Brookes News Update

Hillary Clinton's treasonous record on national defence: Does anyone really believe Hillary Clinton has changed? Does anyone think that if she were president she would not bring in the same ratbag America-haters as before with all that that entails
Medieval booms and historical and economic amnesia: According to Alan Wood of The Australian Robert Shiller has discovered what causes the boom-and-bust cycle. Its newspapers! Unfortunately for Mr Shiller and his media admirers booms and busts were also a feature of late Medieval Europe long before the appearance of newspapers
How Edmund S. Phelps, Nobel Prize winner, got it wrong on stagflation: Phelps chose to stick to the current bankrupt economic framework on stagflation. Contrary to orthodox economic thinking we suggest that his amendments have done nothing to further our understanding of such economic conditions as stagflation
Monopsony v labour: our rightwing lets us down again: Once again our rightwing screws up the case for deregulated labour markets. Incredible as it may seem, they actually supported the unions claim that the market place keeps wages and employment lower than they would otherwise be. Therefore unions should be allowed to correct this situation
Allah is dead: Islam is so debased that it is irretrievable. Christianity will survive and triumph because the nexus between God and Man is Mans Essence, that which makes him both human and in the image and likeness of God his capacity for reason and rational self-examination
Mark Foley scandal reveals Democrats double standards: Republicans caught in sex scandals either resign or are voted out of office. Democrats caught in sex scandals stay in office and are re-elected time and time again by their constituents. In the case of Mel Reynolds, he got a get out of jail free card from Clinton
Deconstructing Bill Clinton: Clinton knows that he is an intellectual and moral sham and that there are moral absolutes

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Ayn Rand prize. Note that entries for the Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize close on 19th November 2006. Contestants are invited to submit essays under the title "The Achievements of Ayn Rand". Essay Length: 2000 words excluding notes. The prize will be 1000 pounds. The winner will be announced at the Libertarian Alliance Conference, which will take place in London this coming 25-26 November 2006 at the National Liberal Club in London: Send entries by e-mail to sean@libertarian.co.uk

UK Muslim veil row teacher loses case: "A British tribunal ruled that a Muslim teaching assistant had not been discriminated against when the school where she worked asked her to remove her veil. The case of 24-year-old Aishah Azmi against Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire, northern England, has attracted nationwide interest after former foreign minister Jack Straw said Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations difficult."

Government benefits boost French fertility: "While falling birthrates threaten to undermine economies and social stability across much of an aging Europe, French fertility rates are increasing. . . . France heavily subsidizes children and families from pregnancy to young adulthood with liberal maternity leaves and part-time work laws for women. The government also covers some child-care costs of toddlers up to 3 years old and offers free child-care centers from age 3 to kindergarten, in addition to tax breaks and discounts on transportation, cultural events and shopping."

More Democrat dishonesty: "Democrats in Congress bristle when Republicans accuse them of wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq. But in terms of the politics of the war, that's exactly what they're doing. Democrats have decided the Iraq conflict is one ugly baby, and they're right. But from their rhetoric and short memories, you'd never know they were directly involved in its conception. That became evident when Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, sat down for a meeting with the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. When asked what might happen in Iraq if Democrats reclaimed the House of Representatives next month, and possibly the White House in 2008, Davis tried to temper expectations by blaming Republicans for botching the war effort. "Well," she said, "you know, it's always difficult to clean up someone else's mess." Let's recap. A majority of Democrats in Congress voted to give President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq in 2002, and then voted -- more than once -- to continue to fund the effort.

Courts soft on terrorism: "The Democrats claim they want to treat terrorism as a criminal law problem, but when we give them an American citizen convicted of aiding terrorists -- as happened this week -- a Democrat judge gives her a slap on the wrist. Or he was going to give her a wrist slap until someone told him that wrist-slapping was banned under the Geneva Conventions, so he let the wrist off with a warning. Last year, a New York jury found Lynne Stewart guilty of helping her former client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with his Egyptian-based group of murderous terrorists, appropriately known as "the Islamic Group." The blind sheik needed to instruct his followers to abandon a truce and resume murdering innocents, but he couldn't get the message through because, by sheer coincidence, he was in prison for conspiring to murder innocents here in America by plotting the first World Trade Center bombing. So Stewart and a "translator" met with her former client in prison and took his messages for transmission to his followers in Egypt. With the full constitutional protections Democrats want for terrorists in Guantanamo, Stewart was convicted by a New York jury last year. This week, Judge John Koeltl -- appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1994 -- spurned the prosecution's request for a 30-year sentence and gave Stewart 28 months for being a terrorist's mule. Now she'll clog up the criminal justice system with endless appeals for the next several years -- using procedures that liberals also want for Guantanamo detainees."

BBC wastes public money: "The BBC's 18 million pound contract with Jonathan Ross is an indefensible use of licence-fee money, a leading talent agent said yesterday. Unjustifiable pay deals are creating an inflationary spiral among talent, according to Anita Land, who represents BBC presenters such as Jeremy Paxman and Louis Theroux. Mrs Land is the sister of Michael Grade, the BBC chairman. She is a showbusiness veteran with a reputation for tough bargaining and her decision to speak out over top broadcasters' pay will infuriate fellow agents. It also heaped more pressure on the BBC, which has been criticised for demanding an above-inflation licence-fee increase while paying commercial rates to retain star talent. Mrs Land wrote about Ross's 18 million deal - a three-year exclusive contract signed this year - in Shooting Stars, a compilation of essays about television talent. "It is difficult to justify such large sums," she said. "Frankly, I don't think Jonathan does deserve it; nobody in his position could deserve it. I am amazed the BBC managed to get away with it without landing more flak." Paxman earns about 100 pounds a minute for presenting Newsnight, where he enjoys a three-day week, and about 7,500 for each edition of University Challenge."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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A NICE PIECE OF SARCASM FROM BOORTZ:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is now claiming that there is a rise in anti-Muslim harassment and whatnot across the country, and it's all because of the Internet and talk radio! Now CAIR has launched a campaign that is "designed to counter anti-Muslim hate on radio talk shows." They're calling their campaign "Hate Hurts America"

Yeah ... right. It's all talk radio. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that in 50 different countries around the world you have Muslims involved in some sort of a shooting war with non-Muslims. Additionally, while it can certainly be said that not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists do seem to be Muslims.

Would you like to know a little bit more about this group ... CAIR ... that is calling out talk radio? Well, WorldNetDaily provided us with some interesting information last week. Just a few items from that story:

The CAIR board chairman is Omar Ahmad. In 1998 a California newspaper quoted Ahmad as declaring that the Quran should be America's highest authority. That would put the Constitution where? Second place? Third?

Ibrahim Hooper is the chief mouthpiece for CAIR. You'll see him on television from time to time. In 1993 the Minneapolis Star Tribune interviewed the loving, peaceful Ibrahim Hooper. During that interview Hooper is quoted as saying that he wants to see America become a Muslim country. Here's your quote:

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the paper. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

How nice. Well, that's what talk radio is doing, Mr. Hooper. Educating. Sorry you find that so troubling.

