Mary, 'Palestinian refugee'
When it comes to the politicization of the Christmas story, I thought I had seen it all. But the London Independent's shameless mischaracterization of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as "a Palestinian refugee" takes the proverbial cake. The story by Johann Hari published Dec. 23 begins: "In two days, a third of humanity will gather to celebrate the birth pains of a Palestinian refugee in Bethlehem - but two millennia later, another mother in another glorified stable in this rubble-strewn, locked down town is trying not to howl."
It goes on to describe a 5-year-old tale of an Arab woman who claims she was stopped from entering Israel to deliver her twins and forced to go 20 minutes in another direction to an Arab hospital.
It's amazing. It's bizarre. It's breathtaking at what passes for Western journalism in the Middle East today. First of all, was Mary "a Palestinian refugee"? No, Mary was a Jew, living in the occupied territory of Israel. She wasn't trying to get to a Roman hospital to have her child. She was traveling with her husband from her home in Nazareth to Bethlehem, where the Roman authorities decreed those from the House of David would pay their taxes.
Who are these anti-Israel activists the Western press dispatches to cover the Middle East? Where do they come from? Where are they trained? Where are they educated? How is it possible that such drivel is actually published? What is it exactly that the so-called Palestinians want? Do they want their own homeland or not? It seems to me they've got it. But now they want to be able to travel into Israel for medical care? What's wrong with their own hospitals? Why is it that they don't decide to buy more medicine and fewer guns?
Don't get me wrong. I don't blame "the modern-day Mary" in this fable for wanting first-class medical care in Israel. And had Bethlehem remained under Israeli governance, that's exactly what the people of Bethlehem would have received. But the so-called Palestinians demanded their own country. Unfortunately for them, that means Palestinian hospitals, too.
Is that context not important for people unfamiliar with the region to understand? Is it not important for reporters covering the region to understand? Let's call this what it is: Deliberate deception. It is the worst form of propaganda. In another time, we labeled it agit-prop. What is the purpose? Is it to stir up more hate and violence?
More here
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THE LATEST POSTINGS ON ICJS
Aunty's anti-Western bias is a dangerous political tool
Death of religious tolerance in Malaysia
Privatising the war of ideas
Addressing the realities of Sderot
I am not a censor, says ABC bias chief
No merit in delusional approach to M.E.
Stewardess banned from carrying Bible
Ari Fleischer criticises Carter
No substitute for knowing your enemy
Public Statement from Melbourne Chareidi community
An open letter to Jimmy Carter
Revisiting The Horrors Of The Holocaust
Appeal by `Catch the Fire' allowed
Preachers claim win
James Baker's terrible Iraq report
Ronaldson supports condemnation of holocaust conference
Call for clarification of Rudd's Foreign Policy re Israel
Islam gets concessions; infidels get conquered
Israel lobby sets its sights on academe
Lecturer fears for tenure
Realism turns a blind eye
Muslim Veil Row
Throw the jew joke down the well
United Nations Human rights council fails Darfur
**********************
ELSEWHERE
Woman turned away by doctor - for being American: "An American woman has been refused treatment by a doctor in Blekinge in southern Sweden because of her nationality. The woman's husband has now reported the incident to the Medical Responsibility Board..... But when the American woman, accompanied by her husband and niece, went to meet the doctor in his treatment room, he declined to examine her. Rather than introduce himself, the doctor waved the patient's papers and shouted "she doesn't have strep throat, she doesn't have strep throat". He then added that he would not treat her. "He said he didn't like Americans," said Johansson. He also disliked hearing English spoken in his treatment room and soon walked out. According to Johansson, the doctor was a Palestinian who objected to American foreign policy in the Middle East." [Israeli doctors treat Palestinians all the time of course].
Read here how the NYT refused to correct a lying story about abortion even after the paper's own ombudsman condemned the story. They are really arrogant and totally dishonest SOBs there. I guess that's Leftism for you.
Another way Britain gets people out of their evil cars: "Train fares will rise above the rate of inflation tomorrow for the fourth consecutive year, with passengers on longdistance services facing the highest increases. Bus passengers in London will find fares rising by more than double the rate of inflation, with the single cash fare up 33 per cent to œ2. Passenger groups said that the increases would encourage people to abandon public transport. Rail fares that are set by the Government, including season tickets and some off-peak tickets, will rise by 4.3 per cent. But the 60 per cent of fares set by private operators will rise by up to 11 per cent."
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Monday, January 01, 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
To all who come by here.
*************************
Saddam And The Left
Excerpts from Sigmund, Carl & Alfred
Predictably, much of the left is in a frenzy over the trial and execution of Saddam, because for the first time in a very long while, they, like he, have been exposed for who and what they are- enablers and perpetrators of evil.
The hysteria and chest beating over the execution of Saddam is nothing more than narcissistic theater, designed to camouflage the frenzied demise of that fantasy of moral superiority. Like that great narcissist of our time, that former President they worship, many on the left have been exposed as moral impotents.To justify their existence the left need the trappings and phony good intentions of a pseudo-morality rather than substance of real morality- that ability to draw a line in the sand and commit to defend what is right. They need the equivalent of a cigar or other proxy to finish their self serving drama in the hope that no will will notice their diminished capabilities.
The pattern is clear, unmistakable and oft repeated. As the left screams about the execution of Saddam, they only highlight the truth that they don't really give damn about the victims of evil and never have. The Arab world has imposed the death penalty (outside the regularity of extra judicial killings that kill thousands each year) for centuries. Why is it now, with the execution of Saddam, that the left finds Arab capital punishment so abhorrent? Do not the doctrines of multiculturalism and moral relativism apply? Aren't the regional cultures of the Middle East equal to our own? What is it about the execution of one man the left finds so intolerable, even as in excess of 100 million women have been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation, with not a word from the `progressives'?
Much of the left highlight their moral impotence and indifference when it comes to Darfur. There are no voices from the left for the victims of the Janjaweed any more than there were voices from the left that spoke out for the victims of Saddam. There are no voices from the left decrying the Iranian mullahs repressive regime and their support for terror. There are no voices castigating the Saudis and their bigotry and more than there were voices from the left that spoke out about Taliban bestial behavior in Afghanistan. The fear, intimidation and murder that is a hallmark of the Allawite regime of Assad clan is ignored as is the pornographic behavior of the Palestinians, masquerading as a civilized society that is equivalent to the society the Israelis have built.
The true (im) moral center of the left is exposed every time the perpetrators of the evil or genocide are brought to justice. The track record is hard to ignore. The left have become Holocaust deniers. Like `academics' David Duke or David Irving, the mantra of the left has become one of blaming the victims or holding blameless the perpetrator. They will declare that Saddam had nothing to do with the evil and genocide that defined his 30 year tenure as dictator of Iraq, or the evil never really happened, or the Americans or Israelis or all Jews everywhere were really to blame. To the left, the victims, like the truth, matter little.
It is a cultural and moral imperative to fund an Iraq Holocaust Museum, as quickly as possible, because the same kind of morally bankrupt and evil worshipers of evil will deny Saddam's crimes as those who deny Hitler's crimes. Of course, much of the left will oppose that very idea, as they opposed the establishment of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC., much in the same way they desperately want a museum at New York's ground zero to highlight and emphasize America's evil and culpability that lead to the attacks of September 11, 2001....
The self serving pompous liberal ideology that somehow, `justice' for Saddam would be served if he were not executed, is absurd. Saddam was no more a common criminal than was Adolph Hitler. Saddam, like Hitler, was the embodiment of evil. His crimes were not committed out of some self serving need or moment of passion. The evil and genocide were a direct extension of the evil and hate he espoused, promulgated and implemented. Evil isn't a crime and evil isn't self serving. Evil, is by definition the real multicultural truth: the intent and destiny of evil is to destroy all morality and all culture and all society, everywhere. Support or turn a blind eye to evil in one place and the virus will spread....
Cancers of hate must be excised- there is not one single example of evil that has been talked into submission. Time and time again, the cost of doing nothing has been incalculable.
The Arab world that refuses to celebrate the death of Saddam only highlights the truth that they are infected with that virus of evil. The fact that it took outside forces to remove Saddam- something the Arab world itself should have done, long ago, only serves to highlight Arab world moral bankruptcy. That moral bankruptcy is highlighted everyday throughout the region as millions honor Saddam as an `Islamic hero.' What does it say about a culture and region that cannot bring itself to respect a freely elected national unity government in Iraq, preferring instead to lionize a purveyor of genocide and evil? What does it say about the left in this country and the west that deliberately espouse those very same values?...
*************************
ELSEWHERE
As predicted: "Liberals protested the execution of Saddam Hussein today in New York and Boston. The International Action Center, affiliated with former Democratic U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Saddam Hussein's Defense Attorney, organized the the rally."
An "assassination?: Captain's Quarters has a YouTube video of a TV anchor at WESH, an NBC affiliate in Orlando, who called the hanging of Saddam an "assassination":
How Business Trounced The Trial Lawyers: "By focusing on litigation reform at the state level, business has won key battles. Suddenly, it's a tough time to be a plantiffs' attorney... What has happened in Texas is not unique. In state after state, the tide has turned in one of the most protracted, hard-fought political struggles of the past two decades-the battle over so-called tort reform. Few other business issues have generated more controversy, polemics, and campaign spending than the effort to scale back the types of lawsuits people can file and how much they can recover.... But what Paulson and others have overlooked is that in large areas of the country, that "reform" has taken place, and business has emerged triumphant. The American Lawyer, an influential trade publication, recently declared an end to the era of mass-injury class actions, but the changes are far broader than that. Courthouse doors have slammed shut on a wide variety of claims. Michigan, for example, has virtually wiped out all lawsuits against drugmakers in the state. Six states have passed laws seriously restricting the kinds of asbestos suits that can be filed, and 23 now have statutes saying you can't sue the likes of McDonald's for making you fat. Damage limits in many states have rendered medical malpractice litigation nearly comatose. Both federal and state courts are reinforcing the trend... Even many victories are evanescent. According to a report issued by Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, an Alabama personal-injury firm, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed 27 of 31 plaintiffs' verdicts during its 2004-05 session.
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
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.
****************************
To all who come by here.
*************************
Saddam And The Left
Excerpts from Sigmund, Carl & Alfred
Predictably, much of the left is in a frenzy over the trial and execution of Saddam, because for the first time in a very long while, they, like he, have been exposed for who and what they are- enablers and perpetrators of evil.
The hysteria and chest beating over the execution of Saddam is nothing more than narcissistic theater, designed to camouflage the frenzied demise of that fantasy of moral superiority. Like that great narcissist of our time, that former President they worship, many on the left have been exposed as moral impotents.To justify their existence the left need the trappings and phony good intentions of a pseudo-morality rather than substance of real morality- that ability to draw a line in the sand and commit to defend what is right. They need the equivalent of a cigar or other proxy to finish their self serving drama in the hope that no will will notice their diminished capabilities.
The pattern is clear, unmistakable and oft repeated. As the left screams about the execution of Saddam, they only highlight the truth that they don't really give damn about the victims of evil and never have. The Arab world has imposed the death penalty (outside the regularity of extra judicial killings that kill thousands each year) for centuries. Why is it now, with the execution of Saddam, that the left finds Arab capital punishment so abhorrent? Do not the doctrines of multiculturalism and moral relativism apply? Aren't the regional cultures of the Middle East equal to our own? What is it about the execution of one man the left finds so intolerable, even as in excess of 100 million women have been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation, with not a word from the `progressives'?
Much of the left highlight their moral impotence and indifference when it comes to Darfur. There are no voices from the left for the victims of the Janjaweed any more than there were voices from the left that spoke out for the victims of Saddam. There are no voices from the left decrying the Iranian mullahs repressive regime and their support for terror. There are no voices castigating the Saudis and their bigotry and more than there were voices from the left that spoke out about Taliban bestial behavior in Afghanistan. The fear, intimidation and murder that is a hallmark of the Allawite regime of Assad clan is ignored as is the pornographic behavior of the Palestinians, masquerading as a civilized society that is equivalent to the society the Israelis have built.
