Again a lot to catch up with today so short excerpts only. The picture below is from the recent "State of the Union" address but has been slightly "interpreted"



This year's primary season does seem to be getting a little strange. Despite my ill opinion of both of them, I have twice recently defended things the Clintons have said (here and here) and now Iain Murray has done similarly -- also to his surprise.

Poverty American-style: "It's apparently okay to buy unnecessary and expensive electronics at a discount - even if you've lost your job and money is "tight. After all, the Super Bowl is Sunday. CNN's January 30 "American Morning" mentioned retailers were cutting prices to get customers to purchase more, but no one during the broadcast had a problem with one unemployed woman buying one of those fancy televisions. "Veronica McNeil has two kids," said Cho. "She recently lost her job. Her husband's an ironworker and the family is feeling the pinch." "If I'm here to buy baby stuff and I see a TV at a good sale price, I'll grab it," McNeil said. Cho pointed toward "rising gas and home heating oil prices and Americans losing their homes" for money being "tight." Personal responsibility and wise financial decisions were lost on Cho."

For sheer bureaucratic stupidity, the winner is ... : "Hate is a pretty strong word. But not strong enough to express how I feel about the TSA -- the Transportation Security Administration or Thousands Standing Around, depending on your point of view -- which runs those security checkpoints at American airports. I may fear the IRS, and I may dread the DMV -- but for sheer bureaucratic stupidity and its affront to personal liberties, the TSA has earned a special place of loathing in my heart. And apparently I'm not alone."

A McCain adviser's view of McCain: "The sad failures of government-centered economic development have proven that private markets are the only true hope for sustained prosperity. Republicans believe that government should do only those things we cannot do individually, should tax no more than is necessary, and should spend only on genuine national priorities. Mr. McCain will preserve these principles, and thus also preserve and enhance Americans' economic freedom. Entrepreneurs lie at the heart of innovation, growth and advancing prosperity. Hard work, ingenuity and entrepreneurialism are a proven route to meeting one's goals and providing for children and family. Mr. McCain is committed to preserving their freedom, ensuring that they are not shackled by excessive regulation, starved of risk capital, or taxed into submission. Over the past year, Mr. McCain has outlined a vision for steps toward a U.S. tax code that is simpler, fair and flatter. He will begin by keeping taxes low -- making permanent the current income and investment tax rates, and defending those rates against Democrats' partisan goal of taxing our economy into collapse. He has proposed that it should require a three-fifths majority vote in Congress to raise taxes."

Buried WMD Scoop: "Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003. The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could."

French morale hits a new low: "French morale is at its lowest ebb in two decades, according to new research. Quality of life in France is envied the world over but government figures show the "morale of French households" is at its gloomiest - minus 34 points - since the study began in 1987. French people's belief that their living standards will improve has declined steadily since President Nicolas Sarkozy took office last June, and has been exacerbated by rising fuel and food prices".

The emptiness of Obama's "change" rhetoric: "Obama, despite his rhetoric, has not really thought through what should change in the future. In South Carolina, one of his most well-received lines was: `It's about the past versus the future.' Okay, we got the reference to the Clintons representing the past. But what about the future part? What great policy ideas do we have to look forward to? That all politicians will learn to play nicely together? Even if he could manage to control others' behaviors, that would hardly qualify as a `higher purpose' or as truly `transformative'.... I don't expect Obama to create a true mass movement. But why is he so reluctant to engage the public in debate on policy specifics that can take us forward? I agree that change in American politics is sorely needed. And even Obama's rhetoric isn't necessarily problematic. For instance, in today's times of anti-consumerist miserabilism, I'm all in favour of upholding aspirations like the American Dream. But you're not going to go far if you line up behind someone who can't spell out what that Dream should mean today."

A crime against all Africans: "The catastrophe that has befallen Kenya since the rigged election of Dec. 27 -- killings and displacements, curtailed freedoms, a promising economy on the verge of being wrecked -- confirms for the umpteenth time that local politicians, not the remnants of imperialism or ancestral customs, are the major culprits of sub-Saharan Africa's misery."

Katrina lawsuit dismissed: "Saying his hands were tied by law, a federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina, but rebuked the agency for failing to protect the city. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled Wednesday that the Corps should be held immune over failures in drainage canals that caused much of the flooding of New Orleans in August 2005. He cited the Flood Control Act of 1928, which protects the federal government from lawsuits when flood control projects like levees break. The lawsuit led to about 489,000 claims by businesses, government entities and residents, seeking trillions of dollars in damages against the Corps. The fate of many of those claims was pinned to the suit and a similar one filed over flooding from a navigation channel in St. Bernard Parish"

More Leftist ad hominem abuse. Comment by Tibor Machan: "Among the first lessons one learns in an elementary logic course is that there are various informal fallacies that too many people commit as they go about thinking things through. For example, the fallacy of begging the question or ad hominem or the genetic fallacy. One would not expect anyone in the discipline to commit any of these and similar fallacies. Yet Dr. Kurtz manages to do just that when he claims that I hold my views on taxation and the free market 'as a result' of my having 'escaped communist Hungary.' It is where I come from, what happened to me, the circumstances of my early life that produced in me my views, not my careful reasoning, study, analysis, and such, all those methods that secular humanist advise we use when considering, for example, such issues as evolution, abortion, the existence of God, intelligent design and so forth. No. Dr. Kurtz chooses, instead, to treat my views as some kind of affliction that comes to people who escape from communist Hungary or similar tyrannies."

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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Gottfried on Goldberg

Paul Gottfried is a very grumpy conservative who spends most of his time attacking other conservatives. His own stance seems to be somewhere between paleoconservatism and libertarianism but no doubt he would be grumpy about that characterization too.

So it is no surprise that his short review of Jonah Goldberg's book is grumpy too -- apparently accentuated in this case by the fact that Gottfried has himself written to similar effect but has has not got nearly as much publicity as Goldberg. So amid the gloom, one reads a few quite good comments:

"Italian Fascism, until Mussolini unwisely threw in his lot with Hitler in 1936, enjoyed immense support among socialists in the U.S. and Western Europe. For many foreign partisans of Mussolini's corporatist experiment, fascism looked very much like socialism. And since fascists talked about "national revolutions" and condemned market capitalism, they seemed to the editors of The New Republic, and many others, much like those standing on the left side of History.

