A bit of silliness from "The Times" of London: "UK living standards outstrip US"

Living standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America for the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by the respected Oxford Economics consultancy. The calculations suggest that, measured by gross domestic product per capita, Britain can now hold its head up high in the economic stakes after more than a century of playing second fiddle to the Americans.

It says that GDP per head in Britain will be o23,500 this year, compared with o23,250 in America, reflecting not only the strength of the pound against the dollar but also the UK economy's record run of growth and rising incomes going back to the early 1990s. In those days, according to Oxford Economics, Britain's GDP per capita was 34% below that in America, 33% less than in Germany and 26% lower than in France. Now, not only have average incomes crept above those in America but they are more than 8% above France (o21,700) and Germany (o21,665)....

Oxford Economics says that while the comparisons are affected by sterling's high value against the dollar, they also reflect longer-term factors. "The UK has been catching up steadily with living standards in the US since 2001 -- so, it is a well established trend rather than simply the result of currency fluctuations," its report says. It concedes, however, that a significant fall in the pound against other currencies would push Britain back down the ladder. It has assumed an exchange rate of just over $2 for the purpose of the calculation but in recent days the pound has slipped below that level.

The Oxford analysts also point out that Americans benefit from lower prices than those in Britain. With an adjustment made for this "purchasing power parity", the average American has more spending power than his UK counterpart and pays lower taxes. (In the run-up to Christmas many Britons travelled to New York and other American cities to take advantage of the strength of sterling against the dollar and those lower prices.)

More here

GDP per capita is an important statistic -- much more objective than the various "national welfare" and "quality of life" indices. But it DOES need to be adjusted for domestic purchasing power. The above results simply reflect the fall in the external value of the US dollar -- but a buck still buys much the same as it used to in the USA itself. Something which I and many others have informally noted is that in Britain, a pound buys about the same as what a dollar buys in Australia -- yet the external value of the Australian dollar is (like the US dollar) about half the value of the British pound. On that admittedly rough criterion, the average Brit is only HALF as well-off as the average American or Australian. That sure is how it looked to me last time I was in Britain. And it has in some ways apparently got worse since then. Note the following report, also from "The Times":

"The crowds are packing the pavements around Oxford Circus Tube station. On the roads, cars and buses are jammed in a giant gridlock. This is central London - but it's not the pre-Christmas rush or the height of the sales. It's just the start of another working day. Similar problems afflict many city centres: Birmingham's New Street, Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street and Edinburgh's Princes Street see similar daily throngs. It is something that city dwellers have become accustomed to, but living in British cities used to be a very different experience."

I used to love London but I am glad I don't live there now.

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ELSEWHERE



Above: What the well-dressed Muslim fundamentalist is wearing this season

Huckabee's Surge Statements Don't Jibe: "Governor Mike Huckabee was questioned this morning on FOX News and ABC News about his transparently false claim that he supported the troop surge in Iraq before Governor Mitt Romney. When confronted with his own words from back in January this morning on "This Week," Governor Huckabee tried and failed to have it both ways."

Democrat candidates willful denial on Anbar awakening: "There's a truth the Democratic presidential candidates can't handle: the success of the "surge" in Iraq. The addition of American troops and the adoption of a new strategy of protecting the civilian population has now dramatically reduced the level of violence in Baghdad and pacified other parts of Iraq as well. But the Democratic candidates insist on pretending otherwise. It isn't clear whether they were uninformed, out of touch, mistaken, politically fearful, or knowingly dishonest when they were asked to comment on the surge during an ABC television debate Saturday night in New Hampshire. In any case, their refusal to acknowledge success in Iraq marked a low point in the Democratic campaign."

Obama Shows the Audacity to Exaggerate & Make Stuff Up: "Barack Obama did not have the slightest idea what he was talking about when he touched on the Anbar Awakening tonight in the New Hampshire Democratic Debate on ABC. Obama says it wasn't the troop surge-- it was the Democrats winning in 2006 that caused the Anbar Awakening! In reality- the main ones cheering the Democratic win in November were Khamenei, Iran, Al-Qaeda, North Korea, etc. Not only that... Obama also said the Anbar Awakening was an attempt by the Sunnis to make peace with the Shia. SORRY- The Anbar Awakening was an agreement among Sunni Tribal Leaders to join together to fight Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorists. It had nothing to do with the Shiites. Obama showed that besides hope- he also has the audacity to make things up.... the actual formalization of the Anbar Awakening had been ongoing for more than a year. It wasn't something that just happened when Pelosi the Terrible took over the House... Try February 2006."

British Conservatives to cut back jobless benefits: "The unemployed would be forced to take a job or lose their benefits under radical Tory proposals to get millions of people receiving state hand-outs back to work. Under proposals to be unveiled by David Cameron this week, the unemployed would be required to take part in mandatory welfare-to-work programmes designed to prepare and train them for jobs. If they refuse a reasonable job offer, they could be banned from claiming unemployment benefits for up to three years. The welfare-to-work schemes, modelled on programmes in the United States and Australia, will be run by private firms and charitable groups who will be paid according to the number of people they keep in work. In reforms that will infuriate disability pressure groups, the Conservatives also intend to force every person claiming incapacity benefit to be tested to see if they are too ill to get a job. The Conservatives estimate that at least 200,000 incapacity benefit claimants are making false claims"

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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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SOME LITTLE-KNOWN QUOTES FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN

'Honest Abe' was not racially enlightened, as many people think. The truth is both ugly and unpleasant: Not only was the ghastly, bloody war that he supposedly fought to end slavery unnecessary, Lincoln was a tyrant and an abuser of civil liberties. The "tyrant" part is well-documented. He suspended habeas corpus. He deported a US Congressman who disagreed with the war. He had Federal police impound dissenting newspapers and smash their presses. He authorized Sherman's March to the Sea -a war crime, by any civilized human standard.

"My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery." -- Abraham Lincoln, August 22, 1862, letter to newspaper editor Horace Greeley

"We have decided that the negro must not be a slave within our limits, but we have also decided that the negro shall not be a citizen within our limits; that he shall not vote, hold office, or exercise any political rights." -- Abraham Lincoln, September 15, 1858 [Source: www.nps.gov]

"I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes." -- Abraham Lincoln, September 18, 1858 [Source: www.nps.gov]

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." -- Abraham Lincoln, September 18, 1858 [Source: www.nps.gov]

It can only be concluded, based upon his own words, that Abraham Lincoln may well have been a slave abolitionist, but he was also clearly a racist who considered African-Americans to be inferior human beings-if indeed he considered them human beings at all....

