Glorious Capitalism

It is sometimes difficult to conceive how dramatically living standards have improved thanks to economic liberalization, property rights, and the ability to trade. A column in the Wall Street Journal looks at how prosperity has improved everyone's lives:

Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of agriculture -- but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality of people's lives. Almost everyone lived on the modern equivalent of $400 to $600 a year, just above the subsistence level. True, there were always tiny aristocracies who lived far better, but numerically they were quite insignificant.

Then -- just a couple of hundred years ago, maybe 10 generations -- people started getting richer. And richer and richer still. Per capita income, at least in the West, began to grow at the unprecedented rate of about three quarters of a percent per year. A couple of decades later, the same thing was happening around the world. ...

Rising income is only part of the story. One hundred years ago the average American workweek was over 60 hours; today it's under 35. One hundred years ago 6% of manufacturing workers took vacations; today it's over 90%. One hundred years ago the average housekeeper spent 12 hours a day on laundry, cooking, cleaning and sewing; today it's about three hours. ...

The moral is that increases in measured income -- even the phenomenal increases of the past two centuries -- grossly understate the real improvements in our economic condition. The average middle-class American might have a smaller measured income than the European monarchs of the Middle Ages, but I suspect that Tudor King Henry VIII would have traded half his kingdom for modern plumbing, a lifetime supply of antibiotics and access to the Internet...

(Via Market Center blog)

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ELSEWHERE

The cringing Associated Press says that the would-be bombers in Britain were a "diverse" group! All Muslim doctors! How diverse can you get? In America, "diverse" means black. I guess in Britain it must mean "Muslim". Gateway Pundit and others are commenting on how the "M-word" is being avoided in reporting the attacks in Britain.

Seeing you read blogs, you may already have seen this story from Michael Yon about a massacre of Iraqi villagers by Al Qaeda. The mainstream media however are determinedly ignoring it so you would be unlikely to know about it unless you DO read a few blogs. To the mainstream media only Americans can be bad guys, of course. Al Qaeda is just misunderstood. Yon is an independent reporter who is actually on the ground in Iraq witnessing the events going on there and he has many pictures of it all.

Can animal rights activists behave like animals? They sure can. Read this post from Riehl World for a horrible example.

Hong Kong Benefits from Bad Policies in Europe: "Many EU residents who previously banked in Gibraltar, Cayman Islands or Switzerland have moved their portfolio to places not covered by the OECD, including Hong Kong and Singapore. The recent abolition of estate tax in Hong Kong has made it an even more attractive option worthy of consideration by those seeking to secure their assets and protect them from unfair taxation. ...More than 73,000 new Hong Kong companies were incorporated last year and there are now more than 800,000 companies on the Hong Kong companies register. ...And while the OECD continued its efforts to crack down on tax havens, the head of one Hong Kong trust company said he did not see the point. Jacques Scherman, managing director of Sovereign Trust (Hong Kong), said: "Tax havens are already intensely scrutinised and subject to strict anti-money laundering regulations. I do not think further scrutiny will achieve any useful end."

The United Kingdom Now Has a Bigger Government than Germany: "Public spending in Germany, as a percentage of total economic output, has fallen sharply in the past three years and is fast approaching British levels, according to a finance ministry study. The report, obtained by the Financial Times, shows state expenditures reached 45.6 per cent of gross domestic product last year, compared with 44.1 per cent in the UK, which is generally thought of as a low-tax, low-spending economy. . Instead of focusing on the fiscal deficit - the difference between state expenditures and revenues - the report concentrates solely on spending. The spending-to-GDP ratio fell from 47.1 to 45.6 per cent between 2004 and 2006, making Germany the fourth-smallest spender in the eurozone. The same ratio rose from 42.7 to 44.1 in the UK over the same period. . "Good progress has been made in the recent past, mainly in cutting public sector headcounts," said Winfried Fuest, economist at the business-funded IW economic institute. But he expressed worries about government being tempted "to spend more now that the economy is doing better".

Oppressed Canadians Finally Reach Tax Freedom Day: "American taxpayers worked until April 30 before they earned enough money to satisfy the rapacious demands of federal, state and local tax collectors. This is discouraging, but Americans should be grateful that they don't live in Canada. The Fraser Institute reveals that the average Canadian worked until June 20 before quenching the appetites of the political class. Taxpayers in Newfoundland and Labrador are still working as serfs for government. Their tax freedom day won't arrive until July 1"

More FEMA Incompetence: "USA Today reports that FEMA admits that it squandered $485 million on improper claims after the Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005, but that it has recovered only about 3 percent of the money. Unfortunately, there is every reason to suspect similar incompetence in the future. Rather than shrink FEMA and allow state and local governments to deal with what should be a state and local responsibility, politicians in Washington expanded the FEMA budget"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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".

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PEACENIKS: UNABLE TO COPE WITH REALITY

Excerpt from Dr Sanity

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc. Instead, these "pacifists" actually champion the terrorists; rationalizing terrorist behavior; refusing to call them to account for their uncivilized and barbaric actions;, demanding cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do); and have little or nothing to say about the standard terrorist operational policies that deliberately target the innocent.

You can find these these brave and loving peace activists marching in solidarity with these foul groups; proudly wearing the latest "hate couture", and imagining that their fashion statement shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are. They are unable to even appreciate the irony that it serves to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, those who are truly evil know they can get away with practically any horror; and that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity. For all their rhetoric to the contrary, the actual beneficiaries of the "antiwar" movement are the warmongering tyrants of the world whose naked aggression remains unchecked and is always rationalized away. The only outcome in the real world of all that lovely pacifism is the triumph of evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life. If you cannot consciously tap into the aggressive side of your human nature and permit the use of aggression and even violence to serve the good; you will inevitably end up serving all that is evil in the world.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth. In reality, they don't care much about human suffering, misery or even death; let alone the legacy of evil in the world. Through a variety of psychological defenses, they have managed to deny, displace, distort, and project real evil away. There cannot be found even a trace of psychological insight among all those angry marchers who violently and adamantly demand peace at any price.

For the carefree members of the antiwar movement, the triumph of evil is unimportant when compared to their own narcissistic need to appear virtuous and good. Like the parents ShrinkWrapped writes about, they will always find a way to externalize the blame for the consequences of their own self-delusion. Like Petunia, they will emphasize rhetoric over action; good intentions over actual behavior.

