Nutty Rules of engagement in Iraq

Now that Lt. Gen. David Petraeus is the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, one of his first jobs will be to clarify what military and defense officials say are vague rules of engagement that govern how U.S. troops can use force to defend themselves. Gen. Petraeus was asked recently about the problem of the vague rules, which have been discussed at length in this column over the past several weeks. He told a former general during a recent meeting that fixing the rules will be one of his most important priorities.

More evidence of the rules problem comes from an e-mail from an Army E-5 sergeant in Iraq who took issue with the recent letter in The Washington Times written by an Army attorney. The lawyer asserted that the current rules for soldiers were adequate and not confusing.

"I can tell you from personal experience that [the current rules of engagement] don't give us very much leeway with self-defense," wrote the sergeant, a member of a combat service support unit. "They tell us in our convoy briefings that we have the right to self-defense, defense for civilians and other coalition forces," the soldier said. "However, I do know that it is hard for soldiers to distinguish when is the proper time to use self-defense and when it is not. Soldiers are scared and they have a right to be. If a higher-up decides what you did was not in self-defense, you could get in major trouble and we feel that it's really not worth it."

In one case, a soldier fired two 5.56 rounds and as a result "had to sit in an office for two days straight and tell his story over and over and fill out a ton of paperwork for doing what he felt was right." The soldier said after the experience that "he would never fire his weapon again because he felt the aftermath wasn't worth it, and that's just not right."

"The military has gone severely soft in its effort over here and that is why more and more [people] are dying," the sergeant concluded. "They're just too scared to let soldiers think for themselves."

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Stanley Kurtz makes an important point when he blames the central Islamic custom of cousin marriage for the hostility they have towards Western civilization -- which heavily undermines all such customs.

American Indians a distinct race: "A distinctive, repeating sequence of DNA found in people living at the eastern edge of Russia is also widespread among Native Americans, according to a new study. The finding lends support to the idea that Native Americans descended from a common founding population that lived near the Bering land bridge for some time. Kari Schroeder at the University of California in Davis, US, and colleagues sampled the genes from various populations around the globe, including two at the eastern edge of Siberia, 53 elsewhere in Asia and 18 Native American populations. The study examined samples from roughly 1500 people in total, including 445 Native Americans. The team looked for a series of nine repeating chunks of DNA, known as 9RA, which falls in a non-coding region of chromosome 9. They found the 9RA sequence in at least one member of all the Native American populations tested, such as the Cherokee and Apache people. The two populations in eastern Siberia, where the Bering land bridge once connected Asia to North America, also tested positive for the 9RA sequence. The 9RA sequence did not appear in any of the other Asian populations examined in the study, including those from other parts of Siberia, from Mongolia or Japan."

Obama is the best BS artist since Bill Clinton: "The Illinois Senator is the ultimate modern media creature -- he's a good-looking, youthful, smooth-talking, buttery-warm personality with an aw-shucks demeanor who exudes a seemingly impenetrable air of Harvard-crafted moral neutrality. If Hillary Clinton even dares to open her mouth within a hundred feet of him at any time during the campaign, she's going to come off like a pig digging for truffles. Even Edwards -- the so-called 'slick' candidate from '04 -- sounds like a two-bit suburban Buick dealer next to Obama. You get past the 'issues,' and it's a wipeout. Obama knows this, and so his entire political persona is an ingeniously crafted human cipher, a man without race, ideology, geographic allegiances, or, indeed, sharp edges of any kind. You can't run against him on the issues because you can't even find him on the ideological spectrum."

A nice little gift from Mexico: "Federal researchers say neurocysticercosis, a brain infection caused by a pork tapeworm, is a "growing public health problem in the United States," especially in states bordering Mexico, where the disease is endemic. Neurocysticercosis is the "most common parasitic disease of the central nervous system," according to a study jointly conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and California public health officials, who reported that "international travel and immigration are bringing the disorder to areas where it is not endemic," such as this country. "Neurocysticercosis is the primary cause of epilepsy in endemic areas. This brain worm is very serious," Victor C. Tsang, chief of the immunochemistry laboratory in the Parasitic Disease Division of the CDC said in a telephone interview. "Oral-fecal contamination is the standard route of transmission," he said of the condition.... Carriers tend to be people from rural developing countries with poor hygiene, where pigs are allowed to roam freely and eat human feces. Mr. Tsang said the condition is rife in Mexico and other parts of Latin America"

Brits less generous under socialism: "The Economist follows up Tony Blair's philanthropy speech yesterday with a big feature on the issue headlined BRING BACK THE VICTORIANS. It tells us that the most generous towns in England are Sunderland, Motherwell and Blackpool, and the meanest are Croydon, Ilford and Kingston-upon-Thames. Is it a coindence that the former are all in the North and the latter are all in the South?! The graph also shows that Britain is far more generous than other major European countries when it comes to philanthropy, but way behind the United States. But the right hand graph is possibly even more illuminating. It shows that since Labour came to power the number of people giving to charity has fallen by 12% from 70% to 58%"

Business sticks it to the taxpayer: "Wal-Mart's CEO and his chief nemesis, the head of the Service Employees International Union, have joined forces. They recently appeared together at a news conference to endorse "universal health care," sugar-words for medicine by coercive bureaucracy. No, this is not another article about why a government-based medical system is a terrible idea. This is an article about a business leader looking to the state for a bailout. It is not the first time CEO Lee Scott has endorsed interventionism. In 2005 he called for an increase in the minimum wage. It wasn't hard to figure out why. Wal-Mart pays more than the minimum wage. So why not stick it to your competitors who don't? No one, not even Wal-Mart, is so secure that a little drag on the competition wouldn't be of help. Scott's jumping on the health-care bandwagon is equally transparent. He certainly isn't the only businessman to join this unholy crusade. Big business everywhere is creaking under the weight of their medical benefits, and they see only one way out: the taxpayers. It's the same reason Big Steel would like the government to take over its pension obligations."

