THE LEFT ARE THE BIGGEST PART OF THE MUSLIM PROBLEM

Islamic beliefs, ideas and intentions as such pose a threat to our civilization and our way of life, and not some allegedly aberrant variety of Muhammad's faith. The elite class rejects this diagnosis, of course, but among reasonable, patriotic, and well-informed citizens the debate on Islam's nature should be long over. Americans did not agonize over communism's "true" nature during the Berlin air lift in 1949, or at Pusan in 1950, but acted effectively to contain it by whatever means necessary.

Yes, back then we had a legion of Moscow's apologists, character witnesses, moles and fellow-travelers, assuring us that the Comrades want nothing but social justice at home and peaceful coexistence abroad. They held tenured chairs, staffed the New York Times' Moscow bureaus, controlled many Hollywood studios, and dominated all smart salons on both coasts. They explained away and justified the inconsistencies and horrifyingly violent implications of the source texts of Marx and Lenin. They explained away and justified the appalling fruits: the bloodbath of the Bolshevik Revolution itself, the genocidal crime of the great famine, the show trials and purges, the killing machine that destroyed millions of innocents known as the Gulag, the pact with Hitler, the works.

Today their spiritual heirs in politics, the academy and the media establishment act as Islam's apologists, character witnesses and fellow travelers. They explain away, with identical scholastic sophistry and moral depravity, the dark and violent implications of the source texts, the Koran and the Hadith, the deeply unnerving career of Muhammad, and 14 centuries of conquests, wars, slaughters, subjugation, decline without fall, spiritual and material misery, and murderous fanaticism.

Much more here

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

ELSEWHERE



Where have I seen those collar patches before?



US sues black activist on voting act violation: "Ike Brown is a legend in Mississippi politics, a fast-talking operative both loved and hated for his ability to turn out black voters and get his candidates into office. That success has also landed him at the heart of a federal lawsuit that's about to turn the Voting Rights Act on its head. For the first time, the Justice Department is using the 1965 law to allege racial discrimination against whites. Brown, head of the Democratic Party in Mississippi's rural Noxubee County, is accused of waging a campaign to defeat white voters and candidates with tactics including intimidation and coercion."

Reason irrelevant to Leftism: "It may well be that socialism isn't dead because socialism cannot die. As Sorel argued, the revolutionary myth may, like religion, continue to thrive in "the profounder regions of our mental life," in those realms unreachable by mere reason and argument, where even a hundred proofs of failure are insufficient to wean us from those primordial illusions that we so badly wish to be true. Who doesn't want to see the wicked and the arrogant put in their place? Who among the downtrodden and the dispossessed can fail to be stirred by the promise of a world in which all men are equal, and each has what he needs? ... Those who, like Chavez, Morales, and Castro, are preaching the old time religion of socialism may well be able to tap into something deeper and more primordial than mere reason and argument"

Vietnam becoming capitalist: "Today Vietnam is one of the seriously reforming Southeast Asian "tigers," countries that grew rapidly for many years but stumbled for a time after the 1997 economic crisis. Over the past five years Vietnam has had the most consistent growth record of all the Southeast Asian nations: going from a 1999 GDP low of 4.7% (which is still higher than growth rates in most countries of the world), to more than 8% in 2005. This growth has been driven by an increasingly market- oriented perspective that encourages private enterprise, as well as a burgeoning private business sector. This private sector has expanded by about 20% per year in recent years, has created hundreds of thousands of jobs and has become a major force in substantially raising general living standards".

How big is Bush's big government?: "When teaching economics I sometimes find it beneficial to use government budget data to apply the lessons of economics to our current political circumstances. The students tend to be surprised at the size of our government, the amount of tax revenues that we 'pay,' and the amount of government debt. The following numbers get the point across. We, in the United States, live under the rule of the largest civil government, measured in budgetary terms, in history. Federal spending alone in fiscal year 2006 is expected to be over $2.7 trillion, which means the federal government spends $7.4 billion a day or $5.1 million in every minute of the year. This is 815 times the level of federal spending in 1930."

Walter Williams on Disappearing manufacturing jobs: "According to some pundits and political hustlers, free trade has led to a loss of "good manufacturing jobs." Let's look at it, but before doing so, let's first see whether we should work ourselves into a tizzy over other job losses. In 1900, 41 percent of the U.S. labor force was employed in agriculture. Now, only two percent of today's labor force works in agricultural jobs. If declining employment is used as a gauge of an industry's health, agriculture is America's sickest industry. Let's not stop with agriculture. In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 workers in good-paying jobs as switchboard operators. Today, the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000 operators. That's a tremendous 80 percent job loss. What happened to all those agriculture and switchboard operator jobs? Were they exported to China and India by rapacious businessmen? Here's my question to you: Should Congress do something to restore all of those jobs lost in agriculture and telecommunications, and what might that something be?"

Migrants to Australia will have to speak English: "Foreigners applying to come to Australia as skilled migrants are to face tougher English tests. The overhaul of the skilled migration program follows a recent call by a prominent government MP for aspiring citizens to sit an English test. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone announced the changes to the program yesterday after a report found problems with the system. "The key aim of our skilled program is to select migrants who will find skilled jobs quickly," she said. "The evaluation has confirmed categorically that good English and relevant work experience are essential to achieving this result."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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 REAL HISTORY OF CUBA

Just an excerpt:

Andy Garcia blew it big-time with his movie "The Lost City." He blew it with the mainstream critics, that is. Almost unanimously, they're ripping a movie 16 years in the making. In this engaging drama of a middle-class Cuban family crumbling during free Havana's last days, which he both directs and stars in, Garcia insisted on depicting some historical truth about Cuba -- a grotesque and unforgivable blunder in his industry. He's now paying the price.

Earlier, many film festivals refused to screen it. Now many Latin American countries refuse to show it. The film's offenses are many and varied. Most unforgivable of all, Che Guevara is shown killing people in cold blood. Who ever heard of such nonsense? And just where does this uppity Andy Garcia get the effrontery to portray such things? The man obviously doesn't know his place.

And just where did Garcia get this preposterous notion of pre-Castro Cuba as a relatively prosperous but politically troubled place, they ask. All the Cubans he portrays seem middle class. Where in his movie is the tsunami of stooped and starving peasants that carried Fidel and Che into Havana on its crest, they ask. Where are all those diseased and illiterate laborers and peasants my professors, Dan Rather, CNN and Oliver Stone told me about, ask the critics....

You're better off attempting rational discourse with the Flat-Earth Society, but nonetheless I'll try to dispel the fantasies of pre-Castro Cuba still cherished by America's most prestigious academics and its most learned film critics. I'll even stay away from those "crackpots" and "hotheads" in Miami. In place of those insufferable "revanchists" and "hard-liners" I'll use a source generally esteemed by liberal highbrow types: the United Nations.