The true (im) moral center of the left is exposed every time the perpetrators of the evil or genocide are brought to justice. The track record is hard to ignore. The left have become Holocaust deniers. Like `academics' David Duke or David Irving, the mantra of the left has become one of blaming the victims or holding blameless the perpetrator. They will declare that Saddam had nothing to do with the evil and genocide that defined his 30 year tenure as dictator of Iraq, or the evil never really happened, or the Americans or Israelis or all Jews everywhere were really to blame. To the left, the victims, like the truth, matter little.
It is a cultural and moral imperative to fund an Iraq Holocaust Museum, as quickly as possible, because the same kind of morally bankrupt and evil worshipers of evil will deny Saddam's crimes as those who deny Hitler's crimes. Of course, much of the left will oppose that very idea, as they opposed the establishment of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC., much in the same way they desperately want a museum at New York's ground zero to highlight and emphasize America's evil and culpability that lead to the attacks of September 11, 2001....
The self serving pompous liberal ideology that somehow, `justice' for Saddam would be served if he were not executed, is absurd. Saddam was no more a common criminal than was Adolph Hitler. Saddam, like Hitler, was the embodiment of evil. His crimes were not committed out of some self serving need or moment of passion. The evil and genocide were a direct extension of the evil and hate he espoused, promulgated and implemented. Evil isn't a crime and evil isn't self serving. Evil, is by definition the real multicultural truth: the intent and destiny of evil is to destroy all morality and all culture and all society, everywhere. Support or turn a blind eye to evil in one place and the virus will spread....
Cancers of hate must be excised- there is not one single example of evil that has been talked into submission. Time and time again, the cost of doing nothing has been incalculable.
The Arab world that refuses to celebrate the death of Saddam only highlights the truth that they are infected with that virus of evil. The fact that it took outside forces to remove Saddam- something the Arab world itself should have done, long ago, only serves to highlight Arab world moral bankruptcy. That moral bankruptcy is highlighted everyday throughout the region as millions honor Saddam as an `Islamic hero.' What does it say about a culture and region that cannot bring itself to respect a freely elected national unity government in Iraq, preferring instead to lionize a purveyor of genocide and evil? What does it say about the left in this country and the west that deliberately espouse those very same values?...
*************************
ELSEWHERE
As predicted: "Liberals protested the execution of Saddam Hussein today in New York and Boston. The International Action Center, affiliated with former Democratic U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Saddam Hussein's Defense Attorney, organized the the rally."
An "assassination?: Captain's Quarters has a YouTube video of a TV anchor at WESH, an NBC affiliate in Orlando, who called the hanging of Saddam an "assassination":
How Business Trounced The Trial Lawyers: "By focusing on litigation reform at the state level, business has won key battles. Suddenly, it's a tough time to be a plantiffs' attorney... What has happened in Texas is not unique. In state after state, the tide has turned in one of the most protracted, hard-fought political struggles of the past two decades-the battle over so-called tort reform. Few other business issues have generated more controversy, polemics, and campaign spending than the effort to scale back the types of lawsuits people can file and how much they can recover.... But what Paulson and others have overlooked is that in large areas of the country, that "reform" has taken place, and business has emerged triumphant. The American Lawyer, an influential trade publication, recently declared an end to the era of mass-injury class actions, but the changes are far broader than that. Courthouse doors have slammed shut on a wide variety of claims. Michigan, for example, has virtually wiped out all lawsuits against drugmakers in the state. Six states have passed laws seriously restricting the kinds of asbestos suits that can be filed, and 23 now have statutes saying you can't sue the likes of McDonald's for making you fat. Damage limits in many states have rendered medical malpractice litigation nearly comatose. Both federal and state courts are reinforcing the trend... Even many victories are evanescent. According to a report issued by Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, an Alabama personal-injury firm, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed 27 of 31 plaintiffs' verdicts during its 2004-05 session.
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Sunday, December 31, 2006
HOORAY! THE BUTCHER OF BAGHDAD IS DEAD
See here
A great New Year present for Iraq. But no doubt the Left will now immediately make a saint of some sort out of him. They don't care about mass murder. They never have. If they could canonize the vicious "Tookie" Williams (above), and excuse mass murderers like Stalin and Mao, they can do it for anyone.
I imagine that the Left might say that Saddam was no worse than Pinochet -- ignoring the fact that Pinochet took power at the invitation of a democratically elected parliament and that he handed the country back to democratic rule when he had sorted out the mess that the Left had plunged Chile into. But differences like that will be invisible to those who will not see. Les Bates also has some cynical comments on the Leftist attitude to Saddam.
Mind you, I am not unsympathetic to the view that the recent atrocious behaviour of large numbers of Iraqis towards one-another shows that Saddam was what they deserved. Their mentality suggests that they may well have a Saddam Mark II in their future.
********************
ISLAMISTS ON THE RUN IN SOMALIA
Post lifted from Daniel Mandel
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ELSEWHERE
There is a fabulous non-satirical post about hurricane Katrina by Scott Ott on Scrappleface here -- which shows that the mockery Scrappleface serves up comes from the real, old America that is constantly threatened but not so far defeated by Leftism and bureaucracy. The comments Scott Ott makes in his post about how it is local efforts that work best in recovery from floods and hurricanes were amply confirmed in Australia last year -- in the aftermath of Northeast Australia's big cyclone. See here.
Nobody (not even blacks) likes working for blacks: "Last month, Jennifer Freeman sat in a Chicago coffee bar, counting her blessings and considering her problem. She had a husband with an M.B.A. degree, two children and a job offer that would let her dig out the education degree she had stashed away during years of playdates and potty training. But she could not accept the job. After weeks of searching, Ms. Freeman, who is African-American, still could not find a nanny for her son, 5, and daughter, 3. Agency after agency told her they had no one to send to her South Side home."
Chris Brand points out that the unbelievable has happened: The New York Times has achknowledged the low average IQ of Africans. They explain it erroneously (as due to malnutrition) but acknowledging it at all is at least to raise the matter for discussion among the "caring" (self-important) classes. Even the United Nations says that poor nutrition accounts for a loss of only 5-7 IQ points and severe food shortage (which the NYT discusses) can in fact be eugenic (raise IQ slightly) -- as the Dutch famine study showed. See about half-way down here. For academics, the usual reference is: Stein Z, Susser M, Saenger G, Marolla F. Famine and Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
A rare apology. But Muslims are special, of course: "The Homeland Security Department sent a letter apologizing to a Muslim woman who was detained at the Tampa airport and strip searched at a county jail. Safana Jawad, 45, a Spanish citizen who was born in Iraq, was detained on April 11 because of a suspected tie to a suspicious person, authorities said. She was held for two days before being deported to England."
UK: 1,000 pound fine for failing to update ID card: "A draconian regime of fines, which would hit families at times of marriage and death, is being drawn up by ministers to enforce the Identity Card scheme. Millions of people, from struggling students to newly-wed women and bereaved relatives, will face a system of penalties, netting more than 40 million for the Treasury. People would be fined up to 1,000 pounds for failing to return a dead relative's ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least 30 pounds for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a 1,000 pound fine if they do not comply."
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
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.
****************************
See here
A great New Year present for Iraq. But no doubt the Left will now immediately make a saint of some sort out of him. They don't care about mass murder. They never have. If they could canonize the vicious "Tookie" Williams (above), and excuse mass murderers like Stalin and Mao, they can do it for anyone.
I imagine that the Left might say that Saddam was no worse than Pinochet -- ignoring the fact that Pinochet took power at the invitation of a democratically elected parliament and that he handed the country back to democratic rule when he had sorted out the mess that the Left had plunged Chile into. But differences like that will be invisible to those who will not see. Les Bates also has some cynical comments on the Leftist attitude to Saddam.
Mind you, I am not unsympathetic to the view that the recent atrocious behaviour of large numbers of Iraqis towards one-another shows that Saddam was what they deserved. Their mentality suggests that they may well have a Saddam Mark II in their future.
********************
ISLAMISTS ON THE RUN IN SOMALIA
Post lifted from Daniel Mandel
Since warning in this opinion piece and this blog against US passivity in the face of the gradual take-over of Somalia by the al-Qaeda-linked Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), some provisionally good news: Ethiopian forces have moved from defending the beleaguered Interim Federal Government in Baidoa to ejecting the SCIC from the capital of Mogadishu, which it seized in June. It did this, according to Ethiopian leader, Meles Zenawi, without the US contributing "a single bullet, a single soldier, or a single military equipment to this operation."
Ethiopia has however done this in the face of EU, Arab League and Organisation of the Islamic Conference condemnation.
Additionally - and for some, this factor will be damning - Ethiopia has been criticized editorially by the New York Times. On what ground? - Because it was a "unilateral pre-emptive attack" which "seldom solves anything" and because "Ethiopia's armed forces crossed an international border". Its advice? That "the Security Council must meet urgently to find ways to replace Ethiopian troops with a neutral international force and keep the violence from spreading to other countries."
It is true that violence could indeed spread and that action is needed. However, Ethiopia's "unilateral pre-emptive attack" comes after months of remorseless SCIC aggression against Somalia's lawful government, which has welcomed Ethiopia's help. In these circumstances, coming to the aid of a lawful government under internal assault can be called several things, but unilateral or pre-emptive are not among them. For the meantime, Ethiopia certainly seems to have "solved" something - preventing the imminent demise of Somalia's lawful government. And the proposal the New York Times advises the Security Council to adopt - inserting an international force - is probably a foredoomed idea whose possibility exists at all solely because of Ethiopia's "unilateral," "pre-emptive attack" and "crossing of an international border."
One suspects that the New York Times cannot welcome a non-Muslim victory over Muslim extremists and has plucked out its proposal of a "neutral force" (i.e., mainly Muslim) to preserve what Ethiopian arms alone achieved.
**************************
ELSEWHERE
There is a fabulous non-satirical post about hurricane Katrina by Scott Ott on Scrappleface here -- which shows that the mockery Scrappleface serves up comes from the real, old America that is constantly threatened but not so far defeated by Leftism and bureaucracy. The comments Scott Ott makes in his post about how it is local efforts that work best in recovery from floods and hurricanes were amply confirmed in Australia last year -- in the aftermath of Northeast Australia's big cyclone. See here.
Nobody (not even blacks) likes working for blacks: "Last month, Jennifer Freeman sat in a Chicago coffee bar, counting her blessings and considering her problem. She had a husband with an M.B.A. degree, two children and a job offer that would let her dig out the education degree she had stashed away during years of playdates and potty training. But she could not accept the job. After weeks of searching, Ms. Freeman, who is African-American, still could not find a nanny for her son, 5, and daughter, 3. Agency after agency told her they had no one to send to her South Side home."
Chris Brand points out that the unbelievable has happened: The New York Times has achknowledged the low average IQ of Africans. They explain it erroneously (as due to malnutrition) but acknowledging it at all is at least to raise the matter for discussion among the "caring" (self-important) classes. Even the United Nations says that poor nutrition accounts for a loss of only 5-7 IQ points and severe food shortage (which the NYT discusses) can in fact be eugenic (raise IQ slightly) -- as the Dutch famine study showed. See about half-way down here. For academics, the usual reference is: Stein Z, Susser M, Saenger G, Marolla F. Famine and Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
A rare apology. But Muslims are special, of course: "The Homeland Security Department sent a letter apologizing to a Muslim woman who was detained at the Tampa airport and strip searched at a county jail. Safana Jawad, 45, a Spanish citizen who was born in Iraq, was detained on April 11 because of a suspected tie to a suspicious person, authorities said. She was held for two days before being deported to England."
UK: 1,000 pound fine for failing to update ID card: "A draconian regime of fines, which would hit families at times of marriage and death, is being drawn up by ministers to enforce the Identity Card scheme. Millions of people, from struggling students to newly-wed women and bereaved relatives, will face a system of penalties, netting more than 40 million for the Treasury. People would be fined up to 1,000 pounds for failing to return a dead relative's ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least 30 pounds for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a 1,000 pound fine if they do not comply."