Well into FDR's first term, he and his Brain Trusters looked to the Italian model as a usable blue print for "mobilizing" the American people in the face of the Depression. Massive subsidies to reactivate the work force and to carry out public works programs of all kinds were aspects of the New Deal that had already been tried out by the Italian Fascist state. And unlike the Nazi regime, which came to power in 1933 just before FDR's inauguration, Mussolini did not oppress Jews or impose anything resembling Nazi race laws until after his shift into Hitler's orbit. As late as 1935, he was the most outspoken and vigorous enemy of Hitler on the European continent."

Gottfried probably has picked up a few minor errors in Jonah's book -- such as just where Carl Schmitt fitted into the Nazi regime -- but there are also major points on which he is plain wrong. He says:

"Fascism was a movement of the anti-libertarian Right. What made it a force of the Right, to repeat my point one last time, was its emphatic rejection of the principle of equality and its search for social models in antiquity-as opposed to the Left's vision of an ideal future that might be extended to the entire human race

The claim there -- that the Left differ from Fascists in that the Fascists to a degree looked backwards for inspiration -- entirely ignores the love-affair between the Greens and the Left that we see today. The current Left generally do their best to facilitate the Greenie push to return us to a romanticized and idealized past. Think of Al Gore! Modern-day Leftists are just as reactionary as Hitler and Musso were -- maybe even more so. Hitler and Mussolini were in fact clear precursors of the Greenies. See here and here.

Secondly, Gottfried's claim about "rejection of the principle of equality" also ignores Hitler's central slogan: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer. Hitler wanted all Germans to be one. The slogan means "One people, one government, one leader". Hitler DID want all Germans to be equal -- though of course he wanted himself and his henchmen to be the wise leaders who would guide the masses (The Fuehrerprinzip). But how is THAT different from the Leftist spokesmen of today? In Orwell's memorable phrase, both the Fascists of yesteryear and the Left of today believe that "all pigs are equal but some are more equal than others". That the modern-day Left are more circumspect about saying as much is the only difference. Both believe in their own superior wisdom and try to impose their tyrannies however they can

Gottfried also seems to be quite out of touch when he says this as evidence of the difference between Fascism and Leftism:

"Fascist government did nothing of significance to change productive forces or to redistribute wealth. It made owners, managers, and workers into contributors to an overarching Fascist order; and it required industrial leaders to consult with Fascist mediators before "releasing workers from their duties." Workers were then given unemployment compensation"

Sorry but that seems like a pretty good description of (say) the British Labour Party government of today -- with its unfair dismissal laws and its abject failure to close Britain's notorious social class gaps. And the red-tape with which British industry has been burdened does seem to me to have "made owners, managers, and workers into contributors to an overarching Fascist order". Their degree of autonomy shrinks year by year.

Gottfried thinks he is so much wiser than Jonah but he shows precious little evidence of it.

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ELSEWHERE

Lawless U.S. Congress: "Let us pause to salute the US Congress, whose members have once again shown themselves capable of surmounting partisan friction and institutional gridlock when it comes to serving a group of Americans they care about deeply: themselves. When the 110th Congress returned from its holiday recess two weeks ago, the mountain of unfinished business it had left behind in 2007 was still waiting -- everything from judicial nominations to bilateral trade agreements to the terrorist surveillance program to the farm bill. But the gentlemen and gentlewomen of the House and Senate made sure that nothing would impede what has become almost an annual tradition: the hike in their own salaries. When the sun rose on Jan. 1, so did congressional pay, from $165,200 to $169,300 -- a tidy little jump of $4,100... It is also unconstitutional. Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to pay itself with public funds, but the 27th Amendment circumscribes that authority. It provides: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." The amendment limits the power of Congress to change its salary by preventing any pay raise from taking effect until the voters have had their say."

Hillary's Smear Campaign: "Beginning with the South Carolina debate, and continuing as an applause line in many stump speeches thereafter, Hillary Clinton has accused Barack Obama of representing an inner-city slum lord while practicing law in Chicago. Of all people, Sen. Clinton should know better. During the Whitewater investigation, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr investigated the legal work performed by Mrs. Clinton, then a partner in the Rose law firm, on behalf of Jim McDougal and his bank, Madison Guaranty. Mr. Starr believed that Mrs. Clinton helped orchestrate the fraudulent land deal known as Castle Grande. He subpoenaed her billing records, hauled her before a grand jury, and relentlessly pursued her..... Mrs. Clinton's willingness to ignore the truth for short-term political advantage is exactly what breeds the partisanship that's paralyzed Washington for too many years, and the cynicism felt by so many Americans, especially the young. Getting ahead by any means possible is the strategy."

What McCain's Got: "In a time of Republican confusion, Sen. John McCain, reviled as an unreliable maverick, has won three GOP primaries. Florida showed why he's winning.... When Mr. McCain took the stage in Sun City, the applause was polite. When he finished, he got a standing ovation. He has been at this game a long time, and his ability to sense and ride the emotional flow of an audience is astonishing. It discomfits some, including me, that Mr. McCain seems like a live, capped volcano. But in front of an audience like this, and before a younger group two days later at the Tampa Convention Center, he stood with that tight, little upper body of coiled electricity and plugged his message of honor, commitment and threat straight into the guts of his listeners. Rudy Giuliani's antiterror message has been strong and credible, but it was almost an abstraction compared to the meat and potatoes of the McCain presentation.... Mr. McCain is hapless on economics. The answer to why he nonetheless beat Mr. Romney by eight points with economic voters is in large part his effective denunciations of the Bush-GOP spending surge in the first veto-less term. There's nothing "maverick" about that. That spending is the main thing that drove the GOP base into its famous funk."

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 ABSURD "STIMULUS"

Just a few comments of many below:



Economic stimulus package clears House, faces Senate hurdle: "The House approved a $146 billion economic stimulus package Tuesday afternoon by a wide, bipartisan margin, but the package had an uncertain future in the Senate. The vote was 385-35, with one representative voting present. The bill needed two-thirds of the voting members to pass. The bill calls for one-time tax rebates to go primarily to individuals making less than $75,000 and to married couples making less than $150,000. It would also provide temporary tax breaks that would let businesses deduct more of their investments in plants and equipment more quickly, and it contains two measures aimed at helping homeowners get or refinance mortgages"

Mainstream Media Gleefully Celebrate Nonexistent "Recession": "In a poorly-concealed effort to facilitate electoral change, irresponsible mainstream media voices cannot contain themselves in prematurely celebrating a non-existent recession. In the first two weeks of 2008 alone, the broadcast media referenced an economic recession some 54 times, according to the Business and Media Institute. There's only one problem: we are not in a recession, and it's far from certain that we will be anytime soon. In the third quarter of 2007, the most recent quarter for which Commerce Department GDP estimates are available, the American economy expanded at a remarkable 4.9% clip. Even more remarkably, this estimate constituted an upward revision from the Department's initial 3.9% estimate. More remarkable still, this 4.9% GDP expansion was the fastest pace in some four years. Indeed, the American economy hasn't even seen a decline in GDP since the third quarter of 2001. In other words, it is absurd to assert that we are somehow in a recession, given the fact that America has enjoyed six years of uninterrupted GDP growth. Beyond straightforward GDP numbers, however, other benchmark measures also reveal a fundamentally strong economy, contrary to the hysterical media chorus."

