LEFTIST PATHOLOGY

Leftists have long accused conservatives of psychopathology but Leftists are heavily projective so, if you want to see what is true of them, see what they say about conservatives

For most of my adult life I have entertained the fantasy that one day I would hear liberals and Democrats, in large numbers, saying, "You know, you were right. The only way to climb the economic ladder in America is through education, hard work, and determination. I thought that, if we could just take some of the money that the rich and the middle class have and give it to the poor, everyone would be happy.

"I thought that, because of more than two centuries of horrific abuse of African Americans - by Democrats and our KKK allies - we could buy the forgiveness and the allegiance of black people by creating a new welfare plantation for them. I was wrong and conservatives were right. Black people are just as capable of prospering in a free society as everyone else.

"I thought that there were no truly evil people in the world. I thought that people of every culture and every political ideology were basically good, and that if we could just sit down with them and talk out our differences, there would never be any reason for war. But now I know.the only road to peace is through strength.invincible military strength in the hands of free nations."

It has always been my fantasy that one day I would hear liberals and Democrats say these things, and much more. It has always been one of my principal reasons for living.one of the things that has gotten me out of bed every morning for the past fifty years. But now, after reading The Pathology of Liberalism, the breathtaking expose of the liberal psyche by New York-based journalist (and psychotherapist), Joan Swirsky, I know that my dream has always been an impossible dream.

It is an impossible dream because, while liberalism is, in fact, a mental illness, it is not a disease that can be treated with psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It can only be treated biologically. As Swirsky tells us, "conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, narcissism, and Tourette's syndrome, while long thought to be psychological in nature, are now known to be "biological" - thanks to PET scans, MRIs, and other diagnostic advances." As Swirsky notes, "The scans.have revealed the specific areas of the brain that give rise to anger, revenge, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders, stuttering, pathological lying, cheating, manipulation, obsessive-compulsive behavior, depressive disorders, even craving for chocolate!"

Soon, it is hoped, we'll be able to add liberalism to that impressive list of behavioral disorders. And since medical science has developed exciting new preparations for treating many of these disorders (e.g. Ritalin for attention deficit disorder, Haldol for psychoses, lithium for bipolar disorder, Wellbutrin for chronic depression, Xanax for anxiety), it may not be long before liberalism can be treated by ingesting a small tablet or capsule each morning before breakfast.

So what are the behavioral characteristics that lead Joan Swirsky to conclude as she has? First, it is a suspicion that the core of liberal `thinking' is the same sort of pathology that characterizes other mental disorders, i.e. a "glitch in the brain that produces `feelings' and behavior over which liberals have no control. Liberals are uniformly glum, not only in their grim demeanors and persistent anger, but also in their outlooks.And when their theories are refuted by hard facts they are unable to process the true from the untrue because their `feelings' always trump their reason."

Secondly, Swirski points out that liberals, in almost every instance, react like children, for whom the most cherished value in life is to be "liked" by their peers. As children see things, "to be liked.is not to engage in conflict, not to fight, not to judge. After all, if you fight with anyone, including Islamic terrorists, they won't like you. And if you judge them as savages, murderers, enemies of democracy, they will fight you. So don't judge them and they won't fight you." Does that sound familiar? It is pure Democrat Party orthodoxy.

Swirsky provides us with a simple litmus test. She says, "the next time you're watching or listening to a liberal, observe the symptoms. Note the anger, the pessimism, the negativity, the name-calling, the bursts of rage, the gratuitous insults, the desire to present an image of `goodness,' the transparent attempt to be liked, the willingness to change an opinion if the old one isn't polling well, and the eagerness to placate our enemies."

Now that Democrats have taken control of the Congress, it all boils down to whether or not Pfizer can come up with a pill to cure liberalism before Democrats succeed in bankrupting them and putting them out of business. As for me, I'm putting my money on Pfizer.

Source

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THE WAL-MART REVOLUTION

The heading above is the title of a recently-released book that I have just been reading -- a title that rather obviously mocks Leftist talk about revolutions but which is pretty accurate nonetheless. One of the authors is an economist so he brings to the subject the sort of cool rationality that is sadly missing from the standard Leftist boilerplate about Wal-Mart. The book gives you in detail all the facts you need to dismiss every single one of the Leftist criticisms. I liked the following paragraphs:

"We reject the idea that Wal-Mart destroys communities and adds to urban sprawl. Downtowns were declining long before Wal-Mart became an important retailmg force, and the big-box retail revolution is but one additional factor in thc demise of retailing in central business districts where parking is typicaLl relatively scarce. While it is true that some stores go out of business when Wal-Mart enters a community, the opening and closing of stores in response to changing tastes and technology has been part of the retail landscape literally for centuries. Wal-Mart does not force stores out of business. Customers do, by voting with their feet and going to Wal-Mart with its lower prices and greater choices than the local alternatives. People prefer Wal-Mart and, in exercising their preferences, they are enhancing their own welfare, and thus that of the communities the stores serve.