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Saturday, December 30, 2006
DENYING THE OBVIOUS ABOUT ISLAM
Shoebat begins by explaining his frustrations with Westerners who consistently misunderstand the nature of the Islamists: "Ever since I left radical Islam, I have consistently run into Westerners who are oblivious to the mind-set of radical Islamists, and being on both sides of the fence, I have felt like I am Captain Spock of Star Trek - always having to explain to Captain Kirk how the aliens thought. Yet the first problem I encountered when speaking to Westerners is that they always think that the Muslim world has the same aspirations as they do, seeking liberty, equality, modernisation, democracy, and the good life."...
Trifkovic argues that much of the media, and many of our leaders, are still trying to act as apologists for Islam: "That consensus, as we see in the opening clips of Blair, Bush and Clinton, rests upon the implacable dogma that there is something called 'real Islam' (peaceful, tolerant and as American as apple pie), and then there is 'extremism' that is an aberrant and unrepresentative deviation of Muhammad's faith. (Blair's assurances that the 9-11 attackers were not 'Islamic terrorists' but 'terrorists plain and simple' would have been on par with U.S. President Roosevelt declaring, after Pearl Harbor, that the attackers were not 'Japanese airmen', but 'airmen' plain and simple.)"
Radical Islamists may in fact simply be acting in accord with their own Islamic faith and tradition. But many Western classrooms downplay the numerous violent and unpleasant aspects of Islamic history. "The upholders of the mindset that promotes and mandates such rubbish in our classrooms will naturally treat the truth about Islam as inadmissible, and that's why What the West Needs to Know will be ignored by them. They dominate the entertainment industry - just look at Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, which conveyed the message that, in a conflict between Christians and Muslims, the former attack, the latter react. The true hero of the movie is Saladin, a wise warrior-king sans peur et sans reproche; its villains, the coarse and bloodthirsty Europeans."
Spencer concurs, saying: "The free world is under assault everywhere from the forces of jihad, working from the teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah, and notably the words and deeds of Muhammad. Yet in America and the West, taking note of these rather obvious facts only brings one opprobrium, if the chattering classes deign to take notice at all: one is compelled in the mainstream of public discourse to deny the obvious. Everyone is busy tossing away common sense, reason, and basic powers of observation."
Shoebat recounts how, in some public speeches he gave warning of Islam, many in the audience attacked him, not radical Islam. He recalls: "At another speech, one Rabbi critiqued the New Testament as 'riddled with violence', I had no problem with his right to state this, yet when I confronted him I asked 'Why do you feel free to critique the New Testament, but afraid of critiquing Islam's well documented violence?' to which he could not reply. It didn't matter that I stated in my speech that a Jew had the right to critique Christianity, a Christian had the right to critique Mormonism and Islam, and a Muslim had a right to critique the Bible and Christianity, I was still accused of racism and bigotry against Islam. One can say almost anything against any other religion but Islam. Why?"
Concludes Spencer: "Today the comprehensive guilt trip that is multiculturalism makes it impossible for Western policymakers and media to look squarely at the nature of Islam. If the Islamic world has a problem with the West, it must be our fault - because of Iraq, or Abu Ghraib, or Israel, or Mossadegh, or something. This is an intriguing inversion of the old colonial paternalism: whereas the 'white man's burden' assumed that it was the role of the West to bring civilisation to the colonised areas, and that the civilising 'burden' was in no sense shared by the colonised people, so today the Left sees the evils perpetrated by the enemies of the West as entirely provoked by the West: once again, the 'non-white', non-Christian West has no responsibility for its own actions. But the arrogance of this perspective likewise never registers in the public sphere - it is as invisible as the Islamic doctrines of jihad and the supremacism of the Sharia."
More here
****************************
SARCASTIC BUT TRUE
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was designed to make U.S. company finance more transparent and company bosses more accountable. In practice it has placed huge bureaucratic burdens on companies domiciled in the USA. The solution? Move domicile! The post below says that the move is on
Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley... London loves you! The more I read about the flood of money coming into the City of London from the United States, the more I am convinced that in the spirit of Christmas and fraternal Anglosphere conviviality, the people of London should say a heartily thank you to Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes and Ohio Republican Michael Oxley.
In fact, in the new year I plan to launch a subscription appeal to put up a pair of gold plated statues somewhere in the square mile, depicting these two fine politicians throwing handfuls of dollar bills to a multitude of grateful City of London bankers, fund managers, stock brokers and other sundry worthy capitalists, as great numbers of companies decamp from New York and list in London instead.
And so Paul and Michael, on behalf of all those fine folks here in Merry old England whose Christmas bonus packages have gone through the roof, thank you. We could not have done it without you. God bless globalisation.
If England is less bureaucratic, it shows how exceedingly bureaucratic the alternative is. Prof. Bainbridge has more details about the idiocies of Sarbanes-Oxley
*********************
ELSEWHERE
How Britain gets people out of those evil cars: "The chance of being assaulted at a mainline railway station has nearly doubled in the past five years, according to figures from the British Transport Police. There were 1,270 violent attacks against passengers at stations last year compared with 702 in 2001 - an increase of 80 per cent. By far the most dangerous station is Leeds Central, where there were 159 attacks. In 2001 there were 75. Next are listed the main London stations - including Victoria and Waterloo - Birmingham New Street and Cardiff Central. The amount of violence had increased or stayed level at all the 61 stations covered by the British Transport Police figures, with the sole exception of Liverpool Lime Street".
Regulators Scuttle Proposal for Budget Airline: "The US government has blocked plans by Richard Branson's Virgin Group to launch a budget airline in America. Officials refused to grant Virgin America an operating licence because the carrier was 'not under the actual control of US citizens'. Under US law, airlines must be 75% owned and controlled by US citizens. California-based Virgin America, part of British billionaire Mr Branson's Virgin Group, had planned to start domestic US flights in 2007. Virgin Group has stakes in airlines in Europe, Australia and Nigeria." Why not let American air travelers decide if they prefer an airline carrier owned by non-American?
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
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.
****************************
Shoebat begins by explaining his frustrations with Westerners who consistently misunderstand the nature of the Islamists: "Ever since I left radical Islam, I have consistently run into Westerners who are oblivious to the mind-set of radical Islamists, and being on both sides of the fence, I have felt like I am Captain Spock of Star Trek - always having to explain to Captain Kirk how the aliens thought. Yet the first problem I encountered when speaking to Westerners is that they always think that the Muslim world has the same aspirations as they do, seeking liberty, equality, modernisation, democracy, and the good life."...
Trifkovic argues that much of the media, and many of our leaders, are still trying to act as apologists for Islam: "That consensus, as we see in the opening clips of Blair, Bush and Clinton, rests upon the implacable dogma that there is something called 'real Islam' (peaceful, tolerant and as American as apple pie), and then there is 'extremism' that is an aberrant and unrepresentative deviation of Muhammad's faith. (Blair's assurances that the 9-11 attackers were not 'Islamic terrorists' but 'terrorists plain and simple' would have been on par with U.S. President Roosevelt declaring, after Pearl Harbor, that the attackers were not 'Japanese airmen', but 'airmen' plain and simple.)"
Radical Islamists may in fact simply be acting in accord with their own Islamic faith and tradition. But many Western classrooms downplay the numerous violent and unpleasant aspects of Islamic history. "The upholders of the mindset that promotes and mandates such rubbish in our classrooms will naturally treat the truth about Islam as inadmissible, and that's why What the West Needs to Know will be ignored by them. They dominate the entertainment industry - just look at Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, which conveyed the message that, in a conflict between Christians and Muslims, the former attack, the latter react. The true hero of the movie is Saladin, a wise warrior-king sans peur et sans reproche; its villains, the coarse and bloodthirsty Europeans."
Spencer concurs, saying: "The free world is under assault everywhere from the forces of jihad, working from the teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah, and notably the words and deeds of Muhammad. Yet in America and the West, taking note of these rather obvious facts only brings one opprobrium, if the chattering classes deign to take notice at all: one is compelled in the mainstream of public discourse to deny the obvious. Everyone is busy tossing away common sense, reason, and basic powers of observation."
Shoebat recounts how, in some public speeches he gave warning of Islam, many in the audience attacked him, not radical Islam. He recalls: "At another speech, one Rabbi critiqued the New Testament as 'riddled with violence', I had no problem with his right to state this, yet when I confronted him I asked 'Why do you feel free to critique the New Testament, but afraid of critiquing Islam's well documented violence?' to which he could not reply. It didn't matter that I stated in my speech that a Jew had the right to critique Christianity, a Christian had the right to critique Mormonism and Islam, and a Muslim had a right to critique the Bible and Christianity, I was still accused of racism and bigotry against Islam. One can say almost anything against any other religion but Islam. Why?"
Concludes Spencer: "Today the comprehensive guilt trip that is multiculturalism makes it impossible for Western policymakers and media to look squarely at the nature of Islam. If the Islamic world has a problem with the West, it must be our fault - because of Iraq, or Abu Ghraib, or Israel, or Mossadegh, or something. This is an intriguing inversion of the old colonial paternalism: whereas the 'white man's burden' assumed that it was the role of the West to bring civilisation to the colonised areas, and that the civilising 'burden' was in no sense shared by the colonised people, so today the Left sees the evils perpetrated by the enemies of the West as entirely provoked by the West: once again, the 'non-white', non-Christian West has no responsibility for its own actions. But the arrogance of this perspective likewise never registers in the public sphere - it is as invisible as the Islamic doctrines of jihad and the supremacism of the Sharia."
More here
****************************
SARCASTIC BUT TRUE
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was designed to make U.S. company finance more transparent and company bosses more accountable. In practice it has placed huge bureaucratic burdens on companies domiciled in the USA. The solution? Move domicile! The post below says that the move is on
Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley... London loves you! The more I read about the flood of money coming into the City of London from the United States, the more I am convinced that in the spirit of Christmas and fraternal Anglosphere conviviality, the people of London should say a heartily thank you to Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes and Ohio Republican Michael Oxley.
In fact, in the new year I plan to launch a subscription appeal to put up a pair of gold plated statues somewhere in the square mile, depicting these two fine politicians throwing handfuls of dollar bills to a multitude of grateful City of London bankers, fund managers, stock brokers and other sundry worthy capitalists, as great numbers of companies decamp from New York and list in London instead.
And so Paul and Michael, on behalf of all those fine folks here in Merry old England whose Christmas bonus packages have gone through the roof, thank you. We could not have done it without you. God bless globalisation.
If England is less bureaucratic, it shows how exceedingly bureaucratic the alternative is. Prof. Bainbridge has more details about the idiocies of Sarbanes-Oxley
*********************
ELSEWHERE
How Britain gets people out of those evil cars: "The chance of being assaulted at a mainline railway station has nearly doubled in the past five years, according to figures from the British Transport Police. There were 1,270 violent attacks against passengers at stations last year compared with 702 in 2001 - an increase of 80 per cent. By far the most dangerous station is Leeds Central, where there were 159 attacks. In 2001 there were 75. Next are listed the main London stations - including Victoria and Waterloo - Birmingham New Street and Cardiff Central. The amount of violence had increased or stayed level at all the 61 stations covered by the British Transport Police figures, with the sole exception of Liverpool Lime Street".
Regulators Scuttle Proposal for Budget Airline: "The US government has blocked plans by Richard Branson's Virgin Group to launch a budget airline in America. Officials refused to grant Virgin America an operating licence because the carrier was 'not under the actual control of US citizens'. Under US law, airlines must be 75% owned and controlled by US citizens. California-based Virgin America, part of British billionaire Mr Branson's Virgin Group, had planned to start domestic US flights in 2007. Virgin Group has stakes in airlines in Europe, Australia and Nigeria." Why not let American air travelers decide if they prefer an airline carrier owned by non-American?
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Friday, December 29, 2006
IS SUPPORT FOR THE TROOPS MASCULINE?
