POLITICAL PARASITES
In our modern politicized economy - which National Journal columnist Jonathan Rauch called the "parasite economy" - no good deed goes unpunished for long. Some people want to declare Google a public utility that must be regulated in the public interest, perhaps by a federal Office of Search Engines. The Bush administration wants Google to turn over a million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from a one-week period. Congress is investigating how the company deals with the Chinese government's demands for censorship of search results by Chinese users. So, like Microsoft and other companies before it, Google has decided it will have to start playing the Washington game. It has opened a Washington office and hired well-connected lobbyists. One of the country's top executive search firms is looking for a political director for the company.
What should concern us here is how the government lured Google into the political sector of the economy. For most of a decade the company went about its business, developing software, creating a search engine better than any of us could have dreamed, and innocently making money. Then, as its size and wealth drew the attention of competitors, anti-business activists, and politicians, it was forced to start spending some of its money and brainpower fending off political attacks. It's the same process Microsoft went through a few years earlier, when it faced the same sorts of attacks. Now Microsoft is part of the Washington establishment, with more than $9 million in lobbying expenditures last year.....
Microsoft went through the same hazing, though with more of an edge. A congressional aide said, "They don't want to play the D.C. game, that's clear, and they've gotten away with it so far. The problem is, in the long run they won't be able to." Sorta like, "Hey, Bill, nice little company ya got there. Shame if anything happened to it." And companies get the message: If you want to produce something in America, you'd better play the game. Contribute to politicians' campaigns, hire their friends, go hat in hand to a congressional hearing and apologize for your success.
The tragedy is that the most important factor in America's economic future - in raising everyone's standard of living - is not land, or money, or computers; it's human talent. And some part of the human talent at another of America's most dynamic companies is now being diverted from productive activity to protecting the company from political predation. The parasite economy has sucked in another productive enterprise.
More here
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ELSEWHERE
Another "hate crime" that wasn't: "A case of alleged hate crime in Des Moines has a bizarre ending. Several times over the winter, the Hermasillo family thought they were the targets of hate crimes. Two of the family's cars were set on fire and their house at 317 S.W. Watrous Ave. in Des Moines was broken into and vandalized. "The house was a mess, graffitti on the walls -- KKK, wetbacks, go back to Mexico -- on the door here, was a Nazi sign," Luis Silva told KCCI in February. Silva lived in the house with the Hermasillo family, but he was later kicked out of the house. Des Moines police now say Silva is accused of doing the vandalism. "He fabricated everything," Sgt. Tony Steverson said. Steverson said Silva burned cars and vandalized the Hermasillo's home in an effort to convince the family he was needed as protection. Silva is charged with arson, stalking, criminal mischief and filing false police reports. He is being held in the Polk County Jail.
Is racism worse now than in the 80s?: "Racism and sexism may be deepening despite decades of measures aimed at cleansing them from society. This conclusion is suggested by the ugly and unrelenting public backlash that surrounds the Duke Lacrosse case in which a black female was allegedly raped by three white males. If racism and sexism are deepening, I believe it is because of and not despite the measures now being taken. Racism shares many political characteristics with sexism, and the two are usually addressed in a similar manner; almost identical laws and policies seek to eliminate or otherwise control both."
Senate reveals ugly underside of the "nanny state": "According to populist presidential 'wannabe' John McCain (R.-AZ), illegals deserve access to the social security funds because they paid taxes. Yet nobody seems to know how much they paid, what percentage of their paychecks was withheld by the government, or how much more they have cost American society than they may have paid into the system. The lingering myth that social programs exist for the 'good of the people' has just been shredded by the proposed Senate action. Such programs were never devised to assist those in need, but rather for the political empowerment of the individuals dispensing the 'benefits.' Although liberals in Congress wailed that President Bush's proposal to privatize a tiny portion of Social Security would bankrupt the system, they are now perfectly willing to give away an enormously larger portion of those funds to the millions of illegals working in the dark fringes of the U.S. economy."
What conservative paradigm?: "While we have some conservative-oriented politicians, who occasionally pass some conservative-oriented legislation, the truth is that on the truly big issues on the ground, America is still in the grip of the liberal paradigm that came into existence under FDR. The American people may in some sense be 'conservative,' but the political, intellectual, and economic elites that set the terms of debate, and largely control the direction of society, are most definitely liberal -- indeed, in many ways, more so than they ever have been."
Canada now "vibrant": "In Canada, guns and gangs are a relatively new phenomenon, particularly in Toronto, known as "Toronto the Good" for its traditionally safe streets and low homicide rates. There were 52 deadly handgun shootings in the city in 2005, compared with 12 in 1995. Police and social workers alike attribute the acts largely to young black males - many of whom are the children of West Indian immigrants - who feel marginalized and drop out of school early to join the "gangsta" culture where they make quick money through drugs, guns, or prostitution."
Publicity-seeking at Ellis Island: "British music producer Adam Kidron, who sparked controversy last month with the release of a Spanish-language version of the national anthem, will present the song and its album, "Somos Americanos (We Are Americans)" live in concert Tuesday at Ellis Island. The album features "El Himno Nacional" along with a compilation of previously released songs by artists from across Latin America and the United States, all singing about the immigrant experience. "We were very happy to get permission to perform on Ellis Island because of symbolism of the place," said Kidron, who also invited Latino veterans to attend the event in honor of Memorial Day. Kidron had said he hoped the song would be become the anthem of recent pro-immigrant protest marches. Yet despite the publicity and accompanying backlash the song generated, it has gotten little play. It garnered 95 plays in the first week but hasn't been played since on any stations tracked by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, according to Billboard Magazine"
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).
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"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.
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Sunday, May 28, 2006
NO CONSISTENCY OR PRINCIPLE ON THE LEFT
Burt Prelutsky thinks Leftists are nuts. The relevant clinical diagnostic category is psychopathy
The thing that has me stumped is trying to figure out what leftists want. For example, when left-wing judges take it upon themselves to legislate from the bench, liberals are quick to say that the Constitution is a living document and that it has to evolve to accommodate a changing world. However, whenever a conservative suggests that the 14th amendment, which grants automatic citizenship on any person born in America, ought to be changed to deny that gift to those born to illegal aliens, those same people carry on as if the Constitution, like the 10 Commandments, was carved in stone.
But, really, we have no reason to believe that the Founding Fathers, who fought a war to gain sovereignty for this nation, wouldn't have entertained second thoughts if they'd ever envisioned a foreign invasion numbering in the millions. I mean, it's a basic tenet of the law that nobody is entitled to profit from a crime. To suggest that the child, the beneficiary of his parents' illegal act, doesn't profit is patently absurd. To argue that he shouldn't be deprived of the advantage because he didn't break the law, is ridiculous. You might as well suggest that if a bank robber gives his ill-gotten gains to his wife and kids, the family should get to keep the loot because, after all, they weren't the ones who drove the getaway car.
Another thing about liberals I can't begin to figure out is their abiding devotion to failed economic theories. The fact that communism hasn't worked anywhere in the world doesn't cool their ardor in the slightest. The fact that Marx's brainstorm invariably metastasizes into a despotic tyranny - be it in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Cambodia or Venezuela - doesn't make the slightest impression on them. Neither does the fact that socialism has brought much of Europe to the brink of moral and financial bankruptcy faze them in the least.
In our own country, the most obvious failure of socialism is Social Security, the single largest pyramid scheme ever conceived by the mind of man. When Ponzi did it, he went to jail for fraud; when Roosevelt pulled it off, he was hailed as a savior. As someone or other once observed, if you're going to steal, steal big.
So why is it that leftists continue to promote these half-cocked alternatives to capitalism, the only economic program that's ever motivated people to aspire, to compete, to achieve and to innovate? Well, I hate to be impolite, but when people keep doing the same thing in spite of getting the same rotten results, we have been told by experts in the field that it's a pretty sure sign of insanity. And just in case any doubt remains, you merely have to look to those who speak on their behalf. Assuming you're not a cuckoo yourself, can you possibly imagine rallying around the unappetizing likes of Gore and Kerry, Schumer and Durbin, Kennedy and Rangel, Leahy and Biden, Byrd and Boxer, Sharpton and Jackson, McKinney and Waters, Al Franken and Michael Moore, George Soros and Norman Lear, Hillary and Bill, and Jimmy Carter?
More here
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ELSEWHERE
Saturday night's massacre: "America, Mark Twain said, is a nation without a distinct criminal class 'with the possible exception of Congress.' Apparently nothing changes. This week it was the Democratic Party's turn to feel chagrined as one of its own was captured on tape taking bribes. William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) was allegedly involved in a Nigerian Internet scam. No, not that Nigerian Internet scam, the one that shows up in your email inbox each time you log on. Congressman Jefferson, after all, is no dummy. He is a 'Harvard-trained' lawyer. His scam was a bit more sophisticated. Faced with yet another malefactor in their ranks, congressional leaders sought to divert the media's attention, while they doubtless made desperate phone calls to their staff with orders to shred evidence and bury the bodies."
A serious challenge for the New York Times: "The Times is launching a US edition next month that will be printed at facilities owned by its News Corporation sibling the New York Post. "This is a key moment in the development of The Times as an international media brand," the paper's Australian-born editor, Robert Thompson, said in a statement last night. "We have seen a large increase in our Times Online readership in the US and the appearance of the newspaper on the streets of New York marks the next stage in our print and web expansion." The launch is set for June 6, the week the football World Cup kicks off in Germany. [A repeat of Murdoch's Fox TV success would put the cat among the pigeons!]
A sign of the times: "Hell has frozen over. In a debate in Congress it took a well-known Left-wing Democrat, Barney Frank, to refer to Hayek and Mises to chastise Republicans for supporting subidies to agriculture. The Republican Party has gone far astray that even a man as far Left as Rep. Frank is more free market on this issue. Here is what Frank had to say ..."
Sin cities on a hill : "'Now we see,' Wolf complains at the Sheraton, 'as if our nation isn't saturated enough with gambling, a group of investors this spring has announced plans to try to open a casino two miles from historic Gettysburg.' To desecrate such hallowed ground, Wolf implies, isn't just a lapse of good taste; it's a blight on our national honor. Alas, in trying to protect history from gambling, you also have to protect history from history. As any contemporary gambling booster will tell you, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was underwritten by a lottery conducted in London by the Virginia Company. That trend continued as the New World moved toward nationhood. With all 13 colonies establishing lotteries at one time or another, government-approved gambling was one of the original features of the landscape."
Affirmative folly: "A reader responds to an animadversion of mine against affirmative action by e-mailing me President Lyndon Johnson's famous argument in favor of racial preferences: 'You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race, and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.' In reply, I e-mail back the words of Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave who became the foremost black spokesman of his age. In a speech in Boston in 1865, Douglass said: 'What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. ... Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! ...'"
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.
****************************
Burt Prelutsky thinks Leftists are nuts. The relevant clinical diagnostic category is psychopathy
The thing that has me stumped is trying to figure out what leftists want. For example, when left-wing judges take it upon themselves to legislate from the bench, liberals are quick to say that the Constitution is a living document and that it has to evolve to accommodate a changing world. However, whenever a conservative suggests that the 14th amendment, which grants automatic citizenship on any person born in America, ought to be changed to deny that gift to those born to illegal aliens, those same people carry on as if the Constitution, like the 10 Commandments, was carved in stone.
But, really, we have no reason to believe that the Founding Fathers, who fought a war to gain sovereignty for this nation, wouldn't have entertained second thoughts if they'd ever envisioned a foreign invasion numbering in the millions. I mean, it's a basic tenet of the law that nobody is entitled to profit from a crime. To suggest that the child, the beneficiary of his parents' illegal act, doesn't profit is patently absurd. To argue that he shouldn't be deprived of the advantage because he didn't break the law, is ridiculous. You might as well suggest that if a bank robber gives his ill-gotten gains to his wife and kids, the family should get to keep the loot because, after all, they weren't the ones who drove the getaway car.
Another thing about liberals I can't begin to figure out is their abiding devotion to failed economic theories. The fact that communism hasn't worked anywhere in the world doesn't cool their ardor in the slightest. The fact that Marx's brainstorm invariably metastasizes into a despotic tyranny - be it in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Cambodia or Venezuela - doesn't make the slightest impression on them. Neither does the fact that socialism has brought much of Europe to the brink of moral and financial bankruptcy faze them in the least.