Wal-Mart serves customers at all income levels and walks of life, as do Target, Home Depot, Best Buy and other big-box stores. They appeal to consumers at all income levels -- but Wal-Mart disproportionately serves the poor. Wal-Mart stores are more often located in areas with below-average incomes, and surveys show that a larger proportion of lower-income people shop at Wal-Mart than people from affluent families. So the store's consumer welfare benefits particularly aid the poor -- and consequently, attempts to keep it out of communities hurt the poor far more than the rich....

Wal-Mart has not been particularly adroit in handling criticism. It has mounted a campaign to appease organized labor and environmental groups, tinkering with health care plans and entering the organic fish business, among other things. It strikes us that it may be abandoning its principles of everyday low prices to pander to its opponents, many of whom probably do not represent mainstream American thinking. We wonder whether Wal-Mart is trying to "appease the unappeasable".

I think the authors have hit on the crux of the matter in their phrase "appease the unappeasable". Leftist opposition to Wal-Mart is based on hatred of other people's success and all the PR efforts of Wal-Mart and all the detailed information in the book about it will not quench that hate. Wal-Mart's sin is the same sin that Leftists see in America as a whole and in Israel: Success.

There is more about the book here. Amazon have a discount deal on it.

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There is a site called Zionism On The Web which is devoted to counteracting antisemitic sites such as JewWatch by pushing them down the rankings in Google searches for "Zionism" etc. Anybody reading this who has a web site might like to do as I have just done and link to Zionism On The Web . Every link helps.

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".

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody.

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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JEWISH TRASH: THE LEFTIST JEWS WHO HATE ISRAEL

Excerpt below from an article by Rachel Neuwirth See also another comment here

The most potent weapon in the arsenal of the Arab and Islamist extremists seeking the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people has always been, not bombs, not guns, not missiles, not aircraft, not even the barbarism of suicide-homicide bombers,--but propaganda. Their massive and unrelenting propaganda campaign over the past sixty years has depicted Israel as a vicious, conspiratorial aggressor against, and oppressor of, the Arab people, and "world Jewry" as parties to and supporters of this conspiracy by "Zionism" and "the Zionist entity."

Most of the world has come to accept this big lie, as well as the thousands of smaller lies that have been used to construct it like the individual stones that form the Great Pyramid of Giza. Unfortunately, many Jews, including Israeli Jews, have come to accept it, too. Anti-Israel propaganda has been given so much credence within Israel itself that it has sapped the will of the Israeli government and sections of Israel's people to resist the incessant, murderous terrorist campaign waged against them. The acceptance of the Arab-Islamist "narrative" by many Israeli politicians, journalists, and scholars has been the principal cause of the endless, suicidal concessions that one Israeli government after another has made to the terrorists since 1993. Israel is dying a slow death by poisoning from this propaganda.

And within this arsenal of Arab-Islamist propaganda, by far the most devastating weapon has been those Jews who participate in manufacturing it. An article posted on the website of the American Jewish Committee for the past year, which has received renewed attention recently, documents the published rhetoric of a number of these Jewish anti-Israel propagandists (only a small fraction, unfortunately, of the total number of them). The language used by these American and Canadian Jewish college professors and other "intellectuals" to describe Israel and Jews, as documented by the author of this study, Professor Alvin F. Rosenfeld of Indiana University, includes the following: "belligerent," "bloody, "brutal," "cataclysmic," "corrupt," "cruel," "dangerous," "deadly," "militaristic," "apocalyptic," "blind," "demonic," "fanatical," "insane, " and "mad." (Jacqueline Rose). Israel is "amoral," "barbaric," "brutal," "destructive," "fascistic," "oppressive," "racist," "sordid," and "uncivilized," (from the volume Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel, edited by Seth Farber)....

In other words, for these "progressives," no evidence is needed to defame an entire nation and people. But the very fact that such extreme anti-Israel allegations and rhetoric originate with Jews give them a legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of world opinion that they would never have otherwise. Most people, naturally enough, cannot believe that Jews would make up vicious lies about their fellow Jews. Surely many readers of these books and articles by "progressive" Jews must ask themselves," how could any human beings be capable of inventing lies about their own people, their own ethnic group, or their own faith-community, or about the nation formed by their own people or faith-community?"

It is not unnatural for non-Jews to believe that what Jews say about each other or their own institutions must be true. And once these extreme allegations against Israel are accepted as fact, then the constant terrorism and armed aggression directed against Israel over the past sixty years, the suicide-homicide bombings directed at Jewish civilians, and perhaps even the complete annihilation of Israel openly threatened by President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad of Iran, by Hamas, and by so many others in the Arab and Islamic lands, have become morally acceptable to hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. Israel's six million Jews (yes, there are now nearly six million of them) have become isolated and extremely vulnerable to those who mean to do them harm.