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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LEFTIST DENIAL OF A MORE RECENT HOLOCAUST

There are Vietnamese restaurants all over the Western world providing testimony to the holocaust that followed the Communist takeover of Vietnam but many Leftists pretend that the holocaust concerned did not happen

The Nov. 15 edition of the left-wing radio show "Democracy Now" featured former Sen. George McGovern debating whether we withdraw troops from Iraq or increase them.... He was asked by the host, "You were one of the earliest people speaking out against the U.S. attack and U.S. involvement in Vietnam. What happened? How did the U.S. pull out? What were people saying then?"

McGovern's reply was nothing short of delusional. He said, "... they were saying the same thing they're saying about Iraq. We were told all during those long years when I and others were trying to terminate our military involvement in Vietnam, an intervention that the chief architects now say was a dreadful mistake. ...that if we pulled out - maybe it was a mistake to go in, but if we pulled out, there would be a slaughter of people in Vietnam of indescribable dimensions, that Ho Chi Minh and his people would just slaughter everybody in the country that disagreed with him. We also were told that the countries next door would start toppling into communism, if we left Vietnam. None of that happened."

None of this happened? Maybe he should ask - as I have - the "boat people" who fled Vietnam to escape the holocaust that followed the communist conquest of Vietnam, or talk to the Vietnamese refugees who were sentenced to "re-education" camps for five and 10 years. Maybe he should talk to Vietnam War protester and singer Joan Baez, who in 1976 and 1979 protested the human rights atrocities of the Vietnamese communists (and was denounced as a CIA stooge by Jane Fonda's ex-husband Tom Hayden). Indeed, all Sen. McGovern really needs to do is review his own 1978 speech calling for military intervention in Cambodia to stop the communist holocaust. (Leftist icon Noam Chomsky vehemently criticized McGovern for this.) McGovern wanted to use military force to stop the very same holocaust he now denies occurred. Why would they deny?

The answer may be found in a 1995 essay written by the newly elected Virginia senator, Democrat James Webb. A veteran of Vietnam, Webb wrote an essay titled, "Robert McNamara, the Anti-War Left, and the Triumph of Intellectual Dishonesty," for the Fall 1995 edition of Strategic Review. Webb's essay begins with him describing a presentation he made to some business people about Vietnam when the subject of the war was broached. He mentions the then-recently published book about Vietnam by Robert McNamara, the architect of the war.

He states how the war was distorted by the anti-war left then and now. Webb comments, "... there has been a persistent conspiracy of silence that has lasted for decades, accompanied of late by an attempt to leap over the carcasses and the devastation that followed the communist takeover, to simply pretend it did not happen." Webb continues, "Few, if any, of the old anti-war luminaries, Stanley Karnow, Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam, George McGovern, Peter Arnett, 'Tom Harkin, Bill or Hillary Clinton ... could find it in themselves to conjure up an apology, or admit they were wrong in judging a communist apparatus that brought Southeast Asia's strongest and most pro-Western culture back into the dark ages, only to haltingly emerge fifteen years later reeking of torture, prison camps, Stalinism and corruption."

The next paragraph mentions McGovern and the motivation for this denial of the communist holocaust. Webb wrote, "The reason ... was stated most honestly and directly to me by George McGovern ... while taping the "CNN Crossfire' show ... the antiwar candidate who had once promised to go to Hanoi on his knees if he were elected President turned to me and announced in his emotionless monotone, 'What you don't understand is that I didn't want us to win that war."' (Emphasis added)

Webb applies this to the entire anti-war movement, "The people who directed the antiwar movement did not care whether McNamara had a workable strategy ... They did not care whether Nixon's Vietnamization program might have worked. They did not care whether the South Vietnamese should have been given an adequate chance to adjust their strategy after the American withdrawal. ... they did not care whether the communists signed a pledge guaranteeing free elections and a peaceful reunification of the country. Quite simply, they wanted the communists to win. Those who were adults during the Vietnam era know this truth full well. Others, however, particularly our children, have seen it glazed over and even denied as the reality of what happened after 1975 became ever more clear." (Emphasis added)

Webb then makes a salient point, "The failure of the media to show these old luminaries and their younger disciples in this true light is important ... . Only by understanding their deeper motivations can future generations comprehend the making and ultimate failure of American policy during that period, and the subsequent refusal of our media elites to speak and write honestly after South Vietnam's fall ... . Vietnam was the first war where a generation's elite not only excused itself from fighting but often openly supported the side that was killing their own countrymen ..."

Genocide authority Professor R.J. Rummel described what occurred in SE Asia as democide. He wrote, "...after the North's victory ... . Hundreds of thousands were murdered - executed outright, or dying in "re-education camps," and in the "new economic zones." ... over a million Vietnamese that risked an awful death on the ocean to escape the communists enslavement (the Boat People), of which perhaps 500,000 never made land again... . Then there was the communist Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia ... Result: about 2,000,000 murdered."

Why is it that McGovern and others who deny the Indochinese communist holocaust are not considered lunatics as they would be if they were denying the holocaust of the Nazis?

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Secret new US spy base in Australia: "Australia's close military alliance with the United States is to be further entrenched with the building of a high-tech communications base in Western Australia. The Federal Government is about to approve the base after three years of secret negotiations with Washington. The Age has been told the base, which will be built on defence land at Geraldton, will provide a crucial link for a new network of military satellites that will help the US's ability to fight wars in the Middle East and Asia. It will be the first big US military installation to be built in Australia in decades, and follows controversies over other big bases such as Pine Gap and North West Cape."

Fallacious Iraq arguments rife: "Warrior chic --the idea that biography trumps policy, that a person's identity proves the validity of their ideas--now dominates our politics, as anyone who listened to the House of Representatives debate the Iraq war this week can attest. On Tuesday the Democrats began the debate over House Concurrent Resolution 63, which says the House supports American forces serving in Iraq but disagrees with President Bush's decision to send additional troops into combat. The Democrats opened with a series of speeches from congressmen who have served in this war and in others--their status as veterans giving them unique perspective on matters of war and peace, and thus, in Democrats' eyes, lending their opposition to Bush's "escalation" of the war greater weight.... A debate on Bush's policy on its merits, engaging with its plusses and minuses, the possibility that it might work, and the possibility it might not, was nowhere to be found."