Antiwar activism is simply part of the left's ongoing struggle against reality; specifically, the reality of human nature. Aggression and violence are an integral part of human nature and are essential for human survival. These dangerous human qualities can either serve that which is good and decent about humanity, promoting human life and liberty and civilization; or, they can be used to support that which opposes life, liberty and civilization.

That is how the unconscious works; and how projective identification protects the user from having to come to terms with their own aggression. As these insightless fools bask in the glow of their radiant virtue, they fail to notice their own complicity with and appeasement of evil. Having absolved themselves of the requirement of making difficult moral choices in the real world; they have instead chosen the easy and facile rhetoric of self-delusion. That is why they are not bothered by real human suffering in the here and now; or by real oppression and tyranny. Their primary concern is in maintaing the fantasy that they are devoid of all those evil aggressive impulses that they, and they alone are the embodiment of perfect "peace" , "justice", and "brotherhood".

The track record of pacifism is horrendous. Not only do "peace movements" fail to bring peace; but by protecting, appeasing, and minimizing true evil, they ensure that war--when it inevitably comes--costs even more in terms of human suffering and lives.

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Hypocrisy is basic to the Left

All they believe in is power. Everything else is camouflage. Post below again excerpted from Dr. Sanity. See the original for links

One of the wondrous aspects of postmodern rhetoric, where reality and truth are only relative, is that anybody's "reality" is as good as anybody else's. For the dedicated postmodernist, polls and opinion are the final arbiters of truth; and the results of a poll or two, constructed along ideological lines to fit a particular template, is all you need to confirm your reality. Reality is a matter of opinion (simply ignore any polls that don't agree with your reality, of course).

This type of micraculous rhetoric can even determine today, what history will say many tomorrows from now. With enough repetition and passion, "history" can be set in stone in the temporal present! Extremely convenient for anyone who wants to avoid confronting their own contradictions in the present.

The rhetorical passion and word play is mere camouflage for the inherent philosophical and psychological contradictions that the postmodern left exploits in order to achieve and maximize political power. They are perfectly aware that their positions don't make any sense and can be refuted by anyone with basic knowledge of logic and logical fallacies; but their goal is to maintain the psychological denial necessary to believe in the left's ideology.

The possibility that the relativism is primary can be ruled out with some thought. If the modern leftist truly embraced relativism, then you would not see the uniformity of their politics or their reactions to events in the world. Instead, you would be able to observe an infinite number of postmodern leftist opinions and beliefs from all over the political spectrum. And, have you? Or, have you noticed that their opinions march completely in lockstep with their political ideology?

I must conclude from that observation that the moral relativism they preach so relentlessly as part of their multicultural drivel; and which equates the unceasing and institutional barbarity of terror groups like Al Qaeda with U.S. troops in Iraq; equates the deliberate targeting of innocents with herculean efforts to spare innocent life; equates Bush with Hitler; Iraq with Vietnam; etc. etc. are simple rhetorical devices that are being used to manipulate and advance their fundamentally socialist / totalitarian agenda.

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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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".

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The Terrorist theology

An ex-Jihadi tells:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology....

... what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

More here

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The U.N. Gets even worse

Where does the global human rights movement stand in the seventh year of the 21st century? If the first year of the United Nations Human Rights Council is any indication, it's grown sick and cynical -- partly because of the fecklessness and flexible morality of some of the very governments and groups that claim to be most committed to democratic values.

At a session in Geneva last week, the council -- established a year ago in an attempt to reform the U.N. Human Rights Commission -- listened to reports by special envoys appointed by its predecessor condemning the governments of Cuba and Belarus. It then abolished the jobs of both "rapporteurs" in a post-midnight maneuver orchestrated by its chairman, who announced a "consensus" in spite of loud objections by the ambassador from Canada that there was no such accord.

While ending the scrutiny of those dictatorships, the council chose to establish one permanent and special agenda item: the "human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories." In other words, Israel (or "Palestine," in the council's terminology), alone among the nations of the world, will be subjected to continual and open-ended examination. That's in keeping with the record of the council's first year: Eleven resolutions were directed at the Jewish state. None criticized any other government.

Genocide in Sudan, child slavery and religious persecution in China, mass repression in Zimbabwe and Burma, state-sponsored murder in Syria and Russia -- and, for that matter, suicide bombings by Arab terrorist movements -- will not receive systematic attention from the world body charged with monitoring human rights. That is reserved only for Israel, a democratic country that has been guilty of human rights violations but also has been under sustained assault from terrorists and governments openly committed to its extinction.

The old human rights commission, which was disparaged by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan for casting "a shadow on the United Nations system as a whole," frequently issued unbalanced condemnations of Israel but also typically adopted half a dozen resolutions a year aimed at the worst human rights abusers. For the new council, Israel is the only target.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

North America's Welfare State appendage: "The Conference Board of Canada, a non-governmental, non-partisan, nonprofit think tank with a habit of stating unvarnished and often unflattering truths about Canada, came out this month with a doleful "report card" on the Canadian performance. The distinguishing Canadian characteristic, it said, is "mediocrity." Governments, businesses and people all "punch below their weight." Comparing Canada with other developed nations, it noted that "too often we trail the pack." Canadians are "unwilling to take risks." Since the nation's power to innovate is "stunningly poor," it lags seriously in the global economy. It is slow to bring out new products, though its governments offer some of the best tax breaks and subsidies in the world. "The average person," said Board President Anne Golden, "still thinks things are pretty good." The report had bad news. They aren't."

What astounding rubbish! "Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities in a bloodstained corridor along the East Coast are seeing a surge in killings, and one of the most provocative explanations offered by criminal-justice experts is this: not enough new immigrants. The theory holds that waves of hardworking, ambitious immigrants reinvigorate desperately poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods and help keep crime down. It is a theory that runs counter to the widely held notion that immigrants are a source of crime and disorder."

The tired old Leftist explanation of "poverty" for all misdeeds won't work this time either: "A suspected terror gang, at least two of whom are doctors, were being questioned today after being trapped by their mobile phones. Anti-terrorist detectives swooped on five members of the gang across Britain after gathering crucial clues from phones found in the two London car bombs. The phones were meant to trigger a blast when they were called. The bombers twice called the car outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, and the one in Cockspur Street four times, but the bombs failed to detonate for technical reasons. Traces on the mobile phones' calls led police to addresses in Liverpool, Staffordshire and Glasgow."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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".