As a consequence of their endorsing and actively disseminating these monstrous libels against Israel and their fellow Jews, and thereby giving them credibility in the eyes of the world, the "progressive" Zion-hating Jews have already got a lot of blood on their hands. And it is all too likely that in the future they will have dipped their hands in a lot more.

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ELSEWHERE

What Leftists supported under Clinton, they oppose under Bush: "The Iraq debate is starting to resemble the Yugoslavia debate of the early 1990s. Once again we are hearing that crazed foreigners are in the grip of ancient ethnic hatreds and that the U.S. has no cause to get involved in their internecine strife. Ironically, some of those now making this "realist" argument resisted its spurious logic 15 years ago. They were right to do so then, and they would be tragically mistaken were they to succumb to the siren song of nonintervention today"

Spanking ban abandoned: "The California Legislature won't be cracking down on spanking after all. Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has abandoned her plans to push for a legislative prohibition on parents spanking their children under age 4. Lieber, D-Mountain View, will introduce a bill Thursday morning that will target the use of physical force on children, but not spanking, an aide said. The measure proposes a "rebuttable presumption" that certain acts against children under 18 are unjustifiable, including throwing, kicking or hitting them with a cord or other instrument." [The idea died when it was proposed in Australia recently too. New Zealand however seems set to go ahead with the nonsense]

Companies' fair share: Zero percent: "Every freshman economics class teaches companies can't bear taxes, only people can. Companies are just legal fictions that shove off taxes onto customers, employees and shareholders. The firm itself pays nothing. And so the age-old notion that we should hammer rich companies because 'they can afford it' is really based on a simple misunderstanding. Personally, I blame lawmakers for the mix-up. They notoriously preach the gospel of 'tax companies, not people' with campaign promises to shift taxes from families onto businesses. But business taxes are just a tricky way of dumping tax burdens back onto different people. So in the world of corporate taxes, the right measure of ability to pay isn't the profits of the Fortune 500. It's our own pocketbooks."

Government housing projects didn't work in Sweden either: "In the seventies, liberal thinkers poured their scorn and the right-wing press took up the campaign, portraying the areas with disturbing images of social deprivation. The suburbs' reputations declined as a result and residents started packing their boxes.... Nowadays, these places are largely viewed as immigrant ghettos. “What is tragic is they are used as a symbol in the segregation debate in Sweden,” Soderqvist says. Ironically, it seems, the once celebrated housing project, which aimed to integrate the nation, has only served to fuel a divided society. The extent of the decline in these areas became a political embarrassment during the 90s, with employment rates going down and criminality and drug use on the up. [Tao of Defiance has some mocking comments too. The best gloss that the Swedes can now put on the projects concerned is that they are now good museum pieces!]

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".

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody.

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 Europeans are back to their old hatred of Jews

Excerpt from Michael Ledeen. I am not quite clear on what Ledeen thinks started at the beginning of C20. European antisemitism goes back many centuries. Both Luther and Marx were great antisemites

Daniel Johnson, writing in the Weekly Standard from London, notes with sadness and alarm that the European elite have now admitted their failure to negotiate an end to the Iranian nuclear program. Not only that, but they let out of the diplomatic bag the dirty little secret that it's always been about nuclear weapons.

So the Europeans know-in all likelihood they've always known-that the Iranians are building atomic bombs, and intend to use them against Israel. Against the Jews. Johnson says that if that happens, he'll pack up and leave Europe, as well he might. I'm tempted to ask him why he needs to wait. British Jews now constitute the largest single group of immigrants to Israel, having seen the graffiti on the walls and in the newspapers of their finlandized country.

The campaign against Israel and the rising tide of antisemitism are two faces of the same medallion. Anybody who has studied the rise of National Socialism recognizes the symptoms, above all the dehumanization of the Jews, accompanied by the big lies about Jewish control of this and that, from the banks to the newspapers.

In retrospect, we can see that Europe set on this course at the turn of the twentieth century, then indulged their antisemitic fantasies until they were defeated in war. We then had a happy interlude, when antisemitism was so discredited by Hitler and rendered taboo as a result of defeat. That interlude is now over, and the Europeans are reverting to form.