AND I GUESS THIS WAS TALK RADIO'S FAULT TOO:

Another story about the wonderful, loving, peaceful religion of Islam. This one from Australia's Gold Coast. It seems that Dr. Muhammad Hussain got just a little bit less than loving and peaceful when he learned that his 17-year-old daughter was going to convert to Christianity. Well, according to this story from the Herald Sun, when a son or daughter does something that is wrong for a Muslim, it is the child's mother who is automatically at fault. So, Dr. Hussain, a wonderful, peace-loving Muslim if ever there was one, took a knife and stabbed the girl's mother to death.

Now I'm sure that if CAIR were to go to Australia and investigate this incident they would find that some Australian radio talk show host was actually behind the entire bloody incident. The Quran does, by the way, state that anyone who leaves the Muslim faith must be killed. My guess is that part was written by a radio talk show host.

Source

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Stupid immigration bureaucracy: "Loling Song is one of thousands of immigrants each year whose permanent residency applications are held up because of FBI background checks. But in her case, that delay has consequences that go beyond a life held in limbo: Song, who was born in China, is a scientist at Harvard Medical School, and the recipient of a $750,000 grant for breast cancer research from the National Cancer Institute. Unless her application for permanent residency is approved by Nov. 30, Harvard Medical School will lose Song's research funding. The biophysicist sued officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI in US District Court in Boston last week to try to bring a successful conclusion to her quest for a green card, which began in April 2004."

Paying to be coerced: "Would you be outraged if you knew your taxpayer dollars were being used to lobby for more government subsidies and higher taxes? Well you should be, because that is exactly what is happening. Over the years there have been many cases of government agencies lobbying Congress for more funds and/or higher taxes. As a result of earlier abuses, Congress prohibited this misuse of taxpayer money but, unfortunately, the practice has not gone away."

End the farm dole once and for all: "A new program to require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay the cost of inspecting meat from emus and ostriches. A plan to spend $200 million to buy surplus cranberries, black-eyed peas, and other crops. A $100 million proposal for payments to producers of cottonseed. At this writing (June), these were among a bundle of agricultural subsidy schemes either passed by or under serious consideration in both houses of the U.S. Congress.... A funny thing happened on the way to a free market in farming. Commodity prices on world markets took a dip, farm-state interests started agitating again for bailouts, and our courageous Congress blinked. In 1999 federal payments to American agriculture soared to a record $22.7 billion-no less than three times what the figure was when the Freedom to Farm Act was passed in 1996. Quotas on foreign sugar already translate into a sugar tax of about $1 billion annually, paid for by every American consumer."

Permission to travel: "Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship? ('Mother, may I?')The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including charter flights, air taxis, fishing vessels, etc. -- be required to get individual permission ('clearance') from the DHS for each passenger on all flights or ocean voyages to, from, or via the USA. Unless the answer is 'Yes' -- if the answer is 'no' or 'maybe,' or if the DHS doesn't answer at all -- the airline wouldn't be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane."

Spinimum wage: "The blogger Max Sawicky has highlighted a letter being sent to economists. The letter asks them to sign and affirm the desirability of raising the minimum wage. Sad to see such an obviously bright gentleman pushing such profoundly silly economic nostrums. Raising the minimum wage is precisely and exactly what should not be done -- due both to predictable ill-effects and to the questionable morality of such an action."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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THOSE WHO WILL NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY.....

We read:

"Ned Lamont uses it in his Connecticut Senate race. President Clinton is scheduled to speak on the idea in Washington this week. Bob Casey Jr., Pennsylvania candidate for Senate, put it in the title of his talk at The Catholic University of America - then repeated the phrase 29 times. The term is "common good," and it's catching on as a way to describe liberal values and reach religious voters who rejected Democrats in the 2004 election. Led by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think-tank, party activists hope the phrase will do for them what "compassionate conservative" did for the Republicans. "It's a core value that we think organizes the entire political agenda for progressives," said John Halpin, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress."

What would Hitler have to say about that? We don't need to guess. The term can be translated into German as "Gemeinnutz" and that lovable German-speaking rogue used the term a lot -- as encapsulating what HE stood for: "Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz!" was one of his great slogans ("Common use before personal use!", literally).

And who preceded Hitler in such ideas? Friedrich Engels (Karl Marx's co-author) at one stage ran a publication called Gemeinnuetziges Wochenblatt ("Common-use Weekly"). The Democrats sure make it clear where they fit into history.

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"655,000 DEAD IRAQIS" FOLLOW-UP

Iraq Body Count have responded to the Lancet "survey" of Iraqi deaths. Excerpt: "Between January and June 2006, there were 91 violent deaths recorded by the Lancet survey. This would correspond to over 180,000 deaths in the first 6 months of 2006, and an average rate of 1,000 per day. The daily death rate over the same period based on UN reports (which sum Baghdad morgue and Ministry of Health data) is 80 violent deaths per day. Cumulated media reports provide a somewhat lower figure. If the Lancet extrapolation is sound, this would imply a further 920 violent deaths every day (1000 minus 80) which have been recorded by neither officials nor the media. As these are averages, some days would see many more deaths, and others substantially fewer, but in either case, all of them would remain unnoticed."

There is also an article by survey professional Steven Moore in the WSJ which points out how very strange the Lancet study was. Those guys were not even trying to do real research. It was just a propaganda circus. I strongly support Moore's point about the survey's lack of demographic information. That is so unthinkable in survey research that the article would never have been published in an academic journal that knew anything about survey research. The Lancet should stick to medicine.

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If you don't believe that the above is a real situation, read this

Doug Ross has some good graphs on the effects of the Bush tax cuts. They sure gave job-creators (investors) a lot more confidence -- as the stockmarket graph below shows:



Wal-Mart does China: "America's Wal-Mart Stores has agreed to acquire a Chinese supercentre chain for about $US1 billion ($1.33 billion) in a move that would give the world's largest retailer the biggest food and department store network in China, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The deal is for the 100 Chinese supercentres owned by Trust-Mart, a Taiwanese company, the paper reported in its online edition. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman declined to comment. If approved by Chinese regulators, the deal would push Wal-Mart past Carrefour for the most supercentres in China. Supercentres, also known as hypermarkets, are giant shops that sell a wide range of general food and merchandise.... Wal-Mart has made no secret of its ambitions in China. The retailer has said that its operations there could be as big as its US business in 20 years. Wal-Mart has more than 3700 US stores but only about 60 in China."

Political theatre: "Pennsylvania Republican congressional candidate Raj Peter Bhakta, demonstrated what a joke border security is by riding an elephant across the Rio Grande - with a mariachi band! (see his Fox News interview here.) Sure it's a stunt, but stunts matter, like the College Republican affirmative-action bake sales or Horowitz's "reparations are racist" ads. The Left has been better than us at political theater for a long time; maybe we're starting to catch up."

Leftist voting fraud in Britain: "Britain is to be investigated for the first time by the Council of Europe for alleged human rights breaches because of concerns over postal voting fraud. Scandals arising from Tony Blair's strategy to improve turnouts by giving everybody the right to vote by post risk placing Britain in the same league as newly toppled dictatorships. Bridget Prentice, the Constitutional Affairs Minister who has just steered an anti-fraud Bill through Parliament, reacted angrily, saying that the move was unnecessary, unwarranted and unfair... The final straw for Britain was the decision by a judge last year that widespread voterigging by Labour in Birmingham's local elections "would disgrace a banana republic".