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It only counts if you are killed by a professional

Post excerpted from Dinocrat. See the original for links

Apparently, it only counts, or at least counts much more, if you are killed by a "sophisticated" or "top-grade" professional, certainly not by someone whose tactics are "amateurish". Otherwise, things in London are fine. Here are selected quotes from the NYT on London:

the technology behind two thwarted car bombings in central London seemed to be amateurish.they didn't go off because there were not top-grade people putting them together.some experts have questioned the level of sophistication involved in the devices.the construction of the devices left in central London early on Friday morning "does not look very professional".a private research group, said the "amateur construction" of the devices and the way they were placed "suggest the plotter or plotters have no connection to a major militant organization".Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, declared today: "I think people are completely safe to walk about the streets of London today and tomorrow."

Apparently, it only counts if you are killed by a sophisticated, top-grade professional, which seems such an odd spin for the MSM to sell, given that the MO of the enemy has always been brutality and bloodlust, not professionalism and sophistication. Perhaps they've watched too much TV and too many spy movies....

Would the NYT have ever covered lynchings (which in total numbered over 3000 in the USA) by the KKK and others of innocent men, women and children by referring to the events in even one sentence or phrase as "amateurish" and "unsophisticated," and not the work of "top-grade people"?

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CHARITY DOES NOT HELP GOVERNMENTS MUCH EITHER

The consensus view is that the "Marshall Plan" was the catalyst for Europe's economic revival after World War II..... While countries have traditionally revived themselves economically through lower taxes, tariffs, and regulations, along with more credible currencies, the Marshall Plan was about offering financial aid to a devastated Europe - specifically $13 billion that was distributed between 1947 and 1951. As economist Reuven Brenner pointed out in his 2001 book, The Force of Finance, total aid amounted to roughly 5 to 10 percent of European GNP, about the same amount given to Europe after World War I. Brenner noted that no miracles occurred due to aid after the first war, so it seems a bit of a reach to assume Marshall Plan funds were any more effective.

More realistically, Brenner points to the influx into West Germany of 12 million mostly well-trained immigrants escaping the "promise" of the Communist-bloc countries, not to mention rapidly falling income-tax rates, as the cure for what ailed Germany. In 1948, the marginal tax rate there was 50 percent for annual income of $600 and above, and those who made more than $15,000 were taxed at 95 percent. Conversely, by 1955 the top tax rate was lowered to 63 percent for incomes of more than $250,000, and the 50 percent bracket started at $42,000.

Though Japan did not fall under the Marshall Plan umbrella, the U.S. offered the nearly destroyed country financial aid, along with lots of economic "solutions" including wage and price controls, greater government oversight of industry, and a heavily devalued yen. But as Nathan Lewis wrote in Hard Money, it was only when Japan ended "wage and price controls, liberated industry from government control, demolished subsidies, ended U.S. economic aid, and brought the central government's budget into balance" that its economy began to grow.

According to Lewis, Japan's government cut taxes every year from 1950 to 1974, and contrary to those who liken tax cuts to "free lunches," government revenues skyrocketed. Though revenues were 1.8 trillion yen in 1960, they rose to 7.75 trillion yen in 1970, despite the yearly cuts in taxes.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

See here for the latest bogus media "news" story from Iraq.

Congress condemns Iranian leader: "On June 20, the US House of Representatives passed HConRes21, calling for indictment of the President of Iran for incitement to genocide, based on his calls to wipe Israel off the map. by vote of 402 to 2. This is a landmark resolution, because it probably is the first time ever that there is a call for legal action by a major legislative body to prevent genocide by holding those accountable for incitement and hate language, which are known predictors and catalysts of genocide. Its wording is a template for the prevention of all genocides, and is based on previous research, work and statements by the Hebrew University from its Genocide Prevention Program"

Blair speaks out: "Tony Blair has launched a powerful attack on 'absurd' British Islamists who have nurtured a false 'sense of grievance' that they are being oppressed by Britain and the United States. In his most outspoken remarks on Islamists, the former Prime Minister warns that Britain is in danger of losing the battle against terrorists unless mainstream society confronts the threat. Blair's remarks, in which he also attacks some civil liberty campaigners as 'loopy loo', were made in a Channel 4 documentary recorded last Tuesday on the eve of his departure from Downing Street. 'The idea that as a Muslim in this country that you don't have the freedom to express your religion or your views, I mean you've got far more freedom in this country than you do in most Muslim countries,' Blair told Observer columnist Will Hutton, who presents the documentary. 'The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."'



Numerous cartoons recently published in the Arab press dealt with the Hamas takeover of Gaza: Some of the cartoons condemned the brutal murders perpetrated by Hamas, implied that they have led the movement, as well as the Palestinian cause, to a dead end, and presented the fighting among the Palestinians as shocking and pointless. Others presented the civil war as the result of an American-Israeli plot carried out with the collaboration of Fatah. And one cartoon even depicted Gaza as an Iranian nuclear outpost. In the cartoon above the newspaper headline says "The Internal Palestinian Conflict." The Jew holding the paper is laughing "ha ha ha." [Note that the cartoonist seems to have a low opinion of Arab IQ. He identifies the orthodox Jew by his big hat, big coat, big nose and hair ringlets but is still not sure his readers will get the message so he adds a star of David on the hat!]

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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".

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Conservative Process Leads To Conservative Results

A classically conservative statement excerpted from Democracy Project below. See the original for links

Conservatism is not about transitory results or means. Conservatism is about process. As I wrote yesterday, conservatism requires that we "move forward based on solid evidence, means, plans, purpose, and competence." When one has that process, the results that merit survival will survive. That is essentially conservative governance. It entails more the avoidance of poor choices than, even, the making of good ones. It recognizes that grand designs are most often not so grand, as they fail to encompass the very diversity of legitimate means and ends of a democratic and free society, particularly one so large and vibrant as ours, and instead stifle individuals' circumstances and, thus, the adaptation and ingenuity upon which continued personal and national success depends.

Mark is correct to point at the Internet as an embodiment of that civic discussion, serving to remind otherwise imperious legislators. Ed is correct to bemoan the extent of intrusion into our daily affairs by such legislators and seek their reversal. Mark and Ed are invaluable resources in those struggles. Both, however, miss that it is process that matters more than results. Rich Lowry, of National Review, reminds us that, "Now, there is really no such thing as an "inside game" anymore, since bloggers make sure it gets "outside." Both the right and the left will take advantage of this, for good and ill policy ends. But it's clearly an enhancement of democracy."