Most ludicrous and disturbing of all, Lincoln was well-documented as a proponent of a separatist movement dubbed "colonization"-- and in the White House, Lincoln proposed to create colonies to send black people back to Africa in Liberia, to Haiti, or to work in coal mines in Panama....

More here

The above excerpts are from a libertarian site. Most libertarians do abhor Lincoln for his authoritarianism and vast expansion of central government power. I myself have a similar view -- as I set out here. To me "Lincoln the liberator" is perhaps the greatest myth of the 19th century -- not unlike the "Hitler was a Rightist" myth of the 20th century. Politicians do find myths very handy at times.

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ELSEWHERE

There is a big review here of the absurd "600,000 Iraqi deaths" study reported in Lancet. It confirms concerns expressed by myself and others about the lack of basic verification of the raw data and reveals that the "data" was collected by a former Saddam Hussein operative known for large exaggerations! There is in fact no evidence that any survey at all was carried out. The safest assumption is that the whole thing was just made up! A crooked Iraqi simply gave Western Leftists what they wanted.

Media bias against Fred Thompson: "To my best memory, none of the pundits at Fox News Channel had predicted this week that Thompson would rank that high, yet instead of commenting on Thompson doing unexpectedly well, the pundits at Fox -- when they talked about Thompson at all -- joined Mike Allen of Politico in concluding that a third place finish means Thompson's campaign is at death's door. At the same time, Allen and the pundits were very enthused about McCain's possible fourth place finish, stating he was in great position for the future. Say again? As Rush Limbaugh noted today, the media seem to be falling in line behind a "McCain comeback" story, and they're thus shaping the facts to fit that scenario."

Muslims now running the Pentagon? "Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon specialist on Islamic law and Islamist extremism, has been fired from his position on the military's Joint Staff. The action followed a report in this space last week revealing opposition to his work for the military by pro-Muslim officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. Mr. Coughlin was notified this week that his contract with the Joint Staff will end in March, effectively halting the career of one of the U.S. government's most important figures in analyzing the nature of extremism and ultimately preparing to wage ideological war against it. He had run afoul of a key aide to Mr. England, Hasham Islam, who confronted Mr. Coughlin during a meeting several weeks ago when Mr. Islam sought to have Mr. Coughlin soften his views on Islamist extremism."

The AP shellacs "Relic" Bill Clinton.: "In a presidential race where the Democratic candidates are competing as agents of change, Hillary Rodham Clinton's most reliable campaign prop is something of a political relic - her husband. The former president was at her side to help put the best face on her third-place finish Thursday in Iowa, and he was beside her again when dawn broke the next day on the final push to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. "I was never more proud of Hillary in all the days we've been together and all the days of this campaign than when she gave that speech in Iowa," the ex-president told New Hampshire voters. The candidate's husband, meanwhile, tends to ramble on about himself."

Barack Obama wants to end the US "Occupation" of Iraq: "In an 11-minute interview with hometown Chicago radio broadcaster and journalist, Roland Martin, Barack Obama revealed that his first act, if elected president, would be to pull our troops out of Iraq as quickly as possible: "Well, we will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I will give them a new assignment and that is to bring our troops home in a careful, responsible way, but to end this occupation in Iraq".

Obama races to 10-point lead over Hillary: "Barack Obama the 46-year-old senator aiming to become America's first black president, has stormed into a 10-point lead over Hillary Clinton in this week's critical New Hampshire primary, threatening to send her campaign into meltdown. The Rasmussen survey, which was carried out the day after Obama's victory in last Thursday's Iowa caucuses, put his support at 37% in New Hampshire, compared with 27% for Clinton. The poll of 510 likely Democratic voters signalled a further swing away from the 60-year-old former first lady, whose campaign portrayed her as the "inevitable" victor until she was beaten into third place in Iowa".

For sale: America's nuclear secrets: "A whistleblower has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets. Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office. She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey. Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions".

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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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FACT-FREE PHILOSOPHY

Trying to get an obsessive-compulsive to stop his obsessive rituals is a notoriously futile process. You might interrupt the compulsive behaviours momentarily but they very rapidly resume. It is only by treating the cause of the behaviour (by deconditioning, for instance) that you have some chance of success. Even then you will often fail.

I am reminded of that sort of compulsion when I read academics writing about race. For most, their statements are completely predictable, completely irrational and quite closed off from any contradiction, discordant evidence or dissuasion. They NEED to aggrandize themselves as angels of light and pesky facts must never stand in the way of that.

The latest example of such witting blindness comes from philosopher Philip Kitcher, of Columbia University. You can read his full essay here but it was originally published in an academic journal here. Below are some quotes from it:

Although the phenotypic characteristics, the manifest features that have traditionally been used to divide our species into races, are salient for us, they are superficial, indicating nothing about important differences in psychological traits or genetic conditions that constitute some racial essence

there are no genes distinctive of the groups we call races (Ahem! See here and here, and here for instance)

we insist on the absence of deep essential differences among biological races

It's just fact-free Leftist boilerplate by and large -- but hedged with more weasel words than usual. Take the last sentence. He clearly wants to say: "we insist on the absence of differences among biological races" but that is so obviously false that he inserts "deep" and "essential" to cover himself. So that no matter what evidence you present after that, he is able to say that the difference is not "deep" or "essential" enough. For non-critical readers, however, what he appears to be saying is the unhedged version of the statement: A version which is "angelic", meaningful and quite false.

He is just not interested in discussing the facts -- such as the hugely greater crime-rate among blacks -- that might disprove his line of holy propaganda. What he actually says is just mumbo jumbo parading as meaningful discourse. And he is supposed to be an expert in the philosophy of science! All that he is an expert in is unfalsifiable statements. But he has been much awarded by his colleagues so his Leftist religious convictions have served him well.

KBJ gives a more extensive dissection of Kitcher's confused line of argument, if you can call it argument. It's more an orison (ritual prayer).

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PALESTINIANS WHO PREFER ISRAEL

By Daniel Pipes

Palestinians have a hidden history of appreciating Israel that contrasts with their better-known narrative of vilification and irredentism. The former has been particularly evident of late, especially since Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, floated a trial balloon in October about transferring some Arab-dominated areas of eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority. As he rhetorically asked about Israeli actions in 1967, "Was it necessary to annex the Shuafat refugee camp, al-Sawahra, Walajeh, and other villages, and then to state that these are part of Jerusalem? One can ask, I admit, some legitimate questions about this."

In one swoop, this statement transformed pro-Israel statements by Palestinians (for a sampling, see my 2005 article, "The Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat") from the mostly theoretical into the active and political. Indeed, Olmert's musings prompted some belligerent responses. As the title of a Globe and Mail news item puts it, "Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime." The article offers the example of Nabil Gheit, who, with two stints in Israeli prisons and posters of "the martyr Saddam Hussein" over the cash register in his store, would be expected to cheer the prospect of parts of eastern Jerusalem coming under PA control.

