded in a typically moderate way -- apologetically. Curricula were revised in response to the radical demands and more and more Leftists were hired and promoted. And when in the course of time the radical academics so appointed rose in seniority and power, they behaved in a typically unscrupulous way and used their power to squeeze out as many conservatives from academe as they could. So smart conservatives these days go on to get rich in business while the Leftist academics fume away in their ivory towers!

Perhaps most amusingly, however, it should be noted that the Dems and the GOP split the college-educated vote about equally in the last Presidential election. In other words, about half of the people whom the Leftist professors themselves have certified as academically able in fact vote GOP!

The intellectual poverty of the Left shows itself very clearly in their lack of ideas. The only way that they can ever think of for bringing about their desired utopias is the brutishly simply one of FORCING people to behave in the "right" way, by way of legislation in democatic societies or on pain of death in Communist societies.

We have an excellent example of such brainlessness in a recent article which argues that the U.S. Left needs to become more socialist. The article consists of nothing but one long wail about the injustices of the world and simply ASSERTS that socialism is the answer -- with no supportive reasoning at all about HOW socialism might fix things -- which is all the more remarkable given the known FAILURES of socialism to fix anything. A few illustrative quotes:

"With corporate capitalism everywhere in command, the outlook is for increased poverty, more environmental degradation, ever more uneven distribution of resources and the undermining of traditional societies and ways of life... Doing battle against the prevailing inequality means invoking the idea that we all belong to a community, as opposed to the illusion, voiced famously by Thatcher, that "there is no society, only individuals." ... On the road to shaping an alternative, the left might respond with a time-honored socialist insight, namely that "I" only exists within a "we," and that unless we look out for everyone, no one is secure.

Note the non sequitur in the last sentence. It is reasonable enough to say that "I" only exists within a "we" but such a statement is only trivially true. Our socialist friend, however seems to think that the truth concerned also implies that "unless we look out for everyone, no one is secure". But England and early America existed in excellent security long before there was any welfare legislation! It is true that private charity at that time looked after the less fortunate but I don't think that private charity is what our socialist friend is advocating!

And another counterfactual assertion above is that capitalism will increase poverty. Since capitalism is provably the the best and surest way of increasing wealth, the statement is deliberately wrongheaded. And it is of course the advanced capitalist societies that have done most to clean up their environment and prevent further degradation of it. You have to be devoid of all knowledge and understanding of how the world actually works (and has worked) to spout the nonsense that our brainless socialist does.

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

ELSEWHERE

Feisty Italian PM: "He has vowed to give up sex for the election, compared himself to Jesus and Napoleon, and admitted phoning late-night erotic chat lines. Nothing, it seems, is out of bounds for Silvio Berlusconi. But yesterday the Italian Prime Minister, trailing in opinion polls before Sunday's vote, perhaps went a step too far when he suggested that left-wing voters were "dickheads". Addressing the honourable Federation of Merchants and Shopkeepers, Signor Berlusconi said that only coglioni would consider voting for the centre-left opposition. "I have too much esteem for the intelligence of Italians to think that they could be such coglioni as to vote against their own interests.... For the record, Signor Berlusconi claimed that seven out of nine chatline girls said that they would vote for him".

Cutting regulations and taxes would work better: "The state has launched a new Web site aimed at attracting worldwide entrepreneurs to do business in California. The California Business Portal - www.calbusiness.ca.gov - provides information on starting, growing, financing and relocating a business to California. The site includes many links aimed at foreign businesses that want to work in California, and visitors can also find information on obtaining business permits, California business laws and regulations, and doing business with the state"

The plan to replace the welfare state: "Interview with Charles Murray on his new book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State: "We start with a country that is the richest country in the world, with most of its people having lots of money (compared to any historical standard), ample money to provide for their own retirements, medical care, and the rest of it. On top of this national wealth, we then add more than $1 trillion to help people provide for comfortable retirement and medical care, and so forth. And guess what? We still have millions of people without comfortable retirements, without adequate medical care. And only a government can spend that much money that ineffectually. The alternative I suggest is give every adult American, age 21 and older, $10,000 a year. And let them run with it."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

AUSTRALIA'S UNREPENTANT TRUTH-TELLER

Academic Andrew Fraser will defy the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission by not apologising to the Sudanese community for his study linking African refugees to high crime rates.

In a landmark ruling that raises fresh questions about the limits to which academics can engage in public debate, HREOC chairman John von Doussa has found Professor Fraser's comments were unlawful because they amounted to a "sweeping generalisation" that was not backed by research. [High black crime rates are shown by ALL research!] Professor Fraser was suspended last year from teaching at Sydney's Macquarie University over his comments about Sudanese refugees in Australia. Sudanese Darfurian Union secretary Safi Hareer complained to the human rights commission that Professor Fraser breached the Racial Discrimination Act in a letter published in the Parramatta Sun newspaper. The letter said experience showed an expanding black population was a "sure-fire recipe" for increased crime and violence.

In a letter received by Professor Fraser yesterday, Mr von Doussa rejected his submission that his comments were made for "genuine academic purposes in the public interest". Mr von Doussa said while the legislation allowed for fair comment on matters of public interest and for genuine academic discussion, the comments were not made with "sufficient constraints and proportionality". Comments for academic purposes were expected to reflect standards such as balanced arguments and be well-researched, but Professor Fraser had made "sweeping generalisations" not supported by research. Mr von Doussa asked Professor Fraser to respond to Mr Hareer's demand that he publish a public apology to members of the Sudanese community acknowledging that he had engaged in unlawful conduct.

But Professor Fraser said he would not apologise to anyone. "Even those who disagree with me should be appalled at this attack on the freedom of academic debate," he said. "This gives the lie to all those politicians who've claimed that racial hatred legislation would not curb freedom of expression in Australia."....

More here. Chris Brand has an update on the similar denial of free speech to British academic Frank Ellis.