In our own country, the most obvious failure of socialism is Social Security, the single largest pyramid scheme ever conceived by the mind of man. When Ponzi did it, he went to jail for fraud; when Roosevelt pulled it off, he was hailed as a savior. As someone or other once observed, if you're going to steal, steal big.
So why is it that leftists continue to promote these half-cocked alternatives to capitalism, the only economic program that's ever motivated people to aspire, to compete, to achieve and to innovate? Well, I hate to be impolite, but when people keep doing the same thing in spite of getting the same rotten results, we have been told by experts in the field that it's a pretty sure sign of insanity. And just in case any doubt remains, you merely have to look to those who speak on their behalf. Assuming you're not a cuckoo yourself, can you possibly imagine rallying around the unappetizing likes of Gore and Kerry, Schumer and Durbin, Kennedy and Rangel, Leahy and Biden, Byrd and Boxer, Sharpton and Jackson, McKinney and Waters, Al Franken and Michael Moore, George Soros and Norman Lear, Hillary and Bill, and Jimmy Carter?
More here
******************************
ELSEWHERE
Saturday night's massacre: "America, Mark Twain said, is a nation without a distinct criminal class 'with the possible exception of Congress.' Apparently nothing changes. This week it was the Democratic Party's turn to feel chagrined as one of its own was captured on tape taking bribes. William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) was allegedly involved in a Nigerian Internet scam. No, not that Nigerian Internet scam, the one that shows up in your email inbox each time you log on. Congressman Jefferson, after all, is no dummy. He is a 'Harvard-trained' lawyer. His scam was a bit more sophisticated. Faced with yet another malefactor in their ranks, congressional leaders sought to divert the media's attention, while they doubtless made desperate phone calls to their staff with orders to shred evidence and bury the bodies."
A serious challenge for the New York Times: "The Times is launching a US edition next month that will be printed at facilities owned by its News Corporation sibling the New York Post. "This is a key moment in the development of The Times as an international media brand," the paper's Australian-born editor, Robert Thompson, said in a statement last night. "We have seen a large increase in our Times Online readership in the US and the appearance of the newspaper on the streets of New York marks the next stage in our print and web expansion." The launch is set for June 6, the week the football World Cup kicks off in Germany. [A repeat of Murdoch's Fox TV success would put the cat among the pigeons!]
A sign of the times: "Hell has frozen over. In a debate in Congress it took a well-known Left-wing Democrat, Barney Frank, to refer to Hayek and Mises to chastise Republicans for supporting subidies to agriculture. The Republican Party has gone far astray that even a man as far Left as Rep. Frank is more free market on this issue. Here is what Frank had to say ..."
Sin cities on a hill : "'Now we see,' Wolf complains at the Sheraton, 'as if our nation isn't saturated enough with gambling, a group of investors this spring has announced plans to try to open a casino two miles from historic Gettysburg.' To desecrate such hallowed ground, Wolf implies, isn't just a lapse of good taste; it's a blight on our national honor. Alas, in trying to protect history from gambling, you also have to protect history from history. As any contemporary gambling booster will tell you, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was underwritten by a lottery conducted in London by the Virginia Company. That trend continued as the New World moved toward nationhood. With all 13 colonies establishing lotteries at one time or another, government-approved gambling was one of the original features of the landscape."
Affirmative folly: "A reader responds to an animadversion of mine against affirmative action by e-mailing me President Lyndon Johnson's famous argument in favor of racial preferences: 'You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race, and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.' In reply, I e-mail back the words of Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave who became the foremost black spokesman of his age. In a speech in Boston in 1865, Douglass said: 'What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. ... Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! ...'"
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.
****************************
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Brookes News Update
Bernanke's monetary policy likely to generate more instability: Further strengthening in the growth momentum in the US money supply raises possibility that economic activity will strengthen and that the Fed runs the risk of setting the platform for a higher inflationary expectations and higher price inflation
Is the Australian economy facing recession?: Australia's manufacturing problems have not been caused by China's massive demand for resources - which is largely driven by China's loose monetary policy - but by the RBA's loose monetary policy
Fidel Castro's true wealth: Because `Forbes' named Castro among the world's richest heads of state in 2005 he is terribly upset. He ought to be. As one of the world's biggest political gangsters he's a lot richer than that. The whole of Cuba, including its hapless people, belong to him and should be included as part of his assets
Natural resources: The market knows best, not Bracks and other meddling politicians: With all the arrogance of a Soviet-style planner Bracks is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on grossly inefficient wind generators and is also locking away natural resources
True leadership needed on illegal immigration: The root cause of our illegal immigration dilemma stems from the overwhelming availability of illegal employment in the US. Hiring illegal immigrants, employers also create the incentive for otherwise law abiding foreign nationals to become law-breakers
The Church is keeping Marx alive in Brazil and undermining the rule of law: Despite the lessons of history Marxist clergy in Brazil are preaching violence and the necessity for a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship
The question of illegal immigration and a border fence: Illegal immigration is now taking centre stage. How long will it be before the Government succumbs to public pressure and takes drastic action?
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
An email from Sean Gabb (in good form): "Those who contribute additional funds [to the Libertarian Alliance] may be eligible for our Top Top Secred Dinners held in a cellar deep below Buckingham Palace. Here you will meet prominent members of the Royal Family and others of the Illuminati. Last month, our dinner was graced by the presence of Her Majesty the Queen, who for the occasion assumed her lizard form and sacrificed a virgin. Those of you who may be familiar with the welfare policies of the Blair Government and the corrupt and pornographic nature of our media will appreciate the trouble we faced in providing Her Majesty with a semi-attractive virgin from the working classes under the age of five. I am proud to say I did find one during a nocturnal prowl through Doncaster. Her loved ones have been silenced by the promise of a quintuple rollover jackpot win for her mother on the National Lottery this August and the admission of her latest "uncle" to the Big Brother household."
Ritalin Making Kids Sick: "Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder drugs send about 3,100 Americans -- 80 percent of them children -- to hospital emergency rooms annually, a federal survey has found."
Arrogant do-gooder: ""Online poker players will have to fold their hands if a Virginia congressman gets his way. Today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a bill introduced by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R) that would ban much online gambling, including bets on sporting events and games of chance -- namely poker, which has enjoyed a boom in recent years."
Well-deserved award: "Sara Carter of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., has been named the recipient of the 2006 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration. This award, presented since 1997 by the Center for Immigration Studies, is intended to promote informed and fair reporting on this most contentious and complicated issue. Traveling frequently from California to Arizona and Texas and Mexico, Ms. Carter broke story after story related to the dangerous conditions all along America's southern border. Rare has been the week in the past six months that Ms. Carter hasn't appeared on a cable news program discussing her latest scoop. It was Ms. Carter who broke the story that our government was alerting Mexico City to the locations and membership and other details of the Minuteman Project civilian border-watch group".
In defense of consumerism: "I'm beginning to think that the epithet 'consumerism' is just another word for freedom in the marketplace. It's true that the market is delivering goods, services, and technological advances by leaps, day after day. People claim that they are so inundated with techno advances that they don't want anymore. Say no to the latest gizmo! But we really don't mean it. No one wants to be denied web access, and we want it faster and better with more variety. We want to download songs, movies, and treatises on every subject. No amount of information is too much when it is something specific we seek. And that's not all."
Taxing questions: "Do you think your taxes are too high or too low? Though I expect that well over 90 percent of you are thinking 'too high,' many in the media and political class keep telling us taxes are too low. The left-leaning intelligentsia, in their arrogant smugness, claim we just don't know what is good for us. Yet, they are the ones who ignore the empirical evidence and are unable to distinguish between variables and constants. As a prime example, a May 7 editorial in The Washington Post, advocating higher tax rates on the rich, states: 'Economics cannot predict how high taxes can be raised before they reach counterproductive levels.'... The left has a notable ability to ignore the fact that low-tax-rate states tend to create more jobs and grow more rapidly than high-tax-rate states. We see this throughout the world, but one of the greatest laboratories of the benefits of tax competition is that between the 50 U.S. states"
Why we overregulate: "Assume you are a mid-level bureaucrat in a government regulatory agency, and you know your pay and title depend on how many regulations you are responsible for administering, and the number of people who work for you. Do you think you would push for more or fewer regulations? Assume you are a corporate regulatory compliance officer, and again you know your pay depends in part upon the number of regulations you must comply with, and the number of people who work for you. Would you tend to favor a world with more or fewer regulations?"
One for the Straussians: "The demonization of Leo Strauss, in short, is one of the most dismal signs of the times. The shamelessness and baseness of much of what has been written about him is redolent of the propaganda of the 1930s, Auden's "low, dishonest decade."That is why "Reading Leo Strauss" (Chicago, 256 pages, $32.50), a sober new study by Yale professor Steven Smith, feels so heartening.By returning to the source and examining what Strauss actually wrote, Mr. Smith lets the breeze of reason into the feverish sickroom of ideology. He portrays a Strauss who cherished democracy as the best bulwark against tyranny, and who valued intellectual honesty above all. By the time Mr. Smith is done, nothing is left of the Strauss caricature except the ignorance and malice that fathered it.
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.
****************************
Bernanke's monetary policy likely to generate more instability: Further strengthening in the growth momentum in the US money supply raises possibility that economic activity will strengthen and that the Fed runs the risk of setting the platform for a higher inflationary expectations and higher price inflation
Is the Australian economy facing recession?: Australia's manufacturing problems have not been caused by China's massive demand for resources - which is largely driven by China's loose monetary policy - but by the RBA's loose monetary policy
Fidel Castro's true wealth: Because `Forbes' named Castro among the world's richest heads of state in 2005 he is terribly upset. He ought to be. As one of the world's biggest political gangsters he's a lot richer than that. The whole of Cuba, including its hapless people, belong to him and should be included as part of his assets
Natural resources: The market knows best, not Bracks and other meddling politicians: With all the arrogance of a Soviet-style planner Bracks is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on grossly inefficient wind generators and is also locking away natural resources
True leadership needed on illegal immigration: The root cause of our illegal immigration dilemma stems from the overwhelming availability of illegal employment in the US. Hiring illegal immigrants, employers also create the incentive for otherwise law abiding foreign nationals to become law-breakers
The Church is keeping Marx alive in Brazil and undermining the rule of law: Despite the lessons of history Marxist clergy in Brazil are preaching violence and the necessity for a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship
The question of illegal immigration and a border fence: Illegal immigration is now taking centre stage. How long will it be before the Government succumbs to public pressure and takes drastic action?
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
An email from Sean Gabb (in good form): "Those who contribute additional funds [to the Libertarian Alliance] may be eligible for our Top Top Secred Dinners held in a cellar deep below Buckingham Palace. Here you will meet prominent members of the Royal Family and others of the Illuminati. Last month, our dinner was graced by the presence of Her Majesty the Queen, who for the occasion assumed her lizard form and sacrificed a virgin. Those of you who may be familiar with the welfare policies of the Blair Government and the corrupt and pornographic nature of our media will appreciate the trouble we faced in providing Her Majesty with a semi-attractive virgin from the working classes under the age of five. I am proud to say I did find one during a nocturnal prowl through Doncaster. Her loved ones have been silenced by the promise of a quintuple rollover jackpot win for her mother on the National Lottery this August and the admission of her latest "uncle" to the Big Brother household."
Ritalin Making Kids Sick: "Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder drugs send about 3,100 Americans -- 80 percent of them children -- to hospital emergency rooms annually, a federal survey has found."
Arrogant do-gooder: ""Online poker players will have to fold their hands if a Virginia congressman gets his way. Today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a bill introduced by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R) that would ban much online gambling, including bets on sporting events and games of chance -- namely poker, which has enjoyed a boom in recent years."
Well-deserved award: "Sara Carter of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., has been named the recipient of the 2006 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration. This award, presented since 1997 by the Center for Immigration Studies, is intended to promote informed and fair reporting on this most contentious and complicated issue. Traveling frequently from California to Arizona and Texas and Mexico, Ms. Carter broke story after story related to the dangerous conditions all along America's southern border. Rare has been the week in the past six months that Ms. Carter hasn't appeared on a cable news program discussing her latest scoop. It was Ms. Carter who broke the story that our government was alerting Mexico City to the locations and membership and other details of the Minuteman Project civilian border-watch group".