More Leftist deceit: "Never play poker against Claire Shipman. Anyone who can keep a straight face while claiming that 'Women's Voices. Women Vote' is "non-partisan" could surely bluff you out of a pot while sitting on a busted flush. On this morning's Good Morning America, Shipman [or shall we call her 'DC Slim'?] narrated a segment spotlighting WVWV's efforts to get single women voters to the polls. Since it is obvious that single women lean heavily Dem, voting for Democrats by a more than 2/3 margin as Dem pollster Celinda Lake acknowledged, my BS-detector started screeching when I saw a straight-faced Shipman slip in her claim that WVWB is "non-partisan.".... The clincher? WVWV is a project of The Tides Foundation, the organization founded to promote a variety of leftist causes whose driving financial force is . . . Teresa Heinz Kerry. Some further digging reveals that WVWV is directly promoting leftist politics. On its FAQ page, WVWV suggests that people who want to get involved "download the National Council of Women's Organizations voter's guide." I did, and found a predictable compendium of leftist position-mongering on everything from affirmative action to abortion. Query whether promoting a partisan voter's guide bring's WVWV's non-partisan tax-exempt status into question."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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FABULOUS! LEFTIST DISHONESTY ON PROUD DISPLAY

Selectivity about the facts is the hallmark of Leftist discourse. They wax hysterical over things they think they can get mileage out of and ignore everything that undermines their false and simplistic accounts of the world.

There was a marvellous example of that in the world of global warming research recently. When a study came out which suggested that the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic was slowing down and that this might lead to disastrous cooling in Britain and North America, the media were all over it. (In the weird world of the Greenhouse religion, a slowdown of the Gulf stream proves global warming). But when two better studies came out recently which showed clearly that there had been NO slowdown in the Gulf stream, there was a deathly silence about it. The Left-leaning MSM did not want to know about it, even though they had covered the contrary story extensively. For all the general public are to know, they are all still in danger of freezing due to global warming (!).

And now in my own humble corner of the world I observe another instance of a Leftist ignoring anything that does not suit him. My post of 16th about the alleged 655,000 Iraqi deaths directly challenged a blogger at "Liberal Avenger" to respond because he has blogged extensively on the matter. He claims to show that all the criticisms of the study are insubstantial. So I sent him a link to my post to make sure that he knew of it.

The result? Deathly silence! An argument that upsets your views is ignored, not taken account of, in the heavily fortified mental fortress that is needed to sustain Leftism.

"Liberal Avenger" is however a group blog and one of the other bloggers there (probably the one I crossed swords with previously) HAS commented. He left a comment on the copy of my blog that I put up on Mens News Daily -- in which he directs attention to his own post on the matter. And his own post is VERY humble about the 655,000 claim! So it seems clear that the other would-be "Avenger" has actively chosen to ignore facts that do not suit him. Psychologists refer to such behaviour as the "Denial" defence-mechanism: Very maladaptive.

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ELSEWHERE

Lawsuit to stop illegals? "A federal judge has ruled that workers can file a class-action suit against Tyson Foods Inc. for depressing wages by hiring illegal aliens. Howard W. Foster, a Chicago lawyer for the Tyson employees, described the ruling in Winchester, Tenn., as a "very big step," allowing him to seek damages for thousands of workers at eight plants -- including one in Glen Allen, Va. -- instead of just the four original plaintiffs. The case, filed in 2002 under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), is one of a growing number across the nation challenging illegal aliens in the workplace. In August, a temporary agency in California sued its competitors under the state's unfair-competition laws. Mr. Foster has represented U.S. citizens seeking damages for wage depression caused by employment of illegal aliens in other cases, including one against Mohawk Industries and a class-action case against Zirkle Fruit Co., which has been settled."

Studds Had to Die to Get NBC to Recall His Sex with a Teen Page: "Gerry Studds had to die for NBC Nightly News to inform viewers of how the former Democratic Congressman had a sexual relationship with 17-year-old male congressional page, misconduct for which the House in 1983 censured him, but did not prompt Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill and other leaders to force his resignation -- nor raise calls for O'Neill's resignation. Despite the Democratic hypocrisy given their current calls for Speaker Hastert's resignation and investigations of who knew what and when about Mark Foley, Saturday night -- two weeks into the media-fueled scandal -- was the first time, according to Nexis, any NBC News program mentioned Studds' name."

An Islamic car!: "But perhaps most remarkable, given Iran's tumultuous relationship with the world in the past 25 years, is that its car industry has survived at all in a sector dominated globally by the same American behemoth that's sanctioned Iran since the US embassy siege in Tehran in 1979. Iran's car industry, employing 150,000 Iranians and comprising 4 per cent of its GDP, has survived, but it hasn't progressed. Indeed, there's a distinct retro air to Iranian traffic, where half the vehicles are jerry-built versions of the "National Car", the Paykan, a boxy knock-off of a 1960s Hillman Hunter in production for almost 40 years - with the emission standards of that era to boot.... Once proud symbols of progressive Islamic commerce, the [manufactuers have] become pariahs reduced by sanctions to scrounging parts to keep their 1970s era plants operating, with restricted access to markets, their cars a joke. "Paykan" is Farsi for arrow but it's hardly apposite. It splutters along Iran's snarled roads, lucky to reach 80kmh. It guzzles petrol at an appalling rate, about three kilometres a litre, though that's not much of an issue in a country where juice costs one-third the price of drinking water. Paykan exhaust has made Tehran one of the world's most polluted cities. Rare is the journey where a Paykan isn't seen hood-up with Iranian heads disappearing beneath the bonnet, or one being pushed to the side of the freeway"

Insane bureaucracy: "Federal safety rules are preventing wider use of a major advance in firefighting -- a jumbo jet modified to drop 10 times more flame retardant than the typical air tanker. The DC-10 first flew this fire season, opening its belly and releasing torrents of pink liquid in a spectacular string of sorties that helped halt blazes threatening state land in California and Washington. The aircraft is all but prohibited from federal land, however, meaning it cannot be dispatched over vast swaths of the West -- 50,000 square miles in California alone. The reason for the no-fly rule: The plane has not passed an extra U.S. Forest Service safety check. Federal officials say they are not sure when it will, because they have not received important performance data from the plane's private owners. ``What a horror story to see fires burning out of control and knowing that the aircraft aren't available,'' said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach".

Wal-Mart to take on NY: "After a number of false starts, Wal-Mart Stores is planning to launch in New York City--the five boroughs, and especially the juicy, consumer-driven world of Manhattan. "I think New York will be good for us, and we will be good for New York," says H. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO. And Philip Serghini, a company spokesman, says the nation's largest retailer is actively looking for sites in the five boroughs."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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NEW POLL: IMMIGRATION KEY ISSUE IN CONTESTED RACES

Public Wants Illegals to Go Home, Enforcement, No Immigration Increase

A new poll, using neutral language, finds intense voter concern over immigration in 14 tight congressional races. The surveys were conducted by the polling company inc. for the Center for Immigration Studies. In addition to a national survey, detailed polling on immigration was conducted in four contested Senate races: Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Montana; and in 10 contested House races: Arizona 5th, Connecticut 4th, Indiana 8th, Kentucky 4th, Pennsylvania 6th, Texas 17th, Louisiana 3rd, Georgia 8th, Colorado 7th, and Ohio 6th. The complete results are online at www.cis.org. Among the findings:

* Immigration is a big issue throughout the country. Of likely voters nationally, 53 percent said immigration was either their most important issue or one of their top three issues, while just 8 percent said it was not at all important. With the exception of CT-4th, in races surveyed only about 10 percent of voters said it was not important at all.