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

FROM THE HEXAGON (Look at a map of France)

French government surrenders to the mob: "Students and public sector workers stage mass protests against French labour reform today, aiming to seize on a retreat by President Chirac who has been forced to relegate to the sidelines Dominique de Villepin, his Prime Minister.... M Chirac ordered the reduction of the trial period for workers younger than 26 to one year instead of two and the insertion of an obligation on employers to give an explanation if they dismissed a young employee. M de Villepin's law had sought to free employers from the constraints that are widely blamed for keeping France's youth unemployment rate at a crushing 23 per cent."

The French want to be babied: "whereas 71% of Americans, 66% of the British and 65% of Germans agreed that the free market was the best system available, the number in France was just 36%. The French seem to be uniquely hostile to the capitalist system that has made them the world's fifth richest country and generated so many first-rate French companies. This hostility appears to go deeper than resistance to painful reform, which is common to Italy and Germany too; or than a desire for a strong welfare state, which Scandinavian countries share; or even than a fondness for protectionism, which America periodically betrays."

A Frog who gets it: "The president of the world-renowned Sorbonne University has branded French students protesting about the country's new employment law "ignorant and stupid". Reacting to protests over the law, which makes it easier for employers to fire, and therefore presumably more willing to hire, young workers, Jean-Robert Pitte said the youngsters had no dreams but believed everything was due to them as a right without having to work for it. "I'm very angry about the demagogy, the ignorance and the stupidity of the young and of the French," said Dr Pitte, 56, a geography professor who has taught at Oxford and Cambridge and holds the Legion d'honneur.

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

ELSEWHERE




No-taste Hillary: "Laura Bush has shaken the decorous world of America's unofficial First Ladies' club by taunting Hillary Clinton about poor housekeeping and bad taste while in the White House. Presidential wives traditionally refrain from the political pugilism of their White House partners. But with most of Washington convinced that Sen Clinton will try to emulate her husband Bill by running for the presidency in 2008, the mood has changed. These days even home furnishings are fair game. According to Laura Bush, an Intimate Portrait of the First Lady, published today, the trouble began when Mrs Clinton took the new First Lady on a tour of the White House after the 2000 election. Mrs Bush, famed for her impeccable presentation, disclosed that she was appalled by the state of the carpets and furniture in the West Wing. Many were described as frayed. Furnishings in the East Wing, the official quarters of the First Lady, looked dated, the book says. Mrs Bush was also taken aback by the garish, clashing colours of much of the decor, which included red, blue and gold".

Stuff happens, but why? : "Concentrated power is not only dangerous, it's difficult to manage. Powerful top-down organizations are at best clumsy and wasteful, at worst they are simply disastrous. Our government proves that on a daily basis. The individual players make little difference; the size and power of the system is the Achilles heel that will, sooner or later, fail. The bigger government gets, the more power it wields, the worse the results will be."

Shhh ... Don't mention the gulag: "Lost in last weekend's hubbub over the three year anniversary of the Iraq war was an anniversary from the Western hemisphere. March 18 marked the third year since the Cuban Black Spring of 2003. Tired of internal dissent, Fidel Castro dispatched his secret police that spring day to arrest 75 journalists, librarians, labor unionists and human rights activists on charges of 'anti-state' activities. According to journalist Marc Masferrer of Uncommon Sense, fifteen of the 75 have been released for health reasons. The rest remain in Castro's gulag."

EU bribes Greenlanders: "Greenland, the only place to have left the EU, will be brought back under the influence of Brussels as part of a global scramble for the mineral riches of the Arctic. Brussels will give the semiautonomous part of Denmark, which is home to 57,000 people, 43 million euro a year in return for control over policies including scientific research. Greenland has been of little geopolitical interest, 90 per cent of it being covered in ice. However, geologists believe that it has as much oil as the North Sea basin. Prospecting licences have tripled in the past three years".

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

The Leiter/Burgess-Jackson stoush continues

"Stoush" is an Australian word for a punch-up but it can refer to a physical one or a metaphorical one. I am using it the latter sense

Brian Leiter is an influential Leftist professor, with a presence in both philosophy and law, who is noted for writing a blog which is exceedingly abusive of conservatives. Because of his perceived influence, however, few conservatives say anything in reply to him. They deem it unsafe for their careers.

Keith Burgess-Jackson is the notable exception, however. He is a philosophy professor with a background in law and has an entire blog devoted to exposing the low standard of argumentation used by Leiter. See here.

Until recently, Keith had his anti-Leiter blog on blogspot but the last blogspot meltdown caused him to move his blog to his new site at PowerBlogs. Perhaps a little unwisely, Keith deleted his former blogspot blog in the process.

Another conservative blogger (whom you may recognize) has however just taken over the blogspot address that Keith left unused and has posted there another substantial body of volleys at Leiter. See here. The war may be hotting up!

Because of all Keith's past good work, the new blog is immediately the no. 1 result returned by some searches for the term "Brian Leiter". And if it is not the No. 1 result, it usually at least makes the first page. Google blogsearch has the new version of the blog already -- topmost result when I checked. Handy. I hope anybody with a website reading this will link to both the new and the old sites to help keep the rankings up.

It will be amusing to see if and how Leiter reacts to the new blog. Keith is OK about it. There is also a scorching takedown of Leiter here, including a picture of the great man -- complete with a central European hairline.