An Unstimulating Idea: "It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing -- the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper." That's how George Mason University economist Russell Roberts describes the logic -- rather, illogic -- of the economic "stimulus" proposals that everyone and his uncle are proposing. If we needed further demonstration of the folly that is the American political-economic system, there it is. The leaders of the interventionist state and the candidates who aspire to command it will continue to produce this inanity until people see it for the balderdash it is and resoundingly reject it. The problem is that most people don't see it for what it is. When told economic activity is slowing down, they demand that their "leaders" and candidates assure them there is a Plan to keep them safe. The politicians are more than happy to oblige. Details don't matter much."

What the Economy Really Needs: "The American economy is staggering under the weight of taxes, regulations, rising interest rates and lack of funds to borrow for growth. American entrepreneurs, the people who spy out the opportunities before others do, need capitalists, who can provide the funding, whether saved or borrowed. But they cannot implement their job-creating new projects. They cannot put their new products and services on the market. We need to get government off the backs of business, off everyone's backs. We need to get government out of the monetary system, out of the economy. We need separation of the economy and state just as much as separation of church and state. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged - on the last page - was right in suggesting this constitutional amendment: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade."

A Leftist comment on the "stimulus": "Barbara Ehrenreich memorably called the talk about the stimulus "clitoral economics." And that was before we got screwed. The stimulus deal just announced is being praised more for its existence than its content. Much lamented partisan bickering was overcome; bipartisan cooperation that got it done. With Wall Street bankers in panic, better something than nothing. So the parties came together and split the difference and created an agreement (which still has to survive the minefield called the U.S. Senate)."

A silver lining? ""We're so used to Democrats pushing tax hikes as the answer to all of America's problems that we were taken aback to find the following words buried in Pelosi's release on the stimulus deal: `Economists estimate that each dollar of broad tax cuts leads to $1.26 in economic growth.' Gee, that sort of sounds familiar. It's almost, though not quite, like what the much-reviled supply-side economists have been saying for, oh, 30 years or so. Pelosi, and other Democrats now suddenly touting tax cuts, may be on to something. We might demur on the notion that all tax cuts must be `broad' to be effective. Evidence really lies more strongly with giving tax cuts to those who would start new businesses or expand old ones. But it's refreshing to hear a Democrat admit the obvious-that tax cuts work. It's no secret that high tax rates act as a deadweight on the economy by creating absolute losses from which no one gains. Martin Feldstein, head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, estimates that a $1 tax hike costs the economy 76 cents in output. That explains why the economy jumps each time there's a tax cut."

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Brookes News Update

US booms and busts and a little monetary history: The extent to which media commentators are ignorant of economic history, let alone basic economics, is genuinely staggering. What's even worse, their so-called economic reporting is frequently littered with partisan comments aimed at Republicans
Why is Bernanke attempting to counter-act the stock market bear?: If the present aggressive interest rate stance by the Fed fails to prevent the economy falling into a recession, what will Bernanke do? Some of his writings suggest that under such circumstances he would ramp up the money supply. Such a policy could prove disastrous for the US economy
Will this year be crunch time for the Australian economy?: It's quite clear that the Rudd Government is completely clueless on what is happening to the economy. Changes in the Reserve Bank's balance sheet indicate that as severe monetary crunch could be in the making. In the mean time, the government can keep on attacking 'profiteers' while thinking up new ways to raid Australians' pension funds
Setting the record straight about Labor's record on unemployment: By putting a floor under real wage movements, Labor's Accord with the unions ensured that widespread unemployment would be a permanent feature of the Australian economy for some time to come. The economic rationale for this agreement cam straight from Keynes
The stories behind the pictures that defined the Vietnam War: History for the left is just a means to libel their enemies, and that's why the left do not hesitate to mix fact with fiction and fiction with fantasy. They lied about Vietnam and they are lying about Iraq
Bill Gates's 'Kind' capitalism is a misnomer: Bill Gates is another wealth capitalism who knows nothing about capitalism and who is equally ignorant of economic history. Those parts of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, over which Gates anguishes are the ones where capitalism has not been allowed to emerge