* When told numbers, voters want less immigration. When told the actual number of immigrants here (legal and illegal) and the number coming (legal and illegal), and asked to put aside the question of legal status, 68 percent of voters nationally thought immigration was too high, 21 percent about right, and just 2 percent thought it was too low. In every congressional race surveyed, the share who said overall immigration was too low was in the single digits.

* Voters less likely to vote for immigration-increasing candidates. Experts agree that the bill passed by the Senate earlier this year would at least double future legal immigration, yet 70 percent of voters said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who wanted to double legal immigration. Overwhelming majorities in every battleground race feel the same way.

* Voters reject both extremes -- legalization or mass deportations. Some previous polls have shown support for legalizing illegal immigrants. But those polls have given the public only a choice between large-scale deportations or ''earned legalization,'' and not the third choice of across-the-board enforcement, causing illegals to go home. This third option, which is the basis of the bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, is voters' top choice.

* House immigration plan by far the favorite. Enforcement approaches with no increase in legal immigration were the most popular policy option -- 44 percent wanted enforcement that causes illegals to go home, the House approach, and another 20 percent wanted large-scale deportations. Just 31 percent supported legalization of illegal immigrants.

* Intensity greater among enforcement supporters. Nationally, 32 percent of voters said they would be much more likely to vote for a candidate who would enforce the law and cause illegals to go home, compared to just 15 percent who said they would be much more likely to vote for a candidate who supports legalization. This same pattern holds in battleground House contests.

* Voters skeptical of need for unskilled immigrant labor. More than 70 percent of voters nationally agreed that there were ''plenty of Americans to do low-wage jobs that require relatively little education, employers just need to pay higher wages and treat workers better to attract Americans,'' compared to 21 percent who said we need immigrants because there were not enough Americans to do all such jobs. The results were very similar in all the contested states and districts surveyed.

* Voters think lack of enforcement is reason for illegal immigration. Three out of four voters in the nation agreed that the reason we have illegal immigration is that past enforcement efforts have been ''grossly inadequate.'' Voters strongly reject the argument that illegal immigration is caused by overly restrictive legal immigration policies. Strong majorities in every battleground contest surveyed felt this way.

* Numbers make a difference. One key finding is that when told the scale of immigration (legal and illegal), voters overwhelmingly thought it was too high. Also, when told how much the Senate bill would increase legal immigration, voters tended to reject it. This would seem to undermine the argument that voters are only concerned about illegality and not the level of immigration. The levels of immigration used in the questions are those widely agreed upon by experts based on government data.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



China Hand has just put up some photos of spectacular scenery in China. Remarkably beautiful.

Leftist eugenics lives on: "The North Korean regime's obsession with racial purity has led to the killing of disabled infants and forced abortions for women suspected of conceiving their babies by Chinese fathers, according to a growing body of testimony from defectors. The latest description of Kim Jong-il's policy of state eugenics came from a North Korean doctor, Ri Kwang-chol, who escaped last year and told a forum in Seoul that babies with deformities were killed soon after birth. "There are no people with physical defects in North Korea," Dr Ri said. Such babies were put to death by medical staff and buried quickly, he claimed. He denied ever committing the act himself."

More on the religion of peace: "About one in 10 Indonesian Muslims support jihad and justify bomb attacks on Indonesia's tourist island of Bali as defending the faith, a survey shows. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, with 220 million people, 85 per cent of whom follow Islam, giving the Asian archipelago the largest Muslim population of any nation in the world. "Jihad that has been understood partially and practised with violence is justified by around one in 10 Indonesian Muslims," the Indonesian Survey Institute said in a statement."

FEMA is itself a disaster: "Two West Virginia University economics professors are drawing national attention for their recent research suggesting a link between natural disasters and political corruption. "Natural disasters create resource windfalls in the states they strike by triggering federally provided natural disaster relief," write Peter T. Leeson and Russell S. Sobel in their paper titled "Weathering Corruption." "Like windfalls created by the `natural resource curse' and foreign aid, disaster relief windfalls may also increase corruption," they say. When the Federal Emergency Management Agency sends relief funds of $1 per capita into a state, it boosts corruption in that state by nearly 2.5 percent, according to the research, which was published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Washington. Eliminating all FEMA relief funds, the authors found, would cut corruption by more than 20 percent in a typical state, they say... The biggest boondoggles unfolded after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A new study by the federal General Accountability Office estimates that $1 billion was stolen - nearly 19 percent of the $5.4 billion in funds FEMA sent to Gulf Coast states... Their statistical analysis showed other government funds flowing into a state did not have the same effect. "Both non-FEMA-related state discretionary spending and federal spending are insignificant. Only FEMA relief impacts public corruption."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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A NEW HOLE IN THE "655,000 DEAD IRAQIS" CLAIM

I have not yet commented on the latest Lancet report of huge post-invasion mortality ("about 655,000" extra deaths) in Iraq as it seemed perfectly obvious from the outset to me and to many others that it was just a piece of agitprop that would have done the old Soviets proud. You would have to be a Leftist to believe that nobody else noticed 655,000 corpses. I have googled up quite a few comments on the study now, however, and I have not so far found anybody who has noticed the really glaring defect in the study.

None of the comments I saw appeared to be by people who are experienced users of cluster sampling -- the method used for the Lancet study. I am a VERY experienced user of cluster sampling -- with many of my academic publications based on it. And the glaring error which rather explains why the study appeared in a medical journal rather than a more statistically sophisticated journal is that there was NO VALIDATION of the survey results. That your survey-takers might just sit down under a tree and "make up" their "interview" results is a routine peril and it is routine to take precautions against it -- usually by going back on a later occasion and checking with the alleged respondents a proportion of all interviews handed in. Just the awareness that a sample of the respondents will be re-interviewed tends to keep the interviewers honest -- though not always so, regrettably. So the results reported in the Lancet study have no credibility at all and must be regarded as garbage.

It is astounding that the authors of the study were so naive. Perhaps they WANTED their interviewers to "fudge" the results -- making clear what the desired results would be, of course.

Another oddity in the Lancet article that suggests something peculiar about the authors is the claim that their interviewers were all DOCTORS -- and not just any doctors but doctors bilingual in Arabic and English. I have never seen the like of that before. Experienced interviewers of some kind were what was needed and that is what is usually used, not doctors. Can we really believe that a whole corps of these rare doctors abandoned their medical duties for so long in order to do something outside their normal expertise? If true it certainly suggests a heavy political committment on the part of the doctors concerned -- exactly what one would NOT want in a study claiming to be objective. To me the whole claim seems like the sort of "gilding the lily" that con-men engage in.