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

RECENT PAPERS FROM THE CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES

''American Dhimmitude: The road from amnesty,''
''Guest-Worker Programs Are a Dead End,''
''Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit From the Labor Market, 2000-2005,''
''Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Connection Between Legal and Illegal Immigration,''
''Guestworker Programs: Do They Make Sense for America?,'' panel discussion transcript
''Legislature Should Act to Ensure Banks Can Verify the Identity of Account Holders,''
''Verification of Employment Authorization: Federal Basic Pilot Program is an Effective and Employer-friendly Tool for Immigration Law Compliance,''

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

ELSEWHERE

One of the most respected historians of Italian Fascism, A. James Gregor, has just published a new book under the title: "Mussolini's Intellectuals : Fascist Social and Political Thought". From the blurb: "Fascism has traditionally been characterized as irrational and anti-intellectual, finding expression exclusively as a cluster of myths, emotions, instincts, and hatreds. This intellectual history of Italian Fascism--the product of four decades of work by one of the leading experts on the subject in the English-speaking world--provides an alternative account. A. James Gregor argues that Italian Fascism may have been a flawed system of belief, but it was neither more nor less irrational than other revolutionary ideologies of the twentieth century. Gregor follows Fascist thought from its beginnings in socialist ideology about the time of the First World War--when Mussolini himself was a leader of revolutionary socialism--through its evolution into a separate body of thought... Gregor's account reveals the flaws and tensions that dogged Fascist thought from the beginning, but shows that if we want to come to grips with one of the most important political movements of the twentieth century, we nevertheless need to understand that Fascism had serious intellectual as well as visceral roots".

Today's wars are less about ideas than extreme tribalism: "Western strategists and policymakers should stop talking about a clash of civilizations and focus on the real problem: extreme tribalism. Recent events -- riots in many nations protesting cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Sunni-Shiite warring in Iraq, the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan -- confirm that the West is not in a clash with Islam. Instead, Islam, which is a civilizing force, has fallen under the sway of Islamists who are a tribalizing force. Unfortunately, the tribalism theme has difficulty gaining traction. After the end of the cold war, many American strategists preferred the optimistic 'end of history' idea that democracy would triumph around the world, advanced by Francis Fukuyama in 1989. A contrary notion -- reversion to tribalism -- made better sense to other strategists, such as France's Jacques Attali in 1992. Indeed, the emergence of ethnic warring in the Balkans and elsewhere confirmed that when societies crumble, people revert to tribal and clan behaviors that repudiate liberal ideals."

This tosser from "The Guardian" criticizes Jihad Watch for saying that Islam is unreformable and then quotes a lot of Saudis who say that Islam cannot be changed. He seems not to have noticed that he has proved Jihad Watch to be right.

In case you missed it, the bourgeois French youth demonstrating for job security were savagely attacked by Muslim youths -- something the media mostly glided over. Since it is the Muslims that would be most disadvantaged if the bourgeois youth got their way, there is some justice in it.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

WEEKEND REPORT

I rarely say much about my personal doings but I would not be a blogger if I did not do so occasionally!

Having become something of a recluse in my old age, I rarely go out these days. Only my addiction to classical music occasionally gets me moving. As Mozart is my second favourite to Bach and as this year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart, however, I decided (or Anne decided) that it would be a good time for me to go to a Mozart concert. So we went on Saturday night to a performance of the famous Requiem (in the Beyer realization).

To help get us in the mood for some of the greatest of German music, we had some good German peasant food for tea before going to the concert. For starters we had some excellent Zwiebelfisch (raw herring pickled with onions, peppercorns etc) followed simply by ham and mustard on Roggenbrot (black bread). The ham was the strong-tasting Gypsy ham, which I got from our local Croatian delicatessen.

When we arrived at Brisbane's newish and first class concert hall, I was amazed at the crush of people. Every seat was booked. I was of course delighted to see such a robust following for Kunst und Kultur so far from its homeland. The Requiem is rather sombre by Mozart's standards, so had I thought it might not attract a big audience.

The audience was of course overwhelmingly of Northern European appearance, though there was also a good scattering of North Asians -- mostly Han Chinese, I think.

We had the overture from Zauberfloete for starters followed by piano concerto 27 (his last). While I was listening to the concerto I kept thinking that it sounded more like Kammermusik than something for a full orchestra so I was rather pleased to note later that the program notes also decribed it as having "a chamber-music mood".

When we got to the Requiem after intermission, the forces available were excellent. There was a huge choir and a strong string section -- including 4 double basses and six celli. Other than that however there was only a few brass players. The big traditional pipe organ (much acclaimed when it was built) supplied the wind sounds.

Slightly suprisingly, the conductor was European -- Estonian in fact. Half a world away from Europe we still needed European talent. Since by far the greatest part of classical music is of Northern European origin, however, I suppose it stands to reason that Northern Europeans should have the best feel for it.

The Requiem itself was so absorbing that it seemed to me to take only 15 minutes, though I believe it took more like an hour. I greatly enjoyed the complex music of my people and culture -- and I was nearly as pleased to see that it still has a strong following in our society.

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

ELSEWHERE

Keith Burgess Jackson recently moved his blog devoted to exposing the unpleasant Brian Leiter from Blogspot to PowerBlogs. Leiter apparently has now threatened PowerBlogs with a lawsuit. Typical bullying behavior. Leiter did not dare take on someone as big as Google (who own Blogspot) but a small firm is fair game.

Muslims destroying German education: "Police have been deployed at a Berlin school after teachers complained that they could not cope with their students' aggression and disrespect. Six officers were posted at the Ruetli secondary school in Berlin's Neukoelln district to check students for weapons. In a letter asking for help, the head teacher said it had become almost impossible to hold orderly lessons. Students were said to be ignoring or even attacking the teachers and fighting among themselves. A teacher who recently left the school told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that ethnic Arab pupils were in the majority and were bullying ethnic Turks, Germans and other nationalities. A student at the school told German N24 television that pupils were coming to school armed. "Things have been getting worse and worse because people seem to be crazy here. They are bringing knives and weapons to school," the teenager said. The education minister for Berlin, Klaus Boeger, said the school would soon be given two social workers and two psychologists to help pupils."

Summit: Arab nations urged to go nuclear: "Secretary-General Amr Moussa called on Arab leaders Tuesday to move toward a goal of 'entering the nuclear club' and making use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. ... Moussa was particularly emphatic about Iraq in his address. 'Any solution for the Iraqi problem cannot be reached without Arabs, and Arab participation,' he said. 'Any result of consultations without Arab participation will be considered insufficient and will not lead to a solution.' Moussa called on Arabs 'to enter into the nuclear club and make use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,' a plea that comes as the world is wary about nearby Iran's nuclear ambitions."