Every now and again, somebody gets the idea of saying that conservative values are male and Leftist values are female. I have critiqued the assertions by Leftist George Lakoff to that effect some time ago.
But the idea also seems to be a favourite of conservative psychologist Gagdad Bob. Gagdad Bob is however in the tradition of the psychoanalysts and is essentially a speculative writer. He rarely provides much evidence for his assertions. So, while many of his analyses are thought-provoking, whether they are right or wrong is essentially unknown. And on this issue I think he is wrong.
Why? Because of the voting patterns. If Leftist values were female, should not women vote overwhelimngly for the Left? They don't. In fact, in the 2004 Presidential election, George Bush and John Kerry split the female vote almost equally. One could argue that Presidential candidates have to be centrists with only a slight "lean" to Left or Right but even so it is strange that there is not SOME regular tendency for the female vote to polarize if the theory is true.
Whether support for the troops is a male thing is however a different question. There is an amusing attack on an anti-troop writer here -- in which the writer concerned was described as a "neuter". Since some of the most vigorous pro-troop campaigners are women (such as Melanie Morgan) however, I am inclined to suspect the reverse.
**************************
ELSEWHERE
I have just posted here a brief review of a book about an allegedly "faith-based" (but Leftist) approach to affordable housing. After doing everything in their power to make housing LESS affordable (with attacks on the "developers" who provide it etc.), Leftists then blame others for the consequences of their own actions and advocate "solutions" (such as rent control) that will only make the problem worse. They are so hate-filled that they don't care how many ordinary people they hurt by their attacks.
Kerry shunned by the troops in Iraq: "Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops. What is amazing is Bill O'Reilly came to visit with us and the troops at the CSH the same day and the line for autographs extended through the palace and people waited for two hours to shake his hand. You decide who is more respected and loved by us servicemen and women!"
Hindu nationalists not appeasers: "On the weekend, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main parliamentary opposition, forcefully repledged themselves to the policy of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. At a meeting in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh where elections are due early in the new year, the new BJP president, Rajnath Singh, called for his party to be given 10 years "to replace the politics of Muslim appeasement with the politics of nationalism". In a chilling enunciation of the BJP's stance in a country where there are about 180 million Muslims, he declared: "Give us a clear majority and 10 years' time ... and I will promise the BJP will put an end to the politics of appeasement that is ruining the nation."
Muslim apartheid: "It is not just Egypt where Christians are being driven out of the middle east. It is in Iraq, Lebanon and Bethlehem. Muslim apartheid is worse than South African apartheid, because it is comes with the threat of not only discrimination but death and torture. Muslim religious bigotry is the root cause of terrorism in the world today and it is getting worse. It is now pushing the survivors of the Christian faith from there homes."
What a laugh! A government-sponsored rival to Google!: "French and German developers have split over a plan to rival Google with a new-generation internet search engine, but will be continuing in their efforts separately. A spokeswoman at the French Agency for Industrial Innovation said it was continuing with the project to build a search engine called "Quaero" that would be able to index not only text but also photos and videos. Some German firms would still be involved in that project, despite the withdrawal of others to work on the separate German-developed engine called "Theseus" that would be more focused on analysing text. "There will be a French project and a German project, and as they are not working in the same areas, they will not be rivals but complementary to each other - there will be two programs instead of one," she said. [It's already a bureaucratic bunfight!]
The virtues of sweatshops: "An acquaintance said to me the other day how appalling it is to see so many Americans revel in the gifts received during the holidays. 'We should be ashamed of ourselves,' he lamented. 'Most of this stuff was manufactured in sweatshops.' Such a misinformed notion shouldn't go unanswered because it reinforces this fallacy in the minds of those who don't know better."
Some good satire: "Activists of several Latino advocacy groups hailed the recent E. coli outbreaks at Taco Bell restaurants as "the biggest success yet in reclaiming Aztlan culture on the territories occupied by the American invaders." Groups as La Raza, MEChA, Organization for the Liberation of Aztlan, and other advocates for the restoration of a legendary Chicano country called Aztlan, are celebrating victory. "Mexican people across North America can finally get fast food just like back home," said Margarita Cagada, executive director of the New Jersey state chapter of La Raza. "On behalf of all Hispanics everywhere, La Raza praises Taco Bell for its loyalty to diversity and the promotion of Chicanismo within the community."
The young dimwit at the WSJ who dissed bloggers gets his comeuppance on the Hugh Hewitt show
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
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.
****************************
Every now and again, somebody gets the idea of saying that conservative values are male and Leftist values are female. I have critiqued the assertions by Leftist George Lakoff to that effect some time ago.
But the idea also seems to be a favourite of conservative psychologist Gagdad Bob. Gagdad Bob is however in the tradition of the psychoanalysts and is essentially a speculative writer. He rarely provides much evidence for his assertions. So, while many of his analyses are thought-provoking, whether they are right or wrong is essentially unknown. And on this issue I think he is wrong.
Why? Because of the voting patterns. If Leftist values were female, should not women vote overwhelimngly for the Left? They don't. In fact, in the 2004 Presidential election, George Bush and John Kerry split the female vote almost equally. One could argue that Presidential candidates have to be centrists with only a slight "lean" to Left or Right but even so it is strange that there is not SOME regular tendency for the female vote to polarize if the theory is true.
Whether support for the troops is a male thing is however a different question. There is an amusing attack on an anti-troop writer here -- in which the writer concerned was described as a "neuter". Since some of the most vigorous pro-troop campaigners are women (such as Melanie Morgan) however, I am inclined to suspect the reverse.
**************************
ELSEWHERE
I have just posted here a brief review of a book about an allegedly "faith-based" (but Leftist) approach to affordable housing. After doing everything in their power to make housing LESS affordable (with attacks on the "developers" who provide it etc.), Leftists then blame others for the consequences of their own actions and advocate "solutions" (such as rent control) that will only make the problem worse. They are so hate-filled that they don't care how many ordinary people they hurt by their attacks.
Kerry shunned by the troops in Iraq: "Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops. What is amazing is Bill O'Reilly came to visit with us and the troops at the CSH the same day and the line for autographs extended through the palace and people waited for two hours to shake his hand. You decide who is more respected and loved by us servicemen and women!"
Hindu nationalists not appeasers: "On the weekend, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main parliamentary opposition, forcefully repledged themselves to the policy of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. At a meeting in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh where elections are due early in the new year, the new BJP president, Rajnath Singh, called for his party to be given 10 years "to replace the politics of Muslim appeasement with the politics of nationalism". In a chilling enunciation of the BJP's stance in a country where there are about 180 million Muslims, he declared: "Give us a clear majority and 10 years' time ... and I will promise the BJP will put an end to the politics of appeasement that is ruining the nation."
Muslim apartheid: "It is not just Egypt where Christians are being driven out of the middle east. It is in Iraq, Lebanon and Bethlehem. Muslim apartheid is worse than South African apartheid, because it is comes with the threat of not only discrimination but death and torture. Muslim religious bigotry is the root cause of terrorism in the world today and it is getting worse. It is now pushing the survivors of the Christian faith from there homes."
What a laugh! A government-sponsored rival to Google!: "French and German developers have split over a plan to rival Google with a new-generation internet search engine, but will be continuing in their efforts separately. A spokeswoman at the French Agency for Industrial Innovation said it was continuing with the project to build a search engine called "Quaero" that would be able to index not only text but also photos and videos. Some German firms would still be involved in that project, despite the withdrawal of others to work on the separate German-developed engine called "Theseus" that would be more focused on analysing text. "There will be a French project and a German project, and as they are not working in the same areas, they will not be rivals but complementary to each other - there will be two programs instead of one," she said. [It's already a bureaucratic bunfight!]
The virtues of sweatshops: "An acquaintance said to me the other day how appalling it is to see so many Americans revel in the gifts received during the holidays. 'We should be ashamed of ourselves,' he lamented. 'Most of this stuff was manufactured in sweatshops.' Such a misinformed notion shouldn't go unanswered because it reinforces this fallacy in the minds of those who don't know better."
Some good satire: "Activists of several Latino advocacy groups hailed the recent E. coli outbreaks at Taco Bell restaurants as "the biggest success yet in reclaiming Aztlan culture on the territories occupied by the American invaders." Groups as La Raza, MEChA, Organization for the Liberation of Aztlan, and other advocates for the restoration of a legendary Chicano country called Aztlan, are celebrating victory. "Mexican people across North America can finally get fast food just like back home," said Margarita Cagada, executive director of the New Jersey state chapter of La Raza. "On behalf of all Hispanics everywhere, La Raza praises Taco Bell for its loyalty to diversity and the promotion of Chicanismo within the community."
The young dimwit at the WSJ who dissed bloggers gets his comeuppance on the Hugh Hewitt show
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).
**************************
"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)
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Thursday, December 28, 2006
THE HIGH QUALITY OF MILITARY MEN
Below is one of the many letters from American servicemen published by Taranto. I recognize every bit of what the writer says. My own time in the Australian army was of no importance at all (though I enjoyed it greatly) but the one thing it taught me very clearly was how many high quality people serve in the Armed forces
I am your now stereotypical top-of-class full-ride law school graduate veteran. I secured all sorts of jobs that seem to indicate intelligence, working in various sorts of litigation with a major defense firm. Now, I am in senior management and am an equity participant in a multinational construction firm. But 20 years ago, I was a private in the United States Army.
A graduate of the Special Forces Qualification Course, I met many bright people in the Army. I met people who were extremely intelligent. I met people with vast stores of wisdom. I met them in higher concentrations than in any other setting I have ever experienced. I met them on equal ground, wearing the same uniform, obeying the same oath. And now those people are spread across all dimensions. My comrades who stayed in, those who left, my grandfather who is now dead but who once shared admiration for my military accomplishments and I for his, my father who gave me his silver jump wings to wear when I graduated jump school more than two decades after he did--we all share an experience that, to a person, is deeply felt and sincere. And this experience does not have one damn thing to do with "opportunity" when opportunity is defined as money.
I think the representative must have misspoken. He must have meant that those who forgo "opportunity" to serve should be treasured assets who should be carefully and reluctantly deployed. This would have supported his argument on Iraq. And even if we disagree on the practice, we would agree on the premise.
But generally, there is the notion that the military is nothing but underclass idiots. Sure, they can deploy thousands of miles away and coordinate military assaults that are so precise and so technically driven that relatively small concentrations of our troops can defeat an entire nation's organized army in days. But still, they are manipulated idiots, according to the popular theory. This is wrong. Even if you disagree with the president's decision to attack Iraq, or more wisely the implementation of our plan after military victory over the Iraqi army, this does not mean the troops doing the work are idiots. Most of them are not; many of them are quite smart; almost all of them are decent folk who understand that the concepts of freedom and justice must be secured on the ground if they are to be real.
For me the service of my father, my grandfather, even General Washington called me to serve too. I wanted to earn the right to be in the same class of people as these men. Money could come later, when the important things were done. I have never, ever regretted that choice.
*********************************
ORLANDO PATTERSON
Jamaican sociologist, Orlando Patterson, is often quoted because he has more moderate and realistic views on race and racism than is usual. And, as he is a black man, his views on that matter are not described as "racist" -- which they would be if a white man had uttered them.
Patterson is far from a paragon of wisdom, however. His latest article starts out by completely ignoring the well-attested importance of IQ, for instance. What he says in the article is that it does not matter whether people have racist attitudes in their minds as long as they treat everyone politely. It is a version of the "deeds, not words" dictum. I think he has a point but there is a hostile review of the article here. I myself would say that the important thing is for each of us to treat all others as individuals as far as possible -- because there is good and bad in all groups. I say more about that here.
An earlier article by Patterson is well worth reading, however. He does a pretty good job of demolishing the standard Leftist claims that black backwardness is due to "discrimination", "poverty" etc.