Not so. As mukhtar of Ras Khamis, near Shuafat, Gheit dreads the PA and says he and others would fight a handover. "If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority...There would be another intifada to defend ourselves from the PA."

Two polls released last week, from Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications and the Arabic-language newspaper As-Sennara, survey representative samples of adult Israeli Arabs on the issue of joining the PA, and they corroborate what Gheit says. Asked, "Would you prefer to be a citizen of Israel or of a new Palestinian state?" 62 percent want to remain Israeli citizens and 14 percent want to join a future Palestinian state. Asked, "Do you support transferring the Triangle [an Arab-dominated area in northern Israel] to the Palestinian Authority?" 78 percent oppose the idea and 18 percent support it.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

On "Time" magazine's aptly-named "Swampland" blog, we see that one of those marvellously "professional" MSM journalists spells "bellwether" as "bell weather" -- in the very first line of her article. She obviously has no clue that the expression refers to a sheep. In case they correct it, the original is quoted here. I love the headline of the article, though: "Hillary Booed at NH Democratic Party Dinner". It couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

Democrat donor jailed for fraud: "A Chinese-American businessman who raised thousands of dollars for Democratic Party presidential hopefuls was jailed for three years Friday over a 1992 fraud case. A judge at San Mateo County Court near San Francisco rejected last minute pleas by defence lawyers for Hong Kong-born fundraiser Norman Hsu's 16-year-old conviction for running a ponzi scheme to be set aside, court officials said. Hsu, 56, who is reported to have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign before it was later returned by the New York senator, pleaded no contest to the case in February 1992 and agreed to serve three years behind bars and pay a 10,000-dollar fine.

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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 Palestinian economy is in a shambles

And that might eventually force some realism on them. Post below excerpted from Daniel Pipes. See the original for links and more

Western financial aid to the Palestinians has, I showed last week, the perverse and counterintuitive effect of increasing their rate of homicides, including terrorist ones. This week, I offer two pieces of perhaps even stranger news about the many billions of dollars and record-shattering per-capita donations from the West: First, these have rendered the Palestinians poorer. Second, Palestinian impoverishment is a long-term positive development. To begin, some basic facts about the Palestinian economy, drawing on a fine survey by Ziv Hellman, "Terminal Situation," in the Dec. 24 issue of Jerusalem Report:

* Palestinian per year per-capita income has contracted by about 40 percent since its US$2,000 peak in 1992 (before the Oslo process began) to less than $1,200 now.
* Per-capita Israeli income, 10 times greater than the Palestinians' in 1967 is now 23 times greater.
* Deep poverty has increased in Gaza from 22 percent of the population in 1998 to nearly 35 percent in 2006; it would be about 67 percent if not for remittances and food aid.
* Direct foreign investment barely exists, while local capital mostly gets sent abroad or is invested in real estate or short-term trading.
* The Palestinian Authority economy, Hellman writes, "is largely based on monopolies in various industries granted by PA officials in exchange for kickbacks."
* The PA's payroll is so bloated that the cost of wages alone exceeds all revenues.
* A dysfunctional judicial system in the PA means armed gangs usually decide commercial disputes.

Unsurprisingly, Hellman characterizes the Palestinian economy as "in shambles." Such shambles should come as no surprise, for as the late Lord Bauer and others have noted, foreign aid does not work. It corrupts and distorts an economy; and the greater the amounts involved, the greater the damage. One telling detail: at times during Yasir Arafat's reign, a third of the Palestinian Authority's budget went for "expenses of the President's office," without further explanation, auditing, or accounting. The World Bank objected, but the Israeli government and the European Union endorsed this corrupt arrangement, so it remained in place. Indeed, the Palestinian Authority offers a textbook example of how to ruin an economy by smothering it under well-intentioned but misguided donations. The $7.4 billion recently pledged to it for the 2008-10 period will further exacerbate the damage.

....whatever reduces Palestinian confidence is a good thing. A failed economy depresses the Palestinians' mood, not to speak of their military and other capabilities, and so brings resolution closer.

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ELSEWHERE

There has just been a big conference of IQ researchers and there is a report of it here. A lot of it is probably pretty heavy going if you have no background in psychology but there are still lots of interesting bits in it -- including that Flynn does not now expect his eponymous effect to narrow the gap in black/white IQ. Since many years of that effect have shown no sign of doing so, that conclusion was rather forced upon him. Since the Flynn effect is the sum effect of environmental improvements (genetics don't change that fast), it does show that the inextinguishable THEORIES about environmental causes of the black IQ deficiency don't correspond to the FACTS about it. Environmental improvement has helped blacks but no more than it has helped whites.

Although people could be forgiven for thinking that I spend all my time thinking about IQ, I do in fact have other academic interests -- one of which is analytical philosophy. So I was rather fascinated by this report of a big and very public feud between two prominent philosophers over the nature of consciousness. After consulting with Keith Burgess-Jackson on the matter, however, we seem to have arrived at a joint conclusion: Both the protagonists are nuts! My own reflections on such matters can be found here

Wow! Anne Coulter detonates bombs under the dimwitted Huckabee here. Excerpt: "Huckabee is a "compassionate conservative" only in the sense that calling him a conservative is being compassionate"

Good God! Don't tell me we have to take this dimwit seriously!: "Former Governor Mike Huckabee has won the Iowa Republican caucus, surging past better-known rivals to triumph in the first nominating contest of the 2008 US presidential election, US media reported. Mitt Romney has come second. The Iowa victory gave Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist minister, momentum and national credibility for his shoestring campaign as he headed toward the January 8 primary vote in New Hampshire, where polls showed him running a distant third."

Shrillary in trouble in first test: "With 97 per cent of the precincts counted, Senator Obama was leading with 38 per cent of the Democratic vote. Former vice-presidential nominee John Edwards looked to have edged out former first lady Hillary Clinton, with 30 per cent to 29. Senator Clinton's third placing is seriously damaging to her ambitions given that until a few months ago she was considered the inevitable Democratic nominee. An Obama win in Iowa is a remarkable feat for an African-American in a state that is 95 per cent white. Two of the Democratic laggards, senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, abandoned the race after the result."

Passengers sue after being stuck on airplane: "Two passengers who were stranded for hours on American Airlines airplanes diverted during a major storm over North Texas have sued the carrier, accusing it of false imprisonment, fraud and negligence. Kate Hanni, of Napa, Calif., and Catherine Ray, of Fayetteville, Ark., were on flights diverted from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to Austin on Dec. 29, 2006. After landing, passengers sat in the planes for more than eight hours, unable to leave despite overflowing toilets and little food or water."

