Quite marvellous: An Individual With a Strong Voice Makes a Difference

Post below lifted from Bruce Kesler. See the original for links

Both houses of the New York State legislature have now passed what some are calling "Rachel's Law." It provides protection to American authors against "libel terrorism," seeking to enforce judgments in New York State that were granted in other countries without our level of free speech protections. The law now just awaits signing by NYS's new governor, David Paterson.

One of the co-sponsors of the law, Senator Skelos, says, "The truth is a critically-important component in the War on Terror.This important new law will protect American authors and journalists who expose terrorist networks and their financiers."

I spoke briefly with Rachel Ehrenfeld tonight. She is, of course, elated at this victory, which she stubbornly waged as an individual transplanted to our shores because of her belief in America's freedoms. Ehrenfeld agrees, "this is what America is about" when individuals can have this impact. Now, there remains a long road through the courts to overturn the "libel terrorism" judgment's enforceability in our courts. Financial help is needed. Click here to help, at the American Center For Democracy. David Siegel, longtime editor of the New York State Law Digest, wrote in the March 12 New York Law Journal,

[A]ny bill that tries to address any situation as complex as Ehrenfeld is going to pose constitutional issues. If I may be allowed a flippancy, so what! It will boil down to the classic situation in which a statute toils near the border of constitutionality and leaves it to the courts to draw the line. Far worse than that would be to do nothing in the face of what seems to me an egregious effort, in a forum with libel laws offensive to our own and a dubious venue for the Ehrenfeld case to boot, to let an alleged libel victim pull off a coup in which he makes it too expensive for a New York writer to contest his foreign lawsuit.

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

ELSEWHERE

More bad history from Hillary. She condemns what Japan did in response to its credit crisis of the '90s but gets ass-backwards what they did. So what she advocates for America is exactly what failed in Japan. Those who will not learn from history.... Details here

Hamas's open ethnic and religious bigotry: "In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew. "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted," Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. "They have been traitors to all agreements - go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us." At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the "Crusaders," or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs," while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control."

Growth is in the "red" States, not the senile Northeast: "Four Texas metropolitan areas were among the biggest population gainers as Americans continued their trend of moving to the Sun Belt in 2006 and 2007, according to Census Bureau estimates to be released Thursday. Dallas-Fort Worth added more than 162,000 residents between July 2006 and July 2007, more than any other metro area. Three other Texas areas - Houston, Austin and San Antonio - also cracked the top 10. Atlanta saw the second-largest population jump with just over 151,000 new residents. Phoenix was third with more than 132,000, and was followed by Houston, Riverside, Calif., Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas and San Antonio. Of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas, 27 were in the South and 20 were in the West. Two were in the Midwest, one - Fayetteville, Ark. - straddles the South and Midwest and none was in the Northeast."

Military families: "Military families are different from civilian families, and multi-generation military families are extraordinary in ways difficult to comprehend. I married into one, and as a civilian still find myself marveling at the sacrifices involved. My wife's borther, George Philip, is an Annapolis grad and retired after a 20 year career as a Marine Corps officer. Her dad, Col. Wilbur Helmer, retired as a colonel in the USMC,and fought in some of the toughest battles of the Pacific War. Her grandfather and great grandfather were Annapolis men and admirals. Her uncle, then-Ensign Joseph Taussig, left his leg on the Nevada. Her mom's first husband, Commander George Philip, went down with his ship at Okinawa. His cousin, John Waldron, led a famed torpedo bomber attack at the Battle of Midway. All of which is to say that they are different from you and I, and that difference should be honored by civilians again and again."

Altruistic Twist in Market Economies: "Democratic societies with market economies have a reputation as cauldrons of competition, materialism, and greed. There's another side to that coin, though. These societies also foster cooperation among strangers in order to achieve a common financial goal, say economist Benedikt Herrmann of the University of Nottingham, England, and his colleagues. In contrast, nondemocratic and other societies without market economies-marked by low civic involvement and distrust of public authorities-promote an ethic of punishing strangers who demand cooperation in a joint economic effort, Herrmann's group reports in the March 7 Science."