Other critics have noticed other vast implausibilities in the results reported -- the amazingly high (98%) success-rate at getting people to consent to an interview, for instance --- garbage, garbage garbage. And the lie about the death certificates actually shows how bogus the results were.

I wonder what my old friend the Liberal Avenger will make of this post? He is firmly convinced that no sound criticism of the Lancet study can be made. I predict much huffing and puffing from him. I know the sort of thing he will say: That doctors ARE experienced interviewers, for instance. He has however never been door-to-door if he thinks people respond to doorstep callers the way they respond to a doctor they go to.

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SOME LEFTIST AMERICAN JEWS ARE TRYING TO WEAKEN ISRAEL

It's that poisonous Leftist hate of success in others again

Perhaps most upsetting is the central role that a tiny minority of American Jews has played in souring ties between Jerusalem and Washington. That minority has undermined support for Israel in the Democratic Party and now seeks to undermine Israel's position in the US in general. The Democratic Party's sharp turn leftward in recent years has been a major factor in weakening the US-Israel alliance. The ideological transformation of the party is the fruit of a collaborative effort by leading financiers, radical-leftist ideologues and political activists. Together these forces built organizations that dictate the party's agenda; finance the campaigns of politicians who embrace this agenda; and work to defeat conservative Republicans and Democrats who disagree with their agenda.

MoveOn.org is the most influential organization of this type established in recent years. Its principal financiers are American Jewish billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis. MoveOn.org first gained national prominence during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. Howard Dean, a previously undistinguished governor of Vermont, was an eminently forgettable also-ran with a reputation among the few who knew of him as a political moderate who was hawkish on national security. Then he was discovered by MoveOn.org.

As the group began pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign,Dean veered to the left and began roundly condemning the war in Iraq. Caught off-balance by Dean's challenge, all but one of the other candidates shifted left as well and joined him in criticizing the war. For his principled refusal to disavow the war in Iraq, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman earned the enduring enmity of MoveOn.org.

This summer, MoveOn.org played a central role in Lieberman's defeat in the Democratic primary for his Senate seat. It contributed funds to Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, and its Web site served as a clearinghouse disseminating anti-Lieberman propaganda. Propaganda posted on the Web site was laced with blatant anti-Semitic attacks. Postings repeatedly referred to Lieberman as "the Jew Lieberman," and "ZioNazi Lieberman." These attacks were by no means unusual. Indeed, anti-Semitic slurs against Israel and Jewish Americans, and belittlements of the Holocaust, appear regularly in MoveOn.org Web forums....

According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report, Soros and his wealthy Jewish American friends have now decided to aim their fire directly at Israel. Soros has invited Lewis and other North American Jewish plutocrats like Charles and Edgar Bronfman to join forces with him and leftist Jewish American organizations including American Friends of Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and the Reform movement's Religious Action Center to form a political lobby that will weaken the influence of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Source

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CANADIAN JEWS ARE LEARNING

One of the most significant phenomena in current Canadian politics - i.e. the growing shift of Canada's Jewish community from the Liberal to the Conservative Party - took a major stride last week when the top contender for the Liberal leadership accused Israel of committing a war crime.

Michael Ignatieff, a longtime Harvard authority on human rights and international law who came back to Canada two years ago to seek the Liberal leadership, seemed to stumble into the accusation. In an interview with the Toronto Star last August, he was asked about the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese town of Qana during the Israel-Lebanon war. He replied that it was a "dirty war," and he wasn't "losing sleep" over Qana. But when this remark was condemned in Quebec as heartless, Ignatieff backtracked, saying he had erred in making it. Asked last Sunday on Quebec's top-rated talk show for further explanation, he landed himself in hotter water: "I demonstrated a lack of compassion. It was a mistake. And when you make a mistake like that you have to admit it. And I admit it because I was a human rights professor, and I'm a professor of the laws of war, and what happened at Qana was a war crime."

With that, the roof fell in. Susan Kadis, a Toronto-area MP and co-chairman of his leadership campaign, resigned: "Michael is an intelligent person and I would think that he would have a better handle on the Middle East, given his years of experience on human rights and international law. I find his comments very troubling, since the Israeli response came in the light of the unprovoked brazen kidnapping by Hezbollah of Israeli soldiers." The Canada-Israel Committee expressed "profound concern" and demanded "clarification." If clarification was not forthcoming, they added, they "would feel obliged to convey that message to our constituency."

Ignatieff hastened to provide a somewhat confusing explanation. He described himself as "a lifelong friend of Israel," and went on to say that "war crimes were committed in the war in Lebanon. I don't think there's any question about it, and war crimes were visited on Israeli citizens and on Lebanese citizens." His conclusion: "We've got to be determined, as Canadians, to do whatever we can to make sure that military solutions are not sought in this conflict, because the consequences are more civilian deaths."

This did not satisfy the Canada-Israel Committee, and the Israeli ambassador to Canada called the statement "upsetting and disappointing." Bob Rae, Ignatieff's leading opponent for the leadership, commented that it was "not wise" for him "to rush into such judgments." But this was not the first time leaders in the Canadian Jewish community have jumped into the leadership campaign. Heather Reisman, boss of Indigo Books and chairwoman of the Liberal Party's national policy committee in the 1980s, announced in August that she was leaving the party to support Stephen Harper and the Tories. Her announcement followed a similar statement by film producer Robert Lantos that he was taking off his "lifelong Liberal hat." Ms. Reisman e-mailed a friend: "I'm right there alongside Robert. After a lifetime of being a Liberal, I have made the switch. It feels strange, but it is totally and unequivocally right."

Her husband, Gerry Schwartz, head of the giant Onex Corporation, another senior Liberal and a confidant of ex-Prime Minister Paul Martin, followed the same path. He and his wife's were among eight signatories to an ad in a Cornwall, Ontario, newspaper warmly supporting the Tories. Also in August, another senior Liberal, Sen. Gerry Grafstein, publicly criticized Liberal house leader Bill Graham for his attack on Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper over Harper's outspoken pro-Israel policy. Harper has reversed Canada's 50-year record as a neutral "broker" in the Middle East, said Graham. But neutrality on Israel is not Canada's historical record, Grafstein tartly commented.

This exodus of Jews from the Liberal Party is an historic switch. All through the 20th century the dominant Liberals could count on strong Jewish support. While there were certainly some Jewish Conservatives, the community as whole tended leftward, as did Canadian academe. Within the last decade, however, Canada's socialists have increasingly opposed Israel, much to the consternation of their long-time Jewish allies. Meanwhile, it was not immediately apparent how seriously the Ignatieff incident might damage his leadership prospects at the convention in early December. A delegate count earlier this month gave him 30 percent of the committed convention delegates and Rae 20 percent, with the other six candidates ranging from 1 percent to 17 percent.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

There is a good video of "The DNC song" here -- in music-hall style.

Ted Turner as Neville Chamberlain: "Thirteen months before North Korea exploded a nuclear bomb, CNN founder Ted Turner predicted that such an event would never happen. "I think we can put the North Korea and East Asia problems behind us," Turner confidently proclaimed in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer back on September 19, 2005. Referring to the North Korean regime's claim they were "committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs," Turner, having just returned from a trip to North Korea, found those promises to be 100 percent credible. "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere," he told an incredulous Blitzer on The Situation Room."