Buchanan on Europe: "Since World War II, every country in Western Europe has been ruled for a time by socialists. These regimes put in place laws that ensured job security, a living wage, a shorter workweek than in the United States, generous unemployment benefits, early retirement, magnanimous pensions and state-subsidized health benefits. To finance these maternal welfare states, European regimes take 40 percent or even 50 percent of the economy in taxes, as compared with a U.S. federal, state and local tax bite of 33 percent. But with globalization, European companies and workers who fund these munificent benefits are finding themselves in neo-Darwinian competition for survival, not only with American, Japanese and East Europeans who work longer and harder, but Asians who work longer and harder for a fraction of their pay and few of their benefits. European companies are being stretched and stressed, and some are breaking. The capitalist goose that laid the golden eggs for the Eurosocialists is aging, tiring and becoming ever more barren.... What is coming is a time of continuous and constant cutbacks of benefits in every First World country. Public employees will have to work longer for less today and less tomorrow when they retire".

Corrupt army bosses?: "Soldiers will no longer be allowed to wear body armor other than the protective gear issued by the military, Army officials said Thursday, the latest twist in a running battle over the equipment the Pentagon gives its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies - including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor. ... Veterans groups immediately denounced the decision."

Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts on the latest news about IQ.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON ICJS

Cancer in its midst
Apathy & Inconclusiveness
Truth seekers and partisans
The last helicopter
ABC staff in no mood to capitulate to Coonan
Olmert:Israel entering a new chapter
Are they all mad?
A Better Idea
The Islamic threat is greater than German and Soviet threats
Duke 1, Harvard 0
Under the scimitar of Damocles
ABC staff lose their seat on the board
The Palestinian-Israeli War: Where It Came From.
West pays price of a delayed invasion
How I learned to love the wall
Our world: Seinfeld vs. Churchill
Iran, Jews and the Holocaust
On balance, Aunty is unworthy of our hard-earned
The undercover zionist: Interview
Media shockingly ignorant of Muslims among us
Iran military options open, says former advisor
The New Threat

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

ELSEWHERE

Theodore Dalrymple on the French riots: "The sight of millions of Frenchmen, predominantly young, demonstrating in deep sympathy and solidarity with themselves, is one that will cause amusement and satisfaction on the English side of the Channel. Everyone enjoys the troubles of his neighbours. And at least our public service strikers just stay away from work, and spend the day peacefully performing the rites of their religion, DIY, and not making a terrible nuisance of themselves. In fact, many of them are probably less of a public nuisance if they stay at home than if they go to work. Of course, demonstrating in huge numbers is what the French do from time to time. We should never forget that to break a shop window for the good of humanity is one of the greatest pleasures known to Man. Trying to topple governments by shouting insults is also great fun."

Some resolve in the House: "Conservative House Republicans bluntly warned their leaders Thursday against any immigration compromise that would allow temporary foreign workers and assailed a Senate proposal that would open the way for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. "My fear is that if we continue down this path that the Senate has established, that we will have created the biggest magnet ever," said Representative Bob Beauprez, a Colorado Republican. "It would be like a dinner bell, 'Come one, come all.' " But the bipartisan authors of a Senate plan that would combine new border protections with a temporary worker program and a process for illegal immigrants to qualify for residency and eventually citizenship said they thought they were gaining support as the Senate moved deeper into its immigration fight."

The Swedes are getting what they foolishly bargained for: "The wave of robberies the city of Malmo has witnessed during this past year is part of a "war against the Swedes." This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant backgrounds when questioned about why they only rob native Swedes, in interviews with Petra Akesson for her thesis in sociology. "I read a report about young robbers in Stockholm and Malmo and wanted to know why they rob other youths. It usually does not involve a lot of money," she says. She interviewed boys between 15 and 17 years old, both individually and in groups. Almost 90% of all robberies reported to the police were committed by gangs, not individuals. "When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes." This argument was repeated several times"

Muslim fanatics become more dangerous: "Iran's military said Friday it successfully test-fired a missile not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously, a development that raised concerns in the United States and Israel. The Fajr-3, which means "victory" in Farsi, can reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, Iranian state media indicated. The announcement of the test-firing is likely to stoke regional tensions and feed suspicion about Tehran's military intentions and nuclear ambitions. "I think it demonstrates that Iran has a very active and aggressive military program under way," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said in Washington."

Privileges for smokers abolished: "Workers at a major [Australian] government department have been banned from taking cigarette breaks during office hours, setting a precedent for workplaces nationwide. Under the new rules, public servants will only be allowed to smoke during their lunch hour. Those breaking the ban will be disciplined with verbal and written warnings and counselling. Smoking will also be banned within 15m of the government department's offices. More than 3000 staff employed Australia-wide by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources and its associated agencies will be hit by the new rules. Department chief Mark Paterson told The Daily Telegraph he issued the new edict primarily because of health issues. "We're moving into a new premises in October that incorporates a childcare centre and I don't want parents and children to be confronted by a phalanx of smokers out the front of the building," he said.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

ISRAEL

Why America supports Israel: "America's loyalty to Israel isn't engineered by a Zionist cabal that dupes American citizens and hijacks their government. US policy tends to align closely with Israel's because Americans *like* Israel. They instinctively sympathize with Israel's fight for survival in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods. If public opinion weren't robustly pro-Israel in the first place, the White House and Congress would be far less inclined to give Israel's advocates the time of day. There's a name for that phenomenon. It's called democracy.... American history is deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian soil, nourishing a special kinship between America's Christians and the Jewish people. The founders of the American republic were deeply influenced by the Hebrew scriptures and believed that they, like the Jews of old, had been taken out of bondage by God and led by Him to a Promised Land. Long before there was a modern state of Israel, American leaders expressed "Zionist" leanings: "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation," former President John Adams wrote in 1819. Nearly two centuries later, millions of American Christians are passionate supporters of the Jewish state."