A Belgian Utopia: "Inadvertently, the Belgian government has proven that government is best which governs least. After spending 9 months in a political deadlock, the country found itself chugging along without so much as a hiccup. The Financial Times reports: "For all its regional rivalries, Belgium went about daily life as normal. Its famed bureaucracy chugged along under its own power. Guy Verhofstadt, the long-serving and outgoing prime minister, proved just as capable as a temporary caretaker. Social security benefits were paid and the trains ran on time. Politicians should take note. Belgium has opened the door to an enticing possibility. Non-government has attractions. Imagine living without fear of new taxes being levied or of a daily diet of attention-grabbing policies"."

Hopeless Brits still cannot run an airport terminal: "Five days after Terminal Five opened, ministers criticised anger at the chaos which has engulfed the multi-billion pound facility, while it also emerged that the turmoil had triggered a diplomatic incident. "It is extremely regrettable to say the least that passengers using T5 have had to suffer an unacceptably poor travel experience," Aviation Minister Jim Fitzpatrick told the House of Commons. British Airways - the only airline using the new terminal - cancelled another 54 flights on Monday after a nightmare weekend, while a spokesman said another 50 flights will be cancelled on Tuesday. "We continue to work towards increasing the number of services we are operating to and from Terminal 5 in the days ahead," he said. Terminal Five has been blighted by logistical troubles ever since it opened to much fanfare on Thursday, with problems compounded by a major computer glitch in the luggage handling system. The luggage backlog has so far grown to 28,000 bags, and could take up to a week to return them to owners, the minister said. Earlier BA said there were 15,000, while the BBC published photos of the bags piled on top of each other. BA chief executive Willie Walsh was forced to make his second apology in three days on Sunday, as the airline scrapped dozens of flights over the weekend."

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

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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

Some more fictional history from the Left

Obama and Hillary are not alone. Real history is so pesky for Leftists that they have to make it up

We should read the Financial Times column written by Cambridge historian and New American Foundation senior fellow, Anatol Lieven entitled: "Why we should fear a McCain presidency?" His intriguing answer which appears in bold print in the paper edition is:

Some of the worst 20th century catastrophes were caused by brave men with passionate sense of national mission.

Really? I was curious. Who could he mean? I could not think of an example. Apparently, neither could he. The closest he came to naming names is comparing McCain to Andrew Jackson, a highly regarded 19th century Democrat president and not a particularly scary one. He does tell us that so extreme is the McCain presidency going to be that it will make leftists look back with nostalgia at George W. Bush. Indeed, European governments should start immediately planning on "how they could either prevent a McCain administration from pursuing pyromaniac policies or, if necessary, protect Europe from the ensuing conflagration."

But why should Americans believe that as experienced and knowledgeable a warrior as John McCain would behave so irresponsibly? Because he has an ungovernable temper, Lieven answers:

"Mr McCain's policies would not be so worrying were it not for his notorious quickness to fury in the face of perceived insults to himself or his country. Even Thad Cochran, a fellow Republican senator, has said: `I certainly know no other president since I've been here who's had a temperament like that.'"

Well, let me enlighten him. World War II hero and two term president Dwight Eisenhower was another military man with a lightening temper. In her book First Mothers, Bonnie Angelo describes his mother's failure to teach him temper control. "From childhood those lightening flashes were as much a part of Ike as the contagious smile," she writes.

Biographer Carlo D'este describes instances when "he totally lost his self-control -- whether beating an apple tree with his fists as a child, banging his head against a wall when playing poor tennis, or punching his fist through the wall of a cafe." White House seamstress Lillian Rogers Parks tells how his wife Mamie lived in constant fear of his outbursts. Angelo reports that presidential aides became most familiar with a vein in his forehead which would noticeably stand out during press conference he found annoying as signaling, "Caution: high voltage temper."

That said, Eisenhower did help win World War II but did not start World War III. He, merely, ended the Korean War and presided over 8 years of relative peace and prosperity. Not a bad record for a brave honorable, if temperamental, warrior. If temperamental McCain does as well we should all be very happy.