Islamic hackers fail: "Islamic computer hackers tried to disrupt the Vatican web site earlier this week, but failed, according to a report in the ANSA news service. In an online forum for militant Muslims, a group announced plans for an assault on the Vatican computer network, which was said to be a form of retribution for Pope Benedict's criticism of Islam in his Regensburg speech. Police later confirmed that there had been a concerted effort by hackers to penetrate the Vatican site, but computer-security experts were able to detect and repel the attack"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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IDEOLOGY MASQUERADING AS HISTORY

Three recent books about the "fiasco" in Iraq - "Cobra II" by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward and just plain "Fiasco" by Tom Ricks - have attracted a lot of attention, and sales. All three well-written exposes repeat the now well-known argument that our government's incompetence and arrogance have nearly ensured America's failure in birthing democracy in Iraq.

It's worth noting, though, that many of the authors' critical portraits rely on private conversations and anonymous sources. The most damning informants in these books are never identified and so can't be questioned.....

In "Fiasco," often verbatim quotations are not cited with specific attribution, but only vaguely noted in the text as "said a Bush administration official" or "recalled one officer." Among the endnotes in "State of Denial," we are apprised, "The information in this chapter comes primarily from background interviews with seven knowledgeable sources." But who are these "seven knowledgeable" sources? Since Woodward so far won't name them, how do we really know that they are "knowledgeable" or even "primarily" used? Is the answer because they talked to Woodward (and not to others?), or were pre-selected because they happened to agree with his own views?

In "Cobra II," we wonder why one "former Centcom planner" would talk while others (more numerous?) choose not to. And in "Fiasco," is the talkative but unnamed "Bush administration official" getting even at his rivals by offering only his interpretation of shared past conversations?

There are a number of other things wrong with all this gossip. First, note the disturbing pattern in this resorting to anonymity. Usually the unidentified source supports the author's critique - and thus is almost always critical of the present policy in Iraq. Rarely do these journalists quote unnamed sources who dissent from their own views, although there are surely pro-U.S. Iraq policy candid voices among the thousands of retired generals....

These past couple of weeks, current and former officials have been protesting that they were unfairly characterized in Woodward's book - and have argued that conditions in Iraq are not as bad as alleged by anonymous sources. And while there have been on-the-record critics of all three books, none of the unnamed accusers cited in them has come forward.

These virtual histories all allege a "state of denial" and lack of accountability on the part of government officials. Perhaps - but how odd then that the authors of "Cobra II," "Fiasco" and "State of Denial" have used the very secrecy and subterfuge they claim to deplore in their targets.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Israel ramps up Gaza offensive: "Israel stepped up its offensive in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least four people in a series of attacks throughout the coastal area. The fighting brought the death toll in the offensive to 13 Palestinians, including a young girl, since Thursday. The army has been carrying out an offensive throughout Gaza since June, when militants linked to the ruling Hamas militant group tunneled into Israel and captured an Israeli soldier. The soldier remains in captivity. After a recent lull, the fighting has picked up in recent days. Israel TV said the operation in Gaza Friday was the largest there in weeks."

Attack ads are good for you!: "Negative campaigning is an issue across the country this fall, in campaigns from Massachusetts to Hawaii and in races down the ballot from U.S. senator to county assessor. As wounded politicians whine that such speech is out of bounds, it's time to stand up in defense of the much-maligned attack ad. In this age of instantaneous information via blogs, round-the-clock cable coverage, and other media, political attacks can be swiftly countered. Any opinion offered about a candidate, no matter how mean, vile, or sinister, can be rebutted immediately and globally. Thanks to such exchanges, voters this year will know a lot about prospective elected officials if they are willing to process multiple sources of information and draw their own conclusions."

The communitarian conundrum: "The great moral difficulty with communitarianism is that, if taken to extremes, it treats individuals as though they were little more than cells of a larger organism. Just as when doctors kill cells to prevent cancer from spreading, communitarianism readily justifies state intrusion into the private sphere in the name of some communal good. Worse yet, communitarian societies require a standard of behavior more demanding than most members of an unredeemed society are unable or unwilling to meet most of the time, and that all are unable to meet all of the time. Hence, it is hardly surprising that world history is littered with the failures of communitarian utopia."

America, 300 million strong: "One day this month an immigrant will arrive or, more likely, a baby will be born who will make the United States a nation of 300 million. This demographic milestone has prompted hand-ringing among environmentalists on the left and immigration opponents on the right, all of whom are misguided. Passing the 300 million mark should be cause for celebration: Never in the history of mankind have so many people lived such free and prosperous lives in one country."

"Wal-Mart Laws" harm black communities: "The 'big-box ordinance' passed on July 26 by the Chicago City Council would require national retail chains such as Wal-Mart and Target to pay their Chicago employees at least $9.25 an hour plus $1.50 in benefits, to increase to $10.00 an hour and $3.00 in benefits by the year 2010. The law would apply only to retail stores with at least 90,000 indoor square feet, owned by national companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more. ... Advocates of the ordinance, both black and white, claim it will help poor black Americans. But support for this ordinance did not begin in the black community, nor would its effect be to benefit blacks."

Christians and big government: "There was a day when social conservatives were united with economic conservatives in the belief that small, limited government was not only good for our economy and the prosperity of American families, but essential to protect traditional family values. We all fought for a limited federal government -- a government that had the decency to respect the American people by staying out of their lives. Small government meant that all Christians could practice their faith as they saw fit. Big government violates those rights by meddling in our lives, misusing our hard-earned money, and dictating cultural norms to us."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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What Does a Liberal Believe?

(Excerpt below from here)

Sometimes it is really hard to tell. I thought they abhorred gay-bashing, but look at Mark Foley. Fortunately, the Chicago Tribune offered us Geoffrey Stone's proposed definition of "what it means to be a liberal" in a recent op-ed.... Here are his ten principles, most of which almost anybody would aspire to, and which in Stone's estimation are predominantly adhered to by liberals. My responses include reference to material from the op-ed that further elucidates what he means by his principles.

1. "Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others".

Does Stone have a clue about the current political climate on college campuses? The hostility towards critics of affirmative action, defenders of Israel, supporters of George Bush, proponents of gun control, opponents of identity politics and a host of liberal sacred cows is palpable. It may be true that if conservatives were in the majority in academia they would behave the same way. But there is no way to find out, since the few that are there have mostly closeted their views.

2. "Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference."

He claims that liberals, and by implication liberals alone, continue to support the civil rights movement and affirmative action. But the civil rights movement of the sixties was not dealing with the same issues. In fact its purpose is very well summarized by President Kennedy's speech of June 11, 1963 where he declared, in response to a month of pro-integration demonstrations in Birmingham, "race has no place in American life." There is no way that the civil rights movement that ended legally enforced segregation was aimed at anything less than ending the practice of defining people by race. Much of what falls under the name of affirmative action, multiculturalism or diversity is aimed at putting it back.

3. "Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who support the expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting, "one person one vote", limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign reform; and a more vibrant form of free speech".