In defense of consumerism: "I'm beginning to think that the epithet 'consumerism' is just another word for freedom in the marketplace. It's true that the market is delivering goods, services, and technological advances by leaps, day after day. People claim that they are so inundated with techno advances that they don't want anymore. Say no to the latest gizmo! But we really don't mean it. No one wants to be denied web access, and we want it faster and better with more variety. We want to download songs, movies, and treatises on every subject. No amount of information is too much when it is something specific we seek. And that's not all."
Taxing questions: "Do you think your taxes are too high or too low? Though I expect that well over 90 percent of you are thinking 'too high,' many in the media and political class keep telling us taxes are too low. The left-leaning intelligentsia, in their arrogant smugness, claim we just don't know what is good for us. Yet, they are the ones who ignore the empirical evidence and are unable to distinguish between variables and constants. As a prime example, a May 7 editorial in The Washington Post, advocating higher tax rates on the rich, states: 'Economics cannot predict how high taxes can be raised before they reach counterproductive levels.'... The left has a notable ability to ignore the fact that low-tax-rate states tend to create more jobs and grow more rapidly than high-tax-rate states. We see this throughout the world, but one of the greatest laboratories of the benefits of tax competition is that between the 50 U.S. states"
Why we overregulate: "Assume you are a mid-level bureaucrat in a government regulatory agency, and you know your pay and title depend on how many regulations you are responsible for administering, and the number of people who work for you. Do you think you would push for more or fewer regulations? Assume you are a corporate regulatory compliance officer, and again you know your pay depends in part upon the number of regulations you must comply with, and the number of people who work for you. Would you tend to favor a world with more or fewer regulations?"
One for the Straussians: "The demonization of Leo Strauss, in short, is one of the most dismal signs of the times. The shamelessness and baseness of much of what has been written about him is redolent of the propaganda of the 1930s, Auden's "low, dishonest decade."That is why "Reading Leo Strauss" (Chicago, 256 pages, $32.50), a sober new study by Yale professor Steven Smith, feels so heartening.By returning to the source and examining what Strauss actually wrote, Mr. Smith lets the breeze of reason into the feverish sickroom of ideology. He portrays a Strauss who cherished democracy as the best bulwark against tyranny, and who valued intellectual honesty above all. By the time Mr. Smith is done, nothing is left of the Strauss caricature except the ignorance and malice that fathered it.
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.
****************************
Friday, May 26, 2006
LEFTIST "CARING" IS JUST HYPOCRISY
Consider the case of Nancy Pelosi, the ultimate San Francisco big-government liberal, and leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. She is the daughter of Big Tommy D'Alesandro, boss of the Baltimore Democrat political machine. She grew up in a household built around the use of political power for personal gain, under the banner of compassion. In her career in Congress, she has garnered the highest praise from the AFL-CIO, the Americans for Democratic Action, and the League of Conservation Voters. She is grotesquely pro-union and pro-regulation, and a fierce "environmentalist," of course. Her favorite pastime is attacking people on her political right - which is everyone to the right of, say, Mao Zedong - as enemies of clean air, clean water, the working man, or whatever. To her, we're all greedy, vile exploiters of the poor.
Actually, to be fair, her favorite pastime is enacting laws to increase the power of unions, trial lawyers, and the federal government. But Pelosi's private life is all capitalist. She and her husband have a net worth of over $50 million - not bad for champions of the poor. Much of their wealth comes from real estate ventures, such as the development of the Corde Valle Golf Club and Resort in Silicon Valley. Schweizer documents how the Pelosis' private partnership (Lions Gate Limited) managed to get approval to develop some raw land over the objections of environmentalists and other local groups, by contractually promising that the club would be primarily a public course and that the development would be ecologically friendly. But the developers stiffed the public. The golf course turned out to be primarily for the use of the ultrawealthy: the hoi polloi have to reserve three days in advance and pay $275 for a round of golf. A membership at the club costs $250,000! And Lions Gate failed to live up to the promised environmental guarantees. When the San Jose Planning Commission started thinking about looking into whether Lions Gate had made fraudulent representations to get the development approvals, the Pelosis simply hired some local, well-connected lobbyists, and the Planning Commission backed away like frightened kittens.
In a similar manner, Schweizer shows that Pelosi, winner of the Cesar Chavez Legacy Award, uses companies without United Farm Workers contracts to harvest grapes on her vineyard, and she sells those grapes to nonunion wineries. Again, this darling of the AFL-CIO (and recipient of a huge amount of its money for her campaigns) owns a big chunk of two lavish hotels and a chain of chi-chi restaurants that are all resolutely non-union shops.
Next consider Ralph Nader, the ultimate corporation basher and perennial candidate for the presidency (not to mention sainthood). Nader's persona is that of the Spartan lefty, the "walk the walk not just talk the talk" opponent of the hideous corporate greed that dirties the soul of America. When he visited the Soviet Union back in the 1960s, he admired the lack of consumer products, and when he returned to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet system he was dismayed to hear people praising free market economics. To Nader, corporations are evil: they dominate governments, rig prices, sell dangerous and useless products, and generally hurt our standard of living.
But in his personal life, about which St. Ralph is very secretive, things are different. He lives well, using a D.C. mansion that he apparently owns (though the title is in his sister's name), earns millions from speaking and writing, and invests in - big, multinational corporations! He has net assets of about $4 million, most of it in corporate stock, such as the $1 million he owns in Cisco Systems, not to mention his stocks in major defense contractors such as GE and IBM. He controls nonprofit organizations and trusts, all secretly run, with his family members on the governing boards. His charitable foundations give away 4% of their assets every year, the lowest amount possible to keep their IRS tax-exempt status. The remaining assets are also in corporate stock, including telecom monopolies such as Verizon, BellSouth, and Qwest.
More here. And yet more here
**********************
ELSEWHERE
Bush: US would aid Israel under attack: "President Bush said Tuesday that the United States would come to Israel's aid if it were attacked by Iran and welcomed the Jewish state's plan to define its borders. He made the comments at the White House during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after a meeting between the two leaders. It was Olmert's first official visit to the United States as prime minister. Bush also praised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and called on the Hamas-led Palestinian government to meet international demands."
Senate ignoramuses: "Although most provisions of the current U.S. farm bill won't expire until September 2007, a group of senators recently proposed extending it until after the Doha Round of global trade negotiations is complete. Extending the farm bill -- damaging though it is -- will 'send a signal to our trading partners,' says one of the legislation's sponsors. It certainly will. At a time when leadership in the global trade talks is sadly lacking and desperately needed, the signal will be a big fat raspberry."
Pondlife Murtha and his probably false allegation: "Rep. John Murtha, who last year called for the immediate pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq, [has] accused an entire Marine company of murdering 15 Iraqis 'in cold blood.' Mr. Murtha claims he received his information from sources inside the Pentagon, which is conducting an investigation into the Nov. 15 incident in the town of Haditha. That investigation is not yet completed, which makes Mr. Murtha's accusation not only irresponsible, but an egregious violation of ethical conduct by a sitting congressman. Mr. Murtha concedes that he has not read any part of the Pentagon's unfinished report. All he has are his 'sources.'... The incident in question occurred when a roadside bomb struck a Humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas. What happened next is the subject of the Pentagon investigation, but 15 Iraqis were in fact killed... What's important to remember is that if the Marines did act outside the rules of combat, they will be tried by a military court martial-not by Jack Murtha, a former Marine who should know better. Which makes us wonder if there's an ulterior motive behind his indefensible comments: 'Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,' he said. Mr. Murtha is actually accusing the Bush administration of murder, because of the 'pressure' it has put on U.S. troops... Mr. Murtha obviously has a problem with the Bush administration and the Iraq war. Fair enough. But he should leave the troops out of his vendetta."
Australians now objectively better off than ever before: "Spending power may have increased by $9000 for every man, woman and child over the past decade... Over the past decade, real disposable income per capita has been growing steadily at an annual average rate of 3 per cent, reaching more than $35,000 per person last financial year, compared to about $26,000 in 1994-95. The spoils of economic growth over the past decade also appear to have been reasonably evenly shared. The bureau said the average weekly income of low-income earners leapt 22 per cent to $300 over the nine years to 2004, while weekly incomes for high earners increased 19.3 per cent to $1027... Australians are also living longer. Boys born in 2004 can expect to live three years longer than boys born in 1994, while girls can expect to live two years longer."
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.
****************************
Consider the case of Nancy Pelosi, the ultimate San Francisco big-government liberal, and leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. She is the daughter of Big Tommy D'Alesandro, boss of the Baltimore Democrat political machine. She grew up in a household built around the use of political power for personal gain, under the banner of compassion. In her career in Congress, she has garnered the highest praise from the AFL-CIO, the Americans for Democratic Action, and the League of Conservation Voters. She is grotesquely pro-union and pro-regulation, and a fierce "environmentalist," of course. Her favorite pastime is attacking people on her political right - which is everyone to the right of, say, Mao Zedong - as enemies of clean air, clean water, the working man, or whatever. To her, we're all greedy, vile exploiters of the poor.
Actually, to be fair, her favorite pastime is enacting laws to increase the power of unions, trial lawyers, and the federal government. But Pelosi's private life is all capitalist. She and her husband have a net worth of over $50 million - not bad for champions of the poor. Much of their wealth comes from real estate ventures, such as the development of the Corde Valle Golf Club and Resort in Silicon Valley. Schweizer documents how the Pelosis' private partnership (Lions Gate Limited) managed to get approval to develop some raw land over the objections of environmentalists and other local groups, by contractually promising that the club would be primarily a public course and that the development would be ecologically friendly. But the developers stiffed the public. The golf course turned out to be primarily for the use of the ultrawealthy: the hoi polloi have to reserve three days in advance and pay $275 for a round of golf. A membership at the club costs $250,000! And Lions Gate failed to live up to the promised environmental guarantees. When the San Jose Planning Commission started thinking about looking into whether Lions Gate had made fraudulent representations to get the development approvals, the Pelosis simply hired some local, well-connected lobbyists, and the Planning Commission backed away like frightened kittens.
In a similar manner, Schweizer shows that Pelosi, winner of the Cesar Chavez Legacy Award, uses companies without United Farm Workers contracts to harvest grapes on her vineyard, and she sells those grapes to nonunion wineries. Again, this darling of the AFL-CIO (and recipient of a huge amount of its money for her campaigns) owns a big chunk of two lavish hotels and a chain of chi-chi restaurants that are all resolutely non-union shops.
Next consider Ralph Nader, the ultimate corporation basher and perennial candidate for the presidency (not to mention sainthood). Nader's persona is that of the Spartan lefty, the "walk the walk not just talk the talk" opponent of the hideous corporate greed that dirties the soul of America. When he visited the Soviet Union back in the 1960s, he admired the lack of consumer products, and when he returned to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet system he was dismayed to hear people praising free market economics. To Nader, corporations are evil: they dominate governments, rig prices, sell dangerous and useless products, and generally hurt our standard of living.
But in his personal life, about which St. Ralph is very secretive, things are different. He lives well, using a D.C. mansion that he apparently owns (though the title is in his sister's name), earns millions from speaking and writing, and invests in - big, multinational corporations! He has net assets of about $4 million, most of it in corporate stock, such as the $1 million he owns in Cisco Systems, not to mention his stocks in major defense contractors such as GE and IBM. He controls nonprofit organizations and trusts, all secretly run, with his family members on the governing boards. His charitable foundations give away 4% of their assets every year, the lowest amount possible to keep their IRS tax-exempt status. The remaining assets are also in corporate stock, including telecom monopolies such as Verizon, BellSouth, and Qwest.
More here. And yet more here
**********************
ELSEWHERE
Bush: US would aid Israel under attack: "President Bush said Tuesday that the United States would come to Israel's aid if it were attacked by Iran and welcomed the Jewish state's plan to define its borders. He made the comments at the White House during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after a meeting between the two leaders. It was Olmert's first official visit to the United States as prime minister. Bush also praised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and called on the Hamas-led Palestinian government to meet international demands."
Senate ignoramuses: "Although most provisions of the current U.S. farm bill won't expire until September 2007, a group of senators recently proposed extending it until after the Doha Round of global trade negotiations is complete. Extending the farm bill -- damaging though it is -- will 'send a signal to our trading partners,' says one of the legislation's sponsors. It certainly will. At a time when leadership in the global trade talks is sadly lacking and desperately needed, the signal will be a big fat raspberry."