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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, 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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Lucky me! Within the last couple of days, I have been attacked by TWO Leftist bloggers! And note that they attacked ME, not any of the facts and arguments that I have put forward. What they have written is, in short, a confession of complete intellectual failure. They hate the truths that I have highlighted but they were so unable to refute those truths that all they could manage was an attempt to shoot the messenger. Their arguments were what logicians call ad hominem arguments -- arguments of no scholarly repute whatever. There are a few variations of ad hominem argumentation but a typical one would be of the following form: Hitler liked dogs Hitler was evil Therefore liking dogs is wrong You don't have to be a logician to see immediately that such an argument is invalid yet it is form of argument that is routinely resorted to by the Left and the Greens. Why do they do it? Simple. It is all they have left once the full facts of the matter are presented. Even an invalid argument seems to comfort them when they are faced with having to give up beliefs that their egos are heavily invested in. And in politics character assassination can be very useful. A candidate for political office is only partly evaluated on the strength of his arguments. Most of the time he is evaluated as a person. And he NEEDS to be evaluated that way because the voter has to predict what the candidate might do in the future. The candidate's claims about past and present reality are a relatively secondary part of what the voter has to evaluate. So ad hominem attacks can serve the Leftist quite well in politics. I am not a politician, however. I am sure I would be a very bad one, in fact. I am an academic. And what I try to do is to represent the facts as accurately as possible. And the fact that I have had 200+ articles published in the academic journals shows that I am rather good at that. And most of those articles were in fact in the field of political psychology. I may in fact have had more papers published on political psychology than anyone else, ever. I obviously know the field of political psychology very well and yet I can think of no-one else who has had as many papers published in that field. So I am by normal academic criteria a leading expert on the subject and my constant focus on the psychology of the Left is entirely within the realm of my academic expertise. And those 200+ publications were in fact rather hard-won. The editors and referees who evaluated the papers concerned and accepted them for publication were rarely sympathetic to my conclusions. Academics in the social sciences are overwhelmingly Leftist and my conclusions almost always tended to undermine Leftist beliefs. So my writing had to be "waterproof" to be passed for publication. There had to be no obvious faults in it that would justify rejection. I had to write at a much higher academic standard than someone who presented conclusions congenial to the Left. But in academic writing, ad hominem considerations have no part so my careful presentation of the facts eventually won the day nine times out of 10. So you might see why I don't take attacks on me personally very seriously. The accuracy and relevance of what I say depends on the facts, not on who I am. But I am so far from being ashamed of what I am that I have put an unusual amount of personal information about myself on the net. I have nothing to hide. I am in fact frank about myself to the point that many might consider unwise. And it is therefore MOST amusing that one of my recent Leftist critics had obviously trawled at great length through my autobiographical data looking for "dirt" and was able to come up with? Can you guess? Can you guess what he found to criticize? He criticized my POETRY!! What a good laugh I had about that! I doubt that any of my readers here would have been aware that in my long-lost teens I did write a bit of poetry. I put the poetry concerned online with the note that "I don't think much of it now" so criticisms of it leave me supremely unmoved. The critic concerned also dug out a photo of me in my long-lost youthful slimness and posted it on his blog. So I feel rather kindly towards him about that! Even in doing that, however, my critic managed to generate a laugh. Before posting the picture he cropped it so that it no longer showed me with an arm around my cute little red-headed girfriend of the time. Must not show that conservatives have girlfriends! So I had another good laugh about that! You can see the uncropped picture here. My poetry-loving critic also linked to another, older, post about me with the recommendation that it was a terrific read. Guess what was the first thing that this high-powered critique of me said? It said that I was "of paedophilic appearance". How desperate can you get? And shortly after that he went on to coin a new word" "indiscrete". Does he mean "indiscreet" or "not discrete"? Who knows? Definitely a low-wattage intellect. He then goes on to talk about my "hilariously unpublishable articles"! Wow! So how come over 200 of them did get published in mainstream academic journals? He is however not short of mental "agility". He then goes on to QUOTE from some of my published academic journal articles! Once again, much to amuse there. I have previously commented on the poor soul's meanderings here And then, of course, there is Neiwert -- whose attack on me is also of course an ad hominem argument. In a supreme feat of illogic, he endeavours to portray me as a racist in the apparent belief that doing so will enable him to avoid confronting what I have pointed out about the Leftist nature of Nazism and Fascism! But surely if I really were a racist I would be particularly knowledgeable about Nazism and Fascism and therefore could speak with some authority on the political nature of those movements! So rather than disqualifying me to comment by his aspersions, Neiwert would seem in fact to be qualifying me. So his critique could be seen as another example of his talent for shooting himself in the foot. You can read about another example of that talent here. I commented briefly on his silly attack yesterday and I should perhaps repeat here that a document that both he and my other critic mentioned immediately above have used in an attempt to prove the "racist" charge against me has already been comprehensively answered by me long ago. So that old answer should be read to form a part of my answer here. But I also think that I should here add some important background considerations to all of the attacks on me: Leftists have so poisoned discussion of race and racism by decades of hysterical shrieks about it that any mention of race or racism is now seen as highly suspect -- unless of course you are praising some minority or asserting how justly they are aggrieved. And I DO quite happily make statements about race and racism that are of a kind that would have been regarded as perfectly normal thoughout all of human history -- but which have just in the last few decades become furiously excoriated. The only reasonable definition of racism that I can see is something along the lines of "harming a person solely because of his race" but to a modern-day Leftist, just discussing race is "racism". To a Leftist, our entire human ancestry consisted of "racists". I suppose that suits a Leftist's inflated view of his own wonderful wisdom and virtue but it is extremely presumptuous. So Neiwert's quotations from my various published comments on race and racism were an easy hit. His quotations decisively PROVE that I am a racist -- according to current Leftist criteria. That I am not a racist in any real sense, you might gather from this recent post. And in the simple-minded theology of the Left, a racist would definitely have to be an antisemite so how to explain my unwavering support for Israel? Most of my blogs actually display an Israeli flag -- yet I am not Jewish. What is going on is that I refuse to subscribe to an addled definition of racism that rules out most discussion of it a priori. If the facts show that the races differ on average in some respect, I will say so -- and I often do say so. And in that I now have a lot of the medical literature on my side. Differences between the races, most of them apparently of genetic origin, are now frequently reported in the medical literature. See here, for instance. So Leftist obscurantism about race now puts them squarely within the camp of the old Leftist Lysenkoists who once denied genetic inheritance entirely -- insisting quite amazingly that characteristics acquired in one's lifetime would be passed on to one's offspring. The Leftist view of racism is now clearly as unscientific as anything Trofim Lysenko ever said. And the topic within political psychology that I took most interest in during my academic career was in fact racism. So around 15 years ago, I went to the library at my local university and looked up their PsycLIT CD-ROM. The CD was published by the American Psychological Association and indexes what has been published in all the world's academic psychology journals. I entered the search terms "racism" and "ethnocentrism" and looked at the authorship of the stream of articles that came out. There was one author who had published far more than any other -- accounting for about a fifth of the articles listed. So, by normal academic conventions, that author would clearly be the world's leading authority on the psychology of racism. I am that author. So regardless of the abuse that Neiwert and his ilk hurl at my writings on race and racism, those writings are perfectly respectable intellectually. You can access the publications concerned via this link. That does also of course make it rather amusing that my critics have a habit of referring to me as a "pseudo" academic. If I am a pseudo-academic, I would like to meet a real one! Leftists cannot even get their abuse right a lot of the time. If they have to lie to make themselves feel good, then lie they will. And, speaking of lies, I note that Neiwert does not appear to have responded to my exposure of his lie about the antisemitic Father Coughlin being a "Rightist". I suppose Leftists HAVE to use lies. The facts are so inconvenient to them. And the one HUGELY inconvenient fact to them is that the two great tyrannies of the 20th century -- Fascism and Communism -- were both examples of what happens when Leftism escapes all restraints. Nothing that I have said above should be construed as a claim that there is anybody anywhere in academe who agrees with all my views on race and racism. Given the generally Leftist leanings of psychologists, I would be most surprised if there were. All that my publication record shows is that the arguments I have put forward on race and racism have very often been accepted by experts in the field as arguments that are well-made and well-supported. They are a good contribution to a discussion that the Left in general are determied to prevent us from having. I have put up here a summary of where I do stand on the questions involved. I argue that my stance is in fact a middle way between extremes. And I might add finally that I myself do not depend on ad hominem argumentation in my writings -- though I can rarely resist a tu quoque. For instance, I have an exceedingly dim view of Bill Clinton yet I felt obliged to defend one of his statements recently because I felt that he had been unreasonably criticized over it. See here. So, whether you agree with my defence of Clinton or not, you can see that I, at least, am able to separate the truth of a statement from the person who made it. I rather enjoyed writing the above. I am tempted to go on and fisk my critics in more detail but I am under no illusions about my ability to clean out the Augean stables. The Augean stables were so full of shit that you could shovel all your life and not get rid of it all. ************************* ELSEWHERE Can you beat this for media deception? The "Briton" was a Pakistani fanatic! "Briton admits plot to behead Muslim soldier. A man has pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in the British army by cutting off his head "like a pig", a court was told on Tuesday. Parviz Khan, 37, pleaded guilty this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was foiled by police and the MI5 security service a year ago. A British and Pakistani passport holder, Khan was "a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views" and who wanted to get physically involved in acts of terrorism, prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said. He said Khan was "enraged" by the fact there were Muslims in the British army, which Islamist militants portray as fighting Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq, and formed a plan to kidnap a Muslim soldier in the central city of Birmingham." The psychopath again: "That picture of the seething, red-faced former president of the United States shaking his finger at members of the press who dare to question his wife's slimy campaign tactics, is all too familiar to those who have worked closely with him in the past. Like Janus, the two-faced Roman god, there are always been two distinct personalities in Bill Clinton. That charming, smiling gentleman seen in public is too often eclipsed in private by his negative twin evidenced in the eruption of a furious, unexpected, and uncontrollable rage, often accompanied by loud cursing and occasionally, even physical violence. It's not a pretty picture. I've been at the other end of that anger too many times and I was always amazed at the suddenness and intensity of his fury". Even Carter sees the need for voter ID: "Former President Carter stated on March 22, 2006, "Within the next three or four years, all 50 states will move to some kind of voter ID." Carter, along with former Secretary of State James Baker, recently led the Commission on Federal Election Reform. Among the commission's recommendations was the requirement of photographic identification at the polls to curb voter fraud." 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". ****************************