Here's a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) report on Cuba circa 1957: "One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class," it starts. "Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8-hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 70 per cent, in Switzerland 64 per cent. 44 per cent of Cubans are covered by social legislation, a higher percentage than in the U.S."

In 1958 Cuba had a higher per-capita income than Austria and Japan. Cuban industrial workers had the eighth-highest wages in the world. In the 1950s Cuban stevedores earned more per hour than their counterparts in New Orleans and San Francisco. Cuba had established an eight-hour workday in 1933 -- five years before FDR's New Dealers got around to it. Add to this a one-month paid vacation. The much-lauded (by liberals) social democracies of Western Europe didn't manage this till 30 years later.

And get this, Maxine Waters, Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell, Diane Sawyer and the rest of you feminist Castro groupies: Cuban women got three months of paid maternity leave. I repeat, this was in the 1930s. Cuba, a country 71 percent white in 1957, was completely desegregated 30 years before Rosa Parks was dragged off that Birmingham bus and handcuffed. In 1958 Cuba had more female college graduates per capita than the U.S....

Cuba took in more immigrants (primarily from Europe) as a percentage of population than the U.S. And more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S. Furthermore, inner tubes were used in truck tires, oil drums for oil, and Styrofoam for insulation. None were cherished black market items for use as flotation devices to flee the glorious liberation while fighting off hammerheads and tiger sharks.

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

ELSEWHERE

Amazing news: Heterosexual elected Episcopal Bishop of California: "The Episcopal Diocese of California has avoided widening a rift over gays in the global Anglican Communion by electing a heterosexual man as its next bishop. More than 1,000 clergy and laypeople packed Grace Cathedral in San Francisco's tony Nob Hill neighbourhood to elect the Rt Rev. Mark Andrus as successor to longtime Bishop William Swing, who is retiring after 27 years. Two openly gay men and one lesbian were among the seven candidates on the ballot. No gay or lesbian cleric has been elected bishop since the consecration of Eugene Robinson in 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire threw the US church and the worldwide family of 77 million Anglicans into turmoil.

Theodore Dalrymple: "What a human catastrophe is the doctrine of human rights! Not only does it give officialdom an excuse to insinuate itself into the fabric of our lives but it has a profoundly corrupting effect on youth, who have been indoctrinated into believing that until such rights were granted (or is it discovered?) there was no freedom. Worse still, it persuades each young person that they are uniquely precious, which is to say more precious than anyone else; and that, moreover, the world is a giant conspiracy to deprive them of their rightful entitlements. Once someone is convinced of their rights, it becomes impossible to reason with them; and thus the reason of the Enlightenment is swiftly transformed into the unreason of the psychopath."

Business owners get the blame for weak law enforcement: "Anyone convinced that America is suffering from excessive diversity should troll through the seven immigration bills now floating around the Capitol. Traversing the conceptual distance, roughly, between the minds of Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly, Congressmen on both side of the aisle are debating how high the walls should be, how onerous the fines, how long the wait to legality. Amid all this robust debate, one steadfast conviction unites the almost-distinguishable ravings of center-left and center-right: The need to keep closer watch on those radical patrons of social unrest, American business owners."

Immigrant frustration finding an outlet: "State legislatures around the nation are considering hundreds of proposals dealing with illegal immigration, reflecting the exasperation of many local officials with Congress's failure to contend with the millions of undocumented workers who have entered the nation in recent years. Here in Arizona, the House has passed a proposal to set fines and other penalties for companies that hire undocumented workers. The bill, which had regularly failed in previous years, is expected to win Senate approval within days and is only one of many plans under consideration. Others include bills to erect an 80-mile fence and a multimillion-dollar radar system along the Mexican border, designed to slow the nightly flow of migrants across the desert. Another bill would require police to check the citizenship of anyone stopped for a traffic offense."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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 RECENT STUDY SUMMARIZED BELOW WOULD SEEM TO SUGGEST A LINK BETWEEN LEFTISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA

Leftists often follow simple rules and generalizations (e.g. "all men are equal") to an absurd degree -- in defiance of all commonsense. The study below shows that schizophrenics do that too

Now, scientists say they have found that the link between insanity and rationality may be more than a fanciful notion. In some situations-limited ones-they have found that schizophrenics have a reasoning advantage over normal people, stemming from their very lack of what we typically call common sense. Schizophrenia, a long-term mental disorder involving delusions and a derailed sense of reality, disrupts people's ability to see the "context" of events, a key part of common sense, said Emmanuel Mellet, one of the researchers. ...

Mellet, of the Universities of Caen and Paris-Descartes in Paris, and a group of colleagues presented a set of logic problems to 26 schizophrenics and an equal number of healthy patients. One type of problem in particular was designed to turn context into a trap; 90 percent of healthy people typically fail it, the researchers said....

There are many more right than wrong solutions possible for such a problem. In this case, an answer would be correct as long as the test-taker put anything but a red square on the left, and anything but a yellow circle on the right. Yet "sane" people usually give wrong answers. For the above problem, they would often put a red square on the left and a yellow circle on the right, quite compatible with the dictum they're supposed to break.

The error results from misplaced use of common sense, according to Mellet and colleagues.... The researchers reported that in their study, 58 percent of healthy participants failed such problems on all eight tries that they were given. Only 19 percent of schizophrenics suffered this failure rate. "We suggest that, thanks to their difficulty in processing contextual information, the schizophrenic patients ignored the elements that misled healthy participants," the scientists wrote....

Mellet and colleagues noted that similar findings came earlier this year from researchers at King's College London.... The finding supported the idea that "decision-making in people with schizophrenia is less influenced by common sense and more influenced by theoretical reason" than in normal people, the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.

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

NEW FILM ABOUT IRAQ

Press release:

Thanks in part to the skill and dedication of trauma center teams in Iraq, wounded troops have a 90 percent chance of survival - the highest rate of war survivors in U.S. history. Still, 17,124 Americans have been wounded to date, among them 413 amputees, and Operation Iraqi Freedom has claimed 2,313 American lives since it began in March 2003.

"Baghdad ER", an unflinching hour-long documentary that debuts on May 21st on HBO, offers a raw and rare look at the humanity, hardship and heroism of the U.S. military and medical personnel in Iraq. As a result of unprecedented access to the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq, 11-time Emmyr-Award winning producer/director Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill, along with an intrepid crew, followed doctors, nurses, medics, soldiers, chaplains, and others in the U.S. Military over a two-month period in 2005.