Jihad targets Hindus too: "The media rarely mentions the desecration of Hindu religious sites and the constant intimidation of Hindus. While special concessions have been granted for Muslims in India, the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh have long supported a policy, based on Islamic law, of religious discrimination against non-believers. Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh are unable to obtain positions of power, have great difficulty procuring business loans, are subjected to spurious blasphemy claims for defaming the prophet Mohammed and are specifically identified as non-Muslims on their passports".

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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 "DECENTS"

The Left has always been plagued by "splits" -- all those big egos have a lot of trouble getting on with one-another. The splits are so Protean that you have to be a Leftist insider to keep up with it all. I neither know nor care what characterizes all the different "splittists" on the Left so I am a little puzzled to know where I should put a blog that apparently speaks for "decents". I gather that "decents" are moderate British Leftists but I am obviously not in on the inner workings of them so may have it all wrong.

One of their sites bewails the fact that some moderate British Leftists energetically reject the more Stalinist Left and instead pay some heed to conservatives. They particularly refer to Norm Geras, a noted Marxian scholar who is -- at least these days -- not much of a Marxist himself. Norm and I have occasionally exchanged mutually cordial emails and I believe I may have come to his attention because of my own forays into Marxian scholarship. I once ran a daily blog devoted to the writings of Marx and Engels for a period of five months -- rather rare in anyone on either the Left or the Right, I am sure.

Anyway, the "Decents" blog is very angry with Geras because he has a link to my blog on his site. They describe me as "utterly unhinged", but give no reasoning whatever in support of that ascription. Apparently you are just supposed to twitch appropriately when a Leftist speaks. Attempting a reasoned argument would get them into murky waters, I fancy. So even the "decents", like almost all Leftists, would seem to think that abuse substitutes for reasoned argument. Not exactly "decent", I would have thought.

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MORE ON SURNAMES

My recent post on what surnames tell you attracted an unusual amount of interest. I reproduce one interesting email in particular below:

Hungarians have a patriarchal system with names which works in a different fashion to Russia, Iceland etc. The only people in Hungary this impacts on is the wife in a married couple. It's a very old system untouched by feminism or PC.

To give you an example, I will use the current French President's surname which is Hungarian in origin. If Mr Sarkozy was living in Hungary with his wife, his wife's official name would be Sarkozy Nikolasne. Notice that the first name of the wife is not even mentioned. It literaly translates to Nikolas Sarkozy's woman.

Married women over there use their regular first names in every day life -- for mail and documents etc. Another curious one in Hungary is the word for wife: "Feleseg" which translates to "Other Half" in English. "Fele"means "Half".

In Australia too we used to have a system something like that. Official letters to my mother, for instance, would be addressed to "Mrs F.E. Ray", although her Christian name was "Margaret". The initials were my father's. Even as a kid I thought that was pretty silly. I think the custom is totally extinct now.

Another reader wanted me to give a list of translations for Ashkenazi names so that he could look himself up. Below are the common ones that I could think of:

Adler eagle
Bettelheim begging home
Blankfield white field
Blumenthal flower valley
Ehrenfeld honour field
Ehrlich honest
Einstein one stone (testicle)
Eisenstein iron stone
Finkelstein sparkling stone (gem)
Friedman peace man
Goldberg gold mountain
Goldmann gold man
Goldstein gold stone
Hoffmann hope man
Klein small
Kren horseradish
Lowenstein lion stone
Nadelmann needle man
Perlmutter pearl mother
Roth red
Rothapfel red apple
Rosen roses
Rosenbloom rose flower
Rosenstrauss rose bouquet
Rosenthal rose valley
Rothschild red shield
Seligman blessed man
Silbermann silver man
Spiegel mirror
Stein stone
Vogel bird
Waldstein forest stone
Weinstein wine stone
Wiesengrund meadow land (maybe meadow ground)

Some of the names above may not be exclusively Jewish but most are (or were).

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ELSEWHERE

From time to time I gather together what I regard as the best graphics that have appeared on this blog. The most recent selection is HERE (or HERE or HERE)

France has a "good" New Year: "Vandals torched 372 cars as France celebrated the New Year, down on the figure last year after a night the police described as "relatively calm". Cars are burned fairly regularly in France and the image of vehicles in flames in poor suburbs became symbolic of riots in 2005 when angry youths set fire to thousands of cars. There is usually an increase in the number of cars torched on New Year's Eve compared to other days of the year. "The night was relatively calm, without notable incident, there were very few direct clashes with the security forces," said a spokesman for the national police. The Interior Ministry said 372 vehicles had been burned - 144 in the Paris region and 228 in the rest of France. That was down from 397 last New Year's Eve."

Shifty Hillary: "Hillary Clinton expects New Hampshire voters to believe her when she says she was a member of her husband's `White House team' who played an integral role in shaping policy during his eight years as President. Well, we'd like some proof, Mrs. Clinton. `I was a member of the White House team that was involved with trying to make a lot of changes... I think that people who are running for President should lay out for Americans their record, their experiences, their qualifications, their vision, their plan, and their understanding of how to make it all happen, and that's what I'm doing,' Clinton [said recently]... A candidate with White House experience who really believes that would let voters examine the records from the period during which she claims she was such a vital part of `the White House team.' But Mrs. Clinton's actions show that she does not believe what she says. Her husband is keeping secret many of those records --2,600 pages worth, a National Archives official told The New York Sun...."

Laughable quote of 2007 -- from the managing editor of the New York Times, oddly enough: "[W]e are agnostic as to where a story may lead; we do not go into a story with an agenda or a pre-conceived notion. We do not manipulate or hide facts to advance an agenda. We strive to preserve our independence from political and economic interests, including our own advertisers. We do not work in the service of a party, or an industry, or even a country. When there are competing views of a situation, we aim to reflect them as clearly and fairly as we can."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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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WHO ARE THESE DEMOCRATS?

Post below excerpted from Evan Sayet. See the original for links

Who is Barack Hussein Obama and why is he anything more than an afterthought in the Democrats' quest for power? The answer is, of course, that we have no idea. He hasn't even served one term in the United States Senate, a place where he is one of but one hundred voices. His legislative efforts as the junior Senator with no experience has equally been missing while on the campaign trail his great policy initiatives have been to utter meaningless words like "hope" and "change" always devoid of substance.