A SLICK WILLY COMEBACK?



Almost enough to make you root for Obama. Comment by Jeff Jacoby below

On the day a new president is inaugurated, the outgoing president traditionally keeps a low profile, slipping away quietly after the swearing-in and leaving the spotlight to his successor. Not Bill Clinton. His first order of post-presidential business on Jan. 20, 2001, was a 90-minute rally at Andrews Air Force Base, complete with honor guard and a 21-gun salute. "I left the White House, but I'm still here!" Clinton exultantly told the crowd. "We're not going anywhere!"

Like most Americans, I was ready for the tawdry and tiring psychodrama that was the Clinton administration to finally be over. But something told me he wasn't being rhetorical. "He means it," I wrote at the time. "He *isn't* going anywhere. Yes, he packed his bags, zipped his pants, and turned the White House keys over to the new tenants -- but he's still here. There are more grotesqueries to come from our ex-president. There will be more truth-twisting, more money-grubbing, more scandal. Even out of office, he will find seamy new ways to degrade the presidency. Just wait."

So here we are, seven years and one week later, and what do you know -- Clinton is back in the news, his angry rants and political attacks casting a shadow over the presidential campaign. Once again the only elected president to face an impeachment trial is generating waves of outrage and dismay. A Rip Van Winkle newly awakened from 10 years of slumber wouldn't be surprised to find Clinton under fire for spreading falsehoods and behaving disreputably. But he might do a double-take upon discovering that Clinton's critics now aren't Republicans. They are fellow Democrats and liberals recoiling from his attacks on Senator Barack Obama, who has had the effrontery to challenge Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination.

Last week, Clinton was blasted by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, an Obama supporter, for taking "glib cheap shots" that are "beneath the dignity of a former president." He was excoriated by Ed Schultz, the nation's top liberal radio talk host, for "lying about Barack Obama's record" and "embarrassing" the Democratic Party. Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader who has endorsed Obama, warned that Clinton's "overt distortions" were "not presidential" and could "destroy the party" if not checked.

A past chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party charged the Clintons with practicing the "politics of deception" and likened the former president to Lee Atwater, a Republican operative who became infamous for his ruthless political warfare. "The Clintons play dirty when they feel threatened," wrote William Greider in a scathing piece for The Nation, a leading journal of the left. "The recent roughing-up of Barack Obama was in the trademark style of the Clinton years in the White House. High-minded and self-important on the surface, smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard to the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four more years. The thought makes me queasy."

What a pity that liberals and Democrats weren't as plainspoken about the Clintons' shamelessness and dishonesty back in the 1990s. In fairness, a few were: Former senator Bob Kerrey famously characterized Bill Clinton as "an unusually good liar -- unusually good," and Jesse Jackson once described him as "immune to shame," someone who at the core consisted of "absolutely nothing . . . nothing but an appetite." But far too often the Clintons' habits of mendacity, anger, and self-pity, their constant blame-shifting, their stop-at-nothing pursuit of power were excused or minimized by the left. America's political culture might never have grown so embittered if Democrats then had been a little more outraged by the Clintons' lack of ethics and a little less zealous about demonizing those who criticized them.

If recent weeks have made one thing clear, it is that the current Clinton campaign is as much about returning Bill to the White House as about making Hillary president. Bill Clinton's angry outbursts, his lack of self-control, his overpowering presence in the public arena are surely a preview of what a Clinton Restoration would be like. Hillary might be the president, but Bill would still be, as he has always been, the dominant Clinton. To whom would he be answerable in a second Clinton administration? Not to the woman whose political career is a derivative of his, that's for sure.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Jonah Goldberg has very kindly linked to my little laugh at David Neiwert. Neiwert has been sufficiently energized by that to reply in typical ad hominem style by repeating some old accusations about me -- quite ignoring the detailed replies that I have long ago given to those criticisms. See here and here. It was a slam dunk that Neiwert would not mention any of the facts that I have publicized about the Fascist history of the Left. Abusing the messenger is all that Leftists can do when confronted with facts about their own history. Also not surprising is his typical Leftist claim that mentioning any average differences between the races is "racist". I do not of course acknowledge ANY "unmentionable" realities. Guilt by association is another one of Neiwert's little Leftist tricks. He mentions that I once did a bit of co-blogging on Majority Rights but fails to mention that I was kicked off that site because of my repeated RIDICULING of antisemitism.