Anglicans still waffling: "Conservative Anglican archbishops have suffered a rebuff in their efforts to expel the US Episcopal Church over its liberal stance on homosexuality. A report drawn up for church leaders meeting in Tanzania concludes that the US Church has largely met demands for it to conform with orthodox teaching. The crisis began when the US Church decided to ordain an openly-gay bishop. ... Despite the report finding in the Episcopal Church's favour, there is scope for further division at the Tanzania meeting, our correspondent says. Conservative archbishops were due to put forward their plan for a parallel church in the US, under its own bishop, to cater for traditionalists who have broken away from the Episcopal Church."

Terror suspect in Canada ordered freed: "An Egyptian terror suspect who has been waging a weeks-long hunger strike was ordered released Thursday by a judge who said he posed no threat to national security while his case was under review. Mohammad Mahjoub, 46, has spent nearly seven years in a Canadian prison without any charge against him or access to the evidence against him. He was entering his 84th day of a hunger strike Thursday to protest his treatment."

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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Falsifying Islamic history as a debating tool

Post lifted from Jihad Watch

Both Hugh Fitzgerald and I have written about Islamic apologist and media darling Reza Aslan, noting some of his innumerable distortions -- for one, he calls Muhammad's community in Medina "a communal, egalitarian society dedicated to pluralism and tolerance." Sure it was -- with the women veiled and the three Jewish tribes ultimately exiled or massacred by the prophet of Islam. Other than that, it was very pluralistic and egalitarian.

But Aslan gets away with this sort of thing because few people are aware of the facts of Muhammad's life as they are recounted in Islamic tradition, and so they have no knowledge of anything they can use to challenge him. And of course he is by no means the only Islamic apologist to capitalize upon this ignorance. All of this underscores the need today for people to be informed about Islam and Muhammad not from material intended for non-Muslims, but from material written by Muslims and intended for other Muslims (which is what I used to write my biography of Muhammad). Only then can non-Muslims get a clear picture of how Muslims really regard the elements of Islam and Muhammad's words and example that jihadists use to justify their actions and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and thereby get a clear picture of the magnitude of the problem we face today.

Without such a clear picture, public policy will go wrong, remedies will be applied to the problem that are not remedies, and the jihad will continue to advance. Make no mistake: false, whitewashed history is a weapon of the jihad. Don't let yourself become a victim.

Here is another example: in `Reza Aslan's Pogrom Amnesia,' the ever-insightful Ilana Mercer has posted a link to a post by Myles Kantor about a debate between atheist crusader Sam Harris and Aslan. In that debate, Aslan again uses whitewashed history as a debating tool:

About Reza Aslan, the darling of the media on all things Muslim, Myles Kantor observes the following:

"Last night I watched Sam Harris and Reza Aslan's January 25 debate on religion at the Los Angeles Public Library. Toward the end, Harris noted the anti-Semitic character of the Middle East before the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Aslan responded in reference to pre-state Israel, `Before 1948, of course, there were tens of thousands of Jews living alongside their Arab neighbors without any problem at all.'

Without any problem at all? How about the Jerusalem pogrom in 1920 and the Jaffa pogrom in 1921? Or Arab massacres of Jews in Hebron and Safad in 1929? Or the Tiberias pogrom in 1938? (There was a reason the Sephardic Jewish sage Maimonides wrote in 1172 regarding Arabs, `Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.')

If Aslan is ignorant of this recurrent savagery, then the Harvard graduate's study of pre-state Israel has been amazingly selective. If not, his misrepresentation of Arab-Jewish life before 1948 is revisionism in the same gutter as Holocaust denial."

Or down at curb level with the New Historians' output.

Aslan's howler here is on par with similar claims that Muslim Spain was a proto-multiculturalist paradise. And innumerable others. Inform yourselves. Don't let the whitewashers of jihad get away with any falsehoods.

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ELSEWHERE

Bank of America rolls out credit card requiring no SSN: "Bank of America Corp. has begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, typically illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. In recent years, banks across the country have been offering checking accounts and even mortgages to the nation's fast-growing ranks of undocumented immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, the paper said, adding these immigrants generally have not been able to get major credit cards. The new Bank of America card is open to people who lack both a Social Security number and a credit history, as long as they have held a checking account with the bank for three months without an overdraft, the Journal said."

State Farm stops new policies in Mississippi: "State Farm Insurance Cos. is suspending sales of any new commercial or homeowner policies in Mississippi starting Friday, citing in part a wave of litigation it has faced since Hurricane Katrina, a company official said Wednesday. Mike Fernandez, vice president of public affairs for State Farm, said Mississippi's 'current legal and political environment is simply untenable. We're just not in a position to accept any additional risk in this homeowners' market.' Fernandez said the decision does not affect existing policies but the company is still assessing how many of the current policies in Mississippi will be renewed this year. Fernandez said the action was not a direct response to any specific development in the litigation. That litigation has included a recent federal jury's $2.5 million punitive damage award to a couple who sued State Farm for refusing to cover the 2005 hurricane's storm surge damage to their Biloxi home."

Indian truckdrivers coming: "Truckers on American highways will hear a new accent on their two-way radios when India exports its first batch of lorry drivers to the US to meet a severe manpower shortage. For the past four months more than 200 "transportation specialists" have been put through their paces at a training school in the state of Andhra Pradesh where US conditions have been replicated - from the size of the trailers to Yankee truckers' slang.... They are just the latest in a line of exportable skills from India, home to one-sixth of the world's population, as profit-driven enterprises and cash-strapped governments prove only too willing to tap into an English-speaking workforce eager to do the jobs rejected by others, often for a fraction of the salary.... Drivers in the US on average take home $5,000 a month plus good benefits but fewer Americans are interested in long-haul because of the amount of time they spend away from home. Gagan Global, the US company recruiting the drivers, says that there are an estimated 20,000 vacancies that urgently need filling.... Mr Gagan defended his programme, saying that both the US and India would benefit. "They're not taking away jobs [in the US]. There is a shortage. There are companies that have 5,000 trucks and 1,000 of them are sitting idle in their yards without anyone to work them," he said."