Who is Hillary Rodham Clinton that she should be the leading candidate for the Democrats' nomination in the fall? She's a one-term Senator, a carpetbagger who calculated that she would be a "lifelong Yankee fan" so long as she could get a stepping stone to personal power. Her claim to experience -- the fact that she was married to a president -- would be laughable except that, compared to Obama, she IS the more tested and learned. After all, at least she was sometimes within shouting distance when her narcissistic husband would orgasm with an intern. This -- again, one of one hundred, like Scott Baio sitting in on that game show -- junior Senator from a far-leftists East Coast state, has put forth few policy initiatives, seeing the Senate not as a job but as a necessary line on the resume before instantly jumping into the Presidential sweepstakes.

Who is John Edwards? He's a one-term Senator -- one in a hundred bodies to hide amongst as he accomplished nothing -- who began running for President in 2002 -- two years into his Senate term. His campaign is based on creating hatred for the boogeyman, "the rich," a group that only a very, very few belong to at the level of this man himself (can you say "self-hate"?).

In fact, of the three Democrats given a chance of winning the nomination, not one has served more than a single term, not one hasn't hidden amongst a hundred, as the junior senator from their state, and not one is saying anything of substance.

It's not like the Democrats don't have candidates with executive experience. Bill Richardson was a governor. It's not like they don't have Senators with more than a few years experience, there's the elder "statesman," Joe Biden. Yet these people are way back in the pack -- also rans -- to a bunch of Juniors. Why? Because the more the American people know about a Democrat the more they reject them as duplicitous and damaging. (Ever wonder why Hillary didn't run for Senate from her home state where they know her best?)

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Brookes News Update

Memory Lane and President Bush's tax cuts: Now that we are beginning the New Year perhaps we should look back on the Bush tax cuts, their benefits and the refusal of the Democrats and the media to recognise the damage that high taxes do to an economy
Taxes, money and surpluses: fact and fiction: It's as if the great debate on monetary policy that is known as the 'bullion controversy' never took place. One thing is for sure, the wisdom that flowed from that debate has long since been lost to the vast majority of the economics profession
Minimum wages, the Labor Government and Keynesian myths: The dangerous fallacy that raising the minimum wage boosts incomes and spending seems to be making a comeback
A foretaste of Hillary Clinton's America: Electing any Democrat to the presidency - specially Hillary Clinton - who carries the kind of intellectual baggage that destroyed classical liberalism in Germany and led to the destruction of the Weimar Republic could lead America into waters so dangerous that even America's Founding Fathers, in all their wisdom, would have considered their existence inconceivable
Charlie Wilson and Ronald Reagan's War: The moral lesson of Charlie Wilson's War should be a very sobering one for the Democratic Party. Charlie Wilson was proudly and unashamedly a pro-American, anti-communist Democrat. Sorkin ignored the sad fact that there would be no room in the party today for a Charlie Wilson. He also showed his mean-spiritness by refusing to give President Reagan any benefit for the Soviet defeat and the collapse of the Soviet Empire
Joe McCarthy vindicated again: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, KGB archives have been opened which further vindicate McCarthy. As unfathomable as it may seem, Americans, many of whom were in important positions in the government back then, were in fact collaborating with the Soviets
The Ballad of Alpha, the Bull's Bull, all geared: O the seekers of Profit are brash men and loud And quite unaccustomed to fear, /But the bravest by far in Connecticut's crowd/ Was Alpha the full Bull, all geared.
Recession and the consumption fallacy: Our economic commentariat will deliberately ignore the statistical evidence that recessions are not caused by falls in consumption spending, even though the following graphs demonstrate how very wrong these economic pundits really are

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ELSEWHERE

Brits trounce Taliban: "British commandos launched a devastating blitz on the Taliban - as the evil terrorists held a party to celebrate Benazir Bhutto's murder. The dawn raid was staged after messages were intercepted about the sick knees-up in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Royal Marines crept into position as the fanatics partied the night away just hours after Ms Bhutto was killed in Pakistan. The terrorists were pounded with mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns. Two bloodthirsty revellers trying to creep towards Our Boys in a trench were spotted by thermal-imaging equipment - and targeted with a Javelin heat-seeking missile. The 65,000 pounds sterling rocket - designed to stop Soviet tanks - locked on to their body heat and tore more than a kilometer across the desert in seconds. Troop Sergeant Dominic Conway, 32 - who directed mortar rounds - grinned: "It must have had quite a detrimental effect on their morale." Sgt Conway, from Whitley Bay, Tyneside, said of the Taliban lair: "It used to be their backyard and now we've made it ours."

A typical Democrat ignoramus: "Sen. Hillary Clinton was telling Wolf Blitzer that she didn't think "the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all." She then said something that betrayed a serious lack of knowledge about Pakistan and called her own credibility on the subject into serious question. "If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election," she told Blitzer, "then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow." My immediate reaction was: "Did I hear that correctly?" As a Pakistan analyst, I know for a fact that Pervez Musharraf doesn't wish to stand for election any time soon. Sen. Clinton really didn't know that the upcoming elections were for individual seats in Pakistan's parliament. She actually believed that Bhutto, Nawaz and Musharraf would be facing off as individual candidates for leadership of the country in the upcoming elections. Sen. Clinton didn't know that Nawaz Sharif isn't allowed to run for office in Pakistan because of a felony conviction. She didn't know that President Musharraf won't be on the ballot because he's already been elected."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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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Why Fred?

Post below lifted from BeldarBlog. See the original for links

On every issue I care deeply about, Fred Thompson is a genuine, thoughtful conservative - without any major exceptions or doubtful areas that I have to forgive or ignore. And in the simplest possible words: I trust him because he's demonstrated that he has a real political spine.

Fred's my "Goldilocks candidate": On national defense and foreign policy generally, on taxes (and, in particular, income tax reform), on spending, on judicial appointments, on immigration, on increasing the size and capacities of the military, and on a host of other issues, he's "Just Right." And not only do his present views and positions match my own, but they've been consistent views throughout his career, so I don't have to worry that he'll be easily talked out of them through some rationalization in the name of "expediency."

Ironically, Thompson's political spine has been most evident in some of the very same episodes that his detractors will try to spin as grounds for conservative alarm. As a senator, Thompson cast lonely, politically unpopular votes grounded on a genuine understanding of and reverence for federalism, for example, that his political opponents have characterized as being "anti-tort reform." I could write for pages about all that, but let me boil it down to a sentence: Fred Thompson has far more in common with John Roberts (for whose SCOTUS confirmation he served as sherpa) than with John Edwards, and if you can't tell the difference, you ought not be voting in the GOP primaries anyway.