A reader has sent me the following useful "definition". Electile Dysfunction: the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for President put forth by either party in the 2008 election year

There is an excellent pictorial tribute to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan here. Also here

Sanity dawning in Brazil? "As Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva starts the second year of his second term as president of Brazil, he remains popular, with approval ratings of 50%. But those numbers were no help last month when he sunk serious political capital into a bid to renew the national financial-transactions tax. The effort went down in flames in Congress, where elected officials are finally waking up to the fact that the government can't squeeze the public forever. The death of any tax anywhere in the world is good economic news, but in a country like Brazil it's only slightly less amazing than the fall of the Berlin Wall was to Eastern Europe."

Learn more skills or face losing benefit, British jobless will be told: "There should be no "free-riding" on the welfare state, the new Work and Pensions Secretary said yesterday as the Government outlined a "carrot and stick" approach to reform. James Purnell, the most Blairite minister in the Cabinet, set out, with Gordon Brown, proposals to require people to obtain the skills they need or face sanctions. Every unemployed person would have a "skills check" to help Britain to raise its skills game to world class, Mr Brown said. One in five under-21s would be steered towards an apprenticeship, and private and voluntary sectors would be used to create the training posts. People refusing to take the chances given to them would lose benefit, first for two weeks, then for four weeks, and then for up to 26 weeks."



Stupid Leftist group-obsession causing ructions: "The National Organization for Women's New York chapter today issued a scathing response to Sen. Ted Kennedys endorsement of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary, calling it a "betrayal" of women. Marcia Pappas, NOW-NY's president, wrote in a news release that on a host of issues and positions, "Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him," but "We are repaid with his abandonment. He's picked the new guy over us. He's joined the list of progressive white men who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton."

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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Stray thoughts about my life

Current politics are a bit depressing to write about at the moment. It seems that U.S. voters in November are going to have a choice between Obama and McCain -- both of whom are economic ignoramuses and believers in big government. And Obama wants to withdraw from Iraq and invade Pakistan instead!! Save us! So I will again today write about other things.

I am aged 64 now. My father died at 65. I would be surprised if I had more than another 10 years above ground. So perhaps it is a time for me to look back and review a few things occasionally.

I have undoubtedly had a charmed life. To detail it would be to boast. But I have regrets too. The chief regret is that I have had only one child. My son is however all that a father could ask. He is tall, well-built, socially pleasant and already an academic like me. And he has blue eyes. Since both his mother and I have blue eyes that was a slam dunk.

Having had a lot to do in my life with persons of the female persuasion, I have looked close-up into a lot of blue eyes and I am firmly of the view that blue eyes are the most beautiful -- totally "incorrect" though that view now is. Mind you, I am no fanatic about the matter. I am so pro-Indian that my house is full of them, and almost all Indians have dark eyes, of course.

Because I always speak frankly about race, I am sure lots of people have me tagged as a racist but you show me any anti-racist (let alone a white racist!) who has as many brown men living in his house as I have in mine! I am thinking of renaming my house as "Jai Hind", in fact, so Google that! I have long wanted to go and live in India but family reasons rule that out, of course. When I am in India I feel that this is real life -- that this is in some way how it ought to be. And I am talking there about the attitudes of the people, not their poverty. Lots of people of British ancestry do get that sort of feeling when they go to India. But I have it both ways to some extent. If I cannot go to India, I can have India come to me! And the clatter of spoken Hindi is now always about me.

And because I have explained to him how to make money on the stockmarket, my son should have a financially comfortable future. What millions of people would like to know my son just got told casually one morning by his father. As a certain wise Jew once said: "To him that hath, more will be given him".

I do of course have a few minor regrets as well as the major one I have been talking about in a rambling way. One of the minor regrets is the fact that I have not been given a D.Sc. It is not a regret that I go to bed thinking about, of course, but I HAVE had over 200 papers published in the scientific journals so I am qualified for one. But the D.Sc. (Doctor of Science) is an HONORARY degree. You only get it for being a good guy in some way. And I am NOT that. I keep saying things that upset the applecart -- even if they are also true things.

So,if I ever do get a D.Sc., it will be posthumous. That will do ME no good at all but it might serve to highlight my writings. I am a graduate of the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney and Macquarie University so those are the institutions that COULD award me a D.Sc.

Immediately after writing the above I re-read one of my favourite Bible passages: Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2 -- just to make sure I did not lose perspective.

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ELSEWHERE

Leftist hater Jonathan Chait turns on the Clintons: "Something strange happened the other day. All these different people -- friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read -- kept saying the same thing: They've suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we've reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons. The sentiment seems to be concentrated among Barack Obama supporters. Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee. But now that loathing seems a lot less irrational. We're not frothing Clinton haters like ... well, name pretty much any conservative. We just really wish they'd go away."

Maybe the real "you" is the person you make yourself: ""Are you the real you? But what is the real you? Were you, you, when you 10 years old? 20? 45? Were you the real you before you had graduated college? Were married? Were a parent? Were you more real when you were shy before you 'came out of your shell' after joining the basketball or debate team? Are you the real you when you drink coffee to boost your concentration in order to finish that new sales report? Or are the real you when you take Viagra to boost your sexual performance? Turn the question around: are people who choose to use Viagra, cosmetic surgery, hair-coloring, propranolol to overcome stage fright, fakes? A strong case can be made that people who take advantage [of] modern technologies are seeking to become more authentically who they believe themselves to be. Demands for authenticity turn out to be just a way for other people to impose their views of your proper social status on you."

Caution is the essence of conservatism:. "In Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking, William F. Buckley Jr. mobilized a group of writers to set forth certain ideas about the conservative movement for which he and they played such a decisive and animating role. It is telling that they did not seek to enumerate a list of issues on which conservatives must agree. If anything, Buckley, Meyer, Chambers, et al. argued that conservatism is neither an ideology nor an exercise in litmus tests. Buckley spent as much time reading fringe groups out of the conservative movement as he did defining what it was, precisely because he knew that conservatism is as much about temperament and tendencies than it is about a specific position on a given issue".

An embarrassing side-effect of chemotherapy for cancer that you might not have heard about.