More here

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

Explaining Obama, Clinton and Kerry's False Histories

Below is Bruce Kesler's explanation. I think he is too kind. Leading Leftists and many of their followers are just psychopaths, born defectives who are completely lacking any moral instinct. They virtually tell us so when they say: "There is no such thing as right and wrong"

It's a wonder to observers that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry so blatantly -- and relatively easily revealed as otherwise -- invented their histories as heroic, exemplary and worthy of leadership.

Their formative education coincides with a post-war radical trend in historiography called leftist revisionism. Although revisions of historical understandings are a commonplace occurrence as new sources come to light, the radical left in post-war America veered into a myth that the causes of the Cold War, and of Vietnam and now Iraq, came from avaricious and racist motives and are furthered by outright mendacity and secret cabals. The structures, and confusions, of institutional decision-making with naturally murky intelligence, the requirements of national security and alliances, the value or sincerity of Western values, these are treated as excuses that purposely hide the true intents and goals.

This radical leftist revisionism, while allied with and blending easily with Marxist opposition to capitalism, is distinct in its raising of the true enemy to heroic proportions, extra-powerful individuals. This demonization of our leaders leads to the need for heroic counters. Thus, Obama, Clinton and Kerry needed to re-invent themselves, both to appear as the answer, and to convince themselves they are worthy of being the answer. Their self-invention is as false as their root interpretation of history and the workings of politics and international affairs.

Source

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

ELSEWHERE

A win for the new Iraq government: "Iraq's radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr last night ordered his fighters off the streets, paving the way for an end to clashes with security forces that have killed hundreds of people. "We want the Iraqi people to stop this bloodshed and maintain Iraq's independence and stability," Sadr said in a statement with his seal released by his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf. Sadr's latest call came after six days of fighting between Shia fighters and Iraqi forces in the southern port city of Basra, Baghdad and several other Shia regions that have killed at least 270 people. The clashes erupted last Tuesday when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched an assault on Shia militiamen in neighbourhoods of Basra controlled by Sadr's Mahdi Army, the most powerful Shia militia in the violence-ravaged country. The Iraqi capital and Basra both remained under curfew last night although there was a lull in the fighting, according to residents of affected neighbourhoods. Mr Maliki had given a 72-hour deadline to Shia fighters in Basra to disarm after launching an offensive against them but the call was ignored by the militia. On the same day, Mr Maliki vowed to press on with his assault in Basra, saying the militiamen were "worse than al-Qa'ida"."

Black Liberation Is Marxist Liberation: "One of the pillars of Obama's home church, Trinity United Church of Christ, is "economic parity." On the website, Trinity claims that God is not pleased with "America's economic mal-distribution." Among all of controversial comments by Jeremiah Wright the idea of massive wealth redistribution is the most alarming. The code language "economic parity" and references to "mal-distribution" is nothing more than channeling the twisted economic views of Karl Marx. Black liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for the black church because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks)."

Socialist Britain now too poor to fix its potholes: "When is a pothole in the road not a pothole? When it is less than 4cm deep, according to new guidelines that have been adopted by cash-strapped councils across Britain. The councils are this weekend accused of contributing to the "chronic disrepair" of UK roads by redefining the size of potholes that they are obliged to fill. More than 20 local authorities are cutting road maintenance bills by refusing to repair potholes less than 4cm deep. Some councils have doubled the size of "actionable" potholes in recent years. The revelation comes ahead of a comprehensive survey of Britain's roads, which will this week reveal that local authorities are facing a shortfall of more than 1 billion pounds as they attempt to fill in 1 million potholes a year."

Surprise! "More than halfway through their five-year study on post-Katrina recovery efforts, researchers for the Virginia-based Mercatus Center are reporting the neighborhoods that rebounded the fastest generally had the strongest community leaders -- not the most government help."