Even my biggest reservation about Thompson actually reflects well on his political spine: If simply getting elected and staying atop the polls were what Fred Thompson were all about, he'd be a much better candidate, but ultimately a much worse president. For better or worse, he's running his campaign the way he believes it should be run - meaning he wasn't stampeded into an early start, and there are definite limits to the indignities that he'll willingly suffer for the sake of retail campaigning. His abrupt refusal to participate in the recent "show of hands on global warming" in the televised Iowa debate, for example, was the act of a self-secure grown-up with a serious sense of statesmanship. Fred may be a good old boy, and indeed he's charming as heck, but he's just not a panderer.

Thompson has come a long way from a very humble start, so it's wrong to say that he's unambitious. But he does lack the overweening, compulsive degree of personal ambition that's characteristic of many presidential candidates in both parties. Too much ambition is a bad thing, and Hillary Clinton, in fact, is an example of pathological ambition - a trait she entirely shares with her husband (while utterly lacking his charm). But during the late summer and fall, prompted at least in part by Fred's critics among the pundit elites, I nevertheless wondered if Thompson had "enough" ambition. And indeed, if this were like 2000, in which a single, obvious GOP front-runner was cruising to the nomination with massive funding, and without serious missteps or questions about his candidacy, then the amount of fire in Fred's belly might be inadequate for him to secure the nomination.

But historically, Thompson has been a strong closer, and he's gotten sharper over the course of the fall. The GOP race - as evidenced by the remarkable Huckabee surge (which I am convinced will be followed with a Howard Dean-like collapse) - could not possibly be more wide open. I'm satisfied that Fred has plenty enough ambition to win the nomination in these particular circumstances. And at that point - when he's past the humiliating cattle-call debates and onto a national stage from which tedious retail politics become less key - I'm convinced that Thompson will rise ever more enthusiastically to the challenge, and that he can be at least as enthusiastic and effective a campaigner as Ronald Reagan was in 1976, 1980, and 1984.

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Some most interesting statistics -- Muslim Populations in European Cities

Marseilles - 25 percent (200,000 of 800,000)
Malmo - ~25 percent (67,000 of 270,000)
Amsterdam - 24 percent (180,000 of 750,000)
Stockholm - 20 percent (>155,000 of 771,038)
Brussels - ~20 percent (some say 33 percent)
Moscow - 16 percent-20 percent (2 million of 10-12 milllion)
London - 17 percent (1.3 million of 7.5 million)
Luton - 14.6 percent (26,963)
Birmingham 14.3 percent (139,771)
The Hague - 14.2 percent ( 67,896 of 475,580)
Utrecht - 13.2 percent (38,300 of 289,000)
Rotterdam - 13 percent (80,000 of 600,000)
Copenhagen - 12.6 percent (63,000 of 500,000)
Leicester - 11 percent (>30,000 of 280,000)
Aarhus - ~10 percent
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent
Paris - 7.38 percent (155,000 of 2.1 million)
Antwerp- 6.7 percent (>30,000 of >450,000)
Hamburg - 6.4 percent (>110,000 of 1.73 million)
Berlin - 5.9 percent (~200,000 of 3.40 million)

Source

You can't even escape them in Russia, it seems.

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ELSEWHERE

See here for the birth of Christ as it would have been reported by the NYT

Thompson thumps Dem candidates: "A more fired-up Fred Thompson said yesterday he needs to finish second in Iowa's caucuses this week, and he went on the attack, accusing Democratic leaders of having let their party be hijacked by liberal interest groups. Campaigning heavily here over the past two weeks, Mr. Thompson has refined his message and yesterday released a 15-minute Web video laying out his qualifications and telling voters they need to pick a Republican nominee who is willing to call out Democratic leaders for abandoning their principles. "They're all NEA, MoveOn.org, ACLU, Michael Moore Democrats," Mr. Thompson charges in the video, which is on his campaign Web site. "They've allowed these radicals to take control of the party and dictate their course."

Haditha case continuing to fall apart: "The US Marine accused of leading the killing of as many as 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in the worst alleged atrocity by American forces during the war in Iraq will not face murder charges, it emerged today. Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 27, will instead face lesser counts of voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice, the US Marines confirmed. A statement issued from Camp Pendleton, California, said: “The charges referred against SSgt Wuterich are voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice." Lt Gen Samuel Helland, the commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central, “dismissed the charges of unpremeditated murder, soliciting another to commit an offense and false official statement,” the statement 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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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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BEST WISHES TO ALL MY READERS FOR A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR

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SOME RATHER NUTTY (but very "correct") "SCIENCE"

The academic article below (plain-language summary here) is a contribution to the religion that black intellectual disadvantage is solely due to environmental factors. They examine verbal ability, which is the strongest single correlate of general intelligence. The message is that black kids who have grown up in ghettoes are permanently harmed by it. I imagine that might be true to some extent. Environment does indeed have SOME effect on IQ development. But the article below does not prove that. It shows that the black ghetto kids studied fell more and more behind age-norms as the years went by but it overlooks the basic truth that blacks fall behind whites as they grow up anyhow, REGARDLESS of their early or other environment. See here. The fact that the research was by sociologists with no apparent participation by psychometricians may account for its naivety.

The article also seems to make some heroic assuptions about WHERE blacks move to when they move out of a ghetto. That the place that they move too might also be low-quality seems not to be taken seriously. Do we really believe that about 42 percent of the black children living in the worst neighborhoods in 1995 moved to a nondisadvantaged neighborhood later on? Pull the other leg! If we DO believe any part of that, however, the movers (and their kids) were probably brighter than those who stayed behind so the nearest thing the researchers had to a control group wasn't really one.

Durable effects of concentrated disadvantage on verbal ability among African-American children

By Robert J. Sampson et al.

Abstract

Disparities in verbal ability, a major predictor of later life outcomes, have generated widespread debate, but few studies have been able to isolate neighborhood-level causes in a developmentally and ecologically appropriate way. This study presents longitudinal evidence from a large-scale study of >2,000 children ages 6-12 living in Chicago, along with their caretakers, who were followed wherever they moved in the U.S. for up to 7 years. African-American children are exposed in such disproportionate numbers to concentrated disadvantage that white and Latino children cannot be reliably compared, calling into question traditional research strategies assuming common points of overlap in ecological risk. We therefore focus on trajectories of verbal ability among African-American children, extending recently developed counterfactual methods for time-varying causes and outcomes to adjust for a wide range of predictors of selection into and out of neighborhoods. The results indicate that living in a severely disadvantaged neighborhood reduces the later verbal ability of black children on average by ~ 4 points, a magnitude that rivals missing a year or more of schooling.

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, December 19, 2007

One thing that always rather gets me is how Leftists ignore the fact that blacks from bad environments often rise to pre-eminence in sport (e.g. here). So how come a bad environment cripples the cortex (the part of the brain critical to intelligence) but empowers the muscles and the cerebellum (the part of the brain critical for co-ordination)? The brain, the muscles and the nervous system are all parts of the body so how can they be affected differently?