The documentary gives viewers a taste of daily life in the thick of war, including exclusive frontline rescue footage with the 54th Medical Company Air Ambulance Team, and dangerous missions of soldiers patrolling "IED Alley," the most dangerous road in the world. At times graphic in its depiction of combat-related wounds, BAGHDAD ER is a socially relevant account of war in our time - emotional, devastating and honest. Those caring for the wounded Americans and Iraqis demonstrate focused intensity, selflessness and a unified purpose, which "BAGHDAD ER" juxtaposes against the chaos of war.

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

ELSEWHERE

I liked this parody of Green/Left logic from Taranto: "President Bush is riding high. In just two weeks, his approval rating has skyrocketed to 38% from 33%, according to Fox News/Opinion Dynamics polls. That's an increase of 15%, or five percentage points. If we assume conservatively that his rating will continue increasing linearly (i.e., five points every two weeks), he'll be back at 98% by mid-October. That could give a big boost to Republican hopes of expanding their House and Senate majorities."

Warning to Israel-haters: "US President George W.Bush has used a speech in Washington to declare the US's "unshakeable" commitment to defend Israel from aggression. Mr Bush said the US and Israel were "natural allies" with ties that would "never be broken". The comments, made at a dinner to mark the 100th anniversary of the American Jewish Committee in Washington on Thursday night, were aimed squarely at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and at the recently elected Hamas regime in Palestine. Mr Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" while Hamas refuses to recognise the Jewish state".

GWB is getting it: "US President George W. Bush has said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III". In an interview with the financial news network CNBC, Mr Bush said he had yet to see the recently released film of the uprising, a dramatic portrayal of events on the United Airlines plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field. But he said he agreed with the description of David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, who in a Wall Street Journal commentary last month called it "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war, World War III". Mr Bush said: "I believe that. I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III."

Whatever happened to self-reliance? "The Senate added money to rebuild a highway in Hawaii; protect riverbanks in California; upgrade a hurricane barrier in Providence, R.I.; and compensate New England shell fishermen for their losses from a red tide outbreak. The Senate also took steps to make farming less risky by offering compensation for virtually any scourge, including drought, flood, wildfires and pestilence."

German City Privatizes Public Housing: "[Dresden Mayor Ingolf] Rossberg reached a deal in March to sell Dresden's entire stock of 48,000 city-owned apartments to an American private equity firm, the Fortress Investment Group, for $1.2 billion. In a single stroke, Dresden wiped out its burdensome public debt."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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.

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

His Eminence on the Koran and on the Greenies

His Eminence, the Cardinal archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Pell, advises reading the Koran as a way of knowing your enemy. He also very reasonably identifies extreme environmentalism as a religion. Muslims and Greenies are fuming, of course. Summary of Dr. Pell's speech below:



Australia's most influential Catholic has said the Koran is riddled with "invocations to violence" and the central challenge of Islam lies in the struggle between moderate and extremist forces as the faith spreads into a "childless Europe". The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said reading the Koran, the sacred text of Islam, was vital "because the challenge of Islam will be with us for the remainder of our lives - at least".

But in a speech to US Catholic business leaders, Dr Pell said Western democracy was also suffering a crisis of confidence as evidenced by the decline in fertility rates. "Pagan emptiness" and Western fears of the uncontrollable forces of nature had contributed to "hysteric and extreme claims" about global warming. "In the past, pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions."

Dr Pell said the September 11 terrorist attacks had been his personal wake-up call to understand Islam better. He had tried to reconcile claims that Islam was a faith of peace with those that suggested the Koran legitimised the killings of non-Muslims. While there was room for optimism in fruitful dialogue between faiths and the common human desire for peace, a pessimistic response began "with the Koran itself". Errors of facts, inconsistencies, anachronisms and other defects were not unknown to scholars but difficult for Muslims to debate openly, he said. "In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."...

Dr Pell said every nation and every religion, including Catholicism, had "crimes in their histories". In the same way, Islam could not airbrush its "shadows". Claims of Muslim tolerance of Christian and Jewish minorities were largely mythical and he wondered about the possibility of theological development in Islam when the Koran was said to come directly from God. "Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion and its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited," he said.

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

ELSEWHERE

U.S. economy steams ahead: "Activity in both the vast US services sector and at factories accelerated more than expected, according to data that pointed to fresh economic vigour and the risk of more interest rate hikes. Most economists are expecting economic growth to slow from a torrid first-quarter pace of 4.8 per cent, yet the latest figures showed no hints of slowing and appeared likely to keep the Federal Reserve leaning toward further rate rises. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week a pause in the rate-hike cycle was possible. The Institute for Supply Management's services index rose to 63.0 in April from 60.5 in March, with new orders hitting a two-year high, confounding Wall Street estimates for a slowdown to 59.2. In addition, the government reported new factory orders rose a stronger-than-expected 4.2 per cent in March, beating estimates for a 3.5 per cent gain, as demand for transportation equipment, computers and electronics proved robust."

BNP has a win: "The British National Party (BNP), running on a hardline anti-immigration platform, won 11 seats from the ruling Labour Party in a key east London seat in local elections today. The BNP targeted working-class areas with voters who are dissatisfied with the main political parties. Opponents dismissed the party as a neo-fascist minority group peddling racism and preying on voters' prejudices. But Richard Barnbrook, a winning BNP candidate in the London suburb of Barking and Dagenham, denied being racist and said the party's success at the polls was due to the Labour party's failings on local issues. "This race concern is nonsense, it doesn't exist," Mr Barnbrook said to Sky News television. "It's law and order, education and proper housing." Some Barking and Dagenham voters said they had turned to the BNP because mainstream parties had ignored their concerns over issues such as immigration and housing. The BNP says its policies are not racist but are an attempt to return to "traditional British values". Its manifesto pledges to "stop further attempts to enforce multi-culturalism on an increasingly sceptical and unwilling populace."

Democrat oil hypocrisy: ""[Senator Chuck] Schumer and most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate-the very crowd shouting the loudest about 'obscene' gas prices-have voted uniformly for nearly 20 years against allowing most domestic oil production. They have vetoed opening even a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas production. If there is as much oil as the U.S. Geological Survey estimates, this would increase America's proven domestic oil reserves by about 50%. They have also voted against producing oil from the Outer Continental Shelf, where there are more supplies by some estimates than in Saudi Arabia... If [environmentalists have] discovered some new law of economics in which a fall in output with rising demand can cause a reduction in price, we'd love to hear it. The dirty little secret about oil politics is that today's high gas price is precisely the policy result that Mr. Schumer and other liberals have long desired. High prices have been the prod that the left has favored to persuade Americans to abandon their SUVs and minivans, use mass transit, turn the thermostat down, produce less consumer goods and services, and stop emitting those satanic greenhouse gases... So how do the sages on Capitol Hill propose to reduce gas prices? They want to slap a profits tax on Big Oil because of alleged price gouging. Here we have another head-scratcher that seems to defy even junior-high-school economics. Usually when you tax something, like tobacco, you get less of it. But somehow a tax on oil will magically lead to more oil."