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

One Missed Call

In Michael Mukasey, President Bush finally seems to have an Attorney General worthy of the current moment. In Nancy Pelosi's hometown this week, the former judge who once tried terror cases told the Commonwealth Club audience that even he had no idea of the extent of the threat. Speaking of what he hears in his national security briefings, Mr. Mukasey said, "It is way beyond - way beyond anything that I knew or believed. So, if I was picked for the level of my knowledge . . . that was a massive piece of false advertising."

As reported by the New York Sun, he also offered a perspective, partly personal as a former Manhattanite, on the necessity of warrantless antiterror surveillance. Before 9/11, Mr. Mukasey said, "We knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. We've got" - here the Attorney General paused with emotion - "we've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that."

The AG also addressed why immunity from lawsuits is vital for the telecom companies that cooperated with the surveillance after 9/11. "Forget the liability" the phone companies face, Mr. Mukasey said. "We face the prospect of disclosure in open court of what they did, which is to say the means and the methods by which we collect foreign intelligence against foreign targets." Al Qaeda would love that. The cynics will call this "fear-mongering," but most Americans will want to make sure we don't miss the next terror call.

Source

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

Brookes News Update

Savings and the American economy: The lesson that Asians understand and many Americans now need to relearn is that savings and not consumption underpin living standards. And this is why the Democrats' proposed tax increase could sink the US economy
Bernanke's magic circus comes to town: Bernanke who has written a lot about the causes of the great depression. This has given economic pundits the impression that he knows how to deal with financial crises. Unfortunately, Bernanke's reading of what caused the great depression is completely false. He is making the same mistake that the Fed made in the 1920s
Asset booms and monetary policy: It is a Keynesian myth that changes in asset prices change aggregate spending, particularly household spending
Obama's communist mentor: The media have buried Obama's extreme leftwing links and his contempt for America. Nevertheless, the facts that lead to the conclusion that Obama is a socialist with Marxist sympathies are there for anyone who cares to seek them out
Al Jazeera enraged by Cuban-American voters: Republican-hating journalists who smeared Bush, admire Castro, sneer at the war on terror have joined pro-terrorist Al Jazeera where they now try to persuade Cuban-Americans to vote for the Democrats
The roots of black anger: Intellectually honest blacks, such as Shelby Steele, will tell you that racism is such a distant memory that racial victimologists like Wright are now left with concocting wild-eyed conspiracy theories to maintain their power
It's all over for the Democrats: A fit candidate for the Presidency who also happens to be an African-American or a woman will hopefully emerge in the future, but only after having gone through all the traditional rigors of any other candidate for the job
The Barack Obama double standard: In 1999 the media crucified Bush year for daring to give a speech at Bob Jones University. Now the same bunch of political bigots have been busy trying to rationalise away Obama's support for a venomous race-baiting, Jew-hating, anti-American bigot whose default position is one of unadulterated hatred

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

ELSEWHERE



Two tales of great heroism in the Middle East, one from Britain and one from the USA. The egotists of the Left would understand neither.

Media talking down the economy: "Just how obvious is it that the media's economic and business coverage is so negatively skewed that it has to be part of a political agenda in an election year? Obvious enough for the folks at Fox News to do an entire segment Saturday morning asking the extraordinary question: "Media `Talking Down' the Economy to Get a Dem Elected?" Despite my surprise seeing "Cavuto on Business" begin with such a question framed at the bottom of the screen, I was almost enraptured by the comments from Neil's guests which not only included regular assertions that this is clearly about getting a Democrat in the White House, but also that media are "committing a crime against the general public" by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that will end up costing people their jobs in the long run."

Typical psychopathic inconsistency: "Howard Dean slams John McCain's shameless plan to point out he's been there, done that. The Republican Party has seized upon the term "blatant opportunist" to suggest that Dean is implying McCain is an opportunist for including his POW information in his TV ad. What's more interesting are the Dean quotes from 2004 that may come back to haunt him this year. "The real issue is this," Dean said in March 2004, when endorsing formal rival Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., "Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

Another Hillary lie: "A senior Democratic lawmaker blew a hole through Hillary Rodham Clinton's claim that she helped pass critical family-leave legislation - just days after the candidate admitted she "misspoke" when she made false claims about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire. Former Rep. William Lacy Clay, a longtime St. Louis politician, says it was senior lawmakers - not the former first lady - who pushed through the measure, which President Bill Clinton signed into law after only 16 days in office. "If Hillary played a role in its passage, it was without my knowledge," Clay wrote in an e-mail that he circulated."