One might perhaps argue that ghetto kids improve their cerebellum and not their cortex because they do a lot of leaping about (do they?) and not much talking but then we have to ask why is that. Verbal ability and intelligence are intimately related so is intelligence not important for survival? Given the great need for "street smarts" in the ghetto, one would think that intelligence was very important in the ghetto so how come it is not selected for there? How come the cortex is not trained too? How come blacks are not geniuses with words? And I know a lot of very restless and very active Dutchmen and Germans who almost never seem to sit still but I cannot think of any sport dominated by blacks where Germans and Dutchmen are also prominent. Blacks just wouldn't be genetically different, would they?

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ELSEWHERE

Dear Me! Bob Parks has written a rather confusing reply to my question about Ron Paul being a racist. Parks now seems to be saying that he never did regard Paul as a racist -- which is pretty amazing in view of the lengths he went to to portray Paul in that light! I think we have a considerable backdown there. I wonder if I will get some thank-yous from the Paulists over that? My post did obviously upset Parks. He even heads his reply "I am racist". Not long after I made my comments I regretted giving Parks the full blast that I would normally give to a Leftist commentator and revised my post to be less harsh. But Parks refers to the unrevised version of my post. Anyway, I will let Ron Paul defend himself from now on. His foreign policies (or lack of them) seem quite irresponsible to me. Though I have to admit that isolationism has historically been the default policy of American conservatives. Times change, however.

But of course! It's Bush's fault!: "Just as the dictator was allowed to neglect the task of tracking down Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida operatives within his country, just as he was given a pass when Pakistani officials shared nuclear secrets and technologies with rogue states, just as he was allowed to thwart democratic initiatives in his country and the region, Musharraf never faced a serious demand from the Bush administration to protect Bhutto. And in the absence of that demand from the government that props him up as what Bush once referred to as "our guy," Musharraf - who has survived many assassination attempts himself - failed to take the steps necessary to save Bhutto or to foster democratic processes. The Bush administration failed Benazir Bhutto and now she is dead. With her died the prospects of stability and democracy"

British Left to go nuclear: "Gordon Brown is ready to give the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations. The decision will trigger a major battle with Left-wing Labour MPs and environmental campaigners. Ministers could announce the new atomic age as early as next week, when MPs return to the Commons after their Christmas break. The Prime Minister indicated in his New Year message to the country that the Government was prepared to take the "difficult decision" of upgrading nuclear power plants. He believes nuclear power is an effective way of helping Britain meet its energy needs

British Conservatives discover some spine: "David Cameron has given his clearest commitment yet to tearing up the revised EU Constitution if he wins power, even if it has been signed. The Conservative leader told the Daily Mail he will "not let matters rest" if Gordon Brown succeeds in forcing the controversial treaty through Parliament and into law. His intervention ratchets up the pressure on Mr Brown over the document which is likely to dominate debate at Westminster in the New Year. Ministers are hoping to bore voters into submission by allowing weeks of lengthy discussion on the treaty."

China Hand is blogging again -- noting some unexpected oddities in China. Backup here for readers in China.

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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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Examining surnames

This is probably the time of the year for a few lighter posts so let me mention an occasional recreation that I have: Observing what surnames tell us. For instance: Surnames ending in "uk" or "iuk" are usually Ukrainian, surnames ending in "u" are Sardinan or Romanian, surnames ending in "yan" or "ian" are Armenian, and a final "ee" sound is very common in Irish names (Murphy, Toohey, Fahey, Talty, Sheehy, Mahoney, Mulrooney etc). There is also a more minor tradition for Irish names to end in an "un" sound: Coughlin, Reagan, Rearden etc.

But Ashkenazi names are the most amusing of all. They were meant to be. In a combination that will blow current Leftist minds, militaristic Prussia (in Northeastern Germany) was for many years the most tolerant place in Europe and many Jews fled to Prussia from persecution elsewhere. So much of the surviving Jewish population today owes its existence to the refuge their ancestors found in Protestant Prussia: Germany giveth and Germany taketh away. The Prussian border guards could not be bothered with foreign names, however, so gave the incoming Jews ID papers with German names on them. And the German names were deliberately mocking. So a Jew who was renamed as "Kren" for instance, had to go around thenceforth introducing himself as "Mr Horseradish" -- which is what "Herr Kren" means in German.

A basic knowledge of German therefore makes Ashkenazi names amusing to this day. Goldberg is "Goldmountain", Rosenblum" is "Roseflower", Finkelstein is "SparklingStone" etc. Occasionally however the guards must have run out of imagination and gave names that were not too bad. "Wiesengrund" is an example. It means "Meadowland", which sounds rather pleasant to me. In one of those ironies with which life abounds, however, the most prominent bearer of that name for his entire professional life used the pen-name of "Adorno", which is Spanish for "ornament"! Words fail me!

And I find my own surname rather fun too. There may be more than one path that has led to the surname "Ray" but it seems to me that the important fact about it is that it is found throughout the British Isles in various spellings (Rae in Scotland, Reay in Ireland, Wray in England etc.). So I think that it is clear that it is an old Celtic name probably derived from the Gaelic "rath" -- meaning "red" (cf. "roth", also meaning "red", in German). The Rays were originally the redheads. And guess what? My father was a redhead! So it all fits in a rather surprising way.

And then there are patronymics -- still important from Iceland to Russia. In Ireland we have of course originally patronymic names like O'Brien and McSweeney and in Scotland Macdonald. And if ever you get an urge to write a letter to the present President of Russia, DON'T address him as "Dear Mr. Putin". That is crass. You address him as "Vladimir Vladimirovich" (Vladimir son of Vladimir"). Similarly you would address Mikhail Gorbachev as "Mikhail Sergeyevich" (Mikhail son of Sergei). Patronymics are polite in Russia. But it is in Iceland that patronymics reign supreme. The full name of a recent President of Iceland is, for instance, "Vigdis Finnbogadottir" (Vigdis, daughter of Finnboga). That's her below.



In Denmark too patronymics used to be dominant but they made a law around 100 years ago that said everybody had to adopt a surname. But the Danes just converted their patronymics into surnames -- which is why we have so many Andersens (son of Anders), Petersens, Olsens (son of Ole), Neilsens etc. Now isn't that all rather fun?

Update:

I feel slightly foolish for having omitted the name "Kelly" from my list of Irish names ending in an "ee" sound. My very own beloved grandmother was a Kelly!