*************************
ELSEWHERE
There is an article here that I find most moving. It catalogues the long history of American support for at first the idea and later the reality of a restored Israel -- a support dating back all the way to Plymouth rock. I have long thought that no real Christian could forsake Israel -- since our entire Bible was written by Israelis and we sing constantly about Jerusalem and the Holy City (etc.) in our hymns. Our entire religious culture and belief is from Israel. I am pleased to see that great numbers of American Christians have shared my view of that for over two centuries. I think you can imagine what in my view all that says about so-called Christians in other lands.
British Leftist antisemitism driving out Jews? "There is an ancient Jewish prayer that says: "Next year in Jerusalem." That, however, is not soon enough for 40 British Jews, who will board aircraft today taking them to Israel, leaving one country in the dying days of 2006 and beginning their new life in a new land and a new year: 5767 under the Jewish calendar. The migration of British Jews to Israel stands in marked contrast to the general decline in immigration to the Jewish state from elsewhere. While the number of immigrants to Israel dropped by 9 per cent worldwide in 2006, arrivals from Britain increased by 45 per cent, the largest rise of any nation."
A new Margaret Thatcher needed in Britain: ""Britons will have to pay ever higher proportions of tax for the rest of their working lives, the Government’s own figures revealed. Despite an unprecedented era of economic stability and growth, the burden of taxation is set to rise or stay constant in every decade for the coming 50 years, according to little-noticed forecasts published by the Treasury this month. The Government’s best estimate of the tax burden it will bequeath to future generations is printed in figures less than two millimetres in size and buried within an obscure document published alongside Gordon Brown’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR). Entitled Long-Term Public Finance Report: an Analysis of Fiscal Sustainability, it revealed that taxes as a proportion of national income will rise from 38.4 per cent this year to 40.5 per cent in 2026 and up to 41.6 per cent in 2056, if current policies are continued. Government spending is set to rise even faster, pushing the country’s finances deeper into the red with every successive decade from the 2030s onwards.
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).
**************************
"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.
****************************
Below is one of the many letters from American servicemen published by Taranto. I recognize every bit of what the writer says. My own time in the Australian army was of no importance at all (though I enjoyed it greatly) but the one thing it taught me very clearly was how many high quality people serve in the Armed forces
I am your now stereotypical top-of-class full-ride law school graduate veteran. I secured all sorts of jobs that seem to indicate intelligence, working in various sorts of litigation with a major defense firm. Now, I am in senior management and am an equity participant in a multinational construction firm. But 20 years ago, I was a private in the United States Army.
A graduate of the Special Forces Qualification Course, I met many bright people in the Army. I met people who were extremely intelligent. I met people with vast stores of wisdom. I met them in higher concentrations than in any other setting I have ever experienced. I met them on equal ground, wearing the same uniform, obeying the same oath. And now those people are spread across all dimensions. My comrades who stayed in, those who left, my grandfather who is now dead but who once shared admiration for my military accomplishments and I for his, my father who gave me his silver jump wings to wear when I graduated jump school more than two decades after he did--we all share an experience that, to a person, is deeply felt and sincere. And this experience does not have one damn thing to do with "opportunity" when opportunity is defined as money.
I think the representative must have misspoken. He must have meant that those who forgo "opportunity" to serve should be treasured assets who should be carefully and reluctantly deployed. This would have supported his argument on Iraq. And even if we disagree on the practice, we would agree on the premise.
But generally, there is the notion that the military is nothing but underclass idiots. Sure, they can deploy thousands of miles away and coordinate military assaults that are so precise and so technically driven that relatively small concentrations of our troops can defeat an entire nation's organized army in days. But still, they are manipulated idiots, according to the popular theory. This is wrong. Even if you disagree with the president's decision to attack Iraq, or more wisely the implementation of our plan after military victory over the Iraqi army, this does not mean the troops doing the work are idiots. Most of them are not; many of them are quite smart; almost all of them are decent folk who understand that the concepts of freedom and justice must be secured on the ground if they are to be real.
For me the service of my father, my grandfather, even General Washington called me to serve too. I wanted to earn the right to be in the same class of people as these men. Money could come later, when the important things were done. I have never, ever regretted that choice.
*********************************
ORLANDO PATTERSON
Jamaican sociologist, Orlando Patterson, is often quoted because he has more moderate and realistic views on race and racism than is usual. And, as he is a black man, his views on that matter are not described as "racist" -- which they would be if a white man had uttered them.
Patterson is far from a paragon of wisdom, however. His latest article starts out by completely ignoring the well-attested importance of IQ, for instance. What he says in the article is that it does not matter whether people have racist attitudes in their minds as long as they treat everyone politely. It is a version of the "deeds, not words" dictum. I think he has a point but there is a hostile review of the article here. I myself would say that the important thing is for each of us to treat all others as individuals as far as possible -- because there is good and bad in all groups. I say more about that here.
An earlier article by Patterson is well worth reading, however. He does a pretty good job of demolishing the standard Leftist claims that black backwardness is due to "discrimination", "poverty" etc.
*************************
ELSEWHERE
There is an article here that I find most moving. It catalogues the long history of American support for at first the idea and later the reality of a restored Israel -- a support dating back all the way to Plymouth rock. I have long thought that no real Christian could forsake Israel -- since our entire Bible was written by Israelis and we sing constantly about Jerusalem and the Holy City (etc.) in our hymns. Our entire religious culture and belief is from Israel. I am pleased to see that great numbers of American Christians have shared my view of that for over two centuries. I think you can imagine what in my view all that says about so-called Christians in other lands.
British Leftist antisemitism driving out Jews? "There is an ancient Jewish prayer that says: "Next year in Jerusalem." That, however, is not soon enough for 40 British Jews, who will board aircraft today taking them to Israel, leaving one country in the dying days of 2006 and beginning their new life in a new land and a new year: 5767 under the Jewish calendar. The migration of British Jews to Israel stands in marked contrast to the general decline in immigration to the Jewish state from elsewhere. While the number of immigrants to Israel dropped by 9 per cent worldwide in 2006, arrivals from Britain increased by 45 per cent, the largest rise of any nation."
A new Margaret Thatcher needed in Britain: ""Britons will have to pay ever higher proportions of tax for the rest of their working lives, the Government’s own figures revealed. Despite an unprecedented era of economic stability and growth, the burden of taxation is set to rise or stay constant in every decade for the coming 50 years, according to little-noticed forecasts published by the Treasury this month. The Government’s best estimate of the tax burden it will bequeath to future generations is printed in figures less than two millimetres in size and buried within an obscure document published alongside Gordon Brown’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR). Entitled Long-Term Public Finance Report: an Analysis of Fiscal Sustainability, it revealed that taxes as a proportion of national income will rise from 38.4 per cent this year to 40.5 per cent in 2026 and up to 41.6 per cent in 2056, if current policies are continued. Government spending is set to rise even faster, pushing the country’s finances deeper into the red with every successive decade from the 2030s onwards.
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).
**************************
"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
ISLAM LEADS TO FAILURE
Excerpt from Daniel Pipes
The book that most shaped my understanding of modern Muslim life was Wilfred Cantwell Smith's Islam in Modern History (Princeton, 1957). To reduce Smith's nuanced thesis to a few sentences, he argues that Muslim military, economic, and cultural success in the premodern period created an expectation that God's people would be rewarded for their faith in mundane ways. That expectation left Muslims incapable of explaining what happened when, in modern times, they fell behind in those same arenas.....
This background comes to mind with the publication of two recent studies, in the United Kingdom and in India. Each of them makes my point in spades. Some highlights of the British report, as summarized by Reuters:
Based on data from the 2001 national census, the 162-page study paints a relatively bleak picture of life for Britain's 1.8 million Muslims, most of whom are ethnic Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. "Of the different religious groups, unemployment rates among Muslims were more than double those in other groups," it found. Some 17 percent of Muslim men and 18 percent of Muslim women were unemployed compared to just five percent of Christian men and four percent of Christian women. "Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African groups had low levels of participation in the labor market," the study found. "Their high unemployment rates suggest that even when active in the labor market they experienced difficulties finding employment."
A third of Muslims lived in households which, according to the census definition, were overcrowded, compared to just six percent of Britain's Christians. Some 44 percent of ethnic Bangladeshi and 26 percent of ethnic Pakistani households were deemed to be overcrowded, against an average for the country of seven percent. In a country of nearly 59 million where home ownership is widespread and regarded as a key measure of wealth, Muslims were less likely to own their own houses than followers of other faiths. Just over half of Muslim households owned their houses compared to a national average of nearly 70 percent.
The Indian report has not been released, only portions leaked. From a summary by the prime minister's office: The Muslim community is "lagging behind" in most areas: they are "relatively poor, more illiterate, has lower access to education, lower representation in public- and private-sector jobs and lower availability of bank credit for self-employment. In urban areas, the community mostly lives in slums characterized by poor municipal infrastructure." Some particulars, as presented by the New York Times:
in many states Muslims are significantly overrepresented in prison. In the western state of Maharashtra, for instance, Muslims make up 10.6 percent of the population but 32.4 percent of those convicted or facing trial. In the famed national bureaucracy, the Indian Administrative Service, Muslims made up only 2 percent of officers in 2006. Among district judges in 15 states surveyed, 2.7 percent were Muslim.
Educational disparities were among the most striking. Among Muslims, Mr. Shariff said, the literacy rate is about 59 percent, compared with more than 65 percent among Indians as a whole. On average, a Muslim child attends school for three years and four months, compared with a national average of four years. Less than 4 percent of Muslims graduate from school, compared with 6 percent of the total population. Less than 2 percent of the students at the elite Indian Institutes of Technology are Muslim. Equally revealing, only 4 percent of Muslim children attend madrasas, Mr. Shariff said.
*************************
ELSEWHERE
Tony Blair versus Tony Blair: "On this page a few weeks ago, Tony Blair set out his case for the ID card scheme that his Government is preparing to foist upon the British people over the next eight years or so. This was, presumably, a different Tony Blair from the one whose thoughts I stumbled across at the weekend while digging out books for the local Christmas fair. New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country, published in 1996, was a collection of newspaper articles and speeches that encapsulated Mr Blair's Third Way political philosophy, the prospectus on which he would be elected to office the following year. On the cover, he said: "When we make a promise, we must be sure we can keep it. That is page one, line one of a new contract between the Government and the citizen." So what did he think of ID cards? The answer was on page 68: "Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local community." So much for Mr Blair's new contract."
Pathetic British Tories: "Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher are conspicuous by their absence in a list of 12 great Britons who created the institutions that shaped the country's history, compiled by the Conservatives and eminent historians. The ranking was prompted as part of the Tory party's review of the teaching of history in schools and comes after surveys showing that many children lack a basic knowledge of history."
Cyber cafes un-Islamic: "Using political violence between Hamas and Fatah as cover, radical Islamists are bombing internet cafes, pool halls and chemists in Gaza to impose their own brand of fundamentalism. Cybercafes have been singled out for allegedly allowing customers to download pornography. Chemists have been bombed for selling hallucinogens smuggled from Israel or through tunnels from Egypt, while pool halls are accused of encouraging immoral behaviour. A group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Righteousness is believed to have carried out more than a dozen attacks in recent weeks."
A good comment on why GWB is as he is: "Read this. The tenor of the story is that there's something wrong with President Bush because he won't publicly acknowledge that things aren't going well in Iraq. But wouldn't it be self-defeating for the leader of our country-its commander in chief-to gnash his teeth in public? His job is to lead and inspire. If he expressed ambivalence about the war, it would be lost in a heartbeat. For us to have any chance to win, he must remain firm and strong. Leftists say that he's being insincere, even duplicitous. They want him to pour his guts out, to admit to doubts, to wonder aloud whether he did the right thing by invading Iraq. In short, they want Jimmy Carter. Leftists don't understand leadership, perhaps because it's been so long since they had power. President Bush is doing what he believes right, and he was elected twice to lead this nation. Those who don't like his decisions or his leadership style can elect someone more to their liking in 2008.
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).
**************************
"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.