Harvard hucksters hype Israeli pseudo-historians: "The real rock stars of the Israeli intelligentsia -- Israel's own Ward Churchills -- are the pretentiously self-styled 'New Historians.' This is a group of popular far-left fabricators (one of whom facetiously boasted: 'We perform at weddings and bar mitzvas'), who've cocked a snook at the liberal country in which they've thrived, so as to gain admittance into the fashionable Palestinian pantheon. They claim 'Zionist imperialists' cheated Palestinian peasants out of their land (which was, in fact, bought fairly and legally), and that these interlopers conducted a systematic and deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing with respect to the 'indigenous population.' (There undoubtedly have been sporadic acts of aggression and even terror against Palestinian Arabs by Jews during the War of Independence. But there is simply no historical evidence that they have been the result of a concerted or systematic campaign.)"

Overstating Jewish power : "If it is Israel that decides on the deployment of American force, it seems odd that the first President Bush had to order them to stay out of the coalition to free Kuwait, and it is even more odd that the first order of neocon business has not been an attack on Iran, as Israeli hawks have been urging. Mearsheimer and Walt are especially weak on this point: They speak darkly about neocon and Israeli maneuvers in respect to Tehran today, but they entirely fail to explain why the main initiative against the mullahs has come from the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Authority, two organizations where the voice of the Jewish lobby is, to say the least, distinctly muted. Their theory does nothing to explain why it was French President Jacques Chirac who took the lead in isolating the death-squad regime of Assad's Syria (a government that Mearsheimer and Walt regard, for reasons of their own, as a force for stability)."

Israel avoids victory : "As Israelis go to the polls, not one of the leading parties offers the option of winning the war against the Palestinians. It's a striking and dangerous lacuna. ... The Arabs fight to eliminate Israel, Israel fights to win the acceptance of its neighbors. The first is offensive in intent, the second is defensive. The former is barbaric, and the latter civilized."

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

ELSEWHERE

High IQ Kids Have Different Brain Growth : "The brains of high IQ children show a distinct pattern of development, according to a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. The cortex, or outer mantle of the brain, starts out thinner and thickens more rapidly in very intelligent children, say the researchers. It then peaks at around 11 or 12 years old before thinning rapidly in the late teens. This developmental pattern, rather than sheer brain size, may have more to do with intelligence said Philip Shaw, lead author of the NIH study. He said the changes are subtle and what is driving them is a mystery. The scientists discovered the association between intelligence and brain development by taking MRI scans of 307 healthy children and teenagers, aged 5-19, over 2-year intervals as they grew up.

Commemorative crosses constitute the establishment of a church??: "The Utah Attorney General's Office has asked a judge to toss out a lawsuit filed against the state over roadside crosses honoring troopers killed in the line of duty. The lawsuit was filed by the American Atheists, who say the crosses are religious symbols that violate the separation of church and state." There is NO constitutional requirement to separate church and State -- only a requirement that no particular church be "established" (State supported)

French winemakers surrender to Anglo-Saxon practices (how that must hurt!): "After failing to hold off the onslaught from New World winemakers, France is to join them in such heresies as adding wood chips and - perhaps - even watering down the wine. The Agriculture Minister has issued a plan to let vignerons compete with growers in the Antipodes and the Americas whose simple flavours and clever marketing have been winning the world's wine drinkers. "We have to make wine for consumers, not wine that producers dream of," said Bernard Pomel, author of the plan, which is likely to be adopted soon as law. France still dominates the wine trade, with 40 per cent of world production by value, but its share of the market has been dwindling for a decade. Brussels is even about to allow France to turn thousands of barrels of unsold bordeaux into vinegar.

New Canadian government shows principles: "Hamas ministers on their first day in office today pledged to continue the battle for Israel's destruction and shrugged off warnings that they were leading the Palestinian Authority into a financial and political abyss.... Canada announced that it was cutting off aid as of today, while Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said that America was reviewing its Palestinian aid programmes to see which ones it would need to freeze. "The principle is very clear. We're not going to fund a Hamas-led government, provide funding to a Hamas-led government," she said".

More pandering to the fragile self-esteem of Muslims: "Posters with the phrase "America's latest hero is a Muslim straight out of jail" has been banned from the Tube [subway] by London Underground. LU said it will not show the posters from a 1 million pound advertising campaign for new TV series "Sleeper Cell" until creators remove the word Muslim from the text. It claims it will offend people and it is trying to be sensationalist".

No homosexual marriage for Australia: "The Federal Government will legislate against any attempts by the ACT to give gay couples the same rights as married couples, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said today. Mr Ruddock said today the Government would investigate what it could do to block attempts by the ACT Labor Government to pass laws that would establish civil unions for homosexual couples. The ACT legislation would allow those in a civil union the same rights as marriage in everything but name. Under the constitution, the Commonwealth has responsibility for marriage and in 2004, with bipartisan support, the Federal Government legislated to effectively ban gay marriage. Mr Ruddock said the Commonwealth was unhappy with the ACT's attempts to work around federal laws. "Let me make it very clear, that will not satisfy the Commonwealth and we would include the introduction of legislation to prevent that from occurring," he said.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

CALIFORNIA CONFUSION ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Comment lifted from Stephen Frank

Yesterday, the Governor [Schwarzenegger] in an L.A. Times Op-Ed piece said this, "As our nation begins a national debate on immigration, I propose that we lower our voices and lift our sights. We need a debate that attacks the issue without attacking individuals. And we need a comprehensive new law that respects immigrants and protects our nation. Frankly, the debate in Congress thus far has focused too much on politics and too little on principles. Ever since I first ran for office, I've talked about the importance of having a comprehensive immigration policy. Now the moment has arrived."