And to the list of Irish names ending in an "un" sound one should of course add Ryan, Mahon and Geoghegan. You may need to be Irish to pronounce Geoghegan correctly. It's easier than it looks!

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ELSEWHERE

Don Surber's Colorado story of the week: "8 inches of global warming fell on Denver on Christmas Day, shattering a record that dated back to 1894. Thousands of children ran outside to make globalwarmingmen."

The Church that worships the environment instead of God is fading fast: "Last night, leading figures gave warning that the Church of England could become a minority faith and that the findings should act as a wake-up call. The statistics show that attendance at Anglican Sunday services has dropped by 20 per cent since 2000. A survey of 37,000 churches, to be published in the new year, shows the number of people going to Sunday Mass in England last year averaged 861,000, compared with 852,000 Anglicans -worshipping. [Out of a popoulation of 60 million]

Long gone neocons: "Maybe 2008 will be the year when we will finally be rid of that vacuous belief that 'the neocons' are in control of the Bush administration's foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. Habits are hard to break, particularly lazy ones, but if anyone bothered to look more closely, they would see that the United States has not really engaged in what we might call a neoconservative approach to the region since at least 2004, when the situation in Iraq took a sudden turn for the worse."

Old Etonian wants the commoners to pay more for their chicken: "The television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, known for his earthy approach to cooking and love of offal, is to launch a campaign for the middle classes to boycott cheap chicken in protest at the cruelty of battery farming. Fearnley-Whittingstall believes well-heeled consumers should be prepared to pay more for their chicken so that fewer birds are reared in overcrowded, unnatural conditions. Currently, less than 5% of chicken bought in Britain is organic or free-range, and critics believe shoppers place too much emphasis on simply finding the lowest prices. Organic chicken in the supermarket is about twice the price of intensively reared birds"

Romney is awake to the State Department!: "Romney agrees with Bolton on the State Department? He is looking better and better. Here is Romney on Hugh Hewitt's show while on the Iowa caucus campaign trail: HH: Governor Romney, one of the first tasks for a conservative in the White House will be to get control of the Department of State, and the Central Intelligence Agency, that keep turning out these NIE's and leaking things. Do you have the capacity to do that? MR: You know, there's nothing more political than corporate America. And you have to be able to rein in those individuals that are, if you will, doing things that harm our national interests. And I've watched with some concern over the past weeks, and years, frankly, it's going to be very difficult to turn around our State Department, and get it to respond to the position that the President would take. John Bolton's recent book, Surrender Is Not An Option, is a good inside look at how disruptive and counterproductive our efforts in the U.N., or our efforts at the State Department can be. But that is something which I'm up to, and I'm looking forward to.

Hillary frags Pakistan: "While the world holds its breath to see if Pakistan will explode, Senator Hillary Clinton tossed a fragmentation grenade into the fireworks factory yesterday. It may be the most irresponsible and selfish act by a presidential candidate in history: "I don't think the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all. They have disbanded an independent judiciary. They have oppressed a free press," she said. Naturally, she also said, "I don't think politics should be playing a role in how our country responds ... to the tragedy." Well, she just did exactly that by denouncing President Musharraf, who has been targeted by four assassination attempts himself, and is desperately trying to keep Pakistan from falling apart. He's the one who controls those nukes that we don't want Al Qaida to get. You don't have to like him to realize that weakening his position right now is wildly irresponsible. It plays right into the hands of those who want civil war".

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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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Benazir

The mainstream press is tending to eulogize the tragically assassinated Benazir Bhutto but lots of conservative blogs are pointing out the reservations that should be borne in mind about her. She was the socialist heir to a socialist dynasty and would almost certainly have done more harm than good if she had regained power in Pakistan. Ralph Peters is, as usual, the most acerbic in his comments.

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Some good holiday reading

For those who still have some holiday time left, Jonah Goldberg's recent book ("Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning") sounds well worth a read. Sadly, I am betting that you won't pick it up at your local bookstore, however. Below is the Amazon synopsis of the book:

"Fascists," "Brownshirts," "jackbooted stormtroopers"-such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term "National socialism"). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities-where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today's liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a "friendlier," more liberal form. The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

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ELSEWHERE

Smearing Ron Paul: "I couldn't help but be struck by the vicious smear of Ron Paul by a Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times. ... Sure, politics is a nasty business but I just couldn't help but wonder why the New York Times would publish garbage like this. Here's the thrust of Heffernan's attack: that Ron Paul has received donations from neo-Nazi extremist groups and has spoken at events attended by right-wing extremist individuals. ... Is this ludicrous or what? What are Heffernan and the New York Times suggesting -- that Ron Paul, one of the most committed libertarians around, has instead been a closet Nazi the whole time he has been in Congress? Or maybe they're suggesting that this committed libertarian has, all of a sudden, decided to convert to Nazism. Or maybe they're saying that libertarians don't really advocate individual freedom, free markets, and limited government but instead advocate statism and government control over economic activity."

You can be too clever: "The nineteenth century English philosopher John Stuart Mill bequeathed to modern conservatism a lasting inferiority complex when he dismissed the conservatives of his day as "the stupid party." ... Yet the sting of Mill's insult remains today, and it explains, in part, the conspicuous braininess of contemporary conservatism. Conservative think-tanks abound in PhD's and experts in every field imaginable, whose intelligence, as measured by IQ tests and academic credentials, is certainly a match for those of their ideological opponents. But has the emergence of a conservative intelligentsia proven to be an unmixed blessing? Or is the very phrase "conservative intelligentsia" an oxymoron? Let's begin by noting that the eagerness to appear intelligent to others is a fairly recent development among conservatives. By and large, the English Tories whom Mill dubbed as the original stupid party did not share this desire in the least... Their stupidity, as many of them no doubt hazily realized, was their best defense against the inroads of clever madmen intent on turning their world upside down-men like John Stuart Mill, for example, to whom tradition meant nothing, and who was willing to throw out the solid heritage of the past in the pursuit of the latest fad, dubbed by him "experiments in living."

The Chicken or the Egg (on His Face)?: "Which came first: the Chicken or the Egg? I ask because Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, brought it up. You see, Hoyer has supported earmarks totaling $96 million, including a $450,000 grant to the California-based InTune Foundation Group, to supposedly provide music education. InTune officials say they aren't sure what they are going to do with the money. The group's director offered that, "It might be music camps. It might be lessons. It might be how to be a DJ. It might be how to create a television show." Last year, InTune got $500,000 and failed to report what they did with the money. Asked why he went to bat for this earmark, Hoyer replied, "I thought it was a program that would be a positive program." Some testimonial. Of course, it couldn't be the more than $30,000 that Hoyer's political action committee has received from folks connected to InTune."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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

****************************

"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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