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (of Maricopa County Arizona) strikes again: "A posse of 100 volunteers and sheriff's deputies will patrol the Phoenix area and arrest any illegal immigrants, the county sheriff said. The group likely will be deployed across parts of Maricopa County by the weekend, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday. Volunteers will be drawn from the department's 3,000-member posse, whose members are trained and are often former deputies. "It's important to send the message out to stay in Mexico and don't come roaming around here hoping you're going to get amnesty," said Arpaio, who in years past gained notoriety for putting inmates on chain gangs and issuing them striped uniforms and pink underwear. Arpaio's deputies have already arrested about 120 illegal immigrants using a new state smuggling law. "We're going to arrest any illegal who violates this new law," he said. "I'm not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico. I'll give them a free ride into the county jail."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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.

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

Brookes News Update

Is free trade destroying manufacturing and exporting jobs?: The trade account deficit and the movement of manufacturers to other countries has been blamed on free trade. But the picture is far more complicated than it looks
Minimum wages and capital accumulation: lefty economists fail again: The Liberal Party's labour reform legislation is taking a pounding from its critics, particularly in the media. So far the Party has been lamentably remiss in its response to these attacks. Unfortunately the situation is going to get worse as the attacks become more sophisticated
Michael Kroger's hatchet men betray Liberal Party member: Treachery comes easily to some members of the Victory state Liberal Party. The Richmond branch wanted Prodos Marinakis as their candidate. Some of the big boys in exhibitions Street didn't like that so they started smearing and arm-twisting. Some of us little people think it's time Peter Kroger had a chat with Julian Sheezel and Tony Barry. Better still -- just sack the jerks
Journalist smears President Bush over Mary McCarthy's treason: I would love to say that Geoff Elliot was the exception to the rule that most journalists are lying leftwing bigots -- but I cannot. If Murdoch had any decency he would have sacked this liar years ago
Michael Kroger gets a savaging while the Victorian Liberal Party crumbles: Peter Kroger and his gang of spineless incompetents are leading the Victorian Liberal Party into a political black hole. If his minions insist on treating Party members like dirt while they themselves treat the Party as a means of furthering their own political ambitions I fear the Party's next motto will be RIP
How the Liberal Party's labour market reforms got stuffed: The HRNS conned the Liberal Party into thinking that it is the expert on labour markets and that the Party need look no further for sound advice. The result has been a disaster for the Libs
Islamofascists want to exterminate Israel -- and guess who will be next: I had became accustomed to sympathetic posters of sadistic Che Guevara and the equally sadistic Fidel Castro. But I'm not ready for films like 'Munich' created by Stephen Spielberg and the self-hating Tony Kushner that give Muslims a platform to justify mass murder
The feminist furor has finally passed: After years of holding America a virtual hostage, old-fashioned radical feminism appears to be just about dead

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

ELSEWHERE

It is well-known that Americans have substantially higher average incomes than Europeans. Leftists say that Americans earn more only because they work longer hours. A recent comparison of the USA and Germany is therefore interesting. It shows that Americans and Germans work virtually the same hours overall but, because of their high taxes, Germans spend a larger proportion of their working time "Doing it yourself". For example, they may service their own car rather than paying a mechanic to do it. Since "Doing it yourself" will usually be much slower and less efficient than getting an expert to do the job, Americans will obviously get more results per unit time spent working.

Blair talks tough: "The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, yesterday unveiled plans to deport foreign criminals automatically, seeking to regain the initiative in a crisis that is threatening to topple a minister on the eve of local elections. During a rowdy session of Parliament, opponents said he was spouting "sound bites" to grab the headlines, adding that laws were already in place to protect the public but ministers were failing to do so. They stepped up calls for the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to resign over a bungle when a systemic failure meant 1023 foreign criminals who should have been considered for deportation were released."

GOP would benefit from stronger immigration stand: "California voted for Republican presidential candidates in nine of the ten elections from 1952 through 1988. The collapse of the California GOP first became evident in 1992, two years before Prop. 187, when Republicans got skunked in California in the presidential election and two U.S. Senate races. In the last dozen major contests for president, governor, or senator there, Republicans have won only the two times they appealed to voter anger over illegal immigration. The ten times they meekly avoided the topic, they quietly went down to defeat."

Mexico goes libertarian: "To the alarm of its northern neighbour, Mexico is to decriminalise the possession of nearly every drug - hard and soft - that the US has battled for decades to keep off its territory. President Fox is to sign legislation that will make Mexico one of the most permissive countries in the world when it comes to narcotics. Users will be able to possess up to five grams of marijuana (the equivalent of about four joints), five grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin and 500 milligrams of cocaine - enough for a few lines. Nor will they be prosecuted for possessing a few tabs of Ecstasy, small quantities of amphetamines or magic mushrooms, or even a kilo of so-called indigenous drugs such as the hallucinogenic peyote, a psychotropic cactus still used in shamanic rituals. The Mexican Government says the legislation will allow the authorities to concentrate on fighting the violent drugs gangs that have turned several cities into war zones.

Great stuff! "The Los Angeles Police Department is being sued in connection with its policy prohibiting officers from inquiring about an individual's immigration status, and reportedly restricting them from cooperating with federal immigration officials. The action has been filed by the public-interest group Judicial Watch, and asks the court to prohibit the LAPD from expending taxpayer funds to enforce and maintain "Special Order 40," claiming it violates both California and federal laws and puts American citizens at risk.

"A Day Without Migrants" becomes day without news: "Like most other news professionals in the Valley, I began Monday by monitoring progress of the work stoppages, boycotts and demonstrations for what had been called by organizers 'A Day Without Immigrants.' That is to say, I sat at my desk in The Arizona Republic's nice, air-conditioned downtown offices and looked out on a beautiful expanse of urbanized desert on what looked like, felt like and was a perfectly normal day. ... There were some protesters gathered at a Home Depot and at the site of a company that had been raided by federal immigration officials. There were reports of some businesses that had not opened and others that were operating short-handed. News reporters and photographers blanketed the Valley. The story was all over the news. ... And, most importantly, it was ... zzzzzzzzzz ... all over before it got started."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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 HILDABEEST

Taranto seems to have caught Hillary Clinton out. She said of her personal history: "So I wrote to NASA and said, 'How do I sign up to be an astronaut?. And they wrote back very politely and said, 'We don't take girls.'. Taranto comments: But wait. Is that NASA story believable? First, Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, is only 3 1/2 years younger than Mrs. Clinton. Second, given that she has an epicene [unisex] name, how did NASA even know she was a girl?