Muslims think stuff in Dutch film is normal: "The imam at Friday prayers in Amsterdam's El Tawheed mosque spoke of "enemies of Islam", but in spite of that clear nod to Geert Wilders, the Dutch anti-immigration politician, and his film, the mood was decidedly relaxed. Mr Wilders' 16-minute film Fitna , the Arabic word for strife, was posted on the internet on Thursday after months of speculation as to just how outrageous the -stridently anti-Islamic MP's project would be. In the event, it consisted of footage of terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London and other material juxtaposed with verses from the Koran. One of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that provoked violent protests in Islamic countries two years ago was included, without its author's consent. Omar Bakri, the Libyan-based radical Muslim cleric who is barred from Britain, did not think the film was very offensive. "On the contrary, if we leave out the first images and the sound of the page being torn, it could be a film by the [Islamist] Mujahideen," he said.

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

Leftist site stymied by Google censorship

Amusing. Post below lifted from Just one minute. See the original for links

"Think Progress" delivers some high-powered attack blogging - they accused John McCain of plagiarism, but apparently had not exerted themselves to actually check McCain's speeches available at his Senate website - he claims first dibs on the disputed phrases by pointing to a speech he gave in 1995 to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but how much prescience would have been required for Think Progress to have pinned this down? For example, one of the McCain phrases that stood out was "War is wretched beyond description." A search on the word "wretched" at McCain's Senate site produces just three hits, one of which is the 1995 speech.

What seems to have confounded the person who noticed this is that Google's search spiders seem to be blocked from the McCain site; neither a conventional Google search nor a Google search on McCain's Senate site deliver the 1995 speech.

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

Democrats being destroyed by their own political correctness

The Democratic primary is starting to look like World War I. The origins of the dispute are forgotten. Pennsylvania is the Somme. No chance, though, that the Clintons, who lead the imperial armies, will consent to paying reparations at the Treaty of Denver.

The most striking resemblance to the Great War has been the campaign-worker body-count. They're strewn all over the battlefield. Geraldine Ferraro (killed for bringing up if Obama weren't black), Samantha Power (Hillary's a "monster"), the intrepid if foolhardy Rev. Wright (multiple offenses), James Hagee (Catholics as the "anti-Christ"), Bill Cunningham ("Barack Hussein Obama"), Bill Sheehan (for bringing up Obama's drug use). All gone. Anyone working for or in support of a political campaign these days is entering a free-fire zone.

Some say the high casualty rate in the campaigns is the result of indiscriminate political correctness. Campus speech codes were put in place to monitor people who said the "wrong thing" about favored groups, often categorized as holding "minority status" by dint of race, gender or sexual preference. Now the Democratic campaigns are using the toxic PC gas on each other.

More here

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

ELSEWHERE

An Italian replies here to the Rev. Wright's aspersions on Italian noses!

Brits release two convicted terrorists because of "prison overcrowding": "Two convicted terrorists have been released early under a controversial Government scheme to ease prison over-crowding, ministers have been forced to admit. One is a radical Muslim cleric - Yassin Nassari, 29 - who was caught trying to smuggle blueprints on how to build a missile into Britain. The identity of the second terrorist had not been made public but the BBC reported he was Abdul Muneem Patel, who was released from Glen Parva jail in Leicestershire on Jan 7 this year. Patel, of east London, was jailed for six months at the Old Bailey in October 2007 after a jury found him guilty of having a terrorism-related explosives manual. After news of the early releases became public, Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, was forced to announce emergency measures to prevent the future early release of terrorists."

The newest Dutch insult to Islam: "Former Dutch Labor party politician Ehsan Jami, founder of the Committee of ex-Muslims, said he has produced an anti-Muslim cartoon that will show a sexually aroused prophet Mohