HOW SIMPLE IT IS!

In the debate over immigration reform in the United States, some citizens have called for a halt to illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border, while others contend it is impossible to completely stop the flow of poor migrants across the 3,000-km. (1,864-mile) line. But a new Border Patrol pilot program is showing that strict enforcement of existing U.S. immigration laws can have a dramatic effect.

The Del Rio sector of the U.S.-Mexico border runs for 288 kilometers (179 miles) along the Rio Grande River, which forms the boundary between Texas and Mexico. Since December of last year, the U.S. Border Patrol has tried a new program here that has curtailed both immigrant crossings and drug trafficking. With the cooperation of local law enforcement and U.S. attorneys in the area, the Border Patrol has sent hundreds of illegal entrants to be prosecuted for their crimes.

Under existing U.S. law, a person who enters the United States at any point other than an official port of entry is guilty of a misdemeanor and can be sentenced to up to six months in prison. In an interview, Del Rio Border Patrol spokesman Randy Clark said the threat of punishment has discouraged people from crossing here. "In our busiest station, where we once apprehended the most aliens, we are now close to 70 percent down for the month of May, when we compare it to 2005," he said. "For the period of the operation, which is December 2005 to present, we have noticed a 50 percent decline in the station, overall, for those six months."

Clark says the secret to the program's success is the application of existing law and the use of penalties spelled out in the statutes. In the Del Rio sector, agents have ended the so-called "revolving door" practice, whereby captured illegal immigrants were simply processed and sent back into Mexico, where they could then make another attempt at crossing. It has been common for Border Patrol agents to apprehend the same individual two or three times in the same day because of this practice.

More here. (Scroll down. Worth reading the lot)

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ELSEWHERE

Only whites can commit hate-crimes: "The pack of thugs who mugged and fatally beat a New Jersey man outside a Chelsea nightclub had robbed before, police sources said yesterday. "Get that white m----------r!" one of the attackers shouted before three of them surrounded Thomas Whitney Jr., 24, and threw the first punch, according to two women who saw the beating. Najib Noor, 19, punched Whitney in the head while Daryush Omar, 20, and Walliullah Hashimi, 22, kicked him as he lay bleeding on W. 19th St., not far from the Spy Club, where Whitney had been partying, prosecutors said. The trio then flipped the financial analyst over so they could rummage through his pockets and steal his wallet and cell phone, authorities said... Police said they didn't charge the three with a hate crime because the comment was seen as a way to identify a drunken mark, rather than a racial slur, police sources said. Omar and Noor are natives of Pakistan and Hashimi of Afghanistan".

French Protestants saved Jews in WW2: "The French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon played an extraordinarily courageous role in the second world war, providing sanctuary for thousands of Jews.... In an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the area's inhabitants were predominantly Protestant. The first Protestants in France had long suffered murder at the hands of their countrymen. Many fled the country. But here they clung tenaciously to their rocky territory - and their equally unshakable beliefs. The area became a sanctuary for the dispossessed. At the turn of the century they welcomed the impoverished children of newly industrialised France. In the 1930s it was refugees from the Spanish civil war - and then the Jews. "The key to their extraordinary behaviour during the war is their collective memory of their own persecuted past," says Sauvage. One pastor told him: "The Jews felt close to us, because we believed in the Old Testament and they were the people of the Old Testament.""

Lefty media declining: "About 70 reporters, editors, photographers and newsroom administrators have taken early retirement offers from The Washington Post Co. amid declining circulation at its flagship newspaper. About 100 employees outside the newsroom, such as those in The Washington Post's pressrooms or on the advertising staff, also took the offer, The Post announced in Thursday's editions. Circulation at The Washington Post and most daily newspapers has decreased in recent years as readers turn to television and the Internet for news. Daily circulation at The Post peaked at 832,232 in 1993. The Post's daily circulation for the first three months of this year averaged 690,700, the company reported last month... Several other newspapers are using buyouts or layoffs to cut costs. The New York Times Co. is cutting 700 company-wide jobs. Tribune Co., which publishes 11 newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, said last week that it would use layoffs to cut costs. Last year, Tribune newspapers eliminated 185 positions through buyouts and layoffs. This is The Post's second round of buyouts in the past three years, the newspaper reported."

Leftist ethics crumble: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has dropped her demand that Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., resign from the powerful House Way & Means Committee - in exchange for a promise from the Congressional Black Caucus that they won't campaign against her in advance of this fall's critical mid-term elections.... Pelosi had ordered Jefferson to step down last week after he was caught hiding $90,000 in alleged bribe money in his freezer, saying his resignation would be "in the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus."