Why does all that remind me of this? Bill Clinton's claim that Hillary was named in honour of the first Everest summiteer has a fundamental problem: Edmund Hillary reached Everest's peak on May 29, 1953, nearly seven years after Hillary Clinton was born.. Both Clintons would seem to be stupid liars, a prime symptom of psychopathy.

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

HIGH FUEL PRICES A GOOD THING?

One Australian economist thinks so. Excerpt:

One good thing about next week's federal budget is that even though Peter Costello is flush with cash and likely to offer tax relief to families, he's unlikely to make any cut in the tax on petrol. That's a good thing because we must learn to live with high petrol prices, not find ways to duck them. With prices nudging $1.40 a litre in some cities and Costello warning that worries about the Iranian nuclear stand-off could push them up to $1.60, the motoring lobbies are looking for ways to ease the pain. The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, for instance, wants Costello to remove the GST on fuel excise, saving about 3.4 cents a litre.

But, whichever way you look at it, cutting the tax on petrol would be the wrong way to go. For a start, there's the conventional economists' argument that the best response to higher prices is higher prices. Huh? When you think about it, it's not as meaningless as it sounds. Prices rise when the demand for something is growing faster than its supply. Although part of the rise in oil prices is based on speculation about disruption in the Middle East, and so may not last long, the underlying increase in demand is coming from the rapid growth in the economies of China, India and other developing countries. This is likely to keep upward pressure on oil prices for many years.

But in a market system, a rise in the price of such a commodity prompts a change in behaviour. It increases supply by encouraging exploration for new sources, makes formerly uneconomic oilfields profitable and encourages the development of substitute fuels. At the same time, it reduces demand by encouraging consumers to use petrol more economically and search for cheaper substitutes. Put this reduction in demand together with the increase in supply and you see that a rise in prices should lead to a fall in prices. So allowing retail petrol prices to move in response to market forces is the best way to minimise the long-term rise in prices likely to come from the developing world's increasing demand for oil.

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

ELSEWHERE



Froggy racism? (Or reality dawning?): "The French parliament is to discuss whether to approve a new immigration bill which would make it harder for foreigners to work in France. The proposals, drawn up by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, demand that newcomers learn the French language and culture. They also favour highly skilled workers over those who are less qualified. The draft law would make it harder for immigrants' families to settle in France and restrict residence permits".

Libertarians will cheer: "The German government is planning to supply long-term drug addicts with controlled amounts of free heroin to "improve their health", the government's commissioner for substance abuse Sabine Baetzing said today. "A heroin therapy is the last hope and provides help for survival for some of those who are addicted," Baetzing said. "It can improve their health and stabilise their social situation." ... Baetzing said that pilot projects in seven German cities had shown that giving controlled amounts of heroin to long-term addicts was a more effective way of getting them off the drug than methadone, a drug used as a heroin-substitute. Baetzing said the testing in the pilot cities also showed the heroin therapy had led to reduction in crime".

Evidence not needed for a Pulitzer: "Washington Post reporter Dana Priest won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about CIA "secret prisons" in Europe that cannot be confirmed and appears to be essentially false. This puts the paper in a very difficult position. It gave back one Pulitzer, a story about a child heroin addict by Janet Cooke, after it was exposed as a fraud. So far, the only evidence that the Priest story is true is her insistence that her secret sources were telling the truth. But Priest isn't talking about the nature of those "sources" and whether fired CIA officer and John Kerry campaign contributor Mary O. McCarthy was one of them"

Mexico to make it easier for illegals: "The Mexican Red Cross (CRM) and the National Migration Agency (INM) will boost their help for Mexicans on their journey to the United States, Mexico's Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The two bodies support migrants through the Beta Migrant Protection Group, with the INM funding first aid, medical emergency and humanitarian assistance to all foreigners, regardless of their nationalities.... Since 2004, the INM and CRM have worked together to provide a mobile clinic in Mexico's Sonora state, offering help to a large number of undocumented workers."

No economic news can please the media: "The ordinary nervousness of investors and market watchers has been converted into advanced paranoia by the business media's preference for bad news. Consider this headline in the Wall Street Journal: 'Economy's Surge Stirs Questions About When Slowdown May Come.' Share prices are driven to a six-year high by rising corporate profits and commentators trot out stories about bubbles and irrational exuberance, the latter a phrase used by then-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan to describe share prices -- after which they doubled. Germany and Japan finally shake off their decades-long economic lethargy and show signs of recovery, and all talk is that, like rising share prices, this will force a recession-inducing rise in world interest rates."

I must confess to being pleased at the death of that arrogant old socialist, J.K. Galbraith. As an economist, he should have known better. Bill Buckley does his best to be generous about him in death.

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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.

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

RECENT ARTICLES UP ON ICJS

The Euston manifesto: For a Renewal of Progressive Politics
Harper urged to block UN appointment
Wolves in sheep's clothing on extremist Islam mission
Hamas in charge
Visa row on links to terror
B'nai Brith Press Release
Why `this night' is still different
The rise of the Islamist Axis
The Shabbat guest
Let's ignore Hamas
Cat and mouse with Muslim paranoia
World Bank. Money won't fix things here
ABC Parliamentary debate

I particularly recommend "The Shabbat guest"

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

ELSEWHERE

There is a big Leftist whine here about GWB interpreting the constitution to suit himself. Odd that the same people don't object to the Supreme Court interpreting the constitition any way that suits themselves on matters such as abortion, affirmative action etc. So sad that the Left are now realizing that two can play their game -- the game of squeezing anything you like out of the constitution. I wonder how long it will take them to start arguing that the "original meaning" of the constitution should be respected? When the Left can celebrate a Left-dominated court denying to whites the "equal protection" explicitly provided for all U.S. citizens by the 14th Amendment, they can't squawk about GWB interpreting his "Commander in Chief" powers rather widely.

Japan: Matchmaking ads 'to boost birth rate': "Alarmed by a falling birth rate and rapidly ageing population, Japanese policymakers are thinking about allowing TV ads for matchmaking agencies in the hope that an increase in couples will result in more children. Japan's population shrank in the year to October for the first time since 1945, heightening worries about economic decline due to a smaller workforce supporting a growing number of pensioners. An official at the Trade Ministry said today that the ministry is considering allowing advertisements for matchmaking agencies to be shown on television, which is currently forbidden".

The wails over the wall: "Another little-mentioned fact has to do with the Israeli security fence -- it is the reason there haven't been any attacks for so long. The wall that separates Israeli from Palestinian territory -- and makes liberals, libertarians, and plain old bigots like Bob Novak shriek like stuck pigs -- has cut by over 80 percent the number of Israelis maimed and murdered by suicide bombers. This barrier is not a political border; it can be dismantled. But lives taken by terrorism cannot be reconstituted. Still, mention any security fence intended to prevent undesired or undesirable human acts, and the Kumbaya Crowd launches into maudlin impersonations of the sainted Ronald Reagan, RIP: 'tear down this wall.'"