Conservatives, and America, can survive the openness of democracy, and rise with it even when disagreements or disappointments occur. We can't survive the absence of democracy, which rests upon and is bereft without an informed and active citizenry and an open process. This past week was a triumph for democratic process, which is what is most beneficial to conservatives and which we should care most about. The results may not always be consistent with a conservative's desires, but they will have been arrived at in a conservative way -- meaning respectful of true diversity as the well-spring of progress, compared to the stultification, and in totalitarian extremes the bloody repression, from imposition of self-serving and grand designs.

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ELSEWHERE

Bush is shrinking the deficit too fast: "Darn you, George Bush. Bloomberg reported that the federal budget deficit is shrinking so fast that there is a shortage of government debt: "That's because the unexpected surge in tax receipts may pare the budget deficit by 39 percent to $150 billion this fiscal year, causing a relative scarcity of four-week, three-month and six-month bills. The result is the biggest bull market for Treasury bills since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 drove investors to the safety of the securities. This is driving down the interest that taxpayers have to pay, Bloomberg reported"

More Ted Kennedy dishonesty: "Mr. Kennedy is responsible for our immigration mess more than any other human being on the planet. But last night he was on ABC News complaining that the borders are porous! That is unmitigated gall. Who has been the most powerful Senator on immigration for four decades? Who has left the door open, with malice aforethought, to change American democraphics? Who has surely blocked enforcement more than anyone else? For Ted Kennedy to spin the defeat of the Senate immigration bill as a defeat for border enforcement shows the same lack of conscience that we saw displayed in the case of Mary Jo Kopechne, so many years ago. It is high time for the people of Massachussetts to throw out Kerry and Kennedy, and start from scratch. They can't possibly do any worse. With leaders like this, it is no wonder the Democrat Party has adopted American defeat in the war on terror as its overriding foreign policy goal."

The peasants are revolting: "The liberal media cannot believe that the immigration bill was defeated by people concerned about little things like mass violations of our sovereignty and rewarding law-breakers. It just has to be racism on the part of the unwashed... Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light, with one of the best eyes for photography on the web, caught the Los Angeles Times in full sneer mode a couple of days ago. Today, he caught the Washington Post blaming small town Americans from places "where men take their sons deer hunting and moms call out to one another in the supermarket in cheerful Southern drawls... [and] the highways leading out of the city have been colonized by the usual sprawl of Home Depot, PetSmart and OfficeMax big-box stores...." Once again, liberals who fashion themselves good people for their concern over the little guy can't help displaying their disdain for those who shop at Wal-Mart."

Leftist denial of reality in full spate: "When he was in office and responsible for protecting us, Al Gore was absent from the war on terror. As Vice President, he was part of an administration that failed to respond to the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993; that cut and ran when al-Qaeda ambushed US Army Rangers in Mogadishu; that called for regime change in Iraq when Saddam expelled the UN weapons inspectors but then failed to remove Saddam or to get him to allow the UN inspectors back in; that failed to respond to the murder of US troops in Saudi Arabia or the attack on an American warship in Yemen; that reacted to the blowing up two US embassies in Africa by firing missiles at an aspirin factory in the Sudan and empty tents in Afghanistan; that refused to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden when it had a dozen chances to do so; and that did not put in place simple airport security measures, its own task force recommended, that would have prevented 9/11.... Yet, it is characteristic of Gore's myopic arrogance that he would wag his finger at the Bush administration for its failure to anticipate the 9/11 attack."

Church destroyed in Gaza, Gaza's Christians fear for their lives: "Christians living in Gaza City on Monday appealed to the international community to protect them against increased attacks by Muslim extremists. Many Christians said they were prepared to leave the Gaza Strip as soon as the border crossings are reopened. The appeal came following a series of attacks on a Christian school and church in Gaza City over the past few days. Father Manuel Musalam, leader of the small Latin community in the Gaza Strip, said masked gunmen torched and looted the Rosary Sisters School and the Latin Church. "The masked gunmen used rocket-propelled grenades to storm the main entrances of the school and church," he said. "Then they destroyed almost everything inside, including the Cross, the Holy Book, computers and other equipment." Musalam expressed outrage over the burning of copies of the Bible, noting that the gunmen destroyed all the Crosses inside the church and school. "Those who did these awful things have no respect for Christian-Muslim relations," he said."

Note from a Marine in Iraq: "As I'm sure most of you are aware, a planned dual car bomb attack was foiled in the early morning hours (EST) in downtown London. I'm watching FoxNews/SkyNews on AFN here and it's horrible to watch. Two car bombs (here in Iraq we call them "suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices" or SVBIEDs... pronounced "ess-vee-bid") in different blocks of the city. They were only foiled by the vigilance of an ambulance crew and alert police. God bless those who turned up on-scene here and defused the bomb and saved possibly scores or hundreds of innocent lives. The parallels between the attempted attack in London and SVBIED attacks in Iraq are striking. Parking a vehicle loaded with explosives near crowded civilian population areas, not to achieve a tactical victory but solely to strike fear into the hearts of the innocent. It happens frequently and its biggest effect is to highlight the inhumanity of these monsters who deliberately and repeatedly target people just trying to go about their daily lives. One might hope this is the last attack we'll see like this -- anywhere -- but it is doubtful."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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".

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The Salman Rushdie lesson was not learnt

Excerpt from Mark Steyn

So many of our problems with Iran today arise from not doing anything about our problems with Iran yesterday. Men like Ayatollah Khomeini despised pan-Arab nationalists like Nasser who attempted to impose a local variant of Marxism on the Muslim world. Khomeini figured: Why import the false ideologies of a failing civilization? Doesn't it make more sense to export Islamism to the dying West?

And, for a guy dismissed by most of us as crazy, Khomeini made a lot of sense. The Rushdie fatwa established the ground rules: The side that means it gets away with it. Mobs marched through Britain calling for the murder of a British subject - and, as a matter of policy on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity, the British police shrugged and looked the other way.

One reader in England recalled one demonstration at which he asked a constable why the "Muslim community leaders" weren't being arrested for incitement to murder. The officer told him to "f--- off, or I'll arrest you." Genuine "moderate Muslims" were cowed into silence, and pseudo-moderate Muslims triangulated with artful evasiveness. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, who went on to become leader of the most prominent British Muslim lobby group, mused about the Rushdie fatwa: "Death is perhaps too easy."