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

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

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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Why European economies lag behind the U.S.

Excerpts from recent economics Nobelist Edmund Phelps

As is increasingly admitted, the economic performance in nearly every Continental country is generally poor compared to the U.S. and a few other countries that share the U.S.'s characteristics. Productivity in the Continental Big Three--Germany, France and Italy--stopped gaining ground on the U.S. in the early 1990s, then lost ground as a result of recent slowdowns and the U.S. speed-up. Unemployment rates are generally far higher than those in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ireland. And labor force participation rates have been lower for decades. Relatedly, the employee engagement and job satisfaction reported in surveys are mostly lower, too....

In my thesis, the Continental economies' root problem is a dearth of economic dynamism--loosely, the rate of commercially successful innovation. A country's dynamism, being slow to change, is not measured by the growth rate over any short- or medium-length span. The level of dynamism is a matter of how fertile the country is in coming up with innovative ideas having prospects of profitability, how adept it is at identifying and nourishing the ideas with the best prospects, and how prepared it is in evaluating and trying out the new products and methods that are launched onto the market.....

There are two dimensions to a country's economic model. One part consists of its economic institutions. These institutions on the Continent do not look to be good for dynamism. They typically exhibit a Balkanized/segmented financial sector favoring insiders, myriad impediments and penalties placed before outsider entrepreneurs, a consumer sector not venturesome about new products or short of the needed education, union voting (not just advice) in management decisions, and state interventionism. Some studies of mine on what attributes determine which of the advanced economies are the least vibrant--or the least responsive to the stimulus of a technological revolution--pointed to the strength in the less vibrant economies of inhibiting institutions such as employment protection legislation and red tape, and to the weakness of enabling institutions, such as a well-functioning stock market and ample liberal-arts education.

The other part of the economic model consists of various elements of the country's economic culture. Some cultural attributes in a country may have direct effects on performance--on top of their indirect effects through the institutions they foster. Values and attitudes are analogous to institutions--some impede, others enable. They are as much a part of the "economy," and possibly as important for how well it functions, as the institutions are. Clearly, any study of the sources of poor performance on the Continent that omits that part of the system can yield results only of unknown reliability....

The values that might impact dynamism are of special interest here. Relatively few in the Big Three report that they want jobs offering opportunities for achievement (42% in France and 54% in Italy, versus an average of 73% in Canada and the U.S.); chances for initiative in the job (38% in France and 47% in Italy, as against an average of 53% in Canada and the U.S.), and even interesting work (59% in France and Italy, versus an average of 71.5% in Canada and the U.K). Relatively few are keen on taking responsibility, or freedom (57% in Germany and 58% in France as against 61% in the U.S. and 65% in Canada), and relatively few are happy about taking orders (Italy 1.03, of a possible 3.0, and Germany 1.13, as against 1.34 in Canada and 1.47 in the U.S.)....

The weakness of these values on the Continent is not the only impediment to a revival of dynamism there. There is the solidarist aim of protecting the "social partners"--communities and regions, business owners, organized labor and the professions--from disruptive market forces. There is also the consensualist aim of blocking business initiatives that lack the consent of the "stakeholders"--those, such as employees, customers and rival companies, thought to have a stake besides the owners. There is an intellectual current elevating community and society over individual engagement and personal growth, which springs from antimaterialist and egalitarian strains in Western culture. There is also the "scientism" that holds that state-directed research is the key to higher productivity. Equally, there is the tradition of hierarchical organization in Continental countries. Lastly, there a strain of anti-commercialism. "A German would rather say he had inherited his fortune than say he made it himself," the economist Hans-Werner Sinn once remarked to me....

It may be that the Continentals finding, over the 19th and early 20th century, that there was little opportunity or reward to exercise freedom and responsibility, learned not to care much about those values. Similarly, it may be that Americans, having assimilated large doses of freedom and initiative for generations, take those things for granted. That appears to be what Tocqueville thought: "The greater involvement of Americans in governing themselves, their relatively broad education and their wider equality of opportunity all encourage the emergence of the 'man of action' with the 'skill' to 'grasp the chance of the moment.'"

The most basic point to carry away is that the empirical results related here lend support to the Enlightenment theme that a nation's culture ultimately makes a difference for the nation's economic performance in all its aspects--productivity, prosperity and personal growth.

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PRESIDENT PEANUT

A former Carter loyalist finally sees behind the mask. Excerpts:



Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School -- Rachael Lea Fish -- showed me the facts They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up - a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son - hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.....

In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil....

It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website

The Carter Center's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far less serious ones? ....

It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter's own standards, it would be almost economically "suicidal" for Carter "to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine." By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position. It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption....

If money determines political and public views-as Carter insists "Jewish money" does-then Carter's views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes. That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.

More here

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE

The phrase "The sick man of Europe" was originally applied to 19th century Turkey and later to mid-20th century Britain (Before Mrs Thatcher). Pub Philosopher offers reasons for seeing the term as applicable to Germany today. In response to the attempt by Germany to introduce a Europe-wide ban on the denial of genocide, he writes:

To think of Germany as a patient in therapy is a useful analogy. No other nation in history has had to deal with such a burden of collective guilt. After the war, Germany was cast as a criminal and the post-war generation which is now running the country took the criticism to their hearts. Forced to confront the horror of their country's crimes, they wanted to make sure that Germany would never inflict war and genocide on Europe again. But, to prevent the resurgence of racism and dictatorship, the Germans used some familiar methods.

In their rush to break from their past, Germany's new rulers restricted free speech, banned political parties and imprisoned those who dissented from the government-approved line. In an attempt to atone for the sins of dictatorship, Germany resorted to authoritarian measures.

With its proposal to ban Holocaust denial across Europe, it is taking this authoritarianism a stage further. The irony of Germany trying to make amends for its crimes in the 1940s by attempting to browbeat the rest of Europe into introducing repressive legislation is probably lost on most members of the German government.