Estrich nervous about Leftist haters: "'I'll take a stand in favor of hatred,' said psychoanalyst Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch. Frank was defending Susan McDougal's tirade about why she hated Bush over my more restrained approach to winning elections. Radio host and commentator Hugh Hewitt scribbled furiously. A stand in favor of hatred. Hugh could not have been happier. His theory is that 'angry Democrats' will give Republicans a victory in the midterm elections. It's probably the Republicans' only shot, given the current numbers. Do Democrats have the capacity to seize defeat from the jaws of victory? You should have heard them boo Hugh at the Palm Springs Book Festival last weekend. It was music to his ears. I found it somewhat terrifying."

TN: Realistic juries evaded: "The district attorney who reached a plea settlement with ex-teacher Pamela Rogers for having sex with a 13-year-old student says one reason he didn't want to try the case was that some men on a jury would not convict an attractive woman for having sex with a teenage boy. District Attorney General Dale Potter said he was concerned that some male jurors might not convict Rogers, a former Warren County grade-school physical education teacher, because they wouldn't view what the attractive 28-year-old woman did as having harmed the boy. 'The fact that I could not get a jury of all women did play a heavy factor in my decision not to go to trial,' Potter said. 'There's a segment of men that would say that the victim wasn't harmed, but instead got lucky..."

More anti-Wal-Mart hysteria: "Wal-Mart's proposal to offer banking services to its customers has touched off another round of anti-Wal-Mart hysteria. At the urging of community banks and some members of Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is holding a series of public hearings on Wal-Mart's application for an industrial bank charter (IBC). Never before in its seventy-three-year history has the FDIC held hearings on an IBC application, and they should not start now. Consumers would benefit from Wal-Mart's expansion of financial services, although some banks afraid of competition are trying to block the bank charter."

The Estonian example: "Estonia is the ninth economically freest country in the world. Today, many people find it difficult to remember the days of the Soviet Union, when the Estonian economy was completely dominated by the state and marked by endless lines and shortages. Mart Laar replaced the "dead hand" of the government with Adam Smith's "invisible hand." His government eliminated import tariffs (a decision that was partly reversed by Estonia's membership of the European Union) and established a flat income tax. Corporate taxes on reinvested profits fell to zero and a currency board was established to combat inflation. The government also undertook extensive privatization of state companies. Though Estonia experienced a sharp but short recession that was shared by all transitional economies, by 1995 the economy was roaring again. According to the World Bank, between 1995 and 2004, Estonia's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a compounded average annual rate of 6.6 percent. During that decade, Estonia's GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity rose from $6,847 to $12,773 in constant 2000 dollars, an increase of 86.5 percent. Estonia's sustained, high growth rate was among the region's highest and set the country on course to join the rest of the developed world.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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.

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

AN EXTRA TAX ON OIL COMPANIES WILL RAISE FUEL PRICES

The companies will just add the tax into their cost base and proceed as before. Politicians huffing and puffing will HURT Joe Average, not help him. Excerpt from a comment by an economist below:

As gas prices top $3 per gallon, politicians are cashing in big - by throwing bombs at the U.S. oil industry. As in every crisis, Washington is suffering from a predictable case of "do something" disease. Products of the ready-to-eat microwave culture, Americans want an instant solution to high energy costs, and this lends itself to grandstanding and election-year maneuvering by politicians of all stripes. Numerous lawmakers, from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), are lining up to support a new federal windfall profits tax, with the aim of redistributing profits from "greedy" oil companies.

But lawmakers could benefit from a history lesson. The last time this country experimented with such a tax was the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980. According to a 1990 Congressional Research Service study, the tax depressed the domestic oil industry, increased foreign imports and raised only a tiny fraction of the revenue forecasted. It stunted domestic production of oil by 3% to 6% and created a surge in foreign imports, from 8% to 16%.

Politicians calling oil companies "greedy" is more than a little ironic. Tax Foundation studies have shown that state and federal treasuries profit handsomely from oil industry sales. The average American motorist pays taxes of 46 cents a gallon on gasoline, of which 18.4 cents a gallon goes to the federal government. States and localities pocket the rest. The nation's energy companies are already providing a "windfall" of taxes. According to Department of Energy data, from 1977 to 2004, federal and state governments extracted $397 billion by taxing the profits of the largest oil companies and an additional $1.1 trillion in taxes at the pump. In today's dollars, that's $2.2 trillion - enough to buy a Toyota Prius for every household in the nation....

It would be unfair and absurd to tax workers at different rates, based merely on the industry they work in. Similarly, it makes no sense to tax an industry punitively based on the volatility of its profits. Oil will always be a boom-or-bust business.

The U.S. debate over which group of people - workers, shareholders or consumers - ends up paying the bulk of these corporate taxes will go on forever. But the undisputed and most important point is that individuals pay taxes, not corporations. Therefore, attempts to punish oil companies for "obscene" profits by instituting additional taxes ultimately cause all of us to pay the price. Consumers will pay more at the pumps, and the five oil-producing states that suffered in the oil bust, including hard-hit Louisiana, won't benefit from the boom.

More here

Some more comments below:

Republicans target "economic crimes": "Should anyone doubt that the Republicans have become the sworn enemies of the forces of supply and demand, as well as free enterprise, the following statements should change the minds of most skeptics: Congressional GOP leaders on Monday formally called on President Bush to launch an investigation into possible price gouging by oil companies, as gas costs shot up nearly 25 cents a gallon in two weeks. 'Anyone who is trying to take advantage of this situation while American families are forced into making tough choices over whether to fill up their cars or severely cut back their budgets should be investigated and prosecuted,' House Speaker Dennis Hastert [R-Ill.] and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist [R-Tenn,] wrote in a letter to President Bush."

Scapegoating big oil is not the solution: "Oil prices continue to rise. Why would anyone expect otherwise given current circumstances? Let us start with the issue of destabilising the production of oil. The invasion of Iraq harmed oil production and everyone knows it. Military invasions are not good for production under most circumstances. Then we have Bush sabre rattling with Iran pushing prices up even more. We can't factor out the fact that a large amount of oil, in Venezuela, is under the control of a lunatic either. The supply of oil is very tenuous at best. Between the bad policies of George Bush and those of Hugo Chavez the world's oil supply is in trouble."