Pondlife Murtha and his probably false allegation: "Rep. John Murtha, who last year called for the immediate pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq, [has] accused an entire Marine company of murdering 15 Iraqis 'in cold blood.' Mr. Murtha claims he received his information from sources inside the Pentagon, which is conducting an investigation into the Nov. 15 incident in the town of Haditha. That investigation is not yet completed, which makes Mr. Murtha's accusation not only irresponsible, but an egregious violation of ethical conduct by a sitting congressman. Mr. Murtha concedes that he has not read any part of the Pentagon's unfinished report. All he has are his 'sources.'... The incident in question occurred when a roadside bomb struck a Humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas. What happened next is the subject of the Pentagon investigation, but 15 Iraqis were in fact killed... What's important to remember is that if the Marines did act outside the rules of combat, they will be tried by a military court martial-not by Jack Murtha, a former Marine who should know better. Which makes us wonder if there's an ulterior motive behind his indefensible comments: 'Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,' he said. Mr. Murtha is actually accusing the Bush administration of murder, because of the 'pressure' it has put on U.S. troops... Mr. Murtha obviously has a problem with the Bush administration and the Iraq war. Fair enough. But he should leave the troops out of his vendetta."
Australians now objectively better off than ever before: "Spending power may have increased by $9000 for every man, woman and child over the past decade... Over the past decade, real disposable income per capita has been growing steadily at an annual average rate of 3 per cent, reaching more than $35,000 per person last financial year, compared to about $26,000 in 1994-95. The spoils of economic growth over the past decade also appear to have been reasonably evenly shared. The bureau said the average weekly income of low-income earners leapt 22 per cent to $300 over the nine years to 2004, while weekly incomes for high earners increased 19.3 per cent to $1027... Australians are also living longer. Boys born in 2004 can expect to live three years longer than boys born in 1994, while girls can expect to live two years longer."
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.
****************************
Thursday, May 25, 2006
SMALL GOVERNMENTS NOT ONLY PROMOTE WEALTH BUT ALSO HEALTH, HAPPINESS AND A CLEANER ENVIRONMENT
A few excerpts
When it comes to government spending, less is more. Less government spending and involvement in the economy - both in terms of regulatory interference and taxation burden - are associated with higher rates of economic growth, better productivity and more diverse markets for products. This is supported by country-specific evidence and several long-running international indices ranking economic environments.
To discount the benefits of the minimal government, the state-reliant opponents of free markets and personal freedom usually argue that while less government may indeed mean more economic prosperity, smaller governments deliver lower quality of public services. In doing so, supporters of the large welfare state usually point to the alleged lack of public services in the US - a myth hardly supported by reality. The supposedly contrasting social-services-in "rich" European welfare states are similarly mythical.
Two recent studies released by UK and Swiss researchers provide some insight into the overall argument: is smaller government better for a country's non-economic well-being?
First, a group of Swiss and Danish researchers from the WIF Institute of Economic Research in Zurich looked at whether government involvement in the economy is conducive to life satisfaction across 74 countries. The results show that life satisfaction actually decreases with higher government spending. This negative impact of the government is stronger in countries with a left-leaning median voter. It is alleviated by government effectiveness - but, crucially, only in countries where the state sector is already small. In general, a one standard deviation increase in government spending yields a median decrease of 4.42 percent in self-reported satisfaction by the voters, a drop in the degree of economic competition of 4.17 percent and a shift in voter preferences in rightward ideological direction of 4.15-9 percent.
Another comprehensive study released by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) in the UK summarized available data from various sources, to show that modern governments that spend less can, indeed, provide better public services, a better standard of living and more equitable incomes than high-spending governments....
Not surprisingly, the data show that countries with smaller governments also outperformed those with larger state spending in domestic savings (by over 31 percent), investment (which grew 2.5 times faster in the 1990s in the leaner states), and lending to private sector. Since 1987, the leaner states also say lower inflation and slightly higher wages growth, implying that inflation adjusted wages grew faster in the smaller government states over the last 20 years period. Controlling for the native firms investments abroad, countries with smaller government enjoy the stock of FDI that is twice the size of that found in the states with larger governments. Similar trends hold for private sector productivity growth, private non-residential investment growth and the overall size of the countries' stock markets.
However, contrary to popular beliefs, the better economic and social spending indicators performance by the leaner countries were also associated with the relative strength of their performance in terms of environment. In 1990, states with larger government produced some 0.4 kg pf carbon dioxide emissions per 1 unit of income. By 2000 this figure fell to 0.3 kg. Comparable measures in the states with leaner governments were 0.5 kg in 1990 and 0.4 kg in 2000. On the surface, this appears to be the story of matched improvements across the two types of states with the leaner states continuing to lag behind the larger states. The problem with this arithmetic is that it neglects the vital role of CO2 sinks, such as forests, capable of absorbing the emitted pollutants. Leaner states have 11.6 times greater volume of sinks than the larger states and their forestry areas are increasing at double the rate of forestry growth in the states with large government. Adjusting for the average absorption rates for forestry sinks and relative size of sinks in two groups of countries, the states with leaner government have net CO2 emissions of 0.25 kg per unit of output. This, effectively, is less than the pollution intensity of output that is hoped to be achieved under the Kyoto Protocol.
Overall, the study concludes that "It may be surprising, even counter-intuitive, to find that countries with leaner governments spend more on health and education than those with larger governments (and have been growing that expenditure at a faster rate), that they have a better standard of living, better employment records and similar spending on income support. But the data... should give policy-makers some confidence in arguing [that] ...the leaner governments clearly benefit their citizens more than the narrow illusory benefits offered by larger governments."
The lesson is a simple one. If the real objective of European governments is to improve social and personal well-being, they should lower taxes, cut state spending and let the private sector do its job.
****************************
ELSEWHERE
There is an interesting Reuters video just up here of modern day German neo-Nazis that refers to them as "Far Right". The commentary is however careful not to translate the banner being paraded by the "Far Rightists" concerned. It reads: "Unser Sozialismus ist national. Arbeiter der Stirn und der Faust". Translation" "Our socialism is national. Workers of the hand and the head". So a socialist workers' party is "Far Right"??? That the group concerned (the NPD) is Nazi is however totally clear. You can see here that Hitler used exactly the same slogan. Nazism was socialist in the 30s and it is socialist now.
George McGovern criticizes unions and defends Wal Mart!: "I have never wavered in my support for policies that relieve poverty and improve the standard of living of American workers. As a lifelong liberal, I supported Medicare and Medicaid, civil rights, Social Security and workplace safety requirements. Today, I strongly support universal healthcare. And I have always been a supporter of the labor movement. Unions have a proud legacy of improving the lives of millions of workers over the last century. But lately I have seen developments that have me worried. And I have been reminded of legendary union leader John L. Lewis, who was once asked what his miners were after. His answer? 'More.' It was a funny answer, and perhaps it was honest too. But these days, it's not a very effective strategy, and we are seeing some unfortunate and unintended consequences of Lewis' 'more' philosophy."
Supreme Court: Police don't need warrants in emergencies: "The Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday that police can enter homes in emergencies without knocking or announcing their presence. Justices said four Brigham City, Utah, police officers were justified in entering a home after peeking through a window and seeing a fight between a teenager and adults. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the unanimous court, said that officers had a reasonable basis for going inside to stop violence. The decision overturned a ruling by Utah's Supreme Court that said a trial judge was correct to throw out charges stemming from the police search."
Senators back useless gesture: "The Senate, eager to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants, signaled overwhelming support Monday for President Bush's plan to dispatch National Guard troops to states along the Mexican border. No tour of duty could last longer than 21 days and troops would be excluded from 'search, seizure, arrest or similar activity.' They would support the Border Patrol, which has primary responsibility for intercepting illegal immigrants."
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.
****************************
A few excerpts
When it comes to government spending, less is more. Less government spending and involvement in the economy - both in terms of regulatory interference and taxation burden - are associated with higher rates of economic growth, better productivity and more diverse markets for products. This is supported by country-specific evidence and several long-running international indices ranking economic environments.
To discount the benefits of the minimal government, the state-reliant opponents of free markets and personal freedom usually argue that while less government may indeed mean more economic prosperity, smaller governments deliver lower quality of public services. In doing so, supporters of the large welfare state usually point to the alleged lack of public services in the US - a myth hardly supported by reality. The supposedly contrasting social-services-in "rich" European welfare states are similarly mythical.
Two recent studies released by UK and Swiss researchers provide some insight into the overall argument: is smaller government better for a country's non-economic well-being?
First, a group of Swiss and Danish researchers from the WIF Institute of Economic Research in Zurich looked at whether government involvement in the economy is conducive to life satisfaction across 74 countries. The results show that life satisfaction actually decreases with higher government spending. This negative impact of the government is stronger in countries with a left-leaning median voter. It is alleviated by government effectiveness - but, crucially, only in countries where the state sector is already small. In general, a one standard deviation increase in government spending yields a median decrease of 4.42 percent in self-reported satisfaction by the voters, a drop in the degree of economic competition of 4.17 percent and a shift in voter preferences in rightward ideological direction of 4.15-9 percent.
Another comprehensive study released by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) in the UK summarized available data from various sources, to show that modern governments that spend less can, indeed, provide better public services, a better standard of living and more equitable incomes than high-spending governments....
Not surprisingly, the data show that countries with smaller governments also outperformed those with larger state spending in domestic savings (by over 31 percent), investment (which grew 2.5 times faster in the 1990s in the leaner states), and lending to private sector. Since 1987, the leaner states also say lower inflation and slightly higher wages growth, implying that inflation adjusted wages grew faster in the smaller government states over the last 20 years period. Controlling for the native firms investments abroad, countries with smaller government enjoy the stock of FDI that is twice the size of that found in the states with larger governments. Similar trends hold for private sector productivity growth, private non-residential investment growth and the overall size of the countries' stock markets.
However, contrary to popular beliefs, the better economic and social spending indicators performance by the leaner countries were also associated with the relative strength of their performance in terms of environment. In 1990, states with larger government produced some 0.4 kg pf carbon dioxide emissions per 1 unit of income. By 2000 this figure fell to 0.3 kg. Comparable measures in the states with leaner governments were 0.5 kg in 1990 and 0.4 kg in 2000. On the surface, this appears to be the story of matched improvements across the two types of states with the leaner states continuing to lag behind the larger states. The problem with this arithmetic is that it neglects the vital role of CO2 sinks, such as forests, capable of absorbing the emitted pollutants. Leaner states have 11.6 times greater volume of sinks than the larger states and their forestry areas are increasing at double the rate of forestry growth in the states with large government. Adjusting for the average absorption rates for forestry sinks and relative size of sinks in two groups of countries, the states with leaner government have net CO2 emissions of 0.25 kg per unit of output. This, effectively, is less than the pollution intensity of output that is hoped to be achieved under the Kyoto Protocol.
Overall, the study concludes that "It may be surprising, even counter-intuitive, to find that countries with leaner governments spend more on health and education than those with larger governments (and have been growing that expenditure at a faster rate), that they have a better standard of living, better employment records and similar spending on income support. But the data... should give policy-makers some confidence in arguing [that] ...the leaner governments clearly benefit their citizens more than the narrow illusory benefits offered by larger governments."
The lesson is a simple one. If the real objective of European governments is to improve social and personal well-being, they should lower taxes, cut state spending and let the private sector do its job.
****************************
ELSEWHERE
There is an interesting Reuters video just up here of modern day German neo-Nazis that refers to them as "Far Right". The commentary is however careful not to translate the banner being paraded by the "Far Rightists" concerned. It reads: "Unser Sozialismus ist national. Arbeiter der Stirn und der Faust". Translation" "Our socialism is national. Workers of the hand and the head". So a socialist workers' party is "Far Right"??? That the group concerned (the NPD) is Nazi is however totally clear. You can see here that Hitler used exactly the same slogan. Nazism was socialist in the 30s and it is socialist now.
George McGovern criticizes unions and defends Wal Mart!: "I have never wavered in my support for policies that relieve poverty and improve the standard of living of American workers. As a lifelong liberal, I supported Medicare and Medicaid, civil rights, Social Security and workplace safety requirements. Today, I strongly support universal healthcare. And I have always been a supporter of the labor movement. Unions have a proud legacy of improving the lives of millions of workers over the last century. But lately I have seen developments that have me worried. And I have been reminded of legendary union leader John L. Lewis, who was once asked what his miners were after. His answer? 'More.' It was a funny answer, and perhaps it was honest too. But these days, it's not a very effective strategy, and we are seeing some unfortunate and unintended consequences of Lewis' 'more' philosophy."
Supreme Court: Police don't need warrants in emergencies: "The Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday that police can enter homes in emergencies without knocking or announcing their presence. Justices said four Brigham City, Utah, police officers were justified in entering a home after peeking through a window and seeing a fight between a teenager and adults. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the unanimous court, said that officers had a reasonable basis for going inside to stop violence. The decision overturned a ruling by Utah's Supreme Court that said a trial judge was correct to throw out charges stemming from the police search."
Senators back useless gesture: "The Senate, eager to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants, signaled overwhelming support Monday for President Bush's plan to dispatch National Guard troops to states along the Mexican border. No tour of duty could last longer than 21 days and troops would be excluded from 'search, seizure, arrest or similar activity.' They would support the Border Patrol, which has primary responsibility for intercepting illegal immigrants."
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.
****************************
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
MINNESOTA: MORE OFFICAL INDULGENCE OF ILLEGALS
The debate over illegal immigrants is especially important to some local law enforcement agencies, who say they often have must release illegals who commit crimes because they do not have valid identification. Winsted Police Chief Mike Henrich says the U.S. Citizen and Immigration service (formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service) will only apprehend and deport illegals when local police have a large number in custody. "We have taken a few of these immigrants and detained them, and we've found that unless you have a lot of illegal immigrants, they will not come and get them," Henrich says.
One illegal immigrant was arrested four times for driving while intoxicated and once for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, each incident involving a separate incident. "These people are getting away with things that somebody who had a genuine, legitimate ID would be held accountable for," says Sheriff Wayne Vinkemeier of McLeod County. "I think that's something the state needs to take a look at."
Gov. Tim Pawlenty says the problem illustrates that current laws are not working. "It just reinforces the fact that the current system is obviously broken," he says. "We have people making a mockery out of our laws." Pawlenty says the solution is to develop a national I.D. card with fingerprint or eye scan technology. The C.I.S. says it often tells police to release illegal immigrants after arrests, adding that that decision is made on a case-by-case basis, based on the crime and past criminal history.
Source
***************************
ELSEWHERE
Mexico sets the example: "If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force. Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory. In the United States, only two posts - the presidency and vice presidency - are reserved for the native born. In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens... Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges."
Immigration nonsense: "To assert as some have that illegal immigrants do not depress wages because they do the jobs Americans refuse is the kind of nonsense economists speak when they strain to be counterintuitive. It is similar to saying that cheap imports do not hold down prices. If employers paid higher than substandard wages, Americans (who famously do almost anything for money, including eating worms, shooting themselves from cannons and listening to Barbra Streisand sing) would take these jobs."
Europe is learning: "Across Europe, countries that for decades have provided a generous reception for immigrants and refugees are now pulling away the welcome mat. Anti-immigrant sentiment bordering on the xenophobic -- once the purlieu of a few right-wing parties -- has become mainstream politics in such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Britain. New laws are raising the hurdles for newcomers, especially Muslims, and winning cheers from many Europeans. Polls indicate that strong majorities in almost every European country favor not just tightening restrictions on ordinary immigrants but also casting a colder eye on the hard-luck tales of refugees seeking asylum".
IBM researcher slams UK ID card scheme: "IBM researcher Michael Osborne, whose job is research into secure ID cards, slated the UK government's ID cards scheme on the grounds of cost, over-centralisation, and being the wrong tool for the job. Based in Big Blue's Zurich research labs, where the scanning tunnelling microscope was invented and won its inventors a Nobel Prize, Osborne said that the problem is neither the cards nor the fact that the scheme is intended to use biometric technology. The big issue is that the UK government, plans to set up a central database containing volumes of data about its citizens. Unlike other European governments, most of whom already use some form of ID card, the central database will allow connections between different identity contexts - such as driver, taxpayer, or healthcare recipient - which compromises security. Centrally-stored biometric data would be attractive to hackers, he said, adding that such data could be made anonymous but that the UK Government's plans do not include such an implementation. Osborne added that biometric technology is still immature. "It's not an exact science", he said. In real world trials, some 10 per cent of people identified using iris recognition failed to enrol - which means the system didn't recognise them. Even fingerprinting is no panacea, as four per cent failed to enrol. Scale that up to a whole population - the UK contains nearly 60 million people - and the problem of biometric identification becomes huge, he said."
What a laugh! "Super-sizing was still a national pastime back in 2001, when Eric Schlosser's first book, Fast Food Nation, made the New York Times best-seller list. Since then, Wal-Mart has started selling organic foods, free-range chickens can be spotted at almost any supermarket and checking for a product's trans-fat content has become commonplace. But awareness isn't the only thing that's grown. Unfortunately, so has the incidence of childhood obesity.
The Anchoress hits back very powerfully at conservative critics of GWB. She says that people are criticizing him for not being a conservative purist even though he has always claimed to be a moderate ("compassionate") conservative.
Pathological Saudi textbooks: "Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change. A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.... The problem is: These claims are not true. A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels"). This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text"
See Education Watch for the latest 9th Circus (Whoops! Circuit) outrage. The court which does its best to suppress Christian expression has made participation in Islamic practices compulsory in Californian schools!
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 debate over illegal immigrants is especially important to some local law enforcement agencies, who say they often have must release illegals who commit crimes because they do not have valid identification. Winsted Police Chief Mike Henrich says the U.S. Citizen and Immigration service (formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service) will only apprehend and deport illegals when local police have a large number in custody. "We have taken a few of these immigrants and detained them, and we've found that unless you have a lot of illegal immigrants, they will not come and get them," Henrich says.
One illegal immigrant was arrested four times for driving while intoxicated and once for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, each incident involving a separate incident. "These people are getting away with things that somebody who had a genuine, legitimate ID would be held accountable for," says Sheriff Wayne Vinkemeier of McLeod County. "I think that's something the state needs to take a look at."
Gov. Tim Pawlenty says the problem illustrates that current laws are not working. "It just reinforces the fact that the current system is obviously broken," he says. "We have people making a mockery out of our laws." Pawlenty says the solution is to develop a national I.D. card with fingerprint or eye scan technology. The C.I.S. says it often tells police to release illegal immigrants after arrests, adding that that decision is made on a case-by-case basis, based on the crime and past criminal history.
Source
***************************
ELSEWHERE
Mexico sets the example: "If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force. Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory. In the United States, only two posts - the presidency and vice presidency - are reserved for the native born. In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens... Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges."
Immigration nonsense: "To assert as some have that illegal immigrants do not depress wages because they do the jobs Americans refuse is the kind of nonsense economists speak when they strain to be counterintuitive. It is similar to saying that cheap imports do not hold down prices. If employers paid higher than substandard wages, Americans (who famously do almost anything for money, including eating worms, shooting themselves from cannons and listening to Barbra Streisand sing) would take these jobs."
Europe is learning: "Across Europe, countries that for decades have provided a generous reception for immigrants and refugees are now pulling away the welcome mat. Anti-immigrant sentiment bordering on the xenophobic -- once the purlieu of a few right-wing parties -- has become mainstream politics in such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Britain. New laws are raising the hurdles for newcomers, especially Muslims, and winning cheers from many Europeans. Polls indicate that strong majorities in almost every European country favor not just tightening restrictions on ordinary immigrants but also casting a colder eye on the hard-luck tales of refugees seeking asylum".
IBM researcher slams UK ID card scheme: "IBM researcher Michael Osborne, whose job is research into secure ID cards, slated the UK government's ID cards scheme on the grounds of cost, over-centralisation, and being the wrong tool for the job. Based in Big Blue's Zurich research labs, where the scanning tunnelling microscope was invented and won its inventors a Nobel Prize, Osborne said that the problem is neither the cards nor the fact that the scheme is intended to use biometric technology. The big issue is that the UK government, plans to set up a central database containing volumes of data about its citizens. Unlike other European governments, most of whom already use some form of ID card, the central database will allow connections between different identity contexts - such as driver, taxpayer, or healthcare recipient - which compromises security. Centrally-stored biometric data would be attractive to hackers, he said, adding that such data could be made anonymous but that the UK Government's plans do not include such an implementation. Osborne added that biometric technology is still immature. "It's not an exact science", he said. In real world trials, some 10 per cent of people identified using iris recognition failed to enrol - which means the system didn't recognise them. Even fingerprinting is no panacea, as four per cent failed to enrol. Scale that up to a whole population - the UK contains nearly 60 million people - and the problem of biometric identification becomes huge, he said."
What a laugh! "Super-sizing was still a national pastime back in 2001, when Eric Schlosser's first book, Fast Food Nation, made the New York Times best-seller list. Since then, Wal-Mart has started selling organic foods, free-range chickens can be spotted at almost any supermarket and checking for a product's trans-fat content has become commonplace. But awareness isn't the only thing that's grown. Unfortunately, so has the incidence of childhood obesity.
The Anchoress hits back very powerfully at conservative critics of GWB. She says that people are criticizing him for not being a conservative purist even though he has always claimed to be a moderate ("compassionate") conservative.
Pathological Saudi textbooks: "Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change. A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.... The problem is: These claims are not true. A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels"). This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text"
See Education Watch for the latest 9th Circus (Whoops! Circuit) outrage. The court which does its best to suppress Christian expression has made participation in Islamic practices compulsory in Californian schools!
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.
****************************
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
ISRAEL REBOUNDS
At a time when the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza are teetering on the brink of a collapse, Israeli growth - 6.6 percent GDP rise in the first quarter of 2006 - has returned to the torrid pace set before the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising.
It's also a recognition of a growing separation between the Israeli and Palestinian economies - and Israel's receding fear of attacks. Tourists are filling up hotels. Private spending jumped 10.3 percent in the first three months of the year and the real estate market is heating up. Earlier this month, US investment guru Warren Buffet announced a $4 billion buyout of an Israeli metal tool cutting manufacturer, the biggest foreign investment in Israel.
A wave of suicide bombings that once scared off businessmen has been brought under control, and foreign investors are recognizing the long-term resilience of Israel's economy to the waves of conflict with the Palestinians. The trend seems to lend credence to a mantra of a former finance minister that Israel's high-tech, export-based economy is more sensitive to the US Nasdaq stock market than violence in the West Bank city of Nablus....
Per-capita income - a measure of the standard of living - is 17 times higher in Israel than among its neighbors from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That gap is forecast to widen as an economic boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority pushes up poverty levels and as foreign investment fuels Israeli prosperity...
More here
**********************
ELSEWHERE
Dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1) - The Intelligence Gene: "Psychiatric researchers at The Zucker Hillside Hospital campus of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have uncovered evidence of a gene that appears to influence intelligence. Working in conjunction with researchers at Harvard Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics in Boston, the Zucker Hillside team examined the genetic blueprints of individuals with schizophrenia, a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by cognitive impairment, and compared them with healthy volunteers. They discovered that the dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1), which they previously demonstrated to be associated with schizophrenia, may also be linked to general cognitive ability.... The specific role of dysbindin in the central nervous system is unknown, but it is highly present in key brain regions linked to cognition, including learning, problem solving, judgment, memory and comprehension. Scientists speculate that dysbindin plays a role in communication between brain cells in these regions and helps promote their survival. An alteration in the genetic blueprint for dysbindin may ultimately interfere with cell communication and fail to protect brain cells from dying, with a resulting negative impact on cognition and intelligence."
An old truth rediscovered: "More boys are highly gifted than girls, but boys also show up more often at the low end of the intelligence scale. Those are among the findings of a study by Douglas Frank, math/science chairman at the Schilling School for Gifted Children, who analyzed national test results and looked at IQ differences in boys and girls. "Guys are always more variable," Frank said. "If they're more variable, that means you're going to have more at the extremes." His findings correlate with what the Schilling School has found since it opened in 1997: Boys have always outnumbered girls at the K-12 school, which requires students have an IQ of 130 or above. The Sycamore Township school has consistently enrolled about two to three boys for every girl. There are eight girls among the 32 students there now."
Jimmy Carter Is Right: Amend the immigration bill to require voters to show ID: Amid all the disputes over immigration in Congress, one amendment is being proposed that in theory should unite people in both parties. How about requiring that everyone show some form of identification before voting in federal elections? Polls show overwhelming support for the idea, and there is increasing concern that more illegal aliens are showing up on voter registration rolls. But the fact that photo ID isn't likely to pass shows both how deeply emotional the immigration issue has become and how bitter congressional politics have become with elections only 5 1/2 months away. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican whip, is proposing the photo ID amendment. He notes that Mexico and many other countries require the production of such identification in their own elections, and that the idea builds on the suggestion of last year's bipartisan election reform commission headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker.
From a recent speech by Australian Prime Minister Howard: ""Without American leadership, the trials and tragedies of recent years could be but a prelude of darker days to come," Mr Howard said in an address yesterday to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. "With American leadership, we can build a better world - not just for us, but for all." Sharpening his call for the US to play a greater role in global affairs, Mr Howard told the council: "To the voices of anti-Americanism around the world, to those who shout 'Yankee go home', let me offer some quiet advice: be careful what you wish for."
The right approach to the abortion problem: "Responding to an issue that Jews often refer to as "the demographic threat", a non-profit Jewish group is encouraging poor, pregnant Jewish women who might be considering having an abortion to go ahead and have a child instead. Set up 29 years ago by Eli Schussheim, a surgeon, the Efrat organisation offers women $1,000 of support for a year, including diapers, a crib and baby clothes, if they decide to give birth rather than terminate their pregnancies"
The family vs. the state: "The original idea of 'compassionate conservatism' was for government to achieve goals using as partners faith-based organizations and other nongovernmental associations. If that idea ever takes off, I believe it will be a disaster. My line is that 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and private-public partnerships absolutely corrupt the private sector.' There is nothing compassionate about government subcontracting out to private entities. The only real compassionate conservatism is conservatism that shrinks the role of government. Compassion should start with families and expand through voluntary associations. Government programs, everywhere and always, undermine families and weaken voluntary associations."
What's a self-made individual?: "Why do we hear so much criticism and ridicule of the self-made individual? One reason is that people who would want to be leaders of others, people who like to rule others, people who want to impose ideas on others find the self-made individual an obstacle to their program. People who think for themselves do not fall for the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Jim Jones and similar charismatic figures who are eager to run the world for the rest of us. So they hope to demean the idea that we can think for ourselves and guide are lives pretty well without their intervention."
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.
****************************
At a time when the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza are teetering on the brink of a collapse, Israeli growth - 6.6 percent GDP rise in the first quarter of 2006 - has returned to the torrid pace set before the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising.
It's also a recognition of a growing separation between the Israeli and Palestinian economies - and Israel's receding fear of attacks. Tourists are filling up hotels. Private spending jumped 10.3 percent in the first three months of the year and the real estate market is heating up. Earlier this month, US investment guru Warren Buffet announced a $4 billion buyout of an Israeli metal tool cutting manufacturer, the biggest foreign investment in Israel.
A wave of suicide bombings that once scared off businessmen has been brought under control, and foreign investors are recognizing the long-term resilience of Israel's economy to the waves of conflict with the Palestinians. The trend seems to lend credence to a mantra of a former finance minister that Israel's high-tech, export-based economy is more sensitive to the US Nasdaq stock market than violence in the West Bank city of Nablus....
Per-capita income - a measure of the standard of living - is 17 times higher in Israel than among its neighbors from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That gap is forecast to widen as an economic boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority pushes up poverty levels and as foreign investment fuels Israeli prosperity...
More here
**********************
ELSEWHERE
Dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1) - The Intelligence Gene: "Psychiatric researchers at The Zucker Hillside Hospital campus of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have uncovered evidence of a gene that appears to influence intelligence. Working in conjunction with researchers at Harvard Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics in Boston, the Zucker Hillside team examined the genetic blueprints of individuals with schizophrenia, a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by cognitive impairment, and compared them with healthy volunteers. They discovered that the dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1), which they previously demonstrated to be associated with schizophrenia, may also be linked to general cognitive ability.... The specific role of dysbindin in the central nervous system is unknown, but it is highly present in key brain regions linked to cognition, including learning, problem solving, judgment, memory and comprehension. Scientists speculate that dysbindin plays a role in communication between brain cells in these regions and helps promote their survival. An alteration in the genetic blueprint for dysbindin may ultimately interfere with cell communication and fail to protect brain cells from dying, with a resulting negative impact on cognition and intelligence."
An old truth rediscovered: "More boys are highly gifted than girls, but boys also show up more often at the low end of the intelligence scale. Those are among the findings of a study by Douglas Frank, math/science chairman at the Schilling School for Gifted Children, who analyzed national test results and looked at IQ differences in boys and girls. "Guys are always more variable," Frank said. "If they're more variable, that means you're going to have more at the extremes." His findings correlate with what the Schilling School has found since it opened in 1997: Boys have always outnumbered girls at the K-12 school, which requires students have an IQ of 130 or above. The Sycamore Township school has consistently enrolled about two to three boys for every girl. There are eight girls among the 32 students there now."
Jimmy Carter Is Right: Amend the immigration bill to require voters to show ID: Amid all the disputes over immigration in Congress, one amendment is being proposed that in theory should unite people in both parties. How about requiring that everyone show some form of identification before voting in federal elections? Polls show overwhelming support for the idea, and there is increasing concern that more illegal aliens are showing up on voter registration rolls. But the fact that photo ID isn't likely to pass shows both how deeply emotional the immigration issue has become and how bitter congressional politics have become with elections only 5 1/2 months away. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican whip, is proposing the photo ID amendment. He notes that Mexico and many other countries require the production of such identification in their own elections, and that the idea builds on the suggestion of last year's bipartisan election reform commission headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker.
From a recent speech by Australian Prime Minister Howard: ""Without American leadership, the trials and tragedies of recent years could be but a prelude of darker days to come," Mr Howard said in an address yesterday to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. "With American leadership, we can build a better world - not just for us, but for all." Sharpening his call for the US to play a greater role in global affairs, Mr Howard told the council: "To the voices of anti-Americanism around the world, to those who shout 'Yankee go home', let me offer some quiet advice: be careful what you wish for."
The right approach to the abortion problem: "Responding to an issue that Jews often refer to as "the demographic threat", a non-profit Jewish group is encouraging poor, pregnant Jewish women who might be considering having an abortion to go ahead and have a child instead. Set up 29 years ago by Eli Schussheim, a surgeon, the Efrat organisation offers women $1,000 of support for a year, including diapers, a crib and baby clothes, if they decide to give birth rather than terminate their pregnancies"
The family vs. the state: "The original idea of 'compassionate conservatism' was for government to achieve goals using as partners faith-based organizations and other nongovernmental associations. If that idea ever takes off, I believe it will be a disaster. My line is that 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and private-public partnerships absolutely corrupt the private sector.' There is nothing compassionate about government subcontracting out to private entities. The only real compassionate conservatism is conservatism that shrinks the role of government. Compassion should start with families and expand through voluntary associations. Government programs, everywhere and always, undermine families and weaken voluntary associations."
What's a self-made individual?: "Why do we hear so much criticism and ridicule of the self-made individual? One reason is that people who would want to be leaders of others, people who like to rule others, people who want to impose ideas on others find the self-made individual an obstacle to their program. People who think for themselves do not fall for the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Jim Jones and similar charismatic figures who are eager to run the world for the rest of us. So they hope to demean the idea that we can think for ourselves and guide are lives pretty well without their intervention."
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.
****************************
Monday, May 22, 2006
AFRICA
Even in a country grown accustomed to horrific acts of violence, it is a crime that still shocks. ''Muti murder'', in which human body parts are removed to be used in traditional "medicine", is increasing in South Africa - but victims' families complain that the police too often ignore it.
The murder of four-year-old Connie Ncube, whose mutilated body was discovered in a river near her home east of Pretoria by her father last month, has sparked a public outcry and demands for tougher action against the gruesome crimes.
Jabu Majola said: "I was shocked to see my daughter that way. It took me 10 minutes to identify her because of the way they cut at her. I couldn't believe someone could do something like this." Mr Majola condemned the police for not responding to his calls for almost 12 hours after Connie disappeared. "If they had sent police to search for my daughter when we asked them to, she would be alive today," he said.
It was only after a report of her death appeared in a local newspaper, Mr Majola said, that the police launched a full investigation and eventually identified a suspect - a neighbour with links to traditional "healers" - who has not been caught.
Source
******************************
ELSEWHERE
Alain's Newsletter was a Christian conservative site that was getting a fair bit of attention but it disappeared suddenly. Why? I have been forwarded an email signed "Alain's wife" which said: "for health reasons my husband has closed the newsletter for a while".
Some Baptists still follow the Bible: "Following the approval of a large majority of its churches, the board of the American Baptist Churches Pacific Southwest region voted unanimously May 11 to withdraw from its covenant relationship with its parent denomination. The board's action makes final the separation of the 300-church region from the American Baptist Churches (USA) in Valley Forge, Pa. The decision comes after eight months of discussion and a vote on the part of the region's churches in late April to recommend that the board withdraw over the refusal of the ABC (USA) to deal with the acceptance of churches with lax policies on homosexuality in the denomination".
The pain in Spain: "2330 illegal immigrants are currently being held in Canary Islands detention centers, though an unknown number have been transferred to mainland Spain during the last week. Nearly 400 immigrants arrived by boat in the Canaries yesterday, and the interior ministry has been unable to alleviate the overcrowding. Foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos yesterday announced that Spain would begin diplomatic efforts with six sub-Saharan African countries to control the flow of illegals."
Afghan women graduate US college program: "When she was a child growing up in Afghanistan, Nadima Sahar loved to draw. But after the Taliban came to power in the 1990s, her love for art became a secret. The strict Islamic movement banned art and secular music, so only Sahar's family knew about her drawings. 'I couldn't share them with my neighbors,' Sahar said. Today, after four years as a college student in Rhode Island, Sahar has showcased her mostly abstract, black-and-white drawings at four art competitions and won prizes in all of them."
Islamic bank shunned in Britain: "Evolution Securities and BNP Paribas failed to persuade a single UK investor to sign up for shares in yesterday's initial public offering of the first British investment bank to comply with Islamic financial law. The failure will compound the brokers' embarrassment about the European Islamic Investment Bank's (EIIB) London float as its shares slumped 38 per cent on their first day of trading, after raising less than half of the target. One source close to the offering said that the float did "not attract a single UK investor"
Hitchens: Don't talk to the mullahs: "There is an excellent case to be made for initiating an imaginative diplomatic overture to Iran, or rather to the Iranians, and I did my best to lay it out. But this case is not strengthened by the demented letter recently made public by the man posing as Iran's president. I say 'posing,' because, however many times our media babble about his 'landslide' victory in Iran's 'elections,' everybody knows that he was put in by the reigning mullahs at the very last moment, after all independent and reformist candidates had been eliminated from the process, and that the counting of the votes was an insult to the meanest intelligence."
George Will: "Proof that incumbent politicians are highly susceptible to corruption is the fact that the government they control is shot through with it. Yet [according to John McCain] that government should be regarded as a disinterested arbiter, untainted by politics and therefore qualified to regulate the content, quantity and timing of speech in campaigns that determine who controls the government."
Shelby Steele: Black truth-teller: ""The only thing that makes me interesting as a writer," Shelby Steele says, "is that I'm just talking common sense. The most ordinary, everyday sort of common sense." Correction. What sets Steele apart is that he's saying things many people, even those who secretly agree with him, would rather not hear. He says that blacks should take responsibility for their own disproportionate crime rates and poor academic performance and not blame a system imposed on them by whites; that whites support affirmative action and other "silly racial policies" out of fear, to avoid accusations of racism. He says that blacks who use the "race card," as Johnnie Cochran did in defending O.J. Simpson, are practicing "blackmail" through the manipulation of white guilt."
Why $3 gas won't slow the US economy: "As all the pollsters are telling us, there's an inverse relationship between rising gasoline prices and President Bush's falling approval ratings -- most especially his approval rating on the economy. Of course, these polls describe a certain national angst over energy that harkens back to the dreadful 1970s. But there's a better reality out there: Namely, the upturn in gas prices simply is not stopping the economy the way it did three decades ago. Today's economy may be the greatest story never told. It's an American boom, spurred by lower tax rates, huge profits, big productivity, plentiful jobs, and an ongoing free-market capitalist resiliency. It's also a global boom, marked by a spread of free- market capitalism like we've never seen before."