At this point, a therapist would politely suggest that the patient might be lapsing into old behaviour patterns and should consider doing something radically different. This would be good advice for Germany. Instead of preventing people from discussing the dark issues in its past it should confront them openly and deal with them. Allowing the Holocaust deniers to speak freely would bring their ideas out into the open where they could be easily debunked by real historians. It would show the world that the Germans are no longer afraid of their Jew-haters and, in all probability, demonstrate that Germany has no more Holocaust deniers than anywhere else in the world.

The time has come for Germany to bring its demons out into the open and to have an honest debate with those who deny the Nazi genocide. This would be a better form of therapy for Germany's psychosis than forcing its neighbours to collude in its suppression of its past.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS - A CASE STUDY IN BIAS

Post lifted from Dan Mandel

The answer to my last blog - Are Palestinians planning violence in Jerusalem? - was not long in coming. The next day, following prayers at Al-Aqsa, Muslims rioted and commenced throwing rocks at Jews praying at the Western Wall.

Associated Press (AP) provides a classic instance of cussedly biased reportage with the classic ingredients of distortion, tendentious expression and obscuration of salient facts. In a report entitled 'Israeli police storm temple', the AP report commences:

Hundreds of Israeli police stormed one of Islam's holiest shrines last night, firing stun grenades and tear gas to disperse hundreds of Muslim worshipers who threw stones, bottles and refuse in outrage over Israeli renovation work at a disputed Jerusalem temple. The clash came after days of tensions over the work and raised concern that protests at the site could spread to the West Bank and Gaza, as they did at the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000 after a visit from then opposition leader Ariel Sharon. About 200 police stormed the hilltop compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, to try to quell the protests, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The situation grew violent after about 150 protesters barricaded themselves inside the al-Aqsa Mosque at the complex. But police did not enter the mosque, and about 90 minutes after the protesters entered, they began to leave, following negotiations between officers and Muslim representatives. At that point, police pronounced themselves in control of the situation. Israeli authorities promised that the plan to replace a centuries-old bridge leading to the compound, damaged in a 2004 snowstorm, would not harm the holy site, about 60m away. But as work began this week, it drew fierce protests in the Arab world, where many leaders accused Israel of plotting to harm Muslim holy sites.

Four points:

1. Note that the Temple Mount, the name used throughout the English-speaking world for centuries, now appears only second after reference to it by a translation of its Muslim appellation, the Noble Sanctuary, which is then described as Islam's third holiest site; that it is Judaism's holiest site is simply omitted.

2. Israeli police are alleged to have "stormed one of Islam's holiest shrines" which, it emerges later in the report, they did not in fact enter.

3. The report's opening sentence is formulated in such a way as to obscure the fact that the Israeli police intervened to stop the violence of the rioters, thereby creating the impression that the Israelis resorted to the use force against peaceful "worshipers."

4. The report omits to mention that the "stones, bottles and refuse" thrown by the "worshipers" were aimed at Jews praying at the Western Wall. Only later in the report is it mentioned that "Jewish worshipers were evacuated from the Western Wall at the foot of the compound," without explaining that this was necessitated by the violence to which they had been exposed.

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ELSEWHERE

UK: Archbishop battles final Anglican split: "The Archbishop of Canterbury's hopes this week of preventing the 78 million-strong worldwide Anglican communion from finally sliding into schism over the issue of homosexuality appeared slim yesterday as he prepared to fly to Tanzania for a meeting of the church's primates. Conservative archbishops, mainly from the developing world, have gathered in Dar es Salaam for a separate two-day conference in advance of a formal meeting on Wednesday to plot tactics and agree a strategy before Rowan Williams arrives tomorrow. ... Archbishops from the developing world have told Dr Williams privately that they are opposed to his invitation to Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the US Episcopal Church, to attend the meeting because she supported its election of the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, in 2003. Presiding Bishop Schori is the first female primate of a leading Christian denomination in church history and some Africans have threatened that they will not sit down in the same room with her or recognise her authority."

UK: Woman goes to court in historic euthanasia case: "A 30-year-old woman who is terminally ill has launched a campaign to overturn Britain's euthanasia laws by compelling her doctors to increase her dose of morphine and let her die. Kelly Taylor lives in constant pain with a congenital heart defect and a spinal disorder. She says she has struggled with her condition all her life and wants release. She has been told she has a year to live but doctors have been unable to control her pain. 'Enough is enough,' she said yesterday. 'I don't want to suffer any more. I'm not depressed -- I've never been depressed. I am a happy person. But my illness is now at the point where I don't want to deal with it any more.' Her case is believed to be unique in launching a double-pronged challenge to the law that forbids doctors from helping patients to end their lives. She wants the court to rule that doctors may sedate her and then withdraw tube feeding so that she dies."

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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HAS HOWARD COOKED OBAMA'S GOOSE?

The big publicity Australian P.M. Howard got in the USA for his comments about Obama must, if nothing else, have drawn attention to Obama's "cut and run" ideas about American foreign policy. I think that a "weak on terrorism" reputation will sink Obama and now people know about it. Below is an excerpt about the controversy from an Australian newspaper:

The White House has given muted support to Prime Minister John Howard's claim that al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq would be hoping for US Senator Barack Obama to be elected president.

Mr Howard refused to back down yesterday despite a storm of protest from both sides of the Pacific as his attack on Senator Obama's plan to withdraw US forces from Iraq by March 2008 triggered accusations he had endangered the US alliance.

White House spokesman Tony Snow has said Mr Howard, a staunch ally of President George W. Bush, was merely exercising his right to free speech when he made the comments. Mr Snow said: "The Prime Minister spoke his mind. It is what it is." But at the same time, Mr Snow underscored that US President George W Bush "hasn't talked to Prime Minister Howard since January 9th".

Labor leader Kevin Rudd accused his opponent of "gross insensitivity" after Mr Howard suggested Islamic terrorists would be barracking for a Democratic victory in next year's US presidential campaign. "If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats," Mr Howard said on the Nine Network's Sunday.

Mr Howard won support from George W. Bush's most senior military adviser, General Peter Pace, who warned that a premature withdrawal of US troops would be a "humanitarian disaster" and lead to terrorists "following us home" to Australia and the US. But Senator Obama, who suggested the March timeline for withdrawing US troops as he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination on Saturday, accused Mr Howard of "empty rhetoric". In a pointed reference to Australia's modest contingent of 1400 troops in Iraq and around the Persian Gulf, the Democratic star said: "So, if he's ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them up to Iraq."

Seeking to clarify his earlier remarks, Mr Howard said he was not speaking "generically" about the Democrats but was focused on Senator Obama, who is seeking his party's presidential nomination. "I don't apologise for criticising Senator Obama's observation because I thought what he said was wrong," he said, accusing the Labor leader of "double standards". "Apparently it is in order for any number of people in the Labor Party to regularly attack George Bush, to regularly attack the American administration," Mr Howard said. "That is OK, but dare anybody criticise somebody who might agree with them on Iraq and then somehow or other I am interfering in the domestic politics of the United States."

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Arrogant EU attempts to dictate a secular morality to another country: Representatives from the European Union are increasing pressure on the government of Nicaragua to reverse its recent law which unilaterally forbids abortion under any circumstances. According to a report from the Catholic News Agency, the EU representation has threatened to withdraw economic assistance to the country if the abortion law is not reversed. Nicaragua's new abortion law was unanimously voted in by the Nicaraguan Legislature in October, 2006 and signed into law by then President Enrique Bolanos the following month. Nicaragua's new president, Daniel Ortega voiced his support of the pro-life law in his election campaign. Marc Litvine, the EU representative to Nicaragua, said that the EU regards legalized abortion as "linked to aid programs against poverty and to the rights of women". He expressed hope that "the new government will be capable of opening the debate and discussing it outside the passion of the electoral season."

Well w.t.f. IS Islam associated with? Helping little old ladies across the road, maybe? "The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called on the international community to open a global dialogue to combat the defamation of religions, citing specifically the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities after the terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001. In a resolution adopted yesterday by 31 votes in favour, 16 against and five abstentions, the Commission expressed deep concern at negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief still in evidence parts of the world. Specifically, it voiced deep concern that Islam was frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

British housing wisdom goes full-circle: "Britain's cul-de-sacs, long the butt of metropolitan snobbery, are now being targeted by the Prince of Wales as an environmental menace that foster crime, car dependence and obesity. Prince Charles has persuaded Britain's biggest housebuilders, including Barratt, George Wimpey and Bovis Homes, to halt the postwar spread of suburban closes, a boom reflected by the Channel 4 soap Brookside. Under new guidelines, they will bring back higher density housing in Victorian-style grids, to encourage people to exercise by placing shops and amenities within walking distance. Charles's adviser, Hank Dittmar, director of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, which is drawing up the code, said the sprawling and looping design of cul-de-sacs forces people into their cars. Dittmar claimed that many people routinely burn a litre of petrol on a shopping trip for a pint of milk. The new code states that every home should be within a five-minute walk of a shop selling basic foodstuffs."

Weak German court: "A terrorist once regarded as the most evil and dangerous woman in Germany will be released from prison after 24 years behind bars, a court ruled yesterday. The decision to free Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, a leading figure in the Baader-Mein-hof Group - later known as the Red Army Faction - provoked outrage from the families of her victims and fierce hostility from conservative politicians. Mohnhaupt became a cult figure in the student protest generation in the 1970s when her group carried out a series of assassinations of the political and business elite. She was jailed for her involvement in the killing of a top banker, a state prosecutor and Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the head of the West German Employers' Federation. Families of the victims are angry that Mohnhaupt is to be released early even though she has shown no remorse for the killings"

Weak Spanish court: "The Spanish Supreme Court sparked uproar yesterday after it slashed a sentence against a Basque separatist killer on hunger strike from 12 years to three. Inaki de Juana Chaos, who was sentenced to 3,000 years in jail in 1987 for 25 murders, could now go free in less than a year because of the time he has served on remand. Groups representing Eta's 800 victims were outraged by the decision and were planning to mount large street protests. The powerful Association of Victims of Terrorism, which had wanted the Supreme Court to raise de Juana's sentence to 96 years, blamed the Government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for its decision."

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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Investigating Links Between Personality and Politics

The NYT has just put out an article on the above topic that is surprisingly balanced. All the ridicule heaped on the usual Leftist nonsense by conservative bloggers and columnists must finally have hit home. Indeed the article admits that previous views on the subject have been subjected to a lot of criticism for Leftist bias. I thought, however, that I might do a quick fisking of the article:

For a start: The idea that psychology underlies political orientation is not only strongly supported by genetics research but it is also a traditional conservative claim. Conservative thinkers (such as Burke (1790), Hayek (1944) and Oakeshott (1975)) have been claiming for centuries that conservatives have a cautious disposition rather than an ideology. The amusing thing is that Left-leaning psychologists in their writings seem to be totally oblivious of the fact that conservative thinkers were talking about the psychology of politics long before psychologists were.

John Jost, George Lakoff and Arie Kruglanski get an honourable mention in the NYT article. All three are essentially charlatans. See here and here and here. And any new comment on the egregious Frank Sulloway would be superfluous. Sulloway is a proven ENEMY of science. And the finding by Dana R. Carney, to the effect that Leftists live in untidier rooms, I have not even dared to look at in case I find something wrong with it. How can I object to a finding that shows Leftists to be more juvenile?

A generally rather sensible psychologist quoted was Jonathan Haidt. He does however gild the lily enormously when he says that most liberals think about morality in terms of two categories: how someone's welfare is affected, and whether it is fair. What utter rubbish! Leftist/"liberal" thinkers habitually reject ALL morality (except when it suits them). Who has not heard the great Leftist mantra: "There is no such thing as Right and Wrong"? It's part of their beloved "postmodernism".