****************************
Excerpt from Daniel Pipes
The book that most shaped my understanding of modern Muslim life was Wilfred Cantwell Smith's Islam in Modern History (Princeton, 1957). To reduce Smith's nuanced thesis to a few sentences, he argues that Muslim military, economic, and cultural success in the premodern period created an expectation that God's people would be rewarded for their faith in mundane ways. That expectation left Muslims incapable of explaining what happened when, in modern times, they fell behind in those same arenas.....
This background comes to mind with the publication of two recent studies, in the United Kingdom and in India. Each of them makes my point in spades. Some highlights of the British report, as summarized by Reuters:
Based on data from the 2001 national census, the 162-page study paints a relatively bleak picture of life for Britain's 1.8 million Muslims, most of whom are ethnic Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. "Of the different religious groups, unemployment rates among Muslims were more than double those in other groups," it found. Some 17 percent of Muslim men and 18 percent of Muslim women were unemployed compared to just five percent of Christian men and four percent of Christian women. "Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African groups had low levels of participation in the labor market," the study found. "Their high unemployment rates suggest that even when active in the labor market they experienced difficulties finding employment."
A third of Muslims lived in households which, according to the census definition, were overcrowded, compared to just six percent of Britain's Christians. Some 44 percent of ethnic Bangladeshi and 26 percent of ethnic Pakistani households were deemed to be overcrowded, against an average for the country of seven percent. In a country of nearly 59 million where home ownership is widespread and regarded as a key measure of wealth, Muslims were less likely to own their own houses than followers of other faiths. Just over half of Muslim households owned their houses compared to a national average of nearly 70 percent.
The Indian report has not been released, only portions leaked. From a summary by the prime minister's office: The Muslim community is "lagging behind" in most areas: they are "relatively poor, more illiterate, has lower access to education, lower representation in public- and private-sector jobs and lower availability of bank credit for self-employment. In urban areas, the community mostly lives in slums characterized by poor municipal infrastructure." Some particulars, as presented by the New York Times:
in many states Muslims are significantly overrepresented in prison. In the western state of Maharashtra, for instance, Muslims make up 10.6 percent of the population but 32.4 percent of those convicted or facing trial. In the famed national bureaucracy, the Indian Administrative Service, Muslims made up only 2 percent of officers in 2006. Among district judges in 15 states surveyed, 2.7 percent were Muslim.
Educational disparities were among the most striking. Among Muslims, Mr. Shariff said, the literacy rate is about 59 percent, compared with more than 65 percent among Indians as a whole. On average, a Muslim child attends school for three years and four months, compared with a national average of four years. Less than 4 percent of Muslims graduate from school, compared with 6 percent of the total population. Less than 2 percent of the students at the elite Indian Institutes of Technology are Muslim. Equally revealing, only 4 percent of Muslim children attend madrasas, Mr. Shariff said.
*************************
ELSEWHERE
Tony Blair versus Tony Blair: "On this page a few weeks ago, Tony Blair set out his case for the ID card scheme that his Government is preparing to foist upon the British people over the next eight years or so. This was, presumably, a different Tony Blair from the one whose thoughts I stumbled across at the weekend while digging out books for the local Christmas fair. New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country, published in 1996, was a collection of newspaper articles and speeches that encapsulated Mr Blair's Third Way political philosophy, the prospectus on which he would be elected to office the following year. On the cover, he said: "When we make a promise, we must be sure we can keep it. That is page one, line one of a new contract between the Government and the citizen." So what did he think of ID cards? The answer was on page 68: "Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local community." So much for Mr Blair's new contract."
Pathetic British Tories: "Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher are conspicuous by their absence in a list of 12 great Britons who created the institutions that shaped the country's history, compiled by the Conservatives and eminent historians. The ranking was prompted as part of the Tory party's review of the teaching of history in schools and comes after surveys showing that many children lack a basic knowledge of history."
Cyber cafes un-Islamic: "Using political violence between Hamas and Fatah as cover, radical Islamists are bombing internet cafes, pool halls and chemists in Gaza to impose their own brand of fundamentalism. Cybercafes have been singled out for allegedly allowing customers to download pornography. Chemists have been bombed for selling hallucinogens smuggled from Israel or through tunnels from Egypt, while pool halls are accused of encouraging immoral behaviour. A group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Righteousness is believed to have carried out more than a dozen attacks in recent weeks."
A good comment on why GWB is as he is: "Read this. The tenor of the story is that there's something wrong with President Bush because he won't publicly acknowledge that things aren't going well in Iraq. But wouldn't it be self-defeating for the leader of our country-its commander in chief-to gnash his teeth in public? His job is to lead and inspire. If he expressed ambivalence about the war, it would be lost in a heartbeat. For us to have any chance to win, he must remain firm and strong. Leftists say that he's being insincere, even duplicitous. They want him to pour his guts out, to admit to doubts, to wonder aloud whether he did the right thing by invading Iraq. In short, they want Jimmy Carter. Leftists don't understand leadership, perhaps because it's been so long since they had power. President Bush is doing what he believes right, and he was elected twice to lead this nation. Those who don't like his decisions or his leadership style can elect someone more to their liking in 2008.
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).
**************************
"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
WALTER WILLIAMS ON RACIAL PROFILING
Racial profiling controversy is nothing new. For a number of years, black Americans have made charges of racial profiling by police and store personnel who might give them extra scrutiny. Clever phrases have emerged, such as "driving while black" and now "flying while Muslim," but they don't help much in terms of understanding. Let's apply some economic analysis to the issue.
God, or some other omniscient being, would never racially profile. Why? Since He is all-knowing, He'd know who is and is not a terrorist or a criminal. We humans are not all-knowing. While a god would have perfect and complete information about everything, we humans have less than perfect and incomplete information. That means we must use substitutes such as guesses and hunches for certain kinds of information. It turns out that some physical attributes are highly correlated with other attributes that are less easily, or more costly, observed.
Let's look at a few, and the associated "profiling," that cause little or no controversy. Mortality rates for cardiovascular diseases were approximately 30 percent higher among black adults than among white adults. The Pima Indians of Arizona have the world's highest known diabetes rates. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men. Would anyone bring racial profiling charges against a doctor who routinely ordered more frequent blood tests and prostate screening among his black patients and more glucose tolerance tests for his Pima Indian patients? Of course, God wouldn't have to do that because He'd know for sure which patient was more prone to cardiovascular disease, prostate cancer and diabetes.
It is clear, whether we like it or not, or want to say it or not, that there is a strong correlation between terrorist acts and being a Muslim, and being black and high rates of crime. That means if one is trying to deter terrorism and in some cases capture a criminal, he would expend greater investigatory resources on Muslims and blacks. A law-abiding Muslim who's given extra airport screening or a black who's stopped by the police is perfectly justified in being angry, but with whom should he be angry? I think a Muslim should be angry with those who've made terrorism and Muslim synonymous and blacks angry with those who've made blacks and crime synonymous. The latter is my response to the insulting sounds of car doors locking sometimes when I'm crossing a street in downtown Washington, D.C., or when taxi drivers pass me by.
It would be a serious misallocation of resources if airport security intensively screened everyone. After all, intensively screening someone who had a near zero probability of being a terrorist, such as an 80-year-old woman using a walker, would not only be a waste but it would take resources away from screening a person with a much higher probability of being a terrorist.
More here:
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ELSEWHERE
Global cooling! Midsummer snow in Australia: "Victorians dreaming of a white Christmas had their wish come true this morning, with snow falling in parts of the state. Early morning snow is reported to have fallen in the south-east suburbs at Keysborough, Dandenong North, Rowville and Kalorama in the Dandenongs. Snow also capped Victoria's Mt Buller, Lake Mountain and possibly Mt Baw Baw, where the temperature plunged to minus two degrees this morning. Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Ward Rooney said snow had or would fall to higher than about 900 metres above sea level today. [It proves nothing of course but Greenies claim that any unusual hot weather shows global warming so I am following suit]
Zimbabwe Food Crisis Worsens : "Ever since Zimbabwe's black racist dictator Robert Mugabe drove away productive white farmers, stole their land and gave it to his incompentent cronies and the equally incompentent land-invading thugs that called themselves "war veterans", Zimbabwe's economy has been collapsing... Now, the food crisis and therefore the general economic crisis has worsened further. At least one third of the population in this once food exporting country will require food aid from abroad to survive, while unemployment have reached 80% and inflation 600%. The latter number is rising rapidly as food prices rose 30% just during the latest week."
Toyota to trump GM: "Toyota is soon expected to overtake General Motors as the world's No. 1 car maker. The company said it expected to produce 9.42 million vehicles worldwide next year. That figure would give the Japanese car maker a clear lead over its US rival, which produced about 9.2 million vehicles this year but was struggling to deal with competition from Japanese and Korean vehicle manufacturers. GM has not released a production target for next year, but falling sales mean it is unlikely to build on this year's total. Toyota has dented GM's market share in North America with its range of fuel-efficient cars which appeal to drivers concerned about mileage and pollution. Interest in its hybrid cars, notably the Prius, has increased as a result of rising oil prices. Growing demand in North America has prompted Toyota to consider opening another plant there. [Congratulations to the UAW!]
More union stupidity: "Labor union problems in Denver are part of what forced the Democrats to delay their decision on which city will host their 2008 convention. The leader of Denver's Theatrical Stage Employees Union is refusing to sign a no-strike pledge. The head of the city's host committee says a lack of full union support is "probably a deal-breaker." Denver's City Council president says - "the irony is we are wanting to pay hundreds of union people and pay them union salaries, and we would think that's what they want."
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).
**************************
"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.
****************************
Racial profiling controversy is nothing new. For a number of years, black Americans have made charges of racial profiling by police and store personnel who might give them extra scrutiny. Clever phrases have emerged, such as "driving while black" and now "flying while Muslim," but they don't help much in terms of understanding. Let's apply some economic analysis to the issue.
God, or some other omniscient being, would never racially profile. Why? Since He is all-knowing, He'd know who is and is not a terrorist or a criminal. We humans are not all-knowing. While a god would have perfect and complete information about everything, we humans have less than perfect and incomplete information. That means we must use substitutes such as guesses and hunches for certain kinds of information. It turns out that some physical attributes are highly correlated with other attributes that are less easily, or more costly, observed.
Let's look at a few, and the associated "profiling," that cause little or no controversy. Mortality rates for cardiovascular diseases were approximately 30 percent higher among black adults than among white adults. The Pima Indians of Arizona have the world's highest known diabetes rates. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men. Would anyone bring racial profiling charges against a doctor who routinely ordered more frequent blood tests and prostate screening among his black patients and more glucose tolerance tests for his Pima Indian patients? Of course, God wouldn't have to do that because He'd know for sure which patient was more prone to cardiovascular disease, prostate cancer and diabetes.
It is clear, whether we like it or not, or want to say it or not, that there is a strong correlation between terrorist acts and being a Muslim, and being black and high rates of crime. That means if one is trying to deter terrorism and in some cases capture a criminal, he would expend greater investigatory resources on Muslims and blacks. A law-abiding Muslim who's given extra airport screening or a black who's stopped by the police is perfectly justified in being angry, but with whom should he be angry? I think a Muslim should be angry with those who've made terrorism and Muslim synonymous and blacks angry with those who've made blacks and crime synonymous. The latter is my response to the insulting sounds of car doors locking sometimes when I'm crossing a street in downtown Washington, D.C., or when taxi drivers pass me by.
It would be a serious misallocation of resources if airport security intensively screened everyone. After all, intensively screening someone who had a near zero probability of being a terrorist, such as an 80-year-old woman using a walker, would not only be a waste but it would take resources away from screening a person with a much higher probability of being a terrorist.