The truth is, the debate in Washington has nothing to do with immigration policy. The debate is what to do about those who have violated our immigration laws--illegal aliens. Few are talking about ending legal immigration, few are talking about totally open borders. The legislation, Frist, McCain-Feingold, Kyl, Sensebrenner, all deal with the disposition of those who have entered our nation illegally and now take jobs from honest citizens, employers that use illegal aliens as a means to hold down wages and the overcrowding of our schools and health care facilities by the illegal aliens.

The Governor is mixing two separate, and important issues. The issue today is about those violating our immigration laws, period.

He goes on to say, "Criminalizing immigrants for coming here is a slogan, not a solution. Instead, I urge Congress to get tough on those illegal immigrants who are a danger to society. If an illegal immigrant commits a serious crime, he must leave the country ? one strike and you're out. No excuses, no delays."

No one, not a single GOP or Democrat member of Congress, not a single member of the Minutemen or the ACLU has even suggested that immigrants be criminalized. That is just a silly statement. No one wants those who have played by the rules, like the Governor himself, to be considered a criminal. Instead, those who have violated our immigration laws, by their own voluntary actions, have become criminals. Let's not allow these straw man arguments to hide a simple fact: sneaking into the United States, in violation of our laws, is a criminal offense. These folks know they are breaking the law. If they were abiding by the law they would come through the border at legal border crossings, not in the middle of the night, in tunnels, paying coyotes huge fee's to outsmart our border guards. These people know they are breaking the law, and the governor knows it.

Then the Guv writes, "Granting citizenship to people who are here illegally is not just amnesty -- it's anarchy. We are a country of immigrants, yes. But we are also a nation of laws. People who want to be citizens will want to do it the right way." He is absolutely right, amnesty is anarchy. Yet, he steps on his own message by then advocating amnesty! Just before the above statement he writes, "I support efforts to ensure that our businesses have the workers they need and that immigrants are treated with the respect they deserve. We should pass a common-sense temporary worker program so that every person in our nation is documented."

Clearly, he is saying that if you can sneak into the country, find an employer willing to pay you under the table, then you can be eligible for a "common sense temporary worker program". This would be for those who violated our laws and it would be called amnesty--or anarchy as the Governor does.

The bottom line is that the Governor is trying to appeal to those who support strict enforcement of our laws and those who support any and all law breakers who can steal and bribe their way into the United States. This is so transparent a political stance, that he will make enemies of both camps. In fact, he will cause Minutemen and the ACLU to join together in a statement that the Governor "wants votes, not consistent policy".

This is an issue that is difficult. Don't make it more so by opposing amnesty, then proposing it--in the same article! That just takes away your credibility. The Governor doesn't believe that if a bank robber could sneak into a bank, steal lots of money and get 50 miles away, the robber should keep the money? Nor does he believe that if a student fails his exit exams he should still receive a diploma. So, why are his advisors telling him to say that if you sneak into this country and can get a job, you should get documents that legitimize your legal violations?

Debra Saunders in a column in the San Francisco Chronicle reminded us of this:

The Los Angeles Times duly reported, "Some Republicans fear that pushing too hard against illegal immigrants could backfire nationally, as with Proposition 187 (the 1994 ballot measure that sought to deny benefits for illegal immigrants, that) helped spur record numbers of California Latinos to become U.S. citizens and register to vote. Those voters subsequently helped Democrats regain political control in the state."

Call that the Backlash Myth. In fact, Prop. 187 passed with 59 percent of the vote and GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, who championed the measure, was re-elected in 1994. In 2003, when Democratic Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to get drivers' licenses, he so enraged voters that he sealed his political demise. After Davis was recalled from office, the heavily Democratic California Legislature repealed the bill.

She also noted, "While some in the media may think all Latinos vote alike, the Los Angeles Times poll found that 38 percent of Latino voters in California strongly opposed giving driver' licenses to illegal immigrants."

Some say this is an economic issue, that we can not afford to pay real wages to these menial workers--that is why we need illegals. It may be true that the cost of food and services would go up. At the same time we would save billions in tax dollars (net of taxes paid by the illegals) for the cost of education, welfare, health care and law enforcement costs by ending the free reign of illegal aliens in our nation. We are already paying lots more for that head of lettuce--in taxes, if not at the check out counter. Our schools would not be overcrowded and we wouldn't need $11 billion in General Obligation bonds to pay for new schools. The Emergency Rooms would be more plentiful, allowing the saving of lives of legal residents and citizens, instead of squeezing them out so illegal aliens could receive medical care.

While I am writing this about our Governor, he is not the only Republican or elected official suffering from "illegal alien schizophrenia". In the Senate Brownback, McCain, DeWine, Specter and Graham also suffer from this disease. Hillary wants our borders closed and amnesty for those already here.

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

ELSEWHERE

Another phony "protest": "The leftist media have tried to portray this weekend's massive protests against House measures to curtail illegal immigration as the uprising of "The Other America": forgotten, humble, hidden Hispanic members of the working poor simply demanding their "rights." As events spanned from California to Detroit, Phoenix to Washington, D.C., the media kept up its anti-enforcement drumbeat. Although some have credited Latino DJs for the 500,000-strong illegal immigrant turnout in Los Angeles alone - and some credit is deserved - the real legwork was done by a more eclectic group of organizations: leftist labor unions, George Soros-funded agitators, Open Borders lobbyists, Roman Catholic clergy, and teachers unions.... Latino organizations did not act alone. The media has failed to report that organized labor directed the illegals and minors. The L.A. Times revealed the rally's "security" was handled by a union identified only as "Local 1877." That would be local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the far-Left union founded by New Left radical Andrew Stern"

Immigration backdown in Senate: "The Senate Judiciary Committee approved sweeping election-year legislation today that clears the way for 11 million illegal aliens to seek U.S. citizenship, a victory for demonstrators who had spilled into the streets by the hundreds of thousands demanding better treatment for immigrants. With a bipartisan coalition in control, the committee also voted down proposed criminal penalties on immigrants found to be in the country illegally. It approved a new temporary program allowing entry for 1.5 million workers seeking jobs in the agriculture industry."