Another claim that the NYT makes much of is that Leftists are more "open". Putting aside for the moment the thought that "vacant" is a near synonym for "open", this is a very strained interpretation of the data -- as my critiques of the research by Kruglanski and Van Hiel show in some detail. I note with some amusement, however, that, in the unusually careful research of Van Hiel, Kossowska & Mervielde (2000), people with a definite conservative orientation were shown to be just as likely as Leftists to be open to experience. Even more awkwardly, however, the subscale measuring openness to ideas in particular showed a positive correlation with conservatism among the politically aware respondents. Among politically-aware people it was LEFTISTS who were closed-minded!

I did however rather like the closing comment in the NYT article:

What is important, said Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton University, is how psychological tendencies are translated into views about specific political issues: "In 2000, George W. Bush ridiculed nation-building; now he seems pretty committed," he wrote in an e-mail message. "Which of those positions (if either) represents rigidity, resistance to change, or discipline? On the other hand, how many flexible, curious, open-to-experience liberals do you know who want to experiment with restructuring the Social Security system?"

MUSLIM REALITY IN BRITAIN

The dragon that has scared everybody else into terrified passivity is Muslim extremism. But Ms Khan, an ordinary Birmingham-born mother of two, has dared to speak out about the radicalism that has permeated her community. She refuses to be passive; she has summoned up the moral courage, at great risk to herself, to face down the jihadists who are giving Muslims a bad name.

With great frankness and fearlessness, she laments the capture of her area of Birmingham by jihadist radicals. She describes how mosques and madrassas have sprung up like mushrooms on almost every street corner, dedicated not to helping the community but to spreading the message of jihad; how preachers are indoctrinating the young to hate Christians and Jews; how her community is in denial about the radicals in its ranks; and how the mullahs collude in sanctioning forced marriages and polygamy. "Open your eyes" is her message to non-Muslim Britain. "It's all happening on your doorstep and Britain is still blind to the real threat that is embedded here now."

The Government, she complains, has listened too much to the Muslim Council of Britain, which does not represent ordinary Muslims' views, let alone the views of Muslim women. And even David Cameron, who came up to Birmingham this week to talk about empowering Muslim women, focuses too much on their education, when he should instead - she thinks - be promising to ban the arranged/forced marriages of teenage girls that take them away from school and often condemn them to a life of misery and submission.

Ms Khan's views are so refreshing. She was born here, of Pakistani parents, and says that she loves this country and is proud to be British. She has embraced this nation's values, is grateful for the protection and opportunities it has offered her and has no problem reconciling her race or religion with her nationality. She would be happy if her son joined the police or the British Army.

It seems odd that such views should even be contentious. Generations of immigrants before her have felt the same, and have often been more patriotic and appreciative of British values than native-born citizens who take their country for granted. Yet what the radicals teach - and what many Muslim youths now believe - is that their host country is to be distrusted and that religion must come before, or even instead of, their national allegiance. So Ms Khan is right to argue that more should be done to teach Britishness in schools, in order to combat the messages that young Muslims are often imbued with in their mosques.

But the most striking point she makes is that Britain is a particularly good place for Muslim women to live in, offering far more equality and opportunity than any Muslim country. Not only are girls encouraged to stay on at school, go to university and have careers. They are treated equally under the law and are not blamed for or expected to put up with domestic violence or rape.

More here

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ELSEWHERE



Sego lurches back to the Left: "[French] Socialist candidate Segolene Royal will try to reverse her dramatic slide in the polls by presenting herself as the natural heir to Francois Mitterrand at a much-hyped presidential policy launch today. After a series of foreign and domestic policy gaffes by Ms Royal, 8000 party faithful and celebrity supporters, including veteran French actor Jeanne Moreau, are expected to fill a convention centre outside Paris to hear Ms Royal answer critics who say she is all style and little substance. Under pressure to counter her more experienced centre-right rival, frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, France's first mainstream female presidential candidate will finally unveil a traditional leftist platform for this year's elections.... Le Monde said the policies would include a 5 per cent increase in pensions - despite France's spiralling public debt due largely to generous retirement entitlements - the creation of neighbourhood police and a promise for selective regularisation of illegal immigrants".

Australian Prime Minister attacks Obama: "John Howard has risked a rift with a future US government after attacking frontrunning presidential candidate Barack Obama's policy to pull US troops out of Iraq by March next year. Labelling a victory for the high-profile Democratic Party senator in next year's US presidential election a triumph for terrorists, the Prime Minister said the strategy to pull troops from Iraq would embolden Southeast Asian terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiah. "If I were running al-Qa'ida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats," Mr Howard said."

British Labour government defies the people over road tax: "The Government is to press ahead with preparations for nationwide congestion charging despite the millionth signature on a petition opposing the idea. An experiment in internet democracy, in which people were invited to place petitions on the No 10 website and vote for them by e-mail, has embarrassed ministers. The petition calling on the Government "to scrap the vehicle tracking and road-pricing policy" was due to gain its millionth signature last night, less than three months after it was posted on the website. It received 92,000 signatures on Wednesday alone, thought to be a record for a single day. Douglas Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said last night that the signatures showed the strength of feeling among motorists but would not deter him from commissioning large-scale road-pricing trials. In an interview with The Times, he said that many of the claims made by those promoting the petition were "falsehoods"."

The gold of the Americas: "Mexicans living abroad sent home a record $23 billion last year, raising new questions about whether the government of President Felipe Calderon can afford to slow migration. In just one year, the amount of money migrants wired their families jumped 15 percent, according to Mexico's central bank, overtaking tourism to become the nation's second-biggest source of foreign income after oil. "This is a river of gold that flows into Latin America and Mexico. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. It never stops," said Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, a public opinion research firm in Coral Gables, Fla., that surveyed Mexicans on both sides of the border for the Inter-American Development Bank."

Putting security back on track: A lesson from history: "The railroads, like the airlines [of today], might have turned to government for protection. Instead, they assumed the responsibility for safety themselves. That left them free to protect their passengers and their equipment in ways prohibited to the airlines. First, rather than relying on bureaucrats and hacks for security, the railroads hired the best companies available."