Responsible lending to high-risk groups: "Black and Hispanic home buyers are more likely to pay high mortgage rates than white borrowers with similar credit ratings and income levels, an advocacy group found... The study, released Wednesday, found that blacks were 29 percent more likely to pay a high interest rate on a fixed-rate home purchase loan. A Hispanic borrower also was more likely to pay a high rate, it found.... "African Americans and Latinos are paying a premium for home loans because of the color of their skin," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau.... The center's data did not include all the factors used by lenders, such as a borrower's total debts, making the study's conclusions incomplete, said Doug Duncan of the Mortgage Bankers Association. He also questioned the ability of any national study to prove discrimination, which would require an analysis of specific lenders".

Surprise! African graft stings donors: "Uganda -- a small, poor country still best known for its infamous former dictator, Idi Amin -- isn't used to being first in much. But in the 1990s, it became the first African country to substantially bring down its AIDS rate. It has since become a darling of international donors, especially in the health sector. So no one was surprised when, in 2003, Uganda became one of the first countries to receive a multimillion-dollar grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. But three years later, the phrase 'Global Fund' has become synonymous with graft in Uganda. A government inquiry recently revealed that tens of millions of dollars of the country's Global Fund grants have gone missing, much of it plundered by high-ranking public officials."

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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FRENCH LEFTIST GETS IT RIGHT

The Socialist frontrunner to succeed French President Jacques Chirac, Segolene Royal, has broken ranks with her party by calling for a crackdown on youth crime - challenging the conservatives on their home turf. "We need a return to the heavy hand," Ms Royal said in a speech delivered in the north Paris suburbs, where an outbreak of street violence has raised fears of a repeat of last year's riots.

Unveiling a crime and security platform that is a break with the Socialists' normal emphasis on tolerance and funding for education, Ms Royal said the tough anti-crime policies of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy - the top conservative contender in next year's election - had failed to prevent an explosion of violence in poor French suburbs.

But in a break with the Socialists, who brand Mr Sarkozy as a hardliner, the mother of four called for "a much firmer approach" to young offenders. "The Left has long underestimated" the crime problem, she said. "Now is the time to tackle it head-on." Military-style academies could be set up for young offenders aged 16 or over, she suggested, steering troubled youths into aid work or apprenticeships, and teaching them "how to behave ascitizens".

For younger offenders, parents would be enrolled in compulsory courses at the first sign of trouble, with social benefits scrapped for those who failed to bring their children into line. Troublemakers under 16 should be removed from school and put in special boarding schools under close supervision by teachers, sports workers and volunteers.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

The big powers united on Iran: "World powers stood shoulder to shoulder yesterday in the clearest sign yet of unity on how to deal with Iran's determination to master nuclear technology. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, just 24 hours after announcing the US would consider direct talks with Tehran for the first time in more than 25 years, joined her counterparts in Vienna to strike the most significant deal yet to try to force Iran's hand. The US, with five other world powers and the European Union, agreed to offer Tehran incentives if it halted its drive for nuclear enrichment, but also threatened unspecified "further steps in the Security Council" if Iran refused. But after months of tortuous diplomacy, perhaps more telling than the communique from the US, Britain, Germany, France, China and Russia was the image of representatives of the world's most powerful nations standing together to deliver it.

Illegals and sex crimes: "Based on a one-year in-depth study, a researcher estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants. She found that while the offenders were located in 36 states, most were in states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. California had the most offenders, followed by Texas, Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Florida. Schurman-Kauflin concluded that, based on a figure of 12 million illegal immigrants and the fact that more of this population is male than average, sex offenders among illegals make up a higher percentage than offenders in the general population. She arrives at the figure of 240,000 offenders - a conservative estimate, she says - through public records showing about 2 percent of illegals apprehended are sex offenders".



Why Japanese don't like "Americans" (See picture) in their country: "A court has convicted an American sailor of killing a Japanese woman during a robbery near Tokyo and sentenced him to life in prison. A court in the port city of Yokohama convicted Seaman William Reese, 22, who had been based aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, of robbing Yoshie Sato and beating her to death on January 3. Reese pleaded guilty but said he had not intended to kill the woman. Nearly 50,000 US military personnel are stationed in Japan under a bilateral security treaty, and issues of crime, pollution and noise associated with the US bases make them highly unpopular with locals. Concerns boiled over into large protests after three US servicemen raped a schoolgirl on the southern island of Okinawa in 1995, but tensions have cooled in recent years."