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ELSEWHERE

Dr. Sanity has a good post on how and why Leftists use systematic denial as a psychological defence-mechanism. Excerpt: "As the real world presses in on them, their voices have become more shrill and hysterical; their rage is escalating out of control. No longer do most of them even bother to argue their points logically; they simply loudly denounce any idea or person who threatens their ideology; or deliberately and with the ruthless finesse of all tyrants and thugs, simply attempt to suppress all dissenting opinions"

Former Clinton fundraiser condemns Hillary: "Today mogul Geffen spoke out in the New York Times column of Maureen Dowd. He attacked Hillary Clinton as a polarizing figure who cannot bring the country together and praised Obama as a uniting figure. He said Republicans believe Hillary will be easiest to defeat. He said the Clinton political organization will slime Obama, adding: "That machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective." And regarding the Clintons themselves he said: "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease. It's troubling." [Riehl World has more]

About time: "Travellers mistakenly placed on a US no-fly list of people deemed a threat to aviation can file complaints through a new government program, the US Homeland Security Department said yesterday. The no-fly list dramatically expanded following the attacks of September 11, 2001, with tens of thousands of names added, leading to numerous complaints of errors, including high-profile incidents with a US senator and British singer. The Homeland Security Department announced yesterday the launch of the DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, accessible via a secure website. "Travellers can now seek redress and resolve possible watch list misidentification issues with any of the department's component agencies at an easy-to-use and easy-to-access online location," the department said in a statement."

British police get real about heroin: "The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties policy institute, notes with approval the suggestion by Ken Jones, the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), that "heroin should be prescribed to long-term addicts to prevent them from committing crimes to feed their habits" (The Independent). However, the LA suggests that this is a very modest step in the right direction. It calls on ACPO to embrace the full logic of its position and argue that heroin should once again be sold over the counter in pharmacies...."

Arrogant Leftists still want to dictate other people's choices: "Where markets have proved triumphant is in their ability to drive up living standards and personal choice through rising productivity. And yet, as John Maynard Keynes presciently warned in 1930, this solving of "the economic problem" still leaves mankind with his "real [and] permanent problem - how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares . . . which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well". Solving this problem means rethinking the essence of each individual's relationship to the labour market. Capitalism is triumphant but complacent - to reform it, we have to go into the belly of the beast." [That each individual should be free to solve this "problem" in the way that suits his/her particular wishes best is too radical a thought for this Leftist know-all].

Hayek as a fusionist: "'Fusionism' is the attempt to combine libertarianism and conservatism into a unified political philosophy and program. It has been controversial ever since Frank Meyer first defended it half a century ago, and every electoral cycle seems to generate another round of debate over the question of whether fusionism is possible or desirable.... As it happens, Hayek rejected both the "conservative" and "libertarian" labels; he preferred to call himself a "Burkean Whig." But then, Burke was the father of modern conservatism, and the Whigs were the classical liberal ancestors of contemporary libertarians. So while there are certainly versions of conservatism and libertarianism Hayek would not have endorsed, his own self-description seems to indicate a commitment to fusionism of a sort. More substantively, Hayek was the preeminent twentieth-century champion of the free market so beloved by libertarians, and made central to his later work a Burkean defense of tradition as a repository of social and moral wisdom. Nor is this combination accidental, for the two themes are deeply intertwined in his work.

Ways to improve economic growth: "The news of the past year is pretty good. Despite high oil prices and weakness in the housing market, the U.S. economy turned in its fifth consecutive year of growth in 2006. The unemployment rate was only 4.6 percent in 2006 (compared to 6 percent in 2003) and GDP growth clocked in at 3.4 percent over the entire year. Compare those macroeconomic numbers with the 2006 performance in high-tax France, where growth was around 2 percent and the unemployment rate was more than twice that of the U.S. It is very clear that America's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts have been an unmitigated success, and Congress urgently needs to make them permanent. So, if inflation is in check, productivity is increasing, the stock market is rising, and growth is solid, what are the problems facing the United States economy? First, we shouldn't be satisfied with 3.4 percent growth, and we must continue to expand our economy in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. There are many, many policy distortions that drag on the economy and keep America, and her people, from reaching our full potential. Just because we're a little more free than Japan or Europe is no cause for celebration"

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".

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody.

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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Spot the common problem. (Hint: it isn't us)

Post lifted from Australian columnist, Andrew Bolt:

It is a dangerous and self-deluding mistake to focus only on suicide attacks in Israel and Iraq. That makes us forget that the carnage is not so much about us but about a them - a them that is even more dangerous to other Muslims than it is to us in the West.

From Pakistan today:

A SUICIDE bomber in Pakistan killed 16 people, including a judge, in a courtroom in the city of Quetta overnight in the latest attack in a series of suicide blasts to have sent shudders through the country.

Intelligence officials have attributed other attacks to sectarian Sunni militants linked to al-Qaeda and groups operating from tribal areas, regarded as hotbeds of support for the Taliban.

From Iran yesterday:

Police and insurgents clashed after a bombing in southeastern Iran late Friday near the site where an explosion killed 11 members of the elite Revolutionary Guards this week, Iranian news agencies reported…

A Sunni Muslim militant group called Jundallah, or God’s Brigade, which has been blamed for past attacks on Iranian troops, has claimed responsibility for the Wednesday bombing, AP noted.

From Turkey yesterday:

A Turkish court has sentenced seven suspected Al-Qaeda militants to life in prison for their roles in suicide bomb attacks that killed scores of people in Istanbul in 2003.

From Algeria yesterday:

A deadly and carefully planned series of bomb attacks in Algeria by an al-Qaida affiliate may signal a new escalation in violence that many Algerians hoped had abated, experts say…

Towns across the Kabylie region awoke Tuesday to a series of seven bombings, some car explosions, that largely targeted police stations. Six people were killed and about 30 injured.

From Lebanon on Thursday:

At least three people were killed and 20 injured when bombs packed with metal pellets tore through two buses traveling on a highway Tuesday, February 13, near the Christian mountain town of Bikfaya northeast of Beirut, Lebanese officials said.

From the Philippines today:

Police in the Zamboanga Peninsula in Mindanao are now on alert after receiving an intelligence report that terrorists are planning to bomb buses and attack the transport sector there…

Meanwhile, South Korea has warned its citizens not to travel to Mindanao because of possible bombings by the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist groups.

From Thailand on Friday:

Suspected insurgents shot a village head in a mosque during Friday prayers in Thai southernmost province of Pattani, while eight rangers and police officers were wounded in two bomb blasts in Yala.

From Indonesia on Saturday:

Security forces are on highest alert in Indonesia’s restive Central Sulawesi province following warnings that militants may be planning attacks, the region’s police chief said on Friday…

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, has in recent years been hit by a series of bomb blasts blamed on Islamic militants.

From Eritrea today:

Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council has revealed.

There is a pattern here, and I mean more than the absence of any wickedness by Westerners.

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ELSEWHERE

HIT MILLIONAIRE! I have never been greatly bothered by how many hits I get on my various blogs. I am accustomed to being proved right in the long run rather than being much acclaimed in the present. So it was only when STACLU announced that they have now had 1 million hits that I looked at my hit record. And I note that this blog too has exceeded a million hits. I guess that must mean something. I am myself one of the STACLU bloggers so I guess that I do get a tiny bit of the credit for what they have achieved as well.

Leading Democrat says ISRAEL is the greatest threat to world peace!: "The aggressively photogenic John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the "I" word -- Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities"

State attorneys general look after lawyers first: "The Nation's Top Ten Worst State Attorneys General," a recent study I authored for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, takes a closer look at how attorneys general use their power to encroach on the authority of other branches of government and enrich their friends at society's expense. Spitzer, who was rated the third-worst state attorney general by the study, claims to be the scourge of wealthy "economic royalists." But when rich trial lawyers demanded a staggering $625 million for bringing New York's copycat lawsuit against the tobacco companies - at a rate of $13,000 an hour - Spitzer supported them, even though they began work only after tobacco companies had already given in to lawsuits brought by two other states. When a New York trial judge issued an order blocking the award on ethical grounds, Spitzer helped them get the order overturned based on a technicality."

EU unity fades. Airbus faces break-up: "Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer, faces the possibility of being broken up after German shareholders and executives were understood to have been discussing the feasibility of the group's present structure. The Times understands that there is enormous dissatisfaction on the German side of EADS, the defence company that owns Airbus, and sources close to the company say that the Germans are considering a breakup. Such a move would end an experiment in European co-operation that has built Airbus and EADS into an aerospace giant with more than 110,000 employees, including 17,000 in the UK. The crisis at Airbus was triggered on Sunday by shareholders refusing to back a restructuring plan submitted by Louis Gallois, the co-chief executive of EADS and head of Airbus.... However, sources close to Airbus said last night that the Germans were playing a political game with France. These sources believe that the Germans will agree to Power 8 - and giving France the bulk of A350 work - only if they get all A320 production in return. This would effectively split Airbus, with the smaller aircraft made in Germany and the larger ones in France. A formal divorce between the two countries would then be achieved easily."

British bureaucracy at work again: "The government agency created to seize the assets of criminals is condemned today as a mess, having spent 65 million pounds on collecting only 23 million pounds. The Assets Recovery Agency has received 700 files linked to 274 million. But it has seized money from only 52 of these cases, according to a report by the spending watchdog. Millions of pounds paid in fees to receivers to manage criminal assets are expected in 12 cases to be more than the cash and assets being looked after. The National Audit Office report also found that the agency, which is to be merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, has no effective case-management system and had experienced high turnover of staff. A third of the financial investigators trained by the agency either retired or left soon after qualifying. The scale of the agency’s failure is highlighted by the estimated 20 billion annual cost of organised crime in Britain."

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".

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody.

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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RECENT REPORT ON THE "SEXUALIZATION" OF GIRLS

Comment on "Report of the APA task force on the sexualization of girls"

What would you expect of a report -- written by a group of Leftist women -- about the influence of the media on girls? Shriek! Shriek! and Shriek? You would be right.

A recent report issued under the aegis of the American Psychological Association -- but which was apparently not considered good enough for publication in any of their many peer-reviewed journals -- has attracted a fair bit of media attention -- e.g. here. Excerpt:

Inescapable media images of sexed-up girls and women posing as adolescents can cause psychological and even physical harm to adolescents and young women, a study has found.

The pressure of what experts call "sexualisation" can lead to depression, eating disorders, and poor academic performance, said the report, released by the American Psychological Association. "Sexualisation of girls is a broad and increasing problem and is harmful to girls," it said.

Adult women dressed as school girls in music videos, bikini-clad dolls in hot tubs, and sexually-charged advertisements featuring teenagers were among the many examples cited. Such omnipresent images - on television and the internet, in movies and magazines - could also have a negative effect on a young girl's sexual development, the study said.

As one indication of the "kick the media" mentality of the report, roughly the first half of the report is devoted to a big session of finger-pointing at examples in the media of young females being portrayed in attractive ways. That attractiveness and sexual attractiveness are closely linked in females should surprise no-one but it apparently surprised the harpies who wrote this report. No doubt advertisers could portray young girls in dowdy ways if they chose but who would want to look at such images?

The only interesting part of the report therefore is whether or not research has been pointed to which shows harm coming from media portrayals -- and there is indeed a small section in the report devoted to summarizing such research. What that research generally shows however is that females feel bad if they do not see themselves as pretty. We needed a report to tell us that?

There are a few studies mentioned that purport to show a linkage between particular media messages and a decline in female self-esteem but there are large lacunae in what is discussed. There is, for instance, no systematic attempt to separate out findings about young girls and (say) teenage girls. That what is true of pre- and post-adolescent females might differ has apparently not occured to these female authors. Since it must have occurred to them, however, I think we have to conclude that the blurring is deliberate. They want to take findings about troubled teenagers and make them appear much more worrisome by implying that they apply to young girls too.

Furthermore, we are told little about the magnitude or permanence of any adverse effect mentioned nor are we given any assurance that the results reported are in any way representative. In almost any research field worthy of the name, there are contradictory results. From this report one gathers that there are no contradictory results. One has to conclude therefore that this is not an honest research summary. It is just a feminist shriek. No wonder no APA journal would publish it.

SUPPORT THE TROOPS BY THWARTING THE MISSION?

Just what does it mean to support the troops but oppose the cause they fight for? No loyal Colts fan rooted for Indianapolis to lose the Super Bowl. No investor buys 100 shares of Google in the hope that Google's stock will tank. No one who esteems firefighters for their courage and education wants a four-alarm blaze to burn out of control.

Yet there is no end of Americans who insist they "support" US troops in Iraq but want the war those troops are fighting to end in defeat. The two positions are irreconcilable. You cannot logically or honorably curse the war as an immoral neocon disaster or a Halliburton oil grab or "a fraud . . . cooked up in Texas," yet bless the troops who are waging it.

But logic and honor haven't stopped members of Congress from trying to square that circle. The nonbinding resolution passed by the House last week was a flagrant attempt to have it both ways. One of its two clauses professed to "support and protect" the forces serving "bravely and honorably" in Iraq. The other declared that Congress "disapproves" the surge in troops now underway -- a surge that General David Petraeus, the newly confirmed military commander in Iraq, considers essential to American success.

It was a disgraceful and dishonest resolution, and it must have done wonders for the insurgents' morale. Democrats hardly bothered to disguise that when they say they "support and protect" the troops, what they really intend is to undermine and endanger their mission. The Politico, a Washington news site, reported Thursday that the strategy of "top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups," is to "pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options." If they had the courage of their convictions, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha would forthrightly defund the war, bring the troops home, and brave the political consequences. Instead they plan an agonizing and drawn-out defeat -- slowly choking off the war by denying reinforcements, eventually leaving no alternative but retreat.

That is how those who oppose the war "support" the troops -- they "slow-bleed" them dry. Or they declare that the lives laid down by those troops were "wasted," as Senator Barack Obama did last Sunday. Obama later weaseled away from that characterization ("Well, as I said, it is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any of them felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they'd shown"), but the gaffe had been committed. And like most political gaffes, it exposed the speaker's true feelings.