In 1989 Salman Rushdie went into hiding under the protection of the British police. A decade later he decided he did not wish to live his life like that and emerged from seclusion to live a more or less normal life. He learned the biggest lesson of all - how easy it is to be forced into the shadows. That's what's happening in the free world incrementally every day, with every itsy-bitsy nothing concession to groups who take offense at everything and demand the right to kill you for every offense. Across two decades, what happened to Rushdie has metastasized, in part because of the weak response in those first months. "Death is perhaps too easy"? Maybe. But slow societal suicide is easier still.

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The very strange "American Conservative Union"

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), has been moving, along with several other paleo-conservatives like Dinesh D'Souza, towards a partnership with Saudi-funded, pro-Hamas institutions. A forewarning was the appointment of Grover Norquist to the ACU board. A second forewarning was the appointment of Suhail Khan to the ACU board.

Then Tuesday, David Keene joined United for Peace and Justice, the ACLU, the Communist Party-USA, as a speaker in the "Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice" to:

"call on Congress to restore habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, end torture and rendition and restore our constitutional rights. Activists from all fifty states will gather at Upper Senate Park on June 26, 2007 and deliver tens of thousands of signatures to Congress, urging the restoration of our rights."

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Immigration amnesty bill killed by protests from the people: "Ding dong, the bill is dead. I confess that right now I feel kind of overwhelmed by happy emotion. I've participated in democracy in the best, most hopeful way. In the past I've made phone calls for candidates. I've contributed money and gone to meetings. I'm on my town's Republican Committee. But, doing my small part to fight a bad piece of legislation, and witnessing on-line my fellow citizens doing theirs, is one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had. Has there every been a moment in American history to match this one, when all the force of professional government has been stymied by a determined citizenry? There has been much talk in recent years comparing the invention of the internet with the invention of the printing press on freedom and government. It may still not be strictly true, but the comparison now has greater validity."

The destruction of Israel: look who's okay with it: "Congressman Mike Pence (R-Indiana) has been a stalwart supporter of the American-Israel alliance. He recently introduced an amendment to the foreign aid bill that would prohibit groups that deny Israel's right to exist from receiving American (taxpayer dollar) foreign aid. The amendment passed 390-30. Of the 30 members of Congress who have no problem with giving money to groups that advocate and plan for the destruction of Israel, 27 of them were Democrats."

Baghdad Christians: “It was a kind of genocide killing”: "The 70 houses of this tiny village spring from the treeless, arid plain here in the northern tip of Iraq with the uniformity of an army camp. Built over the past four years of war, they house Christian refugees from some of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods: Dora, New Baghdad and Mashtel. There the residents did not know one another, busy with their city lives. Now a barber, a bank manager, a news anchor and an electrician are comrades in the misery of flight. “We saw everything a human can see,” said Majida Hamo, a mother of four who came from Mashtel recently. “It was a kind of genocide killing.” “We were saying to Jesus, ‘See us and save us.’ ” The Iraqi exodus is one of the largest displacements in the Middle East since the creation of Israel in 1948. Many have fled to Jordan and Syria, countries where Arabic is spoken. Others have stayed within Iraq’s borders, moving into the largely peaceful Kurdish north, which is more foreign to them than neighboring countries because the main language is Kurdish, not their native Arabic."

Honour killings now coming to America: "A Bucks County father was accused of going to extremes to break-up his daughter's romance. Police said the father and his son tried to kidnap her fiance by beating him up and tossing him into a sport utility vehicle. "The victim advised me that his fiancee's family was trying to kill him, drag him into a car and take him somewhere, where he believed he was going to be killed," Webber said. Webber said the alleged victim told him his fiancee's family was upset the two had moved in together. He said there were cultural differences and that's why 48-year-old Mohd Nasher and his son 20-year-old Mohammed Nasher were allegedly gunning for the fiance. "The father and son came in, grabbed our victim, pulled him outside, began choking and beating him. Drug him into the back of a Ford Explorer and that's where they advised him that they were going to take him somewhere. He jumped out the other side window in fear for his life and as he went to run away the father told him, 'I'm going to find you and I'm going to shoot you.' The son went and grabbed a bat and went to chase after him," Webber said"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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".

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More pseudo-psychology with the same old pseudo "findings"

Newsweek has just given a big plug to a book called "The Political Brain" (by Drew Westen of Emory University) that purports to tell Democrats how to win elections. The writer of the review does not know the difference between "discreet" and "discrete" so the intellectual level to be expected is not high -- and so it turns out. Note the paragraph below . It combines very old news with a bald-faced assertion:

"When voters are hooked up to brain-imaging devices while watching candidates, it is emotion circuits and not the rational frontal lobes that are most engaged. When voters assess who won a campaign debate, they almost always choose the candidate they liked better beforehand. The rationality circuit "isn't typically open for business when partisans are thinking about things that matter to them," Westen notes. Yet "this is the part of the brain to which Democrats typically target their appeals."

So emotions matter in politics! Give the writer a cookie! But what is the proof for the second assertion -- that Democrats target their appeals to rationality? As far as I can tell it is the opposite. For instance, "All men are equal" may be emotionally satisfying but it has no status as a fact.

Hot Air and Ace have some further comments.

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BUSH HAS LOST IT

Post lifted from Gates of Vienna. See the original for links

President Bush gave a speech this morning at a Wahhabist mosque called the Islamic Center of Washington DC. I listened to most of it on C-Span streaming video, and it was about what you'd expect, a mixture of boilerplate and outreach and platitudes and dhimmitude. It was too dispiriting to write much about.

However - one of the things he mentioned was a future "democratic Palestine, living side-by-side with Israel in peace".

What planet is he living on? What has he been smoking? The only democracy that will ever come to "Palestine" is the democracy of AK-47s and homemade bombs. The only peace that "Palestine" will ever allow Israel is the peace of the grave.

President Bush is either being stupid, or cynical, or is saying something he knows is not true for reasons of statecraft that are too arcane and subtle for an ignorant boob like me to understand.

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ELSEWHERE



There is some good information here about how Democrat hero FDR worsened the Great Depression by his ignorant "New Deal" policies.