Homeland "security": "The [British] Halle Orchestra recently cancelled a tour to America after being told that all 120 members would have to report in person to the American Embassy in London, at an allotted time early one morning, and pay 63 pounds for the privilege. No, said embassy officials regretfully, it would not be possible for one member of the orchestra to visit in person, presenting everyone's passport. Given that the orchestra is based in Manchester, this would have meant hiring two coaches and finding overnight accommodation for all 120 players. Bewildered by the rules, the orchestra cancelled the American visit".

Agonizing over raid on corrupt black: "It's been amusing to watch Congress fret over the FBI's decision to raid the office of their colleague, Rep. William Jefferson. Current Speaker Dennis Hastert called it 'the wrong path,' and has demanded a return of the documents seized. An unnamed member told the Washington Post that the tactics was 'unduly aggressive.' Rep. John Conyers called the raid 'an act of tremendous violence.' On Tuesday, Rep. James Sensenbrenner held hearings titled, 'Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?' At those hearings, Sensenbrenner announced his intention to introduce legislation protecting Congress from future, similar police searches. Funny. Congress -- especially GOP leaders like Hastert and Sensenbrenner -- don't seem nearly as concerned when much more violent, confrontational raids happen to their own constituents."

Fat liar sued: "By the time Iraq war veteran Sergeant Peter J. Damon learned he was an unwitting star in Michael Moore's 2004 movie 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' he already had a lot of explaining to do. Relatives wanted to know why the 33-year-old Damon, a staunch supporter of the war effort and President Bush, agreed to be in a movie that was harshly critical of both, his lawyer said yesterday. Friends wanted to know why Damon, who lost both his arms in a helicopter repair accident, was portrayed as a veteran who had been left behind when, in fact, military medical personnel had helped him learn to use his artificial arms and veterans groups had helped build his family a new house in Middleborough, the lawyer said. This week, Damon sued Moore and several film production companies for $85 million and plans to tell a jury exactly what he told his friends and relatives: that Moore included him in the movie without his permission and misrepresented his stand on the war, said his lawyer, Dennis Lynch."

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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BEATING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH A FEATHER

Ann Coulter explains. Excerpt:

The "path to citizenship" that Bush and the Senate are trying to pawn off on Americans requires that illegals pay huge fines and back taxes, with "huge" being defined as a $2,000 fine and taxes for three of the last five years. Even with the special "Two Years Tax-Free" package for illegals, this is about as likely as me paying my dad back the money I "borrowed" from him when I was in college.

We're told illegal immigrants are dying to pay taxes if only they can become citizens. Oh, by the way, they also will have a panoply of government benefits available to them if they become citizens - in fact, even if they get green cards. They're probably unaware of this and are just dying to send half their paychecks to the government just like us shiftless, lazy Americans.

Inasmuch as most of these low-skilled immigrant workers are in the 0 percent tax bracket, this should be a real boon for the U.S. Treasury. Indeed, the government may end up paying the illegals money: "Let's see, Juan. According to our records, you owe us 0 percent for the past three years, and because you qualify for the earned-income tax credit, we actually owe you! Are 20s OK?"

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ELSEWHERE

General Motors is in financial difficulties at the moment as a result of past bad decisions so the NYT has seized the opportunity to promote their anti-business agenda by attacking GM. GM have however given a very sane and factual reply here

Chinese and Vietnamese ballots for Boston: "State and city election officials urged lawmakers yesterday to quickly back a bill that would permit Boston to print ballots for state and federal elections in Chinese and Vietnamese. Secretary of State William F. Galvin and Boston Election Department chairwoman Geraldine Cuddyer asked members of the Legislature's Election Laws Committee to recommend the legislation to the full House. The bill stems from a September settlement between the city of Boston and the US Department of Justice requiring the state and city to provide ballots in those languages for non-English speaking voters."

Ben Shapiro on the MSM: "The mainstream press is worried about what it has always been worried about: maintaining its own status. Mainstream media breathlessly await reports of atrocities by Americans because media outlets gain authority by attacking governmental authority. It wasn't enough for Time magazine to turn over its information on the alleged massacre to the military; it had to "alert the public." This story isn't about alleged misconduct -- it's about the press feting its own bravery for exposing what should have remained private. This is what the press has done for decades. Since the advent of television, media outlets have been engaged in a systematic attempt to tear down the credibility of the United States government in order to bolster their own authority. "You can't trust the government," the media says, "but you can trust us." The Vietnam War became more about journalists (Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite) than about a war for the survival of liberal democracy in Southeast Asia. The welfare of the troops took a back seat to the press' sense of its own importance. It is a happy accident of history that this ongoing ego trip began after the rise of Hitler, or Nazism might well remain the dominant ideology on the European continent."

British government won't use its own mail service: "Government departments are being told to stop sending letters via the Royal Mail because it does not offer the same value for money as its rivals, despite its huge subsidies. The Government wants to cut 30 million pounds from the cost of delivering post and is urging departments and councils to consider using one of the eight private-sector suppliers. The news comes two weeks after the Royal Mail said the Government had given it 1.75 billion pounds in emergency help to plug its pension fund deficit and pay for modernisation."

"Diversity" not good for happiness: "It is an uncomfortable conclusion from happiness research data perhaps - but multicultural communities tend to be less trusting and less happy. Research by the Home Office suggests that the more ethnically diverse an area is, the less people are likely to trust each other. The Commission for Racial Equality has also done work looking at the effect of diversity on well-being. Interviewed on The Happiness Formula, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips accepts that people are happier if they are with people like themselves. "We've done work here which shows that people, frankly, when there aren't other pressures, like to live within a comfort zone which is defined by racial sameness. "People feel happier if they're with people who are like themselves"

Interesting point: "This column has not been kind to the Da Vinci Code, but it strikes me that there is a useful lesson to be derived from Dan Brown's fiction. His idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, a line of descent ending up with gorgeous Parisian police cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), shows the wisdom of the Catholic Church in insisting on priestly celibacy. Where families and power meet, dynasties are created; and where dynasties are created, rivalries abound; and where rivalries abound, killing and war ensue. The history of Christianity has been bloody enough as it is; imagine what it would be like if Christ really had had children. Actually, you don't need to imagine it - you can simply study the history of Islam. Because Mohammed had many wives and many children (though no surviving son), there was, almost from the beginning, a dispute about who was rightful successor (caliph). That is why Sunnis and Shias fight one another to this day. For his next novel, Brown should "uncover" an amazing Muslim conspiracy to conceal the fact that Mohammed had no children and that the early caliphs made it up. That should do a roaring trade at airport bookstalls."

Christians Under Siege in Kosovo: "While the U.S. fights Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. and the United Nations are helping allies of Muslim terrorists come to power in Kosovo, a province of Serbia. This is a foreign policy disaster in the making that you should hope and pray gets some immediate attention from the media. To illustrate the dimensions of the problem, Father Keith Roderick of Christian Solidarity International has testified that Albanian Muslims in Kosovo have been systematically destroying Christian churches and other sites in Kosovo and the Serbian Christian population in the province is being "squeezed down to oblivion."

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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THE CRUMBLING GOP BASE

Some words of warning from Jeff Jacoby. Excerpts:

How disgruntled is the party's base? In recent polls, fewer than 70 percent of registered Republicans said they approve of the way President Bush is handling his job, a sharp drop from the 90 percent support on which he once could count. Among self-identified conservatives, Bush's standing is even lower: Just 51 percent rate his performance favorably, according to the latest New York Times/CBS poll. At a time when the president's support among Democrats has shrunk to single digits, and when only 1 independent in 4 gives him a positive job rating, the last thing he can afford to lose is the goodwill of his core supporters. But he is losing it.

And Congress is doing even worse. According to the most recent CBS News poll, while 59 percent of the public disapproves of the way the House and Senate are functioning, the figure among Republicans is 62 percent. Read that again: Republicans dislike the Republican-controlled Congress even more than Democrats and independents do....

Many on the right are no less acid in describing Bush. One conservative commentator described him recently as a "dime-store Democrat" and "something of an embarrassment" and wrote that "a Republican president and a Republican Congress have lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc." It says something about Bush's willingness to listen to such criticism that the author of those words -- Tony Snow -- has just become the White House spokesman.

Reaganite conservatives have been the mainstay of the GOP for more than 20 years, and many of them are disgusted with the abandonment of Reaganite principles at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. If they had wanted skyrocketing budgets, new federal bureaucracies, more regulation of political speech, and stalemates on immigration, energy, and Social Security, they say, they would have voted for Democrats. Instead they voted for Republicans -- and what did they get? Skyrocketing budgets, new federal bureaucracies, more regulation of political speech, and stalemates on immigration, energy, and Social Security...

For the party's Reaganite core, the list of outrages is a long one, everything from steel tariffs to McCain-Feingold to gasoline demagoguery. Most troubling of all has been the explosive growth in the size and cost of government. On Bush's watch, the federal budget has grown twice as fast as during the Clinton years. Expenditures this year will come to nearly $24,000 per household -- the most, in real terms, since World War II. Not since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House has spending soared so recklessly.

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ELSEWHERE

Anything to shock: "Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations from 16 to 12 and the legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage. The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its web site it would be officially registered tomorrow, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!" The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether. "A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper. "We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion," he said, adding the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighbouring Belgium. "We want to get into Parliament so we have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals," Van den Berg said... The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public and promotes legalising all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all."

Immigration cowardice: ""The Senate isn't serious about enforcing the nation's immigration laws. It is bad enough that the bill that 39 Democrats and 23 Republicans just voted to pass provides an amnesty to illegal immigrants already here. There might be an argument for doing that if there were any evidence of a commitment to enforce the immigration laws in the future. But the bill actually prohibits local police from enforcing civil violations of immigration laws-which in practice, given the byzantine rules distinguishing between civil and criminal violations of those laws, will get local police out of the enforcement business altogether. No serious effort is being made to make the bureaucracy capable of the enforcement tasks that will now be asked of them, such as performing background checks on the illegal population. The bill forbids the federal government to use any information included in an application for amnesty in national-security or criminal investigations. Any federal agent who does use that information would be fined $10,000-which is five times more than an illegal alien would have to pay to get the amnesty... The Senate should stand down in favor of the House's enforcement-first approach, not the other way around. But it would be much better to enact no bill than to enact the Senate bill."

Bloated and overpaid U.S. Federal bureaucracy: "Compensation for the federal government's 1.9 million civilian workers in the executive branch costs almost $200 billion annually. Federal wages and benefits have been rising quickly, and by 2004 the average compensation of federal workers was almost twice the average in the private sector.... The average federal worker earned $100,178 in wages and benefits in 2004, which compared to $51,876 for the average private-sector worker, according to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. Looking just at wages, federal workers earned an average $66,558, 56 percent more than the $42,635 earned by the average private worker."

More of Britain's very selective law-enforcement: "Thousands of illegal immigrants are being issued with national insurance numbers every year even though officials know that they have suspect immigration documents. Staff in Jobcentres have been told that they have a duty to issue an NI number even if they realise that the applicant has forged documents and no legal right to work, official papers seen by The Times reveal. The NI number, which employers regard as a prerequisite to work, can also be used to claim various benefits."

A notorious British failure to die at last: "The Child Support Agency will be scrapped this summer and replaced with a pared-down operation to collect cash from the most hardened absent fathers who refuse to pay maintenance. The Times has learnt that, in future, separating parents will be told to sort out their own financial arrangements with the help of national guidelines on appropriate levels of child maintenance. Cash incentives may even be offered to couples for staying away from the new, slimmed-down agency. The decision to abolish the CSA, which has been plagued with problems since it was set up in 1993, is an admission by the Government that it is unable to deal with the scale of the problem of maintenance payments after family break-up."

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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MORE GOOGLE SHENANIGANS?

I can post at the moment only from my old computer with a dialup connection. I just get an error message when I try to post from my normal broadband computer. Has my normal address been banned? It seems like it. I have purged cookies but that does not help.

Sunday Night with "Don Giovanni"

A small memoir of a pleasant evening last Sunday (28th. May):

Even in quiet little old Brisbane, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart is a big deal -- with many concerts in celebration being put on. The latest one that I attended -- last Sunday -- was a concert performance of the famous opera "Don Giovanni".

Anne and I went with another couple, Jill and Lewis. Jill is actually an ex-girlfriend of mine but in my usual way I have kept in touch with her. We have a very similar love of music -- which is a very significant bond. Both Anne and Lewis put up with that past with good grace as they understand the nature of the bond.

Before the concert I made a simple dinner of sandwiches for us all -- thick-cut Gypsy ham with American mustard, lettuce and tomato -- on fresh grain bread. Being a sandwich-lover, I know how to make a good sandwich -- though that is about the limit of my culinary talents. We had planned to have the sandwiches in the park adjoining the concert venue but the weather looked a bit overcast so we had them on my verandah

As a concert performance, the sets for the opera were minimal but the costumes were reasonable and the singing was good. As always, I particularly liked the bass singer (Don Pedro), who was very competent.

It did however have the casting problem that plagues all opera: Singers wildly out of character but chosen for their voices -- as it has to be, of course. On this occasion, Don Giovanni was a quite insignificant guy and not at all convincing as a great lover -- but he had an excellent baritone. And in an amusing reversal, instead of large and aging ladies being cast as young girls, we had a young girl cast as an older woman!

The concert was in one of Brisbane's old powerhouses, converted some years ago into a performing arts centre now that Brisbane gets its electricity from vast generators situated alongside equally vast central Queensland coalfields. The conversion into an arts centre deliberately retained a fair bit of the original powerhouse interior. The idea of that was undoubtedly "arty" but it works well enough and I of course am very much in favour of retaining reminders of how we all got to where we are today.

The most surprising thing about the night was the audience. Far from being geriatric, there were people there of all ages, with a good representation of young people. I like to think that we have the universal appeal of Mozart to thank for that.

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BRITISH ACADEMICS' VOTE OF SHAME

(Post lifted from Norm Geras)

NATFHE has today voted to blacklist Israeli academics:

The largest university and college lecturers' union in Britain on Monday voted in favor of a motion recommending that its members boycott Israeli academics and institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the territories. The motion passed with 106 in favor and 71 against. There were 21 abstentions. The 69,000-member National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) debated the proposal for the boycott at its annual conference in the northern English city of Blackpool. Two parts of the motion passed with a show of hands while a third went to a vote. Under the boycott, union members also will not submit articles to Israeli research papers.

The report in Haaretz goes on to quote Paul Mackney, NAFTHE general secretary, as saying:

Criticizing the Israeli government does not make me anti-Semitic...

Fancy footwork there, Paul, but not good enough. A blacklist of individuals isn't 'criticism' of their government; and the issue isn't whether you, personally, are an anti-Semite, but whether a policy of targeting the academics of one and only one country - Israel - is anti-Semitic. There's also the small matter of an academic union requiring of people a political declaration as a precondition of their being extended the usual courtesies and advantages of scholarly cooperation. What a disgrace to the profession the NATFHE decision is.

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Brookes News Update

Are dark clouds forming over the US economy?: How has the US economy roared ahead while undergoing a monetary slowdown? I think the answer lies in President Bush's cut to capital gains taxes. Nevertheless, though a recession can be delayed it cannot be avoided
Savings, jobs and Professor Quiggin's bad economics: The absurd and long-ago discredited economic fallacy that taxation can expand the demand for labour by putting the unemployed on the public payroll is reemerging
Liberal Party trips up on labour market reform: Who the hell is advising the Liberal Party on labour markets? It seems that not a single Liberal Party official has a clue about how these markets function
Google censors critic of Islamofascism: The well-known columnist Arlene Peck has been censored by Google for "hate speech". And what did this speech consist of? Criticizing ACLU and the US-based Muslim organization CAIR that is allegedly the `legal arm' of HAMAS, an Islamofascist terrorist organisation
Lefty journalist bashes Republicans as "reactionary" over illegal immigration: Stephen Ellis, US correspondent for Murdoch's `Australian' seems to think that the debate about illegal immigration that is now raging in the US is a handy weapon to bash Republicans with by referring to the so-called "reactionary wing of the party" that opposes open borders
Leftwing journalist slimes US conservatives on civil rights: According to Elliott the Democrats has always been the `traditional supporters of minorities `. This is pretty rich as well as being lousy history when one considers that the Republican Party was the Party of abolition and the Dems were the slave Party
Journalists smear President Bush over NSA spying program: It's reached the point where no reasonably informed person can take the media seriously any more, at least as a source for news. Anyone who values honest reporting can only be appalled at the bigotry and out right dishonesty of leftwing journalists
The latest dangers in cyberworld: The problem is mySpace.com, a supposedly innocuous Internet website where people can post their pictures, chat, and post their musings about the universe. The trouble is, mySpace attracts individuals who want to sexually exploit teenagers

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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Smart army man trumps scare-mongering media



An Australian military commander has tried to ensure truth does not become a casualty of conflict in East Timor, but embarrassed a TV network in the process. Australian commander in East Timor Brigadier Michael Slater appeared this morning in a live cross from Dili to the Nine Network's Today show, with helmeted and heavily armed Australian soldiers standing behind him. He was pressed by Today host Jessica Rowe about whether Dili really was as safe as the Australian military claimed, given the presence of armed soldiers at his shoulder. Pausing briefly, Brig Slater replied: "Jessica I feel quite safe, yes, but not because I've got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good. "I don't need these guys here. "It is not safe on the streets, as it is back home in Sydney or Brisbane - no it's not, if it was we wouldn't be here. But things are getting better every day."

Rowe apologised, saying she didn't realise the guards had been placed specifically for the interview. But Rowe ran into more trouble when she persisted with her line of questioning, and referred to footage of looting and violence. Brig Slater told her the pictures were a "couple of days old". TV rival the Seven Network gleefully circulated grabs of the interview this morning.

Source

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The war on poverty: "Four decades after President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964 it remains a compelling need in America. The US Census Bureau still measures poverty in great detail, and the total number of people living in poverty during each of the past 40 years has remained stubbornly high. After hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent to aid impoverished Americans, the conventional wisdom is that more than 35 million are still without adequate income. Conventional wisdom describes the 'poor' as a large and persistent group of families and individuals left out of the economic success of America. Enduring debilitating poverty, the poor -- a group of individuals larger than California's entire population -- are entitled to political advocates, specially funded programs, and government bureaucracies to coordinate benefits. Fortunately for America, the basic description of the poor is wrong. And therefore public policy based upon an aggregate view of poverty is inherently misinformed."

The death of the nation-state: "The disintegration of Yugoslavia, the second partition of Czechoslovakia and the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 nations -- many of which had never before existed -- seem to confirm what Israeli historian Martin van Creveld and U.S. geostrategist William Lind have written. The nation-state is dying. Men have begun to transfer their allegiance, loyalty and love from the older nations both upward to the new transnational regimes that are arising and downward to the sub-nations whence they came, the true nations, united by blood and soil, language, literature, history, faith, tradition and memory. Imperial and ideological nations appear, for the foreseeable future, to be finished."

Federal Government regulations Created Hawaii's Asphalt Shortage: "An article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on Tuesday May 16, 2006 is a study in economics and the results of government interference in the marketplace. Detailing the shortage of asphalt the article reveals that government is, in fact, the cause of the shortage. The problem is that there are only two oil refineries in Hawaii and one of them, Chevron, has stopped producing asphalt. The reason given for this is that "the federal government is requiring refiners to produce gasoline and diesel that have a lower sulfur content" so Chevron has switched to a lighter type of crude oil. Tesoro, the company that owns the other refinery in the state, is waiting for a shipment of the proper type of crude to then produce the needed liquid asphalt. In the meantime the city of Honolulu has stopped repairing potholes and several projects around the state are on hold. Companies dependent upon asphalt for their products are closing and employees are being laid off."

This was written in the 18th century!: "There are no more Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, even Englishmen, nowadays, regardless of what people may say; there are only Europeans. All have the same tastes, the same passions, the same morals, because none has been given a national form by a distinctive institution. All will do the same things under the same circumstances; all will declare themselves disinterested and be cheats; all will speak of the public good and think only of themselves; all will praise moderation and wish to be Croesuses; they have no other ambition than for luxury, no other passion than for gold. Confident that with it they will have whatever tempts them, all will sell themselves to the first man willing to pay them. What do they care what master they obey, the laws of what State they follow? Provided they find money to steal and women to corrupt, they are at home in any country."

Second-rate British academics attack Israel: "The British government regrets the decision by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) to vote in favor of boycotting Israeli academics and institutions, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Lord Triesman said Monday. "The British Government has a record of supporting academic freedom for academics throughout the world. We also recognize the independence of NATFHE. We believe that such academic boycotts are counterproductive and retrograde. Far more can be obtained through dialogue and academic cooperation," a statement read".

Iraq Less Violent than Washington, D.C. : "Despite media coverage purporting to show that escalating violence in Iraq has the country spiraling out of control, civilian death statistics complied by Rep. Steve King, R-IA, indicate that Iraq actually has a lower civilian violent death rate than Washington, D.C. ... Using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research, King said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000. While that number sounds high - astonishingly, the Iowa Republican discovered that it's significantly lower than a number of major American cities, including the nation's capital. "It's 45 violent deaths per 100,000 in Washington, D.C.," King told Crowley. Other American cities with higher violent civilian death rates than Iraq include: Detroit - 41.8 per 100,000; Baltimore - 37.7 per 100,000"

There is a revealing, though somewhat dated, comment on "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan here

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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ALICE IN AMERICALAND

Some excerpts:

The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for informing our terrorist enemies who want to kill us that our government was listening to their cell phone calls. A prize? For aiding and abetting the enemy during wartime? The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that the CIA held terrorists in "secret prisons" in Europe. The problem is, the same newspaper has since reported that Europeans investigated and found zero evidence that any secret prisons ever existed.

The U.S. Senate is cracking down on illegal immigration with a new law that will allow merely 193 million aliens into the country over the next 20 years. That should solve the problem, since we've had only 12 million illegals sneak into the country over the past 20 years. This way we can increase the flow by 171 million simply by making it legal. That should be a big boost to the school and health care systems, to say nothing of rush-hour traffic.

Iran, which wants to become a nuclear power, says the U.S. is the great Satan and that Israel should be wiped off the map. So we have turned the matter over to the United Nations and its courageous corps of foppish European diplomats, Third World crooks and assorted despots and dictators. If this isn't Alice in Wonderland thinking, what is?...

The ACLU has announced that no one should think it's launching a war on Christianity, despite filing lawsuits for decades from coast to coast to remove any reference to God, bar any utterance about Jesus and prohibit any instruction concerning the Lord from every public venue.

Vanity Fair's magazine cover headline insists global warming is a worse threat than terrorism, despite the fact so-called global warming may have managed to heat the earth all of one degree Fahrenheit over the last century, and fluctuated far more radically hundreds and thousands of years ago, long before factories or SUVs....

Democrat Party chief Howard Dean says his party has evangelical Christian values, even though they are for males committing sodomy with other males, women marrying women, men marrying men, children being raised without a mother or without a father if one of the spouses wants it that way, mothers killing their babies if they don't wish to be bothered by them, cloning humans to destroy them and then harvest their parts, keeping cold-blooded murderers alive, enforcing "charity" by taking your money at gunpoint and giving it to someone else, trying to understand people who have sworn to kill us, keeping God out of schools where children might hear about Him and extending the rights of law-abiding citizens to law-breaking foreigners.

On second thought, I'll keep reading my granddaughter Alice in Wonderland. She's got a really good imagination, but this other stuff is just too hard to believe.

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Socialist Britain: "The growth in public spending in northern areas of Britain is so rampant that it is resulting in the "sovietisation" of swathes of the country, new figures show. Gordon Brown, the chancellor, has pushed up national public spending beyond the levels of former communist countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.... The "sovietisation" of parts of Britain as a result of Brown's huge increases in public spending looks even more dramatic when the figures are adjusted for comparison with other countries. On this basis, public spending is equivalent to 76.2% of the size of the Northern Ireland economy this year, 66.2% in Wales, 64.9% in the northeast, 57.7% in Scotland and 56.1% in the northwest. This compares with 56.1% in high-spending Sweden, 54.1% in France, 51.9% in former communist Hungary, 51.5% in Denmark, 46% in Germany, 42.6% in the Czech Republic, 41.2% in Poland and 36.3% in Slovakia. Sir Digby Jones, director- general of the CBI, the employers' organisation, said that he was increasingly concerned about the "crowding out" of the private sector by a rapidly expanding public sector. "I'm very, very worried about this," he said. "The private sector is responsible for around 62% of GDP in China - a communist, totalitarian regime." In the northeast of "the fifth largest economy in the world" there is a mirror image, he pointed out, with the public sector responsible for nearly 62% of GDP."

'Alimony' coming for unmarried in Britain: "Unmarried couples who live together for more than two years are to be given new legal and financial rights under official proposals to be unveiled this week, write Isabel Oakeshott and John Elliott. Under the Law Commission plans, cohabiting couples will be entitled to lump sums and annual maintenance payments if they split up, and some inheritance benefits in the event of a death. The changes were criticised by the Church of England, which said it was concerned by any proposals that could "undermine the gift of marriage".

Charley Reese on "reparations": "I don't feel guilty about slavery. I don't feel guilty about the fate of Native Americans. In fact, I don't feel guilty about anything that happened prior to the date of my birth. I never owned a slave or desired to, nor did I ever shoot an Indian and steal his land. I say this because there are a lot of special-interest groups trying to lay guilt trips on Americans of European ancestry. That is nothing more than a con game. All we inherit from our ancestors are genes.... People who never owned slaves who apologize to people who were never slaves only succeed in making public fools of themselves. Our ancestors don't give half a cow pie what we think of them. People who were never slaves and want people who never owned slaves to pay them money are just trying to pull off a con job. Good luck if they can find somebody stupid enough to fall for it.

Walter Williams on "reparations": "But, in the recognition Europeans themselves have been victims of various and sundry human rights violations to wit: the Norman Conquest, the Irish Potato Famine, Decline of the Hapsburg Dynasty, Napoleonic and Czarist adventurism, and gratuitous insults and speculations about the intelligence of Europeans of Polish descent, I, Walter E. Williams, do declare full and general amnesty and pardon to all persons of European ancestry, for both their own grievances, and those of their forebears, against my people. Therefore, from this day forward Americans of European ancestry can stand straight and proud knowing they are without guilt and thus obliged not to act like damn fools in their relationships with Americans of African ancestry."

George Will on the Leftist "plantation": "The unbearable boredom occasioned by most of today's talk about race is alleviated by a slender, stunning new book. In "White Guilt," Shelby Steele, America's most discerning black writer, casts a cool eye on yet another soft bigotry of low expectations-the ruinous "compassion" of a theory of social determinism that reduces blacks to, in Steele's word, "non-individuated" creatures. That reduction is the basis of identity politics-you are your (racial, ethnic, sexual) group. A pioneer of this politics, which is now considered "progressive," was, Steele says, George Wallace. He, too, insisted that race is destiny.

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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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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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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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).

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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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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?

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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).

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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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