"Fascist" as a term of abuse: "Somebody, somewhere, must have called National Review contributing editor and Los Angeles Times columnist Jonah Goldberg, a "fascist." Having had at least one similar experience myself, I have found the most effective retort to be, "Define fascism." The conversation then abruptly ends"

SEVEN new British data blunders: "The Department of Health (DoH) has written to senior NHS managers to remind them to handle data safely, it said today, as it was reported there have been seven new breaches of security involving patient details. Today's edition of The Sun said that in one incident the confidential records of more than 1.7 million patients were lost, while in another a medic Googled a doctor's name and was linked to patients' details. In the first incident, records of patients from the North East Essex region were on a tape that was mislaid by a courier firm, while the second took place in the North West Strategic Health Authority, the newspaper said." [No wonder a national ID card has been put on hold!]

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 landlord of "The Sun"



I have had a number of Jewish readers of my blogs for some years. That is an excellent discipline for me as many things that I write touch on Jewry and Judaism and, not being Jewish myself, there are occasions when things I write on such matters are not as precisely expressed as they might be. And on such occasions, I rapidly get an email drawing attention to the lacuna concerned. I enjoy such emails greatly as they are undoubtedly the most intellectual emails that I receive. And I quite often respond by editing or updating what I have written to plug the apparent hole in my argument.

I was aware that my recent post about Islam as a "Jewish plot" could be misinterpreted as derogatory to Judaism but I retained that title because I felt confident that my Jewish readers would be smart enough to see that I was mocking the Left, not anybody else. And I was right. The title evoked no complaints.

There was however another point that I was conscious of not spelling out fully at the time but which I left stand for lack of time to add to it. And one of my readers of course picked it up. He wrote (quoting me initially):

"And other Jewish theologians have had no difficulty in also taking on board most of his ideas -- so that Paul has in fact humanized Judaism too. It is left to Islam to represent the "old" version of Judaism."

Judaism had no need for Paul to "humanize" anything; the Rabbis were long in the process of doing so already. Read "Pirkei Avot", "Ethics of the Fathers", which is one of the books of the Mishnah. The Talmud was filled with "humanized" law and parable.

I replied:

Yes. I expected a complaint of that sort -- which is part of the reason why I noted the humane elements in the Torah. Both Paul and Jesus were good Jews and almost all they said had precedents in the Torah. And I noted that Paul was only one figure in a long line of great Rabbis and prophets.

The point I think you miss and one I should have spelt out more is that Christianity gradually changed the whole culture of the European and Levantine world so that the influence on Jewish thinkers was more osmotic than conscious

That response cleared the matter up, with my correspondent agreeing that Jews have always tended to make big adaptations to the society in which they found themselves. The language we call "Yiddish" is in fact mainly a form of German!

I guess that this post is already a little rambling (my more rambling posts are usually written with the assistance of Mr. John Walker of Scotland but this one isn't, surprisingly) so let me ramble just a little further: The reader I have just mentioned bears a surname which in German means "The landlord of "The Sun"" -- where "The Sun" is an inn. As regular readers here may remember, I rather enjoy looking at what is behind personal names. So I noted something unusual in that surname. It is of course normal for Ashkenazi names to mean something in German but what such names mean is usually mocking. My favourite is "Kren" -- which is Southern German for "Horseradish". Can you imagine someone going around and being obliged to introduce himself as "Mr Horseradish"?

But being the landlord of "The Sun" is not at all unprestigious -- quite the reverse in fact. So somewhere way back there was a Jewish guy who took on the quite challenging job of being the landlord of an inn and who eventually came to be known by that name. Occupational surnames are of course quite common. In English, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Baker, for instance, must have had remote ancestors who were a tailor and a baker respectively.

And it's not only occupations that formed bases for surnames. One of my favourite non-occupational names is "Inglis" -- which is a Scottish surname that is pronounced as "Ingels". But what does it mean? It means "English". The original "Mr Inglis" was an Englishman from England who settled in Scotland and became known in his locality for that strange peculiarity!

There are also many English inns called "The Sun". Here is a link to one of them. Note the sign. Such signs date to times when few people could read and write -- so a simple sign that could readily be recognized was put up out front and used to identify a particular inn. "Bull and bush" and "Elephant and castle" are other well known examples of such signs in England. A German inn in the same category that most people will have heard of is Das Weisses Roessl, though most will know it in translated form as "The White Horse Inn" -- a popular operetta set in an Austrian inn that was identified by a picture of a white horse outside. You can see a small picture of the horse concerned here

And here is a link to an actual German inn called "Sonne" ("Sun"). Note the sign again.

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ELSEWHERE

Foggy Bottom Apostate: "Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush's special envoy for human rights in North Korea, has recently pointed out that our current approach to Pyongyang is failing. Lord help a diplomat who tells the truth. Mr. Lefkowitz, growled Condoleezza Rice at a Tuesday press conference in Europe, "doesn't work on the six-party talks [on North Korea], he doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks."... Mr. Lefkowitz is being written out of the Administration's North Korea policy for a speech he gave last week at the American Enterprise Institute. Noting that it has been more than two years since Pyongyang pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons program, and more than two weeks since it violated the latest deadline to disclose the full extent of that program, Mr. Lefkowitz observed that "it is increasingly clear that North Korea will remain in its present nuclear status when the Administration leaves office in one year."

Pope tells the Jesuits to shape up: "In a letter to the Jesuits, gathered at their 35th General Congregation dated January 10, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI has called on the ancient order which has been rocked by scandal to reaffirm their "total adhesion to Catholic doctrine" mentioning specifically the Church's teachings on "sexual morality". The letter comes in the wake of the homily given by the Pope's representative at the opening of the Assembly on January 7, which bemoaned the infidelity of some in the order to the teachings of the Church. The once illustrious Jesuits, the great defenders of faith, have over the last 40 years been steeped in dissident controversy. Jesuit priests have featured prominently in the homosexual priest scandal and Jesuit universities have been hotbeds of dissent on Church teachings especially those on life and family. The Pope stressed this reaffirmation several times, pointing to specific areas where the Jesuits are known to have caused scandal." [The Jesuits were founded on a complete loyalty to the Pope so if they ignore this they are betrayers of their own oaths]

Federal Department of Light Bulbs and Toilets: "Nevada Sen. Harry Reid said he thought the light bulb ban was an appropriate exercise of federal power. Interesting company Reid's keeping. Because when the bill was originally introduced by California Rep. Jane Harman last March, CNS News reported that two other countries had already taken similar steps to eradicate inexpensive incandescent light bulbs from the planet: Fidel Castro's Cuba and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Unfortunately, this is nothing new for Congress. The light bulb ban is simply the latest example of an increasingly intrusive federal government butting into the day-to-day affairs of the average citizen. Remember the 1992 energy bill, in which Congress banned the 3.5 gallon toilet?"