But then, why shouldn't Obama feel that way? If an American serviceman dies in the course of a war that toppled a monstrous dictatorship, opened the door to the possibility of decent Arab governance, and has become the central front in the struggle against radical Islam, then his death is not in vain. It is the sacrifice of an American hero, the last full measure of devotion given in the cause of freedom. But if he dies in the course of a senseless and illegitimate invasion -- the Obama/Murtha/Pelosi view of Iraq -- then his life *was* wasted. If that's what you believe, Senator, why not say so? Obama's is merely the latest in a series of senatorial comments that offer a glimpse of the left's anti-military disdain.

Smart people who work hard become successful, John Kerry "joked" last fall, but uneducated sluggards "get stuck in Iraq." Osama bin Laden is beloved by Muslims for "building schools, building roads, [and] building day-care facilities," Washington Senator Patty Murray explained in 2002, while Americans only show up to "bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan." Obama's Illinois colleague Dick Durbin took to the Senate floor to equate US military interrogators in Guantanamo Bay with genocidal mass-murderers: "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or . . . Pol Pot."

It goes without saying that many Democrats and liberals take a back seat to no one in their admiration and appreciation of the US military. But there is no denying that a notable current of antimilitary hostility runs through the left as well. Examples are endless: ROTC is banned on elite college campuses. San Francisco bars a historic battleship from its port. Signs at antiwar protests exhort troops to "shoot their officers." An Ivy League professor prays for "a million Mogadishus." Michael Moore compares Iraqi insurgents who kill Americans to the Minutemen of Revolutionary New England.

America is a free country, but it is not the Michael Moores or the ROTC-banners or the senatorial loudmouths who keep it free. They merely enjoy the freedom that others are prepared to defend with their lives. It is the men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform to whom we owe our liberty. Surely they deserve better than pious claims of "support" from those who are working for their defeat.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

The irreverent Tim Worstall has a very amusing comment up about local markets -- which the Greenies think are the bees knees, of course.

Dick McDonald has a good article here about the vast robbery that U.S. social security payments represent.

Chris Brand has a new lot of posts up on his usual themes of race, IQ and political correctness -- with particular emphasis on the British scene.

Kurds send 3 brigades for surge: "Kurdish troops comprise a significant part of the Iraq Army contingent in the joint counter-insurgency mission in Baghdad. Three Iraq Army brigades from the autonomous Kurdistan region in the North have been deployed to Baghdad as part of the counter-insurgency operation being conducted with the United States. Officials said the brigades, with about 7,500 troops, are already in Baghdad, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials said insurgency strikes have dropped by 80 percent since the Baghdad security operation was launched more than a week ago. They said the biggest drop was in operations by the Iranian-sponsored Mahdi Army in the city. "Kurdish brigades are well-trained to fight inside cities and neighborhoods, and they will contribute vigorously in cleansing Baghdad's suburbs of armed men and outlaws," Kurdistan Defense Minister Jaafar Al Barazani said

EU defeatism: "An internal European Union document has concluded that there will be no way to prevent Iran from enriching enough weapons-grade uranium to develop a nuclear bomb, the British newspaper The Financial Times reported Tuesday. According to the report, the document states that the Iranian nuclear program has not been affected by diplomatic pressure, and has only been delayed due to technical limitations. "At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons program," the Times quoted the document as saying, warning that "the problems with Iran will not be resolved through economic sanctions alone." The document was dated February 7, and was reportedly circulated to the EU's 27 national governments ahead of a foreign ministers meeting Monday."

The usual excuse for black crime crumbles: "The death of the City solicitor Tom ap Rhys Pryce, stabbed for his mobile phone and travelcard as he returned home one night last winter clutching his wedding plans, struck terror into urban professionals. At the time his killers were portrayed as feral youths who grew up without the guiding influence of their fathers. It triggered a debate about the role of fathers in the lives of urban boys. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, wrote of his hope that "the men who left those boys' mothers to bring them up alone are reflecting on their own responsibility". But The Times has discovered that Delano Brown and Donnel Carty had strong father figures whose attempts to play a formative role in their up-bringing were rejected."

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".

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody.

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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Liberal emotion vs. Conservative logic

It takes a lot more integrity, character, and courage to be a conservative than it does to be a liberal. That's because at its most basic level, liberalism is nothing more than childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues. Going to war is mean, so we shouldn't do it. That person is poor and it would be nice to give him money, so the government should do it. Somebody wants to have an abortion, have a gay marriage, or wants to come into the U.S. illegally and it would be mean to say, "no," so we should let them. I am nice because I care about global warming! Those people want to kill us? But, don't they know we're nice? If they did, they would like us! Bill has more toys, money than Harry, so take half of Bill's money and give it to Harry.

The only exception to this rule is for people who aren't liberals. They're racists, bigots, homophobes, Nazis, fascists, etc., etc., etc. They might as well just say that conservatives have "cooties" for disagreeing with them, because there really isn't any more thought or reasoning that goes into it than that.