Radioactive matter gets into US in test : "Undercover investigators slipped radioactive material -- enough to make two small 'dirty bombs' -- across U.S. borders in Texas and Washington state in a test last year of security at American points of entry. Radiation alarms at the unidentified sites detected the small amounts of cesium-137, a nuclear material used in industrial gauges. But U.S. customs agents permitted the investigators to enter the United States because they were tricked with counterfeit documents."

Canada's new Conservative government gets tough on illegals: "The federal government has no plans to follow in the footsteps of the United States, which appears ready to give as many as 11 million illegal workers a chance at U.S. citizenship, Immigration Minister Monte Solberg says. Solberg bluntly rejected the U.S. proposal as a solution for Canada, saying that letting illegal workers remain in this country would send the signal that it's okay to slip in the back door. "The ideal, of course, is for people to play by the rules and to get in line like everyone else is forced to do," he said after a cabinet meeting. "If we don't emphasize that . . . you are sending the message that the way to get in here quickly is to come illegally. We don't want to send that message," he said. A U.S. Senate panel just this week approved sweeping election-year legislation that clears the way for 11 million illegal aliens to apply for citizenship without first having to return home. "We're not looking at the American model," he said. "We have our own ideas on that."

I have just put up here the reply by Prof. Andrew Fraser of Macquarie University in Sydney to accusations that he made illegally racist statements in his comments about Australia's current immigration practices.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

"Stirring the possum" and European IQ differences

"Stirring the possum" is a common expression in Australia but I doubt that the term is much understood outside Australia so I will try to summarize what it means. For a start, Australia has lots of possums (a different species from the American opossum). I even have some living in the roofspace of my house -- as is common in Brisbane. They are however nocturnal and if you disturb one during the day it may well snarl and spit at you. And people know that. So if they DO stir a possum, they expect to be growled at.

So when Australians deliberately say something provocative but not terribly serious they will often refer to it as "Stirring the possum". Note however that such stirs are intended in good humour. Very few Australians would think of harming a possum (unlike in New Zealand, where they trap them) so stirring one is not an aggressive act. It is seen as a bit of harmless fun.

So when I referred recently to the interview in "The Times" with Richard Lynn as an example of "Stirring the possum" I was implying that Lynn was having a bit of fun with "The Times" rather than making a fully-rounded assessment of his subject -- which was national differences in European IQ. And the claim that Germans and Poles were considerably more intelligent than the English was indeed a delicious stir.

So I think I should note that on pages 21 and 22 of his recent book "Race Differences in Intelligence" (reviewed here and here), Lynn reports considerable variations in European IQ estimates: Irish from 87 to 97, Poland from 92 to 106, and Germans from 90 to 107. And if, as is common practice, one takes the median of these scores, one ends up with averages as follows: Ireland, 92; Poland 99; Germany 99. And none of that is particularly surprising.

What is slightly surprising is that Lynn's comments about European IQ were greeted and publicized without rancour -- while the vastly lower median scores found with African populations are usually ignored and sometimes execrated. But an impartial committment to truth is of course not to be expected from the media.

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

Stranger than fiction

I have concluded that the "Majority Rights" blog is a perfect example of why people should be conservative. The fundamental truth that only conservatives seem able to recognize is that the world is far more complex than any theory can accommodate. More than that, reality actually makes utter nonsense of most theories. I have two favourite examples of that: The neo-Nazi guy (hello Martyn!) I knew whose best friend was a very dark Bengali and another guy I knew (the sadly deceased Brian Jackson -- a lovely man) who despised Asians but was married to a Filipina!

And something similar goes on with "Majority Rights". I put up by far the most posts on that blog even though I am a cast-iron supporter of the State of Israel and even though most other people associated with the blog are Judeophobes! Can you get more wacky than that?

And yet my posts help to keep the blog humming. About 50% of the time they generate a fair bit of discussion. Even my post about dogs was well received.

So find a theory that fits all that! The only theory that fits it is a conservative one: Truth is stranger than fiction. Though even that is an empirical generalization rather than a theory.

I suspect that my posts on MR actually give a sort of perverse pleasure to many readers there. My posts there give the commenters the satisfaction of shooting me down. I am the accessible ogre who can be dispatched with a quick reference to race-theorists such as McDonald or Salter (Hello Frank!). The fact that I don't remotely feel shot down is beside the point.

So why do I continue to post there? Easy. I just LOVE "stirring the possum". And even Christ supped with sinners.

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

Brookes News Update

Keynesian nostrums still plague the US economy: That Keynesianism is still the prevailing orthodoxy among the economic commentariat is plain to see. What is not so plain is the consequences of this thinking.
France revolts against economic reason: You defy the market at your peril. France is now paying the price for her defiance. Such self-deception could only flourish in an environment dominated by economic illiteracy.
Is the Democratic Party a fifth column?: Those who believe that the Democratic Party is corrupt are absolutely right. But it is an ideological corruption that threatens America's very existence.
Black History Month ignored genuine black heroes: Eusebio Penalver suffered three times as long in Castro's Gulag as Solzhenitsyn suffered in Stalin's. He suffered longer than Mandela suffered in South Africa's - 28 years. He's the longest serving black political prisoner of the 20th century.
The Academy Awards are war by another name: In my more cynical moments I recognize the 'best picture' category of the Academy Awards to be nothing other than an intentional assault upon America by people who seek its destruction.
Latte leftist defends the ABC's phony independence with phony economics: Errol Simper is a typical leftist, smug, ignorant and patronizing. According to this clown the ABC is not to be held accountable to those elected by the people and whose money funds its operations.
Did Bracks and Ronnie Walker rip off a gun club?: Has the Bracks' Government committed serious crimes in its efforts to destroy common law rights?