More here:
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ELSEWHERE
Global cooling! Midsummer snow in Australia: "Victorians dreaming of a white Christmas had their wish come true this morning, with snow falling in parts of the state. Early morning snow is reported to have fallen in the south-east suburbs at Keysborough, Dandenong North, Rowville and Kalorama in the Dandenongs. Snow also capped Victoria's Mt Buller, Lake Mountain and possibly Mt Baw Baw, where the temperature plunged to minus two degrees this morning. Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Ward Rooney said snow had or would fall to higher than about 900 metres above sea level today. [It proves nothing of course but Greenies claim that any unusual hot weather shows global warming so I am following suit]
Zimbabwe Food Crisis Worsens : "Ever since Zimbabwe's black racist dictator Robert Mugabe drove away productive white farmers, stole their land and gave it to his incompentent cronies and the equally incompentent land-invading thugs that called themselves "war veterans", Zimbabwe's economy has been collapsing... Now, the food crisis and therefore the general economic crisis has worsened further. At least one third of the population in this once food exporting country will require food aid from abroad to survive, while unemployment have reached 80% and inflation 600%. The latter number is rising rapidly as food prices rose 30% just during the latest week."
Toyota to trump GM: "Toyota is soon expected to overtake General Motors as the world's No. 1 car maker. The company said it expected to produce 9.42 million vehicles worldwide next year. That figure would give the Japanese car maker a clear lead over its US rival, which produced about 9.2 million vehicles this year but was struggling to deal with competition from Japanese and Korean vehicle manufacturers. GM has not released a production target for next year, but falling sales mean it is unlikely to build on this year's total. Toyota has dented GM's market share in North America with its range of fuel-efficient cars which appeal to drivers concerned about mileage and pollution. Interest in its hybrid cars, notably the Prius, has increased as a result of rising oil prices. Growing demand in North America has prompted Toyota to consider opening another plant there. [Congratulations to the UAW!]
More union stupidity: "Labor union problems in Denver are part of what forced the Democrats to delay their decision on which city will host their 2008 convention. The leader of Denver's Theatrical Stage Employees Union is refusing to sign a no-strike pledge. The head of the city's host committee says a lack of full union support is "probably a deal-breaker." Denver's City Council president says - "the irony is we are wanting to pay hundreds of union people and pay them union salaries, and we would think that's what they want."
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).
**************************
"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Monday, December 25, 2006
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
To all who come by here. And let us reflect thankfully on our Judeo-Christian heritage which mandated kindness and impartial justice (Exodus 23), among many other things.
***************************
SOME ECONOMICS
If Trade Surpluses are So Great, the 1930s Should Have Been a Booming Decade: "The incessant fretting over the U.S. trade deficit is unwarranted. As I point out (probably too) often, the trade deficit, along with its broader cousin, the current-account deficit, are no cause for concern. Earlier today I visited the National Bureau of Economic Research's Macrohistory Database. I clicked on Chapter 7 and then looked at the value of U.S. imports and the value of U.S. exports for each of the 120 months during the 1930s. Turns out that for only 18 of the 120 months of that dreary decade did the United States run a trade deficit (that is, imported more, value-wise, than it exported). For each of the remaining 102 months of the decade of the 1930s the U.S. ran a trade surplus."
Farm subsidy stupidity: ""The very policies touted by Congress as a way to save small family farms are instead helping to accelerate their demise, economists, analysts and farmers say. That's because owners of large farms receive the largest share of government subsidies. They often use the money to acquire more land, pushing aside small and medium-size farms as well as young farmers starting out."
The corn is as high as the subsidy's aye: "The price of corn shot up during the last months of 2006. Corn sold for $2 per bushel at the beginning of 2006, and by the end of the year, the price had zoomed to $3.75. It's not that folks are eating more corn on the cob. The rising demand has come from the increased production of ethanol, the ethyl alcohol fuel made from corn. The higher corn price affects all uses of corn, so the cost of food will also be rising. Chicken, pork, and beef will become more expensive, as well as corn for eating by human beings. Stock up on canned corn while it is still relatively cheap. Corn is also made into a syrup that is used to sweeten food and drinks, so those prices will also be rising. So what about the ethanol? Will fuel made from corn reduce dependency on oil and reduce air pollution? Or is it a subsidy due to the political clout of corn farmers?"
More government follies: ""Politicians . . . have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from large farmers to conservation, nutrition, rural development and energy research. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, for example, favors programs that improve environmental practices on farms." [Why can't the government just get out of farming? The Soviets showed how wise about farming governments are]
Nike Ends Labor Contract with Supplier Over Child Labor Concerns: "By severing its contract with Saga, Nike is likely to score moral points with its customers in the West. But it's also likely, observers agree, to sink Saga, a corporate giant that makes about 6 million of Pakistan's annual production of 40-million soccer balls. Saga estimates that as many as 20,000 families could be affected, since 70 percent of the local market relies on them for work."
Bad politics at a minimum: "It's a cliche of politics that the name of a proposed bill or initiative depends largely on its name. (More on this later.) It's also a cliche now that free market advocates expecting Republicans to control the growth of government shows the triumph of hope over experience, but these days the Bush Administration doesn't seem to even pretend to fight. On Wednesday, the President announced that he would support a hike in the federal minimum wage ..."
*************************
Brookes News Update
Will the US dollar collapse?: The US dollar is having a hard time of it. But why is this so? Why has the dollar been falling? The basic argument is that the trade deficit is unsustainable and is driving down the dollar. But this does not tell us what is driving the deficits
The Australian economy, falling productivity and recession: It's understandable that Howard should feel satisfaction with the current course of the Australian economy, particularly in the area of unemployment. Unfortunately he neglected to mention Australia's declining productivity. On this question the Government was sold a phony bill of goods
The Republican dilemma: No ideas: The Democrats and the media are lying to the public about social security. While they enjoy the benefits of personal accounts (Thrift Savings Plan) they have sabotaged attempts to deny the American public the benefits of the same savings scheme. Better to be poor and a Democrat than wealthy and independent
Australian Keynesianism, spending and inflation: Rightwing bloggers should learn that though mocking Keynesians is an easy task, actually refuting them is a very different matter
America: Muslims' Heaven on Earth: As an article of faith, Islam considers all non-Muslims, even the so-called People of the Book, as infidels - people who are to be subjugated or cleansed from Allah's earth
Black activists condemn Senator Leahy's promised judicial obstructionism: Senator Leahy criticized President Bush for his efforts to keep tabs on suspected terrorists, and threatened to frustrate the President's constitutional right to appoint federal judges
President Bush's tax cuts and the Democrats' economic illiteracy: Filthy rich Democrats like Pelosi, Kerry and Kennedy need to explain why tax cuts that promote capital formation and raise real wages and living standards manage to benefit only the rich
************************
ELSEWHERE
Brazil's Mussolini: "Brazil's air force said it will use eight of its passenger jets to fly civilians on domestic routes, responding to a presidential order to aid holiday passengers stranded by overbooked and cancelled flights. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the air force to "make all means of aerial transport available" on an emergency basis to complement commercial flights as long delays and overcrowded flights snarled holiday travel across Latin America's largest country. The Air Force Command said in a statement that it would make two Boeing 707s, two Boeing 737s and four Embraer EMB-145s available for flights between Brasilia, the nation's capital, and the country's two largest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The Air Force's expenses will be paid for by commercial airlines, which have been dogged by mechanical problems, bad weather and a protest by air-traffic controllers, resulting in nightmares for travelers at the country's airports. Ticket sales by the nation's biggest airline, TAM Linhas Aereas SA, were halted today until the long delays and overcrowded flights are brought under control, aviation officials said. The suspension of sales by TAM airlines will remain in effect "until the effective departure of all the passengers on each flight," the National Agency of Civil Aviation, or ANAC, said in a statement"
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).
**************************
"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.
****************************
To all who come by here. And let us reflect thankfully on our Judeo-Christian heritage which mandated kindness and impartial justice (Exodus 23), among many other things.
***************************
SOME ECONOMICS
If Trade Surpluses are So Great, the 1930s Should Have Been a Booming Decade: "The incessant fretting over the U.S. trade deficit is unwarranted. As I point out (probably too) often, the trade deficit, along with its broader cousin, the current-account deficit, are no cause for concern. Earlier today I visited the National Bureau of Economic Research's Macrohistory Database. I clicked on Chapter 7 and then looked at the value of U.S. imports and the value of U.S. exports for each of the 120 months during the 1930s. Turns out that for only 18 of the 120 months of that dreary decade did the United States run a trade deficit (that is, imported more, value-wise, than it exported). For each of the remaining 102 months of the decade of the 1930s the U.S. ran a trade surplus."
Farm subsidy stupidity: ""The very policies touted by Congress as a way to save small family farms are instead helping to accelerate their demise, economists, analysts and farmers say. That's because owners of large farms receive the largest share of government subsidies. They often use the money to acquire more land, pushing aside small and medium-size farms as well as young farmers starting out."
The corn is as high as the subsidy's aye: "The price of corn shot up during the last months of 2006. Corn sold for $2 per bushel at the beginning of 2006, and by the end of the year, the price had zoomed to $3.75. It's not that folks are eating more corn on the cob. The rising demand has come from the increased production of ethanol, the ethyl alcohol fuel made from corn. The higher corn price affects all uses of corn, so the cost of food will also be rising. Chicken, pork, and beef will become more expensive, as well as corn for eating by human beings. Stock up on canned corn while it is still relatively cheap. Corn is also made into a syrup that is used to sweeten food and drinks, so those prices will also be rising. So what about the ethanol? Will fuel made from corn reduce dependency on oil and reduce air pollution? Or is it a subsidy due to the political clout of corn farmers?"
More government follies: ""Politicians . . . have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from large farmers to conservation, nutrition, rural development and energy research. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, for example, favors programs that improve environmental practices on farms." [Why can't the government just get out of farming? The Soviets showed how wise about farming governments are]
Nike Ends Labor Contract with Supplier Over Child Labor Concerns: "By severing its contract with Saga, Nike is likely to score moral points with its customers in the West. But it's also likely, observers agree, to sink Saga, a corporate giant that makes about 6 million of Pakistan's annual production of 40-million soccer balls. Saga estimates that as many as 20,000 families could be affected, since 70 percent of the local market relies on them for work."
Bad politics at a minimum: "It's a cliche of politics that the name of a proposed bill or initiative depends largely on its name. (More on this later.) It's also a cliche now that free market advocates expecting Republicans to control the growth of government shows the triumph of hope over experience, but these days the Bush Administration doesn't seem to even pretend to fight. On Wednesday, the President announced that he would support a hike in the federal minimum wage ..."
*************************
Brookes News Update
Will the US dollar collapse?: The US dollar is having a hard time of it. But why is this so? Why has the dollar been falling? The basic argument is that the trade deficit is unsustainable and is driving down the dollar. But this does not tell us what is driving the deficits
The Australian economy, falling productivity and recession: It's understandable that Howard should feel satisfaction with the current course of the Australian economy, particularly in the area of unemployment. Unfortunately he neglected to mention Australia's declining productivity. On this question the Government was sold a phony bill of goods
The Republican dilemma: No ideas: The Democrats and the media are lying to the public about social security. While they enjoy the benefits of personal accounts (Thrift Savings Plan) they have sabotaged attempts to deny the American public the benefits of the same savings scheme. Better to be poor and a Democrat than wealthy and independent
Australian Keynesianism, spending and inflation: Rightwing bloggers should learn that though mocking Keynesians is an easy task, actually refuting them is a very different matter
America: Muslims' Heaven on Earth: As an article of faith, Islam considers all non-Muslims, even the so-called People of the Book, as infidels - people who are to be subjugated or cleansed from Allah's earth
Black activists condemn Senator Leahy's promised judicial obstructionism: Senator Leahy criticized President Bush for his efforts to keep tabs on suspected terrorists, and threatened to frustrate the President's constitutional right to appoint federal judges
President Bush's tax cuts and the Democrats' economic illiteracy: Filthy rich Democrats like Pelosi, Kerry and Kennedy need to explain why tax cuts that promote capital formation and raise real wages and living standards manage to benefit only the rich
************************
ELSEWHERE
Brazil's Mussolini: "Brazil's air force said it will use eight of its passenger jets to fly civilians on domestic routes, responding to a presidential order to aid holiday passengers stranded by overbooked and cancelled flights. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the air force to "make all means of aerial transport available" on an emergency basis to complement commercial flights as long delays and overcrowded flights snarled holiday travel across Latin America's largest country. The Air Force Command said in a statement that it would make two Boeing 707s, two Boeing 737s and four Embraer EMB-145s available for flights between Brasilia, the nation's capital, and the country's two largest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The Air Force's expenses will be paid for by commercial airlines, which have been dogged by mechanical problems, bad weather and a protest by air-traffic controllers, resulting in nightmares for travelers at the country's airports. Ticket sales by the nation's biggest airline, TAM Linhas Aereas SA, were halted today until the long delays and overcrowded flights are brought under control, aviation officials said. The suspension of sales by TAM airlines will remain in effect "until the effective departure of all the passengers on each flight," the National Agency of Civil Aviation, or ANAC, said in a statement"
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).