There is an interesting article here reviewing the present role of women in the U.S. armed forces.
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.
****************************
Even in a country grown accustomed to horrific acts of violence, it is a crime that still shocks. ''Muti murder'', in which human body parts are removed to be used in traditional "medicine", is increasing in South Africa - but victims' families complain that the police too often ignore it.
The murder of four-year-old Connie Ncube, whose mutilated body was discovered in a river near her home east of Pretoria by her father last month, has sparked a public outcry and demands for tougher action against the gruesome crimes.
Jabu Majola said: "I was shocked to see my daughter that way. It took me 10 minutes to identify her because of the way they cut at her. I couldn't believe someone could do something like this." Mr Majola condemned the police for not responding to his calls for almost 12 hours after Connie disappeared. "If they had sent police to search for my daughter when we asked them to, she would be alive today," he said.
It was only after a report of her death appeared in a local newspaper, Mr Majola said, that the police launched a full investigation and eventually identified a suspect - a neighbour with links to traditional "healers" - who has not been caught.
Source
******************************
ELSEWHERE
Alain's Newsletter was a Christian conservative site that was getting a fair bit of attention but it disappeared suddenly. Why? I have been forwarded an email signed "Alain's wife" which said: "for health reasons my husband has closed the newsletter for a while".
Some Baptists still follow the Bible: "Following the approval of a large majority of its churches, the board of the American Baptist Churches Pacific Southwest region voted unanimously May 11 to withdraw from its covenant relationship with its parent denomination. The board's action makes final the separation of the 300-church region from the American Baptist Churches (USA) in Valley Forge, Pa. The decision comes after eight months of discussion and a vote on the part of the region's churches in late April to recommend that the board withdraw over the refusal of the ABC (USA) to deal with the acceptance of churches with lax policies on homosexuality in the denomination".
The pain in Spain: "2330 illegal immigrants are currently being held in Canary Islands detention centers, though an unknown number have been transferred to mainland Spain during the last week. Nearly 400 immigrants arrived by boat in the Canaries yesterday, and the interior ministry has been unable to alleviate the overcrowding. Foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos yesterday announced that Spain would begin diplomatic efforts with six sub-Saharan African countries to control the flow of illegals."
Afghan women graduate US college program: "When she was a child growing up in Afghanistan, Nadima Sahar loved to draw. But after the Taliban came to power in the 1990s, her love for art became a secret. The strict Islamic movement banned art and secular music, so only Sahar's family knew about her drawings. 'I couldn't share them with my neighbors,' Sahar said. Today, after four years as a college student in Rhode Island, Sahar has showcased her mostly abstract, black-and-white drawings at four art competitions and won prizes in all of them."
Islamic bank shunned in Britain: "Evolution Securities and BNP Paribas failed to persuade a single UK investor to sign up for shares in yesterday's initial public offering of the first British investment bank to comply with Islamic financial law. The failure will compound the brokers' embarrassment about the European Islamic Investment Bank's (EIIB) London float as its shares slumped 38 per cent on their first day of trading, after raising less than half of the target. One source close to the offering said that the float did "not attract a single UK investor"
Hitchens: Don't talk to the mullahs: "There is an excellent case to be made for initiating an imaginative diplomatic overture to Iran, or rather to the Iranians, and I did my best to lay it out. But this case is not strengthened by the demented letter recently made public by the man posing as Iran's president. I say 'posing,' because, however many times our media babble about his 'landslide' victory in Iran's 'elections,' everybody knows that he was put in by the reigning mullahs at the very last moment, after all independent and reformist candidates had been eliminated from the process, and that the counting of the votes was an insult to the meanest intelligence."
George Will: "Proof that incumbent politicians are highly susceptible to corruption is the fact that the government they control is shot through with it. Yet [according to John McCain] that government should be regarded as a disinterested arbiter, untainted by politics and therefore qualified to regulate the content, quantity and timing of speech in campaigns that determine who controls the government."
Shelby Steele: Black truth-teller: ""The only thing that makes me interesting as a writer," Shelby Steele says, "is that I'm just talking common sense. The most ordinary, everyday sort of common sense." Correction. What sets Steele apart is that he's saying things many people, even those who secretly agree with him, would rather not hear. He says that blacks should take responsibility for their own disproportionate crime rates and poor academic performance and not blame a system imposed on them by whites; that whites support affirmative action and other "silly racial policies" out of fear, to avoid accusations of racism. He says that blacks who use the "race card," as Johnnie Cochran did in defending O.J. Simpson, are practicing "blackmail" through the manipulation of white guilt."
Why $3 gas won't slow the US economy: "As all the pollsters are telling us, there's an inverse relationship between rising gasoline prices and President Bush's falling approval ratings -- most especially his approval rating on the economy. Of course, these polls describe a certain national angst over energy that harkens back to the dreadful 1970s. But there's a better reality out there: Namely, the upturn in gas prices simply is not stopping the economy the way it did three decades ago. Today's economy may be the greatest story never told. It's an American boom, spurred by lower tax rates, huge profits, big productivity, plentiful jobs, and an ongoing free-market capitalist resiliency. It's also a global boom, marked by a spread of free- market capitalism like we've never seen before."
There is an interesting article here reviewing the present role of women in the U.S. armed forces.
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.
****************************
Sunday, May 21, 2006
AMERICAN ELECTION SYSTEMS
One summary:
I will never understand why Americans put up with all that crapola. The site from which the quote above was taken offers some simple alternatives that would be much better. Australia uses an old-fashioned paper ballot system that evokes very few complaints and criticisms, though it is not perfect, of course.
***************************
ELSEWHERE
An interesting comment from a tax accountant: "As the Senate cleverly negotiates the amendments that would scuttle new immigration legislation, they blithely ignore the real nightmare immigrants face if a path to citizenship is enacted: they must pay their back taxes. Those of us who have worked in the tax field can tell you that (1) the IRS can reconstruct your past income out of the thin air with great precision, (2) The effort to fight the IRS or to reconstruct your own version of what you made and what you owe is so painful it can by itself motivate the illegal to return home and (3) Certain taxes like Social Security and Medicare are payable on the first dollar you earn and the amounts owed the government will, in almost all cases, bankrupt the illegal or make the water so deep he will drown before he survives. The House has passed a very specific bill to effect the deportation of 12 million illegals. The Senate by requiring poverty-stricken illegals to pay back taxes has finished the job. Either way attrition will shrink that population."
Spain seeks to stem tide of African immigrants: "Spain has put the last touches to initiatives, including a strengthened presence in Africa, to try to stem the swelling tide of immigrants from the continent heading for its shores. The government's plan was agreed as it was announced that a total of 656 African illegal immigrants had arrived in Spain's Canary Islands in the space of 24 hours. In Madrid Deputy Prime Minister Maria-Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said after a cabinet meeting she would be going to Brussels next week to discuss the issue with, among others, European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso. She said that "more Europe" had to be one of the weapons in the battle against would-be illegal immigration. An "Africa plan" was to be implemented within the space of 48 hours, said de la Vega. The headquarters will be in the Senegalese capital Dakar, under the supervision of a specially appointed ambassador, Miguel Angel Mazarambroz.
Nothing like a good track record: "Russia overnight took over the presidency of Europe's chief body charged with maintaining democracy and human rights, issues on which it has frequently found itself the target of criticism. Speaking in Strasbourg overnight, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov promised "a concrete approach to the committee's tasks, respectful of the rights of all citizens and of instruments for the defence of those rights." Russia succeeds Romania as president of the committee of ministers, or executive body, of the 46-member Council of Europe, for six months. The Russian presidency is likely to dwell more on dialogue between cultures and local democracy than the basic freedoms Moscow is said to ignore."
Political posturing on gas prices mostly hot air: "Three gas station owners report for their first day in prison. The prison guard asks one of them, 'What are you in for?' He replies, 'The government says I charged customers more for my gasoline than other gas stations. I'm in for price gouging.' The guard looks at the second man. 'And you?' He answers, 'I charged less for my gasoline than everyone else. I'm in for anti-competitive pricing.' The guard looks to the third. 'And you?' He shrugs. 'I charged the same price for my gasoline as all the other gas stations. I'm in for collusion.' Like many jokes, that one has a lot of truth to it. I'd imagine many Americans wouldn't mind at all to see just about everyone involved in the oil industry do some time in the pokey these days. What's been even more disheartening has been to see Americans turn to their politicians, and ask them to 'do something' about the price of gas. We seem to love the free market until it inconveniences us. Then we want someone punished."
Genetics again: "A group of Yale researchers studying the origin of irrational decision-making found that choosing impractically isn't a behavior exhibited only by humans. Our evolutionary cousins, capuchin monkeys, exhibit the same tendency with respect to loss aversion, or the tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring gains. The findings, published in the Journal of Political Economy, indicate these biases are innate in primates and have existed since before capuchins and humans split 40 million years ago. "Some of the most deeply ingrained economic behaviors turn out to be very, very ancient and hardwired parts of our decision-making processes," said Yale economics professor and the study's lead author, Keith Chen. "If I showed a string of capuchin monkey data to an economist, he couldn't, with any statistical test, tell the difference between a capuchin monkey and your average American stock market investor."
My doubts about the "hobbits" get learned support: "A report released today disputes scientists' claims that bones of a dwarf human discovered on an Indonesian island are those of an entirely new human species. The 18,000-year-old bones found on Flores Island in 2003 were given the scientific name Homo floresiensis, and the nickname "Hobbit" after the diminutive figures in JRR Tolkien's novel. Anthropologists from Australia and Indonesia said it was an entirely new human species derived from the primitive Homo erectus.... But a group of scientists led by primatologist Robert Martin said in an article in Science magazine's May 19 issue that, far from being a new species, the bones were of Homo sapiens suffering from the pathological condition microcephaly, which results in small brain and body size....Dr Martin's team also argued that sophisticated tools found with the Flores bones could not have been created by a race with such small brains. "These tools are so advanced that there is no way they were made by anyone other than Homo sapiens," anthropologist James Phillips, also of the Field Museum said."
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.
****************************
One summary:
"The biggest problem in cleaning up our elections is the issue of voter registries, and Carter's commission doesn't begin to deal with it. If voter registries are corrupt, there is no way our democracy can be assured a fair election. Throughout America, people with the flimsiest kinds of ID are put on voter registries, allowing ineligible voters to determine our elected officials and the fate of the nation. That this doesn't horrify more Americans is, in itself, horrifying, and smacks of some Third World banana republic. For our elections to be right, our voter registries must be right.
I will never understand why Americans put up with all that crapola. The site from which the quote above was taken offers some simple alternatives that would be much better. Australia uses an old-fashioned paper ballot system that evokes very few complaints and criticisms, though it is not perfect, of course.
***************************
ELSEWHERE
An interesting comment from a tax accountant: "As the Senate cleverly negotiates the amendments that would scuttle new immigration legislation, they blithely ignore the real nightmare immigrants face if a path to citizenship is enacted: they must pay their back taxes. Those of us who have worked in the tax field can tell you that (1) the IRS can reconstruct your past income out of the thin air with great precision, (2) The effort to fight the IRS or to reconstruct your own version of what you made and what you owe is so painful it can by itself motivate the illegal to return home and (3) Certain taxes like Social Security and Medicare are payable on the first dollar you earn and the amounts owed the government will, in almost all cases, bankrupt the illegal or make the water so deep he will drown before he survives. The House has passed a very specific bill to effect the deportation of 12 million illegals. The Senate by requiring poverty-stricken illegals to pay back taxes has finished the job. Either way attrition will shrink that population."
Spain seeks to stem tide of African immigrants: "Spain has put the last touches to initiatives, including a strengthened presence in Africa, to try to stem the swelling tide of immigrants from the continent heading for its shores. The government's plan was agreed as it was announced that a total of 656 African illegal immigrants had arrived in Spain's Canary Islands in the space of 24 hours. In Madrid Deputy Prime Minister Maria-Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said after a cabinet meeting she would be going to Brussels next week to discuss the issue with, among others, European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso. She said that "more Europe" had to be one of the weapons in the battle against would-be illegal immigration. An "Africa plan" was to be implemented within the space of 48 hours, said de la Vega. The headquarters will be in the Senegalese capital Dakar, under the supervision of a specially appointed ambassador, Miguel Angel Mazarambroz.