Norway winks at barbarism: "For many years it has been speculated that Norwegian-Somali girls are circumcised when they go back to their homeland on the summer holiday. NRK can now document for the first time that women who work in circumcision confirm that to a great extent they circumcise girls who live in Western Europe. And not least: they say that Norwegian-Somali parents are good customers - every summer - after school ends in Norway. Parents from Norway are among those who pay best. The price for circumcising a girl is 150 kroner. Since January 1st, 1996, it is illegal to circumcise girls in Norway. It is also forbidden for people living in Norway to circumcise their daughters abroad. Breaking the law could lead up to 8 years in jail. But nobody has ever been indicted or convicted for this in Norway."

Israel: A Hotbed Of... Investment : "You might think that Israel's continuing strife with the Palestinians would be a red flag for investors. Yet amid escalating violence, many of the country's companies are thriving, pushing the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange to record levels. Even the takeover of the Gaza Strip by the Islamist Hamas movement in mid-June hasn't slowed the momentum. The TA 25 index is up by 21% this year, reaching an all-time high on June 17. The market's strength is a sign of how well Israel has been able to protect its economy from the crisis. A big part of Israel's recent economic success is due to improved security. Suicide attacks have dropped sharply, largely the result of imposing walls and fences that separate Israel from Gaza and the West Bank. Nearly six years after the start of the second intifada, shoppers are feeling safer and are out in force, helping to push annual growth to 5% for the fourth straight year."

Another innocent turnip farmer is gunned down after his release from Gitmo: "Two men, who were on Russia's wanted list as suspected members of illegal armed groups, were killed in a special operation near the central mosque in downtown Nalchik, the capital city of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Kabardino- Balkaria, a local law enforcement source told Interfax. One of those killed might be Ruslan Odizhev, a former Guantanamo base prisoner, the source said."

Rice calls Hamas 'resistance movement': "U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice twice referred to Hamas as a "resistance movement" during a meeting with reporters from the New York Daily News earlier this month, but the newspaper did not report her remarks, WND has learned. Rice's interview is transcribed in full on the State Department website. Rice's statements mark the second documented time in recent months she called Hamas a "resistance movement" during unscripted chats with journalists".

Only 400,000? And many of their relatives are undoubtedly in the USA: "About 400,000 Mexican police officers are under investigation by the Attorney General's Office for corruption and suspected links to organized crime, La Jornada reported June 26, citing government sources. Most of the officers are from Nuevo Leon, Sonora, Baja California, Guerrero, Michoacan, Mexico and the federal district"

Obama's church: "A very liberal and fast declining United Church of Christ (UCC) celebrated its 50th birthday, with rousing speeches from Senator Barack Obama and PBS commentator Bill Moyers, both of whom are UCC members. Both speakers fingered the "Religious Right" as a threat to American democracy. Moyers specifically warned against the Institute on Religion and Democracy for supposedly attempting to disrupt the UCC. Neither speaker offered any criticisms that might apply particularly to their left-leaning UCC audience. The 1.2-million-member UCC has lost nearly one million members over the last 40 years. Its decline has accelerated since its formal endorsement of same-sex "marriage" two years ago."

Vote early and vote often still applies: "A Washington State woman thought that voter registration requirements were too lax so she signed up her dog to vote. Her dog Duncan voted in 3 elections and signed each time with a paw print before officials caught on."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

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".

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Police run riot in Arkansas

Despicable acts of police brutality appear to have been committed on Go Skateboarding Day by the Hot Springs, Arkansas Police Department. Young skateboarders were choked and knocked around for skateboarding. Video of the incident here. After you watch it, help flood their phone lines and email their police chief with complaints regarding the main policeman involved, Officer Joey Williams. Data: Hot Springs Arkansas Police Department, Phone: (501) 321-6789, Fax: (501) 321-6708, Chief of Police, Bobby Southard, 641 Malvern Avenue.

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Brookes News Update

Why the Democrats' tax program could send the US economy South: One only has to reflect on the damage the Hoover-Roosevelt tax increases inflicted on the US economy to realise how destructive the Democrats' policy on taxation and spending really is
Can expectations neutralise the side effects of loose monetary policy: According to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory the artificial lowering of interest rates leads to a misallocation of resources because businesses undertake capital projects that prior to the lowering of interest rates weren't considered as viable. This misallocation of resources is commonly described as an economic boom
Australian economy: Government confusion about productivity, growth and jobs: Despite the Government's glee over an OECD report that falling productivity was caused by falling unemployment, it is ignoring that one pillar of its labour market reform policy promised increasing productivity. For years Brookesnews has been pointing out that productivity would fall when unemployment fell while our so-called `new right' promised the opposite. So what really happened?
Stock market troubles and Macbeth's witches: The recent erratic behaviour of China's stock market has exposed the inability of market analysts to explain what is really happening. This inability can be a severe wealth hazard
Iraqi and British troops launched a successful strike at Iranian secret cell: Why is the news about always bad? Is because our `objective' journalists are deliberately spiking stories that involve economic progress and Coalition victories? This article will help put the war in perspective by telling you things our journalist keep to themselves
An Open Letter to Norway's Foreign Minister: Who would have thought that in the first decade of the 21st rabid anti-Semitism would be sweeping through Europe? It is now clear that even in this day and age hatred of Jews is just bubbling below the surface of Europe's urbane veneer. We now have Gruppenfuehrer Jonas Gahrs Store, - aka Norway's Foreign Minister - parroting neo-Nazi Jew-hatred. Thank God I live in Australia - a real liberal country
NBC's Tourism pitch for Castro: How nice and sophisticated: Andrea Mitchell and Matt lauer defending Castro, a tyrant who tortures and murders children, who allows for the sexual humiliation of women and who keeps political prisoners in the most barbarous conditions. Perhaps that's really why the left love him. He's doing what they secretly wish they could do
Anti-Semitism: Israel's weakest Link: Anti-Semitism is the world's most enduring hatred - and it's back. Leftwing British academics and journalists launched a vicious assault on Jews that even Goebbels would have admired. And what did these paragons of tolerance use to justify their hatred of Jews? Islamic terrorist propaganda. There is no doubt about - anti-Semites are utter scum Israel and Gaza: one or four states solution
There is no difference between Hamas, Fatah or any other so-called Palestinian terror group: They all want the same thing - the extermination of every Jew on the planet

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ELSEWHERE

BBC employs Hamas member: "Despite Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) opposition and per the request of the BBC, the coordinator of government activities allowed a Hamas member who works for the BBC to enter the Gaza Strip last week to assist in efforts to release kidnapped journalist Alan Johnston. Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post that a week ago, a request came from the BBC asking that a Palestinian employee of the news company who is believed to be a close associate of senior Hamas officials be allowed to enter Gaza."