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

I have just put up on Australian Politics an interesting comparison between New Orleans and the cyclone-hit Australian town of Innisfail.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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

A BLACK SOCIOLOGIST GETS IT HALF RIGHT

Orlando Patterson has some good thoughts on America's black underclass:

"Several recent studies have garnered wide attention for reconfirming the tragic disconnection of millions of black youths from the American mainstream. But they also highlighted another crisis: the failure of social scientists to adequately explain the problem, and their inability to come up with any effective strategy to deal with it. The main cause for this shortcoming is a deep-seated dogma that has prevailed in social science and policy circles since the mid-1960's: the rejection of any explanation that invokes a group's cultural attributes - its distinctive attitudes, values and predispositions, and the resulting behavior of its members - and the relentless preference for relying on structural factors like low incomes, joblessness, poor schools and bad housing."

Hard to argue with that. But what does Patterson see as the ultimate cause or causes of the large and maladaptive black underclass culture? He seems not to know -- perhaps in part because his past theories have been so thoroughly taken apart -- e.g. here. If he can't ultimately blame "whitey" he is bereft of ideas.

Crazily enough, "whitey" IS partly to blame -- but not in a way that Patterson seems able to face up to. Before the welfare explosion of the ill-starred LBJ's "Great Society", blacks mostly lived in two-parent families and were in general much less mired in social pathologies. Leftist welfare schemes are certainly not the only source of black problems but it is amazing that any sociologist cannot look just a little way back into history and see in how many ways blacks were better off before such schemes.

If Patterson wanted a quick refresher course in the history of these matters, he could find it in a recent article by Kay Hymowitz. She notes that between 1965 and 1980, "the out-of-wedlock birthrate among blacks had more than doubled, to 56 percent. In the ghetto, that number was considerably higher, as high as 66 percent in New York City. Many experts comforted themselves by pointing out that white mothers were also beginning to forgo marriage, but the truth was that only 9 percent of white births occurred out of wedlock..."

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

ELSEWHERE

Another physical basis for IQ: "Researchers at England's John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, report that our brain's pH--how acidic or alkaline it is--might be a clue to our intelligence. Using a technique called magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), researchers examined the brains of 42 British schoolboys. Just as its close cousin MRI creates vivid images of a person's internal anatomy, MRS lets doctors study an organ's chemistry. When the British scientists compared the lads' IQ scores with their MRS results, they uncovered an intriguing relationship: the smarter the boy, the more alkaline his brain. Although the relationship between alkalinity and aptitude didn't hold for every aspect of intelligence, verbal skills and reading comprehension seemed especially linked to pH, the Radcliffe team reports in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

European economic stagnation: "Europe's well-intentioned model is not working because it does not pay to work after the taxman has taken his share. Europe is not innovating because it does not pay to innovate after the huge costs of complying with all the prescriptions, limitations and restrictions in all Europe's overabundant licences and autorisations. Demoralization is the real cause of Europe's stagnation. Europe's workforce is tired of being incessantly hindered in its task of producing wealth. Demoralization is the reasen why ever more engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs flee Europe's tax misery. Paradoxically, the Old Europe of the West must now learn from the New Europe of the East, where after years of disastrous socialism, low and simple flat taxes are being introduced, luring investors from all over the world."

The truth about Africa: "Africa is quite rich. As the economist Walter Williams of George Mason University wrote, "In terms of natural resources, Africa is the world's richest continent. It has 50 percent of the world's gold, most of the world's diamonds and chromium, 90 percent of the cobalt, 40 percent of the world's potential hydroelectric power, 65 percent of the manganese, millions of acres of untilled farmland as well as other natural resources." What Africa needs is not "aid," but less corruption".

Islamic barbarism increases support for Israel: "A Gallup poll released last month puts American support for Israel at near-record levels. When asked for their views on the Middle East, 59 percent of Americans say they sympathize with the Israelis, while just 15 percent favor the Palestinians. Pro-Israel sentiment rises with increased knowledge -- 66 percent of those who follow international affairs "very closely" support Israel, compared with 52 percent of those who don't pay close attention. Other findings are comparable. More than two-thirds of Americans say their overall view of Israel is favorable; only 11 percent have a favorable opinion of the Palestinian Authority."

Even "The Guardian" loves the House of Lords these days -- for good reason: "When Lord Armstrong rises to amend the government's ID cards bill in the House of Lords tomorrow, a new stage will be reached in the epic struggle between the Lords and the forces of darkness in the House of Commons... If the Lords have their way, it will mean the compulsory introduction will be delayed until 2011, well after a general election, which will give the public a second chance to examine and debate the proposals. This would not suit the government, because the public is gradually coming to understand the bill's grave consequences for personal freedom".

World Bank corrupt too: "Back in the early 1980s, Leslie Jean-Robert Pean was in a heap of trouble. Flat broke, in bankruptcy court, he had $10 in a savings account and a whole lot more debts than assets. Over the next half-dozen years, he scratched out a living in a variety of jobs. But in 1989, Pean, an economist, landed a job at the headquarters of the World Bank, in Washington, D.C. By the early 1990s, Pean and his family had bought a big house on 3 acres of manicured grounds outside Washington, and he was passing around $100 bills like so much chump change. "Our dream," the World Bank's mission statement says, "is a world free of poverty," something Pean really understood. The only trouble, bank investigators say, is that he wasn't focusing so much on helping the poor as he was on helping himself. Pean admitted to bank investigators that he had some $2.5 million salted away in a Swiss bank account, but he says it was family money. Pean's activities are now under investigation by federal prosecutors, but to bank investigators the case is far more important than the alleged misdeeds of a midlevel manager whose bank salary never exceeded $166,000 a year. Kickbacks, payoffs, bribery, embezzlement, and collusive bidding plague bank-funded projects around the world"

Chris Brand has just put up a good comment about the European IQ averages I posted yesterday.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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