Nothing like a good track record: "Russia overnight took over the presidency of Europe's chief body charged with maintaining democracy and human rights, issues on which it has frequently found itself the target of criticism. Speaking in Strasbourg overnight, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov promised "a concrete approach to the committee's tasks, respectful of the rights of all citizens and of instruments for the defence of those rights." Russia succeeds Romania as president of the committee of ministers, or executive body, of the 46-member Council of Europe, for six months. The Russian presidency is likely to dwell more on dialogue between cultures and local democracy than the basic freedoms Moscow is said to ignore."
Political posturing on gas prices mostly hot air: "Three gas station owners report for their first day in prison. The prison guard asks one of them, 'What are you in for?' He replies, 'The government says I charged customers more for my gasoline than other gas stations. I'm in for price gouging.' The guard looks at the second man. 'And you?' He answers, 'I charged less for my gasoline than everyone else. I'm in for anti-competitive pricing.' The guard looks to the third. 'And you?' He shrugs. 'I charged the same price for my gasoline as all the other gas stations. I'm in for collusion.' Like many jokes, that one has a lot of truth to it. I'd imagine many Americans wouldn't mind at all to see just about everyone involved in the oil industry do some time in the pokey these days. What's been even more disheartening has been to see Americans turn to their politicians, and ask them to 'do something' about the price of gas. We seem to love the free market until it inconveniences us. Then we want someone punished."
Genetics again: "A group of Yale researchers studying the origin of irrational decision-making found that choosing impractically isn't a behavior exhibited only by humans. Our evolutionary cousins, capuchin monkeys, exhibit the same tendency with respect to loss aversion, or the tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring gains. The findings, published in the Journal of Political Economy, indicate these biases are innate in primates and have existed since before capuchins and humans split 40 million years ago. "Some of the most deeply ingrained economic behaviors turn out to be very, very ancient and hardwired parts of our decision-making processes," said Yale economics professor and the study's lead author, Keith Chen. "If I showed a string of capuchin monkey data to an economist, he couldn't, with any statistical test, tell the difference between a capuchin monkey and your average American stock market investor."
My doubts about the "hobbits" get learned support: "A report released today disputes scientists' claims that bones of a dwarf human discovered on an Indonesian island are those of an entirely new human species. The 18,000-year-old bones found on Flores Island in 2003 were given the scientific name Homo floresiensis, and the nickname "Hobbit" after the diminutive figures in JRR Tolkien's novel. Anthropologists from Australia and Indonesia said it was an entirely new human species derived from the primitive Homo erectus.... But a group of scientists led by primatologist Robert Martin said in an article in Science magazine's May 19 issue that, far from being a new species, the bones were of Homo sapiens suffering from the pathological condition microcephaly, which results in small brain and body size....Dr Martin's team also argued that sophisticated tools found with the Flores bones could not have been created by a race with such small brains. "These tools are so advanced that there is no way they were made by anyone other than Homo sapiens," anthropologist James Phillips, also of the Field Museum said."
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.
****************************
Saturday, May 20, 2006
NOTHING CAN DENT THE LOVE OF THE LEFT FOR COMMUNIST CUBA
The following is a program promo for SBS -- one of Australia's public broadcasters. No bias there at all of course. It appears that viewers will hear of Cuba's system for earning dollars by selling cheap medical services to foreigners but no mention of the medical care that Cubans get seems to be in the offing. Straight cold-war propaganda lives on -- courtesy of the taxpayer
"For almost half a century Cuba has endured crippling sanctions imposed by its near neighbour the United States. But this tiny Caribbean nation has not only survived but achieved the unthinkable. It has had made major medical breakthroughs and now has a medical report card that is the envy of its most of its neighbours. Last year, Cuba's infant mortality rate declined even further. It now equals many developed nations but has surpassed that of the United States.
America, the largest medical market in the world, has responded, by accusing Cuba of trying to make money out of medicine. Health and medicine are indeed big business in Cuba. This year, monies raised from health tourism and from its biotechnology breakthroughs look set to surpass Cuba's traditional economic mainstay which has been tourism.
But Cuba's medical miracles are not confined to homeshores. A legion of medical missionaries have been sent to work overseas and the United States is concerned what impact that is having on the region."
***************************
Brookes News Update
Is supply-side economics driving the US economy?: Although supply-siders have made serious errors they should still emphasise that if you want more of something you have to reduce the cost of producing it. What every country needs is more capital -- and capital comes out of savings. By eliminating taxes on capital gains more savings are made available which then expand the capital structure
Australian economy is still signalling an impending recession: The Treasurer Peter Costello believes that the economy is still on course and a recession is far beyond the horizon -- or at least beyond the next federal election. He could be making a grave error
The left finally find a cause they can support that will kill US troops: With the left there is neither shame nor honour, but there is consistency -- and it is their remorseless hatred of the United States and of liberty. That's why they will sacrifice US troops when it suits them
Democrats -- World's second largest Death Cult: Muslims reign as the Number 1 Death Cult on the planet, closely followed by America's Democrat Party. In 1,400 years of terror Muslims have slaughtered hundreds of millions forcing their faux religion on others
Support from Jews but not for Jews?: I met that amazing woman, Dr. Wafa Sultana, whose comments about the Arabs during an interview on the Arab television station, Al-Jazeera were like 'the shot fired around the world
New offshore drilling = more oil and fish: Offshore drilling not only means more energy it will also create a more fruitful environment for marine life -- as if greens really cared"
National day of regret: The President, with his cockeyed optimism and can-do American spirit, seems to believe he can and will succeed. And he believes that much of the credit can be attributed to prayer
***************************
ELSEWHERE
Hunting with dogs was banned recently in Britain and it seems likely that the same thing is going to happen to the California version ("live field coursing") soon too. See here. Since hunting is how the human race got here, that does seem to be an attack on normal humanity.
Half-hearted Senate vote in favour of English: "The Senate voted Thursday to make English the "national language" of the United States, declaring that no one has a right to federal communications or services in a language other than English except for those already guaranteed by law. The amendment, approved 63-34, directs the government to "preserve and enhance" the role of English, without altering current laws that require some government documents and services be provided in other languages".
Senate bypasses security for immigration: "Buoyed by President Bush, supporters of immigration legislation established command in the Senate on Tuesday, brushing aside potentially crippling challenges to a bill that blends tougher border enforcement with a path to citizenship for millions in the United States illegally. 'It was a good way to start,' said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. as a shifting bipartisan coalition held firm against attacks from the left and the right. On a vote of 55-40 that crossed party lines, the Senate rejected an appeal from Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., to require the border be secured before other immigration law changes could take place."
Minuteman fence still a goer: "A civilian border-patrol group said it still plans to erect a short security fence along the Mexican border, despite President Bush's pledge to deploy thousands of National Guard troops there. A spokeswoman for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps [sic] said Tuesday what Bush promised was not enough. 'It's adding more people to the mix who will not be in position to do actual patrols,' Connie Hair said."
Australian kids conservative: "Adolescent angst is not what it used to be. A survey from the Australian Institute of Family Studies presents the current crop of teenagers as sane and sensible, with an utter absence of the angry self-indulgence the boomer generation made the measure of youth. Instead of denouncing capitalism, the survey found young people today are very keen to acquire capital - and lots of it. Instead of wanting to turn on, tune in and drop out, they are keen on sport and hobbies. Rather than getting wasted, they want to work.... And the survey is especially bad news for politicians whose stock in trade is contempt for traditional family values. Because the coming generation of voters is just not buying ancient, eccentric arguments that claim family life is for failures and making money is inherently evil. Certainly, this survey offers no evidence on the future political allegiances of today's teens. But it does suggest an eroding audience for people who bang on about abstract rights while ignoring the economic interests and social aspirations of young couples and their kids.
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 following is a program promo for SBS -- one of Australia's public broadcasters. No bias there at all of course. It appears that viewers will hear of Cuba's system for earning dollars by selling cheap medical services to foreigners but no mention of the medical care that Cubans get seems to be in the offing. Straight cold-war propaganda lives on -- courtesy of the taxpayer
"For almost half a century Cuba has endured crippling sanctions imposed by its near neighbour the United States. But this tiny Caribbean nation has not only survived but achieved the unthinkable. It has had made major medical breakthroughs and now has a medical report card that is the envy of its most of its neighbours. Last year, Cuba's infant mortality rate declined even further. It now equals many developed nations but has surpassed that of the United States.
America, the largest medical market in the world, has responded, by accusing Cuba of trying to make money out of medicine. Health and medicine are indeed big business in Cuba. This year, monies raised from health tourism and from its biotechnology breakthroughs look set to surpass Cuba's traditional economic mainstay which has been tourism.
But Cuba's medical miracles are not confined to homeshores. A legion of medical missionaries have been sent to work overseas and the United States is concerned what impact that is having on the region."
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Brookes News Update
Is supply-side economics driving the US economy?: Although supply-siders have made serious errors they should still emphasise that if you want more of something you have to reduce the cost of producing it. What every country needs is more capital -- and capital comes out of savings. By eliminating taxes on capital gains more savings are made available which then expand the capital structure
Australian economy is still signalling an impending recession: The Treasurer Peter Costello believes that the economy is still on course and a recession is far beyond the horizon -- or at least beyond the next federal election. He could be making a grave error
The left finally find a cause they can support that will kill US troops: With the left there is neither shame nor honour, but there is consistency -- and it is their remorseless hatred of the United States and of liberty. That's why they will sacrifice US troops when it suits them
Democrats -- World's second largest Death Cult: Muslims reign as the Number 1 Death Cult on the planet, closely followed by America's Democrat Party. In 1,400 years of terror Muslims have slaughtered hundreds of millions forcing their faux religion on others
Support from Jews but not for Jews?: I met that amazing woman, Dr. Wafa Sultana, whose comments about the Arabs during an interview on the Arab television station, Al-Jazeera were like 'the shot fired around the world
New offshore drilling = more oil and fish: Offshore drilling not only means more energy it will also create a more fruitful environment for marine life -- as if greens really cared"
National day of regret: The President, with his cockeyed optimism and can-do American spirit, seems to believe he can and will succeed. And he believes that much of the credit can be attributed to prayer
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ELSEWHERE
Hunting with dogs was banned recently in Britain and it seems likely that the same thing is going to happen to the California version ("live field coursing") soon too. See here. Since hunting is how the human race got here, that does seem to be an attack on normal humanity.
Half-hearted Senate vote in favour of English: "The Senate voted Thursday to make English the "national language" of the United States, declaring that no one has a right to federal communications or services in a language other than English except for those already guaranteed by law. The amendment, approved 63-34, directs the government to "preserve and enhance" the role of English, without altering current laws that require some government documents and services be provided in other languages".
Senate bypasses security for immigration: "Buoyed by President Bush, supporters of immigration legislation established command in the Senate on Tuesday, brushing aside potentially crippling challenges to a bill that blends tougher border enforcement with a path to citizenship for millions in the United States illegally. 'It was a good way to start,' said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. as a shifting bipartisan coalition held firm against attacks from the left and the right. On a vote of 55-40 that crossed party lines, the Senate rejected an appeal from Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., to require the border be secured before other immigration law changes could take place."
Minuteman fence still a goer: "A civilian border-patrol group said it still plans to erect a short security fence along the Mexican border, despite President Bush's pledge to deploy thousands of National Guard troops there. A spokeswoman for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps [sic] said Tuesday what Bush promised was not enough. 'It's adding more people to the mix who will not be in position to do actual patrols,' Connie Hair said."
Australian kids conservative: "Adolescent angst is not what it used to be. A survey from the Australian Institute of Family Studies presents the current crop of teenagers as sane and sensible, with an utter absence of the angry self-indulgence the boomer generation made the measure of youth. Instead of denouncing capitalism, the survey found young people today are very keen to acquire capital - and lots of it. Instead of wanting to turn on, tune in and drop out, they are keen on sport and hobbies. Rather than getting wasted, they want to work.... And the survey is especially bad news for politicians whose stock in trade is contempt for traditional family values. Because the coming generation of voters is just not buying ancient, eccentric arguments that claim family life is for failures and making money is inherently evil. Certainly, this survey offers no evidence on the future political allegiances of today's teens. But it does suggest an eroding audience for people who bang on about abstract rights while ignoring the economic interests and social aspirations of young couples and their kids.
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).
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"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)
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