Now, that's not to say that conservatives never make emotion based arguments or that emotion based arguments are always wrong. But, when you try to deal with complex, real world issues, using little more than simplistic emotionalism that's primarily designed to make the people advocating it feel good rather than to deal with problems, it can, and often has had disastrous consequences. Liberals never seem to learn from this.

Why don't they learn anything from failed liberal policies? Because there is nothing underpinning them other than feelings and so even when they don't work, their good intentions are treated, by other liberals at least, as more important than the results of their actions. Just to name one example of many, look at Vietnam. South Vietnam was policing its own country and holding off aggression from the North with the help of the United States. But, people get hurt in wars, so wars are bad. As a result of thinking that went no deeper than that, liberals in Congress cut off the aid and air support we promised the South Vietnamese.

The result? The conquest of South Vietnam, a holocaust in Cambodia, millions dead and in prison camps, another million boat people, a crisis of confidence in America, and our country's reputation around the world was left in tatters, which led to a revolution in Nicaragua, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and a lack of faith in the U.S. military which wasn't truly restored until Operation Desert Storm. So, we're talking about one of the most shameful and damaging mistakes in American history. Yet, the left is pushing to do the same thing in Iraq, despite the fact that catastrophic consequences would surely also follow a U.S. retreat in that country.

But, this isn't just about foreign policy. Look at Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty," which did nothing to reduce the poverty rate despite the trillions that were spent; however, it did help drive the illegitimacy rate among black Americans from 22 percent in 1960 to 70% in 2005. You could go on and on with these sort of examples -- rent control, which causes housing shortages, the minimum wage, which costs poor people jobs, the liberal insistence on putting "making nice at the U.N." above looking out for American interests. That's what happens when you make decisions based on emotion and wanting people to like you, rather than using logic and doing the right thing.

Unlike liberals, conservatives tend to be primarily concerned with pragmatism, not niceties. This is one of the biggest reasons that conservatives have such a healthy respect for the traditions and institutions that have been proven to work over time and such contempt for those that don't, like the United Nations and the federal government. Does that mean conservatives are opposed to change? No, not at all, but there is a great reluctance to tinker with ideas and concepts that have proven successful time and time again throughout history, because the more they're changed, the more likely they are not to work.

Moreover, in Thomas Sowell's immortal words, conservatives believe that, "There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs." Because of this, conservatives regularly do something that liberals seldom do: they consider the long-term consequences of their policies. Sometimes in politics, that's a tough duty. It's always easier to say, "We're going to use someone else's tax money to give you this right now," than it is to say, "We're going to keep government out of your way and let you do this for yourself." But, that's the path conservatives have chosen for themselves. They're willing to be attacked and called, in some form or fashion, "mean" in order to advocate policies that are good for the country.

In the end, that's what liberalism versus conservatism all comes down to: sappy, feel good emotionalism that sounds appealing, but doesn't work versus doing things the right way, even when it's not easy.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



Chirac to appease Iran: "French President Jacques Chirac has announced his support for lessening pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program, for fear Hezbollah will strike at French troops serving in Lebanon, according to information recently received in Jerusalem. According to reports, Chirac proposed sending a special envoy to Tehran to reach understandings that would protect the French soldiers serving in in the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL)."

UK: Muslim bomber has job on trains: "A muslim fanatic who dressed as a suicide bomber at a rally threatening terror attacks has got a job on TRAINS. Sick Omar Khayam cleans carriages unsupervised for rail giant First Group. And he has even got keys to onboard electrical cupboards. Furious train drivers last night claimed the safety of staff and passengers is being put at risk. One driver added: "It's an astonishing security breach. "We cannot believe this man is employed in a job giving him access to locked places on trains where bombs could be hidden and never be found. "He has keys that could be passed on to others for the electrical cupboards in carriages. It is a risk too far." Convicted drugs dealer Khayam, 22, had been filmed dressed as a bomber at the controversial demonstration outside London's Danish Embassy last year. He wore a sinister camouflage outfit with a black vest. Extremists around him - protesting at cartoons of the prophet Mohammed - waved placards supporting the 7/7 London bombings and calling for new UK terror attacks."

French judge warns of terror threat: "The risk of terror attacks in Europe is high and is increasing, France's leading anti-terrorism judge said, warning that a recent alliance between al-Qaida and a North African terrorist group poses a grave threat. The Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, staged seven nearly simultaneous attacks in Algeria on Tuesday, targeting police in several towns east of Algiers, killing six and injuring around 30, according to officials, police and hospital staff. Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, the new name for the GSPC, claimed responsibility for the strikes. "The GSPC wants to carry out attacks in Europe, especially in France, Italy and Spain, and destabilize North Africa," Jean-Louis Bruguiere told The Associated Press on Tuesday night in New York."

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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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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