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race and IQ. Some readers have reported that the site doesn't download unless one clicks STOP.

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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Freedom, not charity, is the real key to greater prosperity everyhere

Are the world's impoverished masses destined to live lives of permanent misery unless rich countries transfer wealth for spending on education and infrastructure? You might think so if your gurus on development economics earn their bread and butter "lending" at the World Bank. Education and infrastructure "investment" are two of the Bank's favorite development themes. Yet the evidence is piling up that neither government nor multilateral spending on education and infrastructure are key to development. To move out of poverty, countries instead need fast growth; and to get that they need to unleash the animal spirits of entrepreneurs.

An annual survey grades countries on a combination of factors including property rights protection, tax rates, government intervention in the economy, monetary, fiscal and trade policy, and business freedom. The nearby table shows the 2008 rankings but doesn't tell the whole story. The Index also reports that the freest 20% of the world's economies have twice the per capita income of those in the second quintile and five times that of the least-free 20%. In other words, freedom and prosperity are highly correlated.

The 2008 Index finds that while global economic liberty did not expand this year, it also did not contract. The average freedom score for the 157 countries ranked is nearly the same as last year, which was the second highest since the Index's inception. This is somewhat of an achievement considering the rising protectionist and anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S., the uncertainty created by spiking global energy prices, Al Gore's highly effective fear mongering about global warming, and the continuing threat of the Islamic jihad.

Former British colonies in Asia took three of the top five places this year. But half of the top 20 freest economies in the world are in Europe. Of the five regions surveyed, Europe is the most free, continuing to advance this year with tax cuts and other business-friendly reforms. The only other region to score above the world average this year is the Americas, which is helped by strong performers like the U.S., Canada, Chile and El Salvador. At the other end of the scale Argentina, Bolivia, Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba dragged down the regional average.

Although overall global economic liberty did not expand, there were a few stars. Egypt was the most improved economy in the world, implementing major changes to its tax policies and business regulation environment and jumping to number 85 from 127th place last year. Mauritius was the second-best performer, moving into the top 20 from No. 34 last year. Trade liberalization and improved fiscal policies, including a flat tax, made Mongolia the third-best performer, and put it in the category of "moderately free" economies....

In "Narrowing the Economic Gap in the 21st Century," Stephen Parente, associate professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, debunks several World Bank myths by showing that it is not the resources -- land, workforce and capital -- of an economy that play the most important role in explaining higher income countries. Instead it is "the efficiency at which a society uses its resources to produce goods and services." Mr. Parente cites the microeconomic research of McKinsey Global Institute, which estimates that modern industry in India could take a huge bite out of its productivity gap with U.S. competitors by simply upgrading production techniques. India doesn't need another multilateral education project. It needs to tap into knowledge already available in successful economies -- the information and technology is out there. The trouble is that it is unavailable in many countries like India, because government barriers and constraints to limit competition make access difficult or impossible.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

The foolishness of economic "stimulus": "A consensus is building that America's economy is sliding -- perhaps plummeting -- into recession. In December the unemployment rate jumped to 5.0 percent, up 3/10ths of 1 percent from its November level. And of course investors are now growlingly bearish. To no one's surprise, politicians are rushing in with various plans for helping the economy. Most of these plans involve 'stimulus.' The calls are loud to put more money into the hands of ordinary Americans in hopes that they will spend -- not save -- it, thereby boosting the overall economy. Such stimulus, however, is futile. Government cannot create genuine spending power; the most it can do is to transfer it from Smith to Jones. If the Treasury sends a stimulus check to Jones, the money comes from taxes, from borrowing, or is newly created."

Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy: "The Democratic epiphany about the political tactics of Bill and Hillary Clinton continues, with scales falling from eyes on a daily basis. "I think it's not Presidential," said former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, about Mr. Clinton's steady barrage against Barack Obama. "It's not in keeping with the image of a former President, and I'm frankly surprised that he is taking this approach."... "This is beneath the dignity of a former President. He is not helping anyone, and certainly not helping the Democratic Party," added Vermont Senator Pat Leahy. On the point of "helping" the party, Mr. Leahy seems to have forgotten that the Clinton Presidency was an era of more or less persistent Democratic losses -- except for the Clintons. Then there's former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian, who once backed Bill Clinton but this week called his political attacks "reprehensible" and described one of Mrs. Clinton's TV ads about Mr. Obama as "a lie." As Mrs. Clinton likes to say, she's had "16 years" of experience in dealing with this "Republican attack machine."



Democrat-dominated California: "At some point we Californians should ask ourselves, how we inherited a state with near perfect weather, the world's richest agriculture, plentiful timber, minerals, and oil, two great ports at Los Angeles and Oakland, a natural tourist industry from Carmel to Yosemite, industries such as Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and aerospace-and serially managed to turn all of that into the nation's largest penal system, periodic near bankruptcy, and sky-high taxes."

UK: ID cards "in intensive care": "The identity card scheme was said to be in 'intensive care' as leaked Whitehall documents showed it faced a new delay of two years. The cards were set to be issued to Britons from 2010, when they apply to renew their passports, but private Home Office documents show the introduction is set to be put off until 2012. The likely postponement follows a series of fiascos over the security of personal data held by the Government. Gordon Brown is also widely believed not to share the enthusiasm of his predecessor for the scheme."

Red Ken's distaste for democracy has sent him beyond the pale: "Had I not known that it was Cuddly Ken on the radio yesterday, I would have thought I was listening to the dictator of a small Third World country. The Mayor of London brushed aside every charge against him, on the ground that he had been put in power to do as he liked. Had he used public money to campaign against his old enemy, Trevor Phillips, and stop him becoming head of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission? "Not against Trevor, but what he was saying against multiculturalism... which was very damaging." Had Ken Livingstone's officials campaigned for him at the last election while being paid by the taxpayer? "It would be 1984 if they couldn't have any political activity." Is this a personal fiefdom? "That's what Tony Blair...set out to create." This interview exploded the myth that Mr Livingstone is the people's rebel, the honest outsider. He is the consummate insider, and disarmingly frank about it."

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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