**************************
"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
****************************
Sunday, December 24, 2006
THE NEOCONS ARE THE DECENT LEFTISTS
Now that neocons are being slow-roasted in effigy all over the world, this may be the right time to ask the question: Why isn't the whole Left neoconservative? Remember that neocons like Norman Podhoretz and Daniel P. Moynihan were former left-wingers who saw the light --- which only seems like common sense, after witnessing Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims (Dad and Junior), and the whole mass-murdering gang of cutthroats. After the Soviet Union crashed and no one could possibly ignore the bloody mess the Left kept making over seventy long years. So why didn't all the decent Leftists just read their Milton Friedman and grow up?
That's what the so-called neocons did, and more power to them. I take it as obvious that they were correct and morally decent, in learning to see how wrong they had been. They grew up. My question is: What happened to all the others? Or to ask it a different way: Why is it that in Britain, of all countries, a BBC4 survey showed that the greatest philosopher of all time is considered to be ... Karl Marx? A hate-filled parasitical scribbler who spent his life in the British Museum, stoking the fires that killed 100 million people in the 20th century? What is wrong with British education that the plain facts do not shout out for themselves?
The fact that the Left never, ever learns gives the lie to all its high-falutin' claims of "idealism," "progressivism," and superior morality. There is one and only one reason the Left isn't blamed for its misdeeds: It still controls the organs of propaganda, following der Uebermenschlicher Karl. Thus some 90 percent of our media functionairies are left wingers. A predominant percentage of professors and teachers are, too.
To hold on to their beliefs leftists must shut down any competing ideas, which is precisely what they do. Just take your favorite leftist friends, and tell them some obvious fact they don't want to hear. You can see it working right in front of your eyes: They just won't hear it. Like the stone idols of the Bible, they have eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear. (Ps. 115) As long as they control the dominant media, our society will keep teetering at the brink of destruction.... Such mental fixedness is utterly irrational. A psychiatrist would have to ask whether the people who keep peddling the same toxins over and over again are themselves deeply malevolent and destructive: Whether unconsciously they really want to murder their societies. Why else would they keep pushing toward chaos?
More here
************************
ELSEWHERE
Why won't Jimmy the hater debate his book?: "You can always tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Carter's book has been condemned as 'moronic' (Slate), 'anti-historical' (The Washington Post), 'laughable' (San Francisco Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and not by 'representatives of Jewish organizations' as Carter has claimed. Carter has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's 'persecution' of Palestinians was '[e]ven worse ... than a place like Rwanda,' Carter answered, 'Yes. I think -- yes.'"
Iranian students hide in fear for lives: "Iranian student activists who staged an angry protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week have gone into hiding in fear for their lives after his supporters threatened them with revenge. One student fled after being photographed holding a banner reading, "Fascist president, the polytechnic is not for you", during Ahmadinejad's visit to Tehran's Amir Kabir university. At least three others have gone underground after being seen burning his picture. Vigilantes from the militant Ansar-e Hezbollah group have been searching for them. In a startling contrast to the acclaim Ahmadinejad has received in numerous recent appearances around Iran, he faced chants of "Death to the dictator" as he addressed a gathering in the university's sports hall last week"
Spain in trouble: "Mujahedin fighters have returned to bases in Spain after gaining combat experience in Iraq and are now a potential threat to European security, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday. According to El Pais the fighters worked alongside cells controlled by late Al Qaeda senior leader and Jordanian extremist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, killed in June. `They are the new Trojan horse of Al Qaeda and its satellites on our territory and they are already preparing themselves,' deputy director of the European police network Europol, Mariano Simancas, told El Pais."
How defectors cope in South Korea: "North Korea is an enigma to most of the world -- but not to its defectors. Those who left, including the elite who helped lead the country, provide a picture of the secretive, crumbling regime -- whose nuclear bomb test in the fall alarmed the world again. They have little faith that talks with the North will do any good. '[North Korea] blames everything on America, and says that America has nuclear weapons and so do we,' said Jang Guk Cheol, a military officer who defected in 1999. 'They're so proud.' Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, more than 9,000 defectors have made the arduous journey to South Korea by boat, on foot, by plane, through China and Southeast Asia. Only a handful arrived each year, until the mid-1990s when numbers surged amid a long, devastating famine. Nine North Korean refugees arrived in the United States in the last year, and more are expected, U.S. officials said."
A realist on drugs: "A former US policeman and undercover drug agent has appalled narcotics officials by introducing a Christmas video for drug users on how to avoid arrest and fool the police. Barry Cooper, who is described by former colleagues as perhaps the best drug- enforcement officer in America, will next week begin marketing Never Get Busted Again, which will show viewers how to "conceal their stash, avoid narcotics profiling and fool canines every time". Mr Cooper, who supports the legalisation of marijuana, made the video because he believes that the fight against drugs in America is a waste of money. The convictions of marijuana users fills prisons with non- violent offenders, he says.... Mr Cooper argues that murderers, child molesters and rapists often receive shorter jail terms than drug users. "The trillions of dollars we're spending in our war on drugs should be used to protect our children," he said. "Our children are being molested every day and everyone knows we have lost the war on drugs."
Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts: "A company that helps advertisers connect with bloggers willing to write about their products for payment will now require disclosures amid criticism and a regulatory threat. Before this week, advertisers were barred by PayPerPost Inc. from telling bloggers they can't disclose the sponsorship, but bloggers were able to decide on their own whether or not to do so. Under the new policy, bloggers must disclose that they are accepting payment, either in the write-up or in a general disclosure policy on the blogger's Web journal."
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).
**************************
"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.
****************************
Now that neocons are being slow-roasted in effigy all over the world, this may be the right time to ask the question: Why isn't the whole Left neoconservative? Remember that neocons like Norman Podhoretz and Daniel P. Moynihan were former left-wingers who saw the light --- which only seems like common sense, after witnessing Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims (Dad and Junior), and the whole mass-murdering gang of cutthroats. After the Soviet Union crashed and no one could possibly ignore the bloody mess the Left kept making over seventy long years. So why didn't all the decent Leftists just read their Milton Friedman and grow up?
That's what the so-called neocons did, and more power to them. I take it as obvious that they were correct and morally decent, in learning to see how wrong they had been. They grew up. My question is: What happened to all the others? Or to ask it a different way: Why is it that in Britain, of all countries, a BBC4 survey showed that the greatest philosopher of all time is considered to be ... Karl Marx? A hate-filled parasitical scribbler who spent his life in the British Museum, stoking the fires that killed 100 million people in the 20th century? What is wrong with British education that the plain facts do not shout out for themselves?
The fact that the Left never, ever learns gives the lie to all its high-falutin' claims of "idealism," "progressivism," and superior morality. There is one and only one reason the Left isn't blamed for its misdeeds: It still controls the organs of propaganda, following der Uebermenschlicher Karl. Thus some 90 percent of our media functionairies are left wingers. A predominant percentage of professors and teachers are, too.
To hold on to their beliefs leftists must shut down any competing ideas, which is precisely what they do. Just take your favorite leftist friends, and tell them some obvious fact they don't want to hear. You can see it working right in front of your eyes: They just won't hear it. Like the stone idols of the Bible, they have eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear. (Ps. 115) As long as they control the dominant media, our society will keep teetering at the brink of destruction.... Such mental fixedness is utterly irrational. A psychiatrist would have to ask whether the people who keep peddling the same toxins over and over again are themselves deeply malevolent and destructive: Whether unconsciously they really want to murder their societies. Why else would they keep pushing toward chaos?
More here
************************
ELSEWHERE
Why won't Jimmy the hater debate his book?: "You can always tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell when he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate. I'm talking about former president Jimmy Carter and his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Carter's book has been condemned as 'moronic' (Slate), 'anti-historical' (The Washington Post), 'laughable' (San Francisco Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country. Many of the reviews have been written by non-Jewish as well as Jewish critics, and not by 'representatives of Jewish organizations' as Carter has claimed. Carter has gone even beyond the errors of his book in interviews, in which he has said that the situation in Israel is worse than the crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa. When asked whether he believed that Israel's 'persecution' of Palestinians was '[e]ven worse ... than a place like Rwanda,' Carter answered, 'Yes. I think -- yes.'"
Iranian students hide in fear for lives: "Iranian student activists who staged an angry protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week have gone into hiding in fear for their lives after his supporters threatened them with revenge. One student fled after being photographed holding a banner reading, "Fascist president, the polytechnic is not for you", during Ahmadinejad's visit to Tehran's Amir Kabir university. At least three others have gone underground after being seen burning his picture. Vigilantes from the militant Ansar-e Hezbollah group have been searching for them. In a startling contrast to the acclaim Ahmadinejad has received in numerous recent appearances around Iran, he faced chants of "Death to the dictator" as he addressed a gathering in the university's sports hall last week"
Spain in trouble: "Mujahedin fighters have returned to bases in Spain after gaining combat experience in Iraq and are now a potential threat to European security, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday. According to El Pais the fighters worked alongside cells controlled by late Al Qaeda senior leader and Jordanian extremist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, killed in June. `They are the new Trojan horse of Al Qaeda and its satellites on our territory and they are already preparing themselves,' deputy director of the European police network Europol, Mariano Simancas, told El Pais."
How defectors cope in South Korea: "North Korea is an enigma to most of the world -- but not to its defectors. Those who left, including the elite who helped lead the country, provide a picture of the secretive, crumbling regime -- whose nuclear bomb test in the fall alarmed the world again. They have little faith that talks with the North will do any good. '[North Korea] blames everything on America, and says that America has nuclear weapons and so do we,' said Jang Guk Cheol, a military officer who defected in 1999. 'They're so proud.' Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, more than 9,000 defectors have made the arduous journey to South Korea by boat, on foot, by plane, through China and Southeast Asia. Only a handful arrived each year, until the mid-1990s when numbers surged amid a long, devastating famine. Nine North Korean refugees arrived in the United States in the last year, and more are expected, U.S. officials said."
A realist on drugs: "A former US policeman and undercover drug agent has appalled narcotics officials by introducing a Christmas video for drug users on how to avoid arrest and fool the police. Barry Cooper, who is described by former colleagues as perhaps the best drug- enforcement officer in America, will next week begin marketing Never Get Busted Again, which will show viewers how to "conceal their stash, avoid narcotics profiling and fool canines every time". Mr Cooper, who supports the legalisation of marijuana, made the video because he believes that the fight against drugs in America is a waste of money. The convictions of marijuana users fills prisons with non- violent offenders, he says.... Mr Cooper argues that murderers, child molesters and rapists often receive shorter jail terms than drug users. "The trillions of dollars we're spending in our war on drugs should be used to protect our children," he said. "Our children are being molested every day and everyone knows we have lost the war on drugs."
Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts: "A company that helps advertisers connect with bloggers willing to write about their products for payment will now require disclosures amid criticism and a regulatory threat. Before this week, advertisers were barred by PayPerPost Inc. from telling bloggers they can't disclose the sponsorship, but bloggers were able to decide on their own whether or not to do so. Under the new policy, bloggers must disclose that they are accepting payment, either in the write-up or in a general disclosure policy on the blogger's Web journal."
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)
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