This is a selective reading of recent events. Certainly liberals are championing the cause of felons voting, opposing the use of picture identification on voter registration cards and making it easier for aliens to vote. These represent groups of voters who they have identified as likely to support their candidates. But they have also opposed the counting of absentee ballots of soldiers when it was in their interest and have of course aimed their voter registration drives primarily at groups of voters from whom they expect support. As for gerrymandering, one of the favorite liberal projects was the creation of majority African American congressional districts. The creation of these districts did in fact increase the number of African American members of Congress but also created more racial polarization and resulted in a net gain for the Republicans in Congress, a reason why Republicans were only too happy to go along with the racial gerrymandering.

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind."

One of the rights that he asserts are supported primarily by liberals is the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. While it may be true that liberals are more strongly pro-abortion, there are plenty of conservatives who support it as well. Furthermore, his statement begs the question at the center of the abortion debate, namely, at what point does a fetus become a life? Professor Stone has nothing to say about that point. And there is nothing in his implicit dismissal of the pro-life opinion that a fetus is a human being that indicates that liberals have a great deal of respect for the opinions of others.

5. "It is liberals who believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people."

Sure, unless of course the accused are College Republicans, Duke Lacrosse players, Scooter Libby, a conservative candidate for tenure or a college faculty member accused of insensitive speech. For liberals, DNA testing is conclusive if it voids the convictions of minority accused felons but irrelevant if it exonerates privileged white students from dubious accusations of rape made against them. Liberals are also the champions of speech codes that make rules taking sides in disputes that involve people of different genders, race, ethnicity, abledness, sexual orientation, etc. Such rules stake out a group of protected classes and leave it to the imagination to presume that the others are unprotected classes. What do such laws have to do with the "equal protection of all people"?

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ELSEWHERE

Good U.S. economic news: "The federal deficit fell to a four-year low in the budget year that just ended, a result President Bush pointed to Wednesday in claiming Republicans are better stewards of the economy than are Democrats. The administration said the deficit dropped to $247.7 billion - welcome news for Republicans struggling to keep control of Congress. Bush boasted he had made good on a 2004 campaign promise to cut the deficit in half over five years. "These budget numbers are proof that pro-growth economic policies work," Bush said.... The administration credits its tax cuts for the improving economy, contending they helped the nation withstand the 2001 recession, the terrorist attacks and corporate accounting scandals. The deficit narrowed sharply because revenues climbed by 11.8%, outpacing a 7.4% increase in spending. Administration officials said the actual 2006 deficit is down to 1.9% of the gross domestic product. They said that is below the 40-year average deficit of about 2.3% of the GDP"

Those damn WAMs: "White American Males make up about 1.6% of the world's population, but they are 6 for 6 in the Nobels this year. They just keep coming up with lots of good ideas, undermining the self-esteem of everybody else. Don't they know how insensitive that is?"

Rushdie: Veils for Muslim women "suck": "British author Salman Rushdie Tuesday joined the delicate debate about face veils for Muslim women saying they 'suck' and weakened a woman's position. The writer, who was the subject of a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran in the late 1980s over his novel, The Satanic Verses, said he regarded the veil as a way of taking power away from women. Speaking in a BBC interview, Rushdie supported the position of Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secreatry, who last week sparked controversy with his comment that the veil was a 'visible statement of difference and separation. ... He (Straw) was expressing an important opinion which is that veils suck -- which they do,' the Indian-born author said."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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ESKIMOS, FAT AND FOOD SUPERSTITIONS

As most readers here will be aware, the extraordinary degree of misinformation about food and health that we read in the MSM has caused me to do a daily blog on the latest health scares and enthusiasms. It is extraordinarily sad how much energy many people put into going along with the nonsense they read. The longevity studies all tend towards showing that NOTHING in the way of diet or lifestyle change will lengthen your life but many people don't want to believe that so they follow any pied piper who comes along with a promise to lead them to the promised land of longer life. And the media simply pander to that.

One of the most persistent themes that you read in health advice these days is that animal fat is bad for you. A diet rich in animal fat is said to doom you to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. I was rather persuaded of that myself at one stage as there seemed to be some epidemiological evidence for it. Now that I am a health blogger, however, I do a bit more background reading in these things than I used to do and something I found while doing such reading was sufficiently amusing for me to put it up here rather than on my more specialized blog.

The eskimos are of course renowned for eating large amounts of meat and fat. They once ate little else (vegetables don't grow well in the Arctic!) and to this day that remains the mainstay of their diet. And the eskimos have always had a shorter life expectancy than inhabitants of less dangerous climates. But is that shorter life expectancy due to their diet? There is much to say that it is not. They have extraordinarily high rates of suicide, smoking and other behavioural pathologies, for instance.

The interesting thing about Eskimos, however, is WHAT they die of. With their huge intake of animal fats they should be dropping like flies of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, according to the conventional wisdom. But that is precisely what they do NOT die of. They have always had very LOW rates of those diseases. No doubt there is much more that could be said about the matter but when the facts on the ground are the OPPOSITE of what the conventional wisdom would predict, should it not make us just a little skeptical about the conventional wisdom?

I did not keep any links from my reading in the above matters but it should be no trouble to google up lots on the subject.

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ELSEWHERE

Heaven on earth: "Joshua Muravchik was a 'red-diaper' baby. He was born into a family that had close connections with radical Marxism and socialism for several generations. Perhaps it is this historical connection that brought about his book "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism". Socialism can be discussed on many levels. It can be seen as a philosophy or discussed as an economic system, or as Mises more rightly noted the negation of an economic system. Socialists tend to prefer to discuss socialism as an abstract future paradise. But Muravchik, in this book,discusses it as a historical series of events. Instead of engaging socialism on the basis of what it promises to do he discusses where it came from, where it was tried and what were the results. In the cold light of reality socialism loses much of the glamour that attracts so many intellectuals to it. Many people forget that socialism predates Marxism. Plymouth Plantation in the US was run on socialist principles when it was founded and the colony starved. When this experiment was replaced with private property and a market system the colony thrived and could feed itself -- an event still celebrated in the American holiday of Thanksgiving though few seem to know the actual reasons for it."

Partitioning: The way out of Iraq: "The Kurds and their militias have their own quasi country in which the Iraqi government does not govern and the Iraqi flag does not fly. Many of the Shi'ite areas are governed by militias, which have also infiltrated the Iraqi police and army. In Sunni areas, guerrillas effectively control many towns. U.S. forces have been unable to disarm any of these armies. The civil war will intensify if these regions are not allowed to govern themselves."

Blood on whose hands? "Capital punishment proponents often feel reflexively tentative and apologetic in discussing the issue. After all, abolitionists have sanctimoniously characterized proponents as "mean-spirited" and "hard-hearted" in defending the practice... It is abolitionists, however, not proponents, who must shoulder the heavy burden of persuasion... It is they whose policies would spill innocent blood....consider the number of murders committed by convicted killers who have not been executed. The sad truth is that unexecuted murderers often continue to kill, whether on Death Row while awaiting execution or amongst the general prison population. Their victims include prison guards, ministers, staff and other prisoners. Additionally, unexecuted murderers occasionally escape from prison to commit additional murderers. Imprisonment, even life imprisonment, is simply insufficient to protect innocent life from these murderers. Abolitionists cannot justify the innocent blood spilled by convicted murderers who were luckier in escaping execution than their victims. Third, many forget that a moratorium on executions actually existed between the years 1967 and 1976. During that period, approximately twice as many murders occurred as during the preceding ten-year period."