Real relief on gas prices: "Let them eat cake -- or wait in line for a Prius. The high price of gasoline is the talk of the nation. But there is little talk about government's piece of the action -- the revenue collected from federal and state gas taxes. Why not temporarily roll them back? That would provide instant consumer relief -- not the future, fantasy relief suggested this week in Washington. 'Gasoline price increases are like a hidden tax on the working people,' President Bush said in a speech that called for a federal inquiry into possible price-gouging, an easing of environmental rules on gasoline production, and a halt to new purchases for the nation's energy reserve. Bush conveniently ignored one built-in cost: Government levies include a federal 18.4 cents-a-gallon tax on gas; and the states tax on top of that. In Massachusetts, the gas tax includes a 21-cents-a-gallon excise tax and a 2.5-cents-a-gallon fee to reimburse gas stations for environmental cleanup."

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

ELSEWHERE

"Don't ask, don't tell" suit dismissed: "A federal judge in Boston yesterday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, ruling that Congress has the authority to exclude gays from the armed services. US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. found that Congress made a rational decision to adopt the policy in 1993 after holding lengthy hearings and concluding that openly homosexual service members would have a negative impact on the military. The policy prohibits the military from asking about sexual orientation, but orders the dismissal of personnel who disclose that they are gay, engage in homosexual activity, or are outed by someone else. 'The legitimacy of the end Congress sought to serve -- maintaining effective military capability by maintaining high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion -- cannot be doubted,' O'Toole wrote. But, in his 41-page decision, O'Toole added that 'deciding that Congress has made a rational choice is not the same as deciding it has made a wise choice.'"

Government pesters wounded soldiers over debts: "Nearly 900 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have been saddled with government debts as they have recovered from war, according to a report that describes collection notices going out to veterans with brain damage, paralysis, lost limbs and shrapnel wounds. The report from the Government Accountability Office, to be released at a hearing today, details how long-recognized problems with military computer systems led to the soldiers being dunned for an array of debts related to everything from errors in paychecks to equipment left behind on the battlefield."

Mexican corruption: "Mexican politicians continuously demand more visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and "regularization" of illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. While neglecting to mention that the United States admits nearly one million legal newcomers each year, they also fail to publicize: (1) the extremely high salaries they receive, often-in the case of federal and state legislators-more than their counterparts in developed nations that have substantially longer annual sessions, (2) the generous stipends that they grant themselves, including year-end aguinaldos and end-of-term bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars known as bonos de marcha, and (3) the generous sums that party leaders in legislative bodies have to spend with few or any strings attached. For example President Vicente Fox ($236,693) makes more than the leaders of France ($95,658), the U.K. ($211,434), and Canada ($75,582)."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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.

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

NATIONAL ANTHEM LOGIC

Post lifted from Getting Elected

Now we have a Spanish version of our National Anthem and a call to allow crossing the border as the only qualification for citizenship. At first I was angered by all this. Why can't we all get along and speak (and sing) English? English was good enough for our Founding Fathers, why not us Americans today?

Then I started thinking about it. Wow, did my Polish and Welsh ancestors get a raw deal. They had to go through a complicated immigration procedure, take a difficult test and then they were even expected to speak and read English and have a job. To top this all off, there was no Polish or Welsh version of the National Anthem.

I say, this is the time to correct some of this injustice. Let's be fair to all. We need a federal law to require that the National Anthem be translated and recorded in the language of the country of origin of all Americans. To do this right, let's create a new agency to oversee this project. Hmmm, let's call it the FAOOB. (Federal Anthem of Origin Bureau). Ted Kennedy or some other liberal Dem would make good head of this new agency.

Of course, this would not correct all of the injustice, but it would be a start. The only drawback I can see would be the extra time it would take to sing the various versions of the National Anthem at football or baseball games.

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

Some May Day thoughts and observations

May Day demos could bomb: "Rumors of immigration roundups have prompted thousands of illegal immigrants to stay home this week and are making some afraid to participate in a national immigration protest planned for Monday. Though federal immigration officials said they were unfounded, rumors of random sweeps were rampant from coast to coast Friday, prompting thousands of immigrants to stay home from work, take their children out of school and avoid church. The absences caused the rumors to build, as some thought their missing friends and co-workers had been arrested. Construction and agriculture were among the industries most affected. Len Mills, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of South Florida, said he estimated at least 50 percent of workers on construction jobs in the region hadn't shown up for work. He said he believed even some legal workers were afraid."

Muslims back illegals: "Muslims in Los Angeles and elsewhere are being urged to join millions of Latino protesters in the streets May 1 to demonstrate in favor of leniency toward illegal aliens currently living in the United States unlawfully. "In solidarity with immigration activists around the country, the Muslim Public Affairs Council as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Los Angeles, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, the L.A. Latino Muslim Association, the Muslim American Society - Los Angeles, and the Muslim Students Association - West are calling on American Muslims to participate in a day of action on May 1, 2006," says a statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "Islam's message is one of social justice, economic fairness, and fair treatment in the workplace. The Quran urges the proper treatment and respect of workers."

Anti-illegals push in California: "As Congress debates the polarizing issue of immigration, the founder of an anti-illegal immigrant group is pushing for San Bernardino to outlaw day labor sites and bar the undocumented from renting property. Joseph Turner, executive director of the group Save Our State, submitted voter petition signatures this week that would force a City Council vote or a citywide election on the measure, which would also deny city permits, contracts and grants to businesses that employ illegal immigrants, and require that city business be done in English".

Senate diverts war funds to border security: "The Senate voted today to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation's borders and provide the Coast Guard with new boats and helicopters. An amendment was adopted, 59-39, to cut Bush's Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new aircraft, patrol boats and other vehicles, as well as border checkpoints and a fence along the Mexico border crossing near San Diego."

No more excuses for Mexico: "Why do Mexicans only have one-third the per capita income (on a purchasing power parity basis) of Canadians and only one-fourth that of Americans? The answer is that Mexicans are relatively poor because have been plagued by semidespotic regimes that have ignored the rule of law and often engaged in destructive economic policies. Mexicans have been free of their Spanish colonial masters for almost 200 years (almost as long as their American neighbors and far longer than Canadians have enjoyed independence). Mexico has a better growing climate than Canada, and it is rich in natural resources -- oil, gas, and metals. Yet Mexican politicians frequently resort to blaming their northern neighbor for their economic woes but would not dare answer the question: 'If the U.S. were as poor as Mexico, would Mexico be better off or worse off?'"

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

ELSEWHERE

Construction begins at ground zero: "After months of disputes over the future of ground zero, state and city officials finally brought in the heavy equipment and began construction Thursday on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower that will rise at the World Trade Center site. 'It is going to be a symbol of our freedom and independence,' Gov. George Pataki said after three yellow construction trucks -- driven by workers wearing hard hats emblazoned with the American flag and the words 'Freedom Tower, World Trade Center' -- rolled down a ramp to applause from politicians."

Republicans run dry: "Do my eyes deceive me? Am I reading that President George W. Bush has joined with the Republican leadership to call for investigation of the oil companies in light of soaring oil and gas prices? Oil hit $75 a barrel recently and apparently transformed the Republicans into Democrats, Democrats of the Charles Schumer and Jean-Francois Kerry variety."

Biased British official history: "A battle royal has broken out over a potted history of Britain that was written as a guide for immigrants wanting to become British citizens. Historians have condemned the Home Office booklet as being "riddled with errors" that risks misleading the public.... certain passages in Life in the United Kingdom are guaranteed to raise historians' hackles. Professor Coward, a specialist in 17th-century history, took particular exception to the document's description of Cromwell as a "God-fearing dictator". He said: "It's historical interpretation. I don't think he was a dictator - that is a contested adjective. A more balanced and independent account would have avoided using that word."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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.

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

ARAB PSYCHOLOGY

Excerpt from The Autonomist:

Although I'm weak in anthropology, I did get an 'A' in biology years ago, and what I learned has given me insight into these strange organisms we call Middle Eastern Muslims. Every organism alive on the planet is good at something. Each has some sort of defense or capability or behavior that gave them an edge over other organisms of past eras and allowed them to evolve to overcome life's challenges and survive to this day.

Rabbits are fast runners and fast breeders. Tigers are amazingly skilled hunting machines. Elephants are immensely tough and powerful. Monkeys are highly intelligent and adaptable. Frogs have poisonous skin. But Muslims, like the stick bug and the chameleon and the stone fish, have developed, to an amazing extent, the ability to deceive. And it is that ability that confounds their environmental competitors (you and me) the most.

These types of organisms -- "lie-in-wait" predators -- must know the full range of behaviors of the organisms they wish to defeat, so as to position themselves correctly for the strike. They are not necessarily strong or powerful, so they must know what frightens, arouses, lures, relaxes, and weakens that which they intend to destroy. For the Muslim, the idea is to exploit our greatest vulnerability -- PC thinking.

It is no accident that the Muslims chose to openly start attacking the West on their own turf in the '60s and '70s, right around the time when PC ideology in our culture was starting to pick up steam and cloud our collective judgment. Would Muslims have attacked New York while U.S. Grant was president? Or London while King George III was on the throne? How about the Paris riots during Napoleon's time? I don't think so.

The Deceiver picked up on this latest dominant PC, therapeutic, Leftist strain in Western culture, and, patient and shrewd as he is, has successfully exploited it for the last few decades. The only time they seem to have paid any price was when the United States had good old-fashioned cowboys at the tiller -- Bush I and Bush II. They continue to try and deceive by maintaining their false cries of victimhood, blustering lies, and ridiculous charades, for they have internalized and mastered what Sun Tsu's considered the most valuable tactic in warfare:Deception.

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

ELSEWHERE

Appalling British Conservative leader: "Laying himself bare to the men’s magazine GQ, David Cameron painted himself yesterday as an achingly trendy nappy-changing metrosexual who wins prizes for his vegetables and shares a hairdresser with Robbie Williams. But for the Tory Right, cringing as “Dave” declares his love of Shameless, a Channel 4 drama about an alcoholic father who abandons six children to live with another woman, there was one crumb of comfort. Asked which living politician he most admires, the Tory leader replied: “It’s got to be Margaret Thatcher.”"

Saudis waking up: "Saudi officials refuse to accept that Wahhabism, the extreme form of Islam which has dominated the kingdom for 70 years, provides a theological justification for terrorism by preaching the absolute renunciation of all non-Muslims. None the less, in the past year, the government has barred a thousand clerics from teaching, in the first concerted move to foster a more tolerant brand of Islam. Moderate imams have been deployed to enter the chatrooms of radical jihadi websites and persuade extremists that their ideology is wrong, as part of a campaign called al-Sakinah (Tranquillity)."

Rare commonsense: "[Black] U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson shed little light Monday on the future of public housing in hurricane-battered New Orleans, but said that 'only the best residents' of the former St. Thomas housing complex should be allowed into the new mixed-income development that replaced it, according to the information-restricted NOLA.com newslog. ... 'Some of the people shouldn't return,' Jackson said. 'The (public housing) developments were gang-ridden by some of the most notorious gangs in this country. People hid and took care of those persons because they took care of them. Only the best residents should return. Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked.'"

Bush should stop grandstanding, get serious on gas prices: "President Bush seems desperate to find someone to blame for continuing high demand for gasoline, which is the result of high economic growth and continuing supply problems. He should take credit for his policies that have contributed to strong economic growth and put the blame for high gas prices where it belongs. He should be traveling across the country blaming the obstructionist minority in Congress that continues to block legislation that would increase domestic energy production. And the president should be building public support for pro-energy, pro-consumer policies."

Solzhenitsyn loses his marbles: "Nobel laureate and former Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn has accused the US and NATO of seeking to encircle Russia, and praised President Vladimir Putin for working to restore a strong state. In a rare interview, the reclusive 87-year-old author, who rose to prominence for his accounts of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's repression and labor camps, told the liberal weekly Moscow News that NATO's ultimate aim was the loss of Russia's sovereignty, according to a full text of the interview posted on the publication's internet edition".

Big upset for evolution timing research: "Variability in mitochondrial (mt)DNA is often used to infer population size, history, and diversity on the assumption that mtDNA is essentially evolutionary neutral. Bazin et al. compared a wide range of animal species for polymorphisms in allozymes, nuclear DNA, and mtDNA. Within-species allozyme and nuclear DNA variability correlated with expected species abundance and ecological variables, whereas essentially no difference was observed between a broad range of taxa in terms of mtDNA variability. Instead, mtDNA seem to have undergone recurrent fixation of beneficial mutations and loss of variability at linked loci. Thus, mtDNA is far from a neutral marker; its diversity is essentially unpredictable and may not reflect population history and demography."

GM eat your heart out: "Mazda Motor Corp today said its full-year net profit soared almost 46 per cent to a fifth consecutive record high and predicted further growth ahead led by robust sales in overseas markets. Japan's fifth largest car manufacturer, one-third owned by US giant Ford Motor, said net profit reached Y66.7 billion ($A773.24 million) in the 12 months to March. With sales rising in major markets in North America, Europe and China, Mazda forecast a sixth year of all-time high earnings. The Hiroshima-based company said operating profit jumped 48.8 per cent to Y123.4 billion ($A1.43 billion) on revenue which increased by 8.3 per cent to Y2.92 trillion ($A33.85 billion). Both operating and net income are all-time highs. Global vehicle shipments rose 4.0 per cent to 1.15 million units as sales of Mazda brands grew in China, Australia and the Middle East. Sales in China of Mazda brand vehicles jumped some 36 per cent from a year earlier to a record 130,000 units, giving it a 2.1 per cent share of the auto market there".

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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.

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