Running the airport gauntlet: "A few months after 9/11, my wife and I passed through an airport on the way to some destination that escapes me now and that I would probably have preferred skipping anyway. At the gate, the security guards pulled a pretty teenage girl aside for some obviously excessive extra attention. My wife and I hung back from the boarding line to keep an eye on the guards and the girl they were fondling. We weren't subtle either. The guards let the girl board after a few minutes of attention and a couple of glances in our direction. I haven't seen anything so egregious since then, but the intrusive and pointless security procedures always grate on my nerves. My wife knows when to take a tight grip on my arm to forestall an eruption when we're being herded like cattle through the metal detectors. I've mellowed over the years, however, and there's little chance of me staging a pointless confrontation with some TSA goon unless I suddenly develop a hankering for a body-cavity search. It could be worse, I keep telling myself."

Comment on the hypocritical British boycotters of Israel: "The PACBI boycotters and their UCU fellow travellers would deny to Jews the rights that they upholds for other, comparable peoples. They adhere to the principle of national self-determination, except in the Jews' case. They affirm international law, except in Israel's case. They are outraged by the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, but are untroubled (say) by the Islamic nature of Iran or of Saudi Arabia. They regard Zionism as uniquely pernicious, rather than as merely another nationalism (just as earlier generations of anti-Semites regarded Jewish capitalists as uniquely pernicious, rather than merely as members of the capitalist class). They are indifferent to Jewish suffering, while being sensitive to the suffering of non-Jews. They dismiss anti-Semitism as a phantasm exploited by Jews to pursue their own goals."

The Radical Evil Of The Palestinian Arab Population: "Ah, the fabled Palestinian people. The Palestinian people, who simply want "a better life." The Palestinian people, who, President George W. Bush has repeatedly informed us, "long for a society in which they can raise their children in peace and hope." The Palestinian people, who support, fund and execute suicide bombings. The Palestinian people, who dress their toddlers in bomb belts and then take family snapshots. The Palestinian people, who cheered on September 11 as the World Trade Center towers fell. The Palestinian people, who followed terrorist extraordinaire Yasser Arafat, supported Saddam Hussein, shredded the blooming rose that was once Christian Lebanon, and almost toppled the Western-friendly Jordanian monarchy. The Palestinian people, who destroy relics on the Temple Mount, openly call for the destruction of the state of Israel, ally with Syria and Iran, and elect Hamas. The Palestinian people, who teach their children that the Holocaust is a fairy tale, and that Jews routinely poison Palestinian candy. The Palestinian people, who stage injuries in order to solicit Western media sympathy, and then roar madly as they hold up their hands, red with the blood of murdered Israeli soldiers.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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Obama condones antisemitism

While many Christians, notably the evangelical community, are deeply supportive of Israel, the leaders of a few Christian church groups in America have issued anti-Israel resolutions over the last few years. These are often established groups that are politically liberal (and often have become so secular that they are suffering a decline in membership). The anti-Israel Resolutions are typically one-sided and blame Israel for the problems of the Palestinians....

Among these churches is one that does not fit the mold of established liberal Protestant groups: the United Church of Christ (UCC). The UCC, primarily an African-American denomination, has taken a pronounced lead in anti-Israel invective. So pronounced that a broad coalition of major Jewish groups has publicly rebuked (usually these types of disagreements are not aired publicly) the United Church of Christ for its unbalanced treatment of Israel. The coalition noted that the UCC failed to mention Israeli peace overtures, Palestinian rejection of those overtures, and the "brutal Palestinian campaigns of terror aimed at innocent Israeli children and families".

It so happens that aspiring Presidential candidate Barack Obama is a prominent - almost certainly the most prominent - member of the United Church of Christ. Obama has made political hay from emphasizing the role that his church and his faith have played in his life and career. He has credited his Pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, for being his inspiration and spiritual mentor.

But now that Obama is in the midst of his political campaign and raising money and support from prominent Jews among many others, he has tried to bury this relationship, because Wright's philosophy and teachings have a very pronounced anti-Israel bias and are divisive on the issue of black-white relations in America. These views of Obama's church would have significant political repercussions for Obama, if they were more widely known. Even Pastor Wright recognizes that this history would be a problem, noting that he has been temporarily shunted aside because his views and relationship with Obama would hurt Obama's image....

This past Saturday, Obama spoke to a group of 300 delegates at the United Church of Christ state convention in Iowa. He delivered his usual bromides, including an attack on the "Christian Right." He did not mention Israel or the controversial anti-Israel positions that the United Church of Christ has taken. Not a word. Here is a man who preaches tolerance and the coming together of people, a man whose voice is a powerful instrument and can be used to heal wounds. He chose to remain silent about the bias within his own church.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

For what interest it may have, there is an example here (or here) of an idiotic credit-card offer from American Express. I am not sure whether I should condemn them for their negligence or give them credit for trying.

China has blocked blogspot again but China Hand is keeping on blogging. There is a mirror of his blog that IS readable in China here.

I have for some time had up on the web reproductions of original Nazi posters that show how Leftist Nazism was (See here or here). I also have up some similar information on Nazism in the Netherlands during the period of Nazi control there. I have just added to the information on the Netherlands a reproduction of a 1941 official Dutch newspaper announcement that was sent to me by a reader who actually had his birth announcement in the same issue of the newspaper. The official newspaper announcement could just as well have been Soviet as Nazi. See here or here

One Leftist who still likes Hitler: "You could argue that even the world's worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc. [The Huffington Poster who wrote that is Peter Mehlman, one of the Hollywood Left]

NYT says it's all Israel's fault: "Here he blames Israel and America for the failure of the Palestinians and the rise of Hamas. How does Israel in particular play into this dynamic? By "bombing Gaza last summer (in retaliation for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers), a move that further weakened Abbas and his Fatah party". Feldman does not even deign to report the fact that Israel had completely removed itself from Gaza, turning it over to the Palestinians, lock, stock, and barrel. Nor does he mention that any bombing attacks against Gaza were not acts of "retaliation" ( a word with pejorative connotations), but were meant to suppress the thousands of missiles launched into Israel from the Gaza that were meant to terrorize, maim and kill Israelis. His wording makes it seem as if Israel were engaging in collective punishment and was indiscriminate in its targeting. In fact, Israel exposes its pilots to greater danger by trying to be very precise and deliberate in its targeting-only aiming to stop the terrorist and focusing on minimizing the damage while trying its utmost to minimize civilian casualties. He did not even mention these endless rounds of rocket attacks; not a single word."

Unusual sense for San Francisco: "Citing environmental concerns, Mayor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order prohibiting city departments from buying bottled water. In a decision announced yesterday, Newsom says the ban will go into effect July first and extend to all city and county water coolers by December first. A spokesman for the San Francisco public utilities commission says Newsom's decision will save tax payer money and combat global warming."

African brains less active: "Slow wave activity (SWA), a stable trait dependent marker of the intensity of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, is lower in young healthy African-Americans compared to Caucasians who were matched for age, gender and body weight, according to recent research. Dr. Esra Tasali and colleagues at the University of Chicago collected overnight polysomnographic data from 12 African-Americans and 12 Caucasians, none of whom had any sleep complaints or disorders. The authors found that African-Americans had markedly lower SWA as compared to Caucasians."

Economic ignorance often goes with economic arrogance: "Interview with Bryan Caplan, author of The Myth of the Rational Voter. Caplan: "I[f] people were merely ignorant about economics, I wouldn't be worried. After all, if you never studied a subject, we'd expect you just to be agnostic about it. The real problem is that people have strong opinions about economics even though they've never studied it -- and their strong opinions tend to be the opposite of what you'd learn in an economics class. As you indicate, I identify four main ways that people's beliefs about economics tend to go wrong. I call them anti-market bias, anti-foreign bias, make-work bias, and pessimistic bias."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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Baltic beacon of economic sanity

Anyone interested in seeing first-hand what a simple and fair tax system can help accomplish should visit Estonia. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the little Baltic country first tried its luck with the kind of progressive tax system so popular in the West. Productive people were punished with higher tax rates, and savings and investments - the lifeblood of future prosperity - were subject to double-taxation. Not surprisingly, Estonia did not prosper. To be fair, the tax system was just one of many problems plaguing the nation. But it was ironic that Estonia hindered its economic recovery from communist enslavement by using a fiscal regime - progressive taxation - advocated by Karl Marx. No less ironic is the fact that most capitalist economies have adopted that counterproductive taxation model as well.

Seeking a new approach to jump-start its economy, Estonia adopted a 26% flat tax in 1994 and never looked back. Combined with other free-market reforms, the flat tax has helped Estonia become one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Tallinn is now a boom town, filled with expensive cars, elegant shops, trendy restaurants and new construction. Estonia's system is not a completely pure version of the flat tax model. But it is remarkably free from distortions, exemptions, loopholes and penalties. The flat rate applies to both personal income and business income. And since one of the key principles of a flat tax is that income should be taxed only once, there is no death tax, no wealth tax and no double-taxation of savings or dividends.

With such a simple and fair tax system, it is hardly surprising that Estonia is now the Baltic Tiger, growing faster than every other post-Soviet economy. In the last six years, growth has averaged nearly 9%. And that's after adjusting for inflation.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Getting it right on recessions and the 'wealth effect': I honestly cannot think of a single conservative commentator who recognizes the fundamental role money supply plays in the so-called boom-and-bust cycle. This failure to understand the power of money can have devastating consequences for an economy
Utility, means-ends and consumer choices: Contrary to mainstream thinking the Menger-Mises framework shows that it is the importance of various ends that determine the selection of goods by individuals. The means-end framework also shows that the prices of goods are not set mechanically by some kind of supply demand curves but by goal seeking individuals
US recession and technology: another economic fallacy: When every so-called technological breakthrough and invention immediately attracts investment think of the South Sea Bubble. John Stuart Mill sadly remarked that these booms left many businessmen and eager investors "to repent at leisure". And that was written about 178 years ago
Economic growth is under attack by greens: The two great power cults of the last century were Marxism and Nazism. Between them they probably killed some 150 million people. Another power cult has now emerged and it's called green movement and it has already killed millions of Third World peasants
Yeah, the Media are the Message - A Lying, Stinking, Deceitful One: The American media are the most powerful force on Earth. They can make the world hate George Bush and love the tragedies that are Jimmy Carter and Billy Clinton. They can hide the story of Muslims killing 2 million Christians in the Sudan in the 90s and displacing millions of "Black" Muslims in Sudan's Darfur
I'm suing gayHarmony: It looks like homosexual militants are getting nastier and nastier: attacking the right of free speech, free association, freedom of religion - and even attacking those who want stronger laws against sexually molesting children
Does a fall in the US saving rate point to troubles ahead?: According to US Government data the personal savings rate stood at negative 1.3 per cent in April against a negative rate of 0.7 per cent in February. This was the 25th consecutive negative savings rate. Do these figures presage trouble for the US economy?

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ELSEWHERE



Paul Krugman has recently drawn attention to the fact that people in at least some European countries are now on average taller than Americans. He couples that with the undoubted fact that severe nutritional deficits stunt growth and concludes that Americans must be doing something wrong -- with a bony finger pointed at McDonalds, of course. That is pretty hilarious, however. Far from suffering from hunger, Americans are clearly OVER-nourished, as their waistlines attest. One thing Krugman would appear to be ignoring is the large number of people now living in America from South of the Rio Grande. Nobody denies that they are often short (See above) and must hence drive down the average American height. I looked at the issue in more depth three years ago.

More daring Danes: "Today is Midsummer's Day - Saint Hans' Day in Denmark - and the traditional Danish midsummer custom is to burn an effigy of a witch in order to banish evil from the country and ensure the good fortune of the people in the coming year. This year there's going to be a slight variation on the usual ritual. According to SIAD, a previously secret group is planning to burn an effigy of Mohammed instead of a witch, to symbolize the need to rid Western Europe of a new kind of evil. Tomorrow the group will release a video of tonight's Midsummer bonfire."

It is our traditions and customs that have made us rich: "Douglass North's economics looks at the formal rules and informal norms that affect economic behavior. As I pointed out in the previous essay, North refers to these rules and norms as institutions. (This use of the term "institutions" differs somewhat from ordinary language, where we tend to use institutions to refer to tangible enterprises, such as universities or hospitals.) Institutions change slowly. They are conditioned on the past and on other institutions. Therefore, when better outcomes depend on institutional improvement, the challenge is much more difficult than is assumed in standard economics.

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up. Chris notes that the British "Conservatives" are now to the Left of Labour in many ways.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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".

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