Remember this! "This week marks the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's bold stand against trading missile defense for an arms treaty. Recalling the lessons of the Reykjavik is key to winning the global war on terror. At least one house of Congress may be taken over by a Democratic leadership committed to cutting and running from Iraq. And in Iran, a terror regime is trying to pull the wool over the world's eyes about its nuclear program. What better time to recall the late, great President's nerve?... History proved the critics all wrong-including the scores of scientists who knew so much better than this simpleton who somehow landed in the White House. For all the times Reagan was derided as a mere movie star, his `doing a John Wayne' in the Iceland summit was exactly what the cause of freedom demanded... This President simply refused to let us down. The result was that in several years Gorbachev was gone. After seven decades of genocide and expansionism, the Soviet Union found itself overwhelmed by a free world choosing to defend itself. Gennady Gerasimov, senior Soviet foreign ministry spokesman in the 1980s, said at the time of Reagan's death that `Reagan's SDI was a very successful blackmail.' Today, U.S. interceptor missiles that can stop incoming nuclear warheads in space-Teddy Kennedy's `physical and technological impossibility' -are an operational reality."

A Muslim doctor gets it: "Americans must be wary of political leaders who accept the propaganda explanations. To win the war on terror, America's leaders must recognize the powerful role of the Islamic religious principle of jihad, Islam's belief that it must conquer the world, which derives from the above hadith. Belief in jihad is what causes so many Muslims worldwide to cheer terrorist acts such as 9/11, European subway bombings, and Hezbollah and Hamas attacks against Israel. Allowing jihadist teaching to continue is like allowing cancer cells to survive in a human body. The human immune system demonstrates that nurturing normal cells and respecting their variance sustains life. A healthy body nourishes cell diversity. A healthy body politic, similarly, must value respect for different beliefs. At the same time, if an immune system shows any tolerance whatsoever for cancer cells, the latter will terminate that body's life. The immune system of a body politic must have a similar zero tolerance for beliefs that incite violence against its citizens."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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Dynamic Capitalism: Entrepreneurship is lucrative--and just

Excerpt from an article by Prof. Edmund Phelps, America's latest Nobel prizewinner



There are two economic systems in the West. Several nations--including the U.S., Canada and the U.K.--have a private-ownership system marked by great openness to the implementation of new commercial ideas coming from entrepreneurs, and by a pluralism of views among the financiers who select the ideas to nurture by providing the capital and incentives necessary for their development. Although much innovation comes from established companies, as in pharmaceuticals, much comes from start-ups, particularly the most novel innovations. This is free enterprise, a k a capitalism.

The other system--in Western Continental Europe--though also based on private ownership, has been modified by the introduction of institutions aimed at protecting the interests of "stakeholders" and "social partners." The system's institutions include big employer confederations, big unions and monopolistic banks. Since World War II, a great deal of liberalization has taken place. But new corporatist institutions have sprung up: Co-determination (cogestion, or Mitbestimmung) has brought "worker councils" (Betriebsrat); and in Germany, a union representative sits on the investment committee of corporations. The system operates to discourage changes such as relocations and the entry of new firms, and its performance depends on established companies in cooperation with local and national banks. What it lacks in flexibility it tries to compensate for with technological sophistication. So different is this system that it has its own name: the "social market economy" in Germany, "social democracy" in France and "concertazione" in Italy.

The American and Continental systems are not operationally equivalent, contrary to some neoclassical views. Let me use the word "dynamism" to mean the fertility of the economy in coming up with innovative ideas believed to be technologically feasible and profitable--in short, the economy's talent at commercially successful innovating. In this terminology, the free enterprise system is structured in such a way that it facilitates and stimulates dynamism while the Continental system impedes and discourages it.

More here. You can find a free-marketeer's evaluation of Phelps here

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ANOTHER PESKY GENETICS FINDING:

Will feminists like being told that women are more apelike than men?

Basically, the point is that, in crossing the little evolutionary distance that exists between chimps and humans, most of the changes occurred in males. In other words, what differentiates us from our mammalian relatives is changes that have occurred in the male of the species.

Actually, this is not news. Evolutionary anthropologists have long been aware of it. As far back as 1972, Elaine Morgan, a feminist, writing in The Descent of Woman, noted that in fact the role of females hadn't changed much from chimp to human. Mothers nurse and care for their offspring in basically the same way chimps do. In terms of social role, there really isn't much difference between human females and other animals.

What has changed is the role of males. Among chimps, males hang out in groups, form alliances, forage together, and do a lot of bickering over status. They do not participate at all in child rearing. By the time hunting-and-gathering tribes arrive, however, men have been folded into the family. Monogamy predominates and both parents participate in child rearing. The extraordinary innovation is "fatherhood," a role that doesn't really exist elsewhere in nature.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Boycott Porsche: "Prejudices against America are common among German elites in politics, business and the media. America is considered a country devoid of culture, with a capitalistic economic system that shows no regard for "social values". So it's not surprising to hear a CEO of a major German company repeat such trash. What is surprising, though, is the fact that this CEO heads a company deriving most of its sales and profits from catering to the rich in - America. The name of the company is Porsche, and the CEO is Wendelin Wiedeking."

Islamic insanity in Australia: "A religious feud between a Muslim father and his teenage daughter may have sparked a bloody domestic dispute on the Gold Coast which left the man's wife dead and him fighting for life in hospital. Police are investigating suggestions the violence erupted after the 17-year-old girl told her father she wanted to opt out of the Islamic faith and convert to Christianity. The girl's mother is believed to have stepped in to protect her daughter, only to be fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife. Neighbours reported hearing "blood-curdling" screams before the hysterical girl ran half-naked from their Southport home unit covered in scratches. Police later found the body of the girl's mother, 41, inside the blood-smeared unit. Her husband was taken to the Gold Coast Hospital with a stab wound to the chest. He was last night in a critical condition under police guard."

A wise move: "The Pope is taking steps to revive the ancient tradition of the Latin Tridentine Mass in Catholic churches worldwide, according to sources in Rome. Pope Benedict XVI is understood to have signed a universal indult - or permission - for priests to celebrate again the Mass used throughout the Church for nearly 1,500 years. The indult could be published in the next few weeks, sources told The Times. Use of the Tridentine Mass, parts of which date from the time of St Gregory in the 6th century and which takes its name from the 16th-century Council of Trent, was restricted by most bishops after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). This led to the introduction of the new Mass in the vernacular to make it more accessible to contemporary audiences. By bringing back Mass in Latin, Pope Benedict is signalling that his sympathies lie with conservatives in the Catholic Church. One of the most celebrated rebels against its suppression was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who broke with Rome in 1988 over this and other reforms. He was excommunicated after he consecrated four bishops, one of them British, without permission from the Pope. Some Lefebvrists, including those in Brazil, have already been readmitted. An indult permitting the celebration of the Tridentine Mass could help to bring remaining Lefebvrists and many other traditional Catholics back to the fold."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, 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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