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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SOME CLOSE-UP OBSERVATIONS OF THE MILITARY AS IT REALLY IS

I am a former Australian Army Sergeant and the excerpt below from Michael Ledeen about the current American military coincides with my observations of military men

I think the most impressive thing about this generation of fighters is their humanity, a point made to me by a senior official who has fought in many wars, and will soon retire. He points to the nature of the military community, which in many ways is the closest thing we've got to a classless society. If there is any group of Americans who truly believe in "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," it's our soldiers. The officer corps brings some of our most talented and most fortunate sons and daughters into intimate contact with their less fortunate cohorts. Officers from wealthy families and elite universities live alongside kids from farms, bayous, and backwoods, and the sons and daughters of the rich and famous sleep, work, fight, and die with the children of the ghettos, slums and unemployed. It isn't always that way, to be sure; the underclass kids fight their way to high rank, and some of the rich and famous leave the Ivy League and enlist, but the basic point remains: There's little room for snobbery based on who's your daddy, or where'd you go to school.

It works quite well, from all accounts. Our officers - this is holy writ for the Marines, but it is pretty much canonical in the other services as well - lead from the front. And the basic rule of the community of warriors is that you don't want to let down the guy next to you. Everyone knows that, and so everyone works as hard as he can, not only to make himself worthy, but to be damn sure the guy next to him is up to the challenge. You don't want the guy next to you to come back to base and expose your failures, and you sure as hell don't want him to fail when you need him to save you.

So a community is created, and it's a caring meritocracy far more than you'd imagine, certainly far more than I'd imagined before our kids headed off for Afghanistan and Iraq and we started to spend time with people in uniform, or with the parents of people in uniform. It's totally counterintuitive, but I think it's largely true. And it turns my stomach when the no-nothings start calling them "mercenaries," as if they were in it for the money, and as if they were dehumanized killing machines.

Somewhere on the net I read an exchange between Milton Friedman and some general. They were arguing about the value of a volunteer Army, rather than the draft, which existed at the time. The general said he didn't want an army of mercenaries, and Friedman hit the roof. He pointed out that, on that line of reasoning, we bought our meat from mercenary butchers, went for treatment to mercenary doctors, and so forth. There's a big difference between volunteers and mercenaries. Our fighters are where they are because, by and large, they believe in something bigger than themselves, they have learned that you can live in a community where virtue does not equal narcissism, and they know that they are far more than a nuisance. They're in it for all of us, and if they lose it's going to be bad for all of us.

Machiavelli, the smartest of all of us, knew that true virtue is military virtue, because it enables virtuous people to work for the common good instead of self-indulgence.

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ELSEWHERE

GA: Atlanta drops land theft battle: "It didn't take long for outrage over Mark and Regina Meeks' story to take root all across Georgia. After officials in the suburban Atlanta city of Stockbridge tried to condemn the Meeks' tiny flower shop and supplant it with a town center, the couple spent two years and more than $200,000 fighting the move in court. Their battle became a symbol of Georgia's budding movement to rein in the government's power to seize property. And this week, the owners could finally claim victory: The city said it is dropping its battle to condemn Stockbridge Florist and Gifts."

MD: Court nixes expedited land theft: "In a decision likely to force Baltimore to rethink its economic development strategy, Maryland's highest court ruled Thursday that the city cannot continue using eminent domain to 'run roughshod over the owners of private property.' The state Court of Appeals, in a blunt opinion that harshly criticized the city's favored property seizure technique, found Baltimore had no good reason to take a Charles North bar called The Magnet last year with a sped-up version of eminent domain called 'quick take.' ... Quick take, the state court pointed out, requires an agency to prove that it needs property urgently and for the public good. In this case, wrote Judge Dale R. Cathell, the BDC demonstrated neither."

UK: MPs seek special exemption from freedom of information laws: "MPs are pressing for a special exemption from new powers that they brought in seven years ago in a popular attempt to open up government to public scrutiny. A private members' Bill introduced by a former Tory whip and considered by a Commons committee today will stop the public from using the Freedom of Information Act to find out how their MPs run their private offices. David Maclean's Bill, believed to have the support of prominent Labour ministers as well as the Leader of the Commons, Jack Straw, is the latest attempt to neuter Labour's much-trumpeted right-to-know legislation. It is the second attack on the new powers in four months. In October, ministers proposed new measures that would dramatically curb the access-to-information powers. They include proposals to restrict the number of requests made by the media and make it easier to refuse requests on grounds of cost."

How embarrassing for the Europeans (1): "The United States has extended its lead as the most attractive location in which to invest in renewable energy projects. The country's increasing desirability is directly linked to a conviction among investors that politicians are now firmly in support of renewable energy. The findings by Ernst & Young come just two weeks after President Bush used his annual State of the Union address to call on Americans to cut fuel consumption by 20 per cent over the next decade, giving warning that the country had been dependent on foreign oil for too long. Jonathan Johns, author of the E&Y report, said that the country's commitment to renewable energy was reinforced by the recent renewal of tax credits for large-scale projects until at least next year. "

How embarrassing for the Europeans (2): "The White House said on Wednesday the United States had done better at reducing carbon emissions than Europe, where U.S. President George W. Bush's stance on global warming has been sharply criticized. The Bush administration has taken steps that "demonstrate real seriousness, not simply giving the speeches, but walking the walk," White House spokesman Tony Snow said, adding that "We are doing a better job of reducing emissions" than Europe. "So the idea that ... we don't understand the arguments, or we're not contemplating or taking seriously the arguments about carbon caps, of course we are," he said. While many environmentalists have urged mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions, as imposed in Europe, Bush opposes the idea and advocates the development of new technologies to reduce dependence on oil. "I would point out that ... there is a carbon cap system in place in Europe, we are doing a better job of reducing emissions here," Snow said. The White House said Snow was referring to figures from the International Energy Agency that from 2000 to 2004, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion grew by 1.7 percent, while in the European Union such emissions grew by 5 percent."

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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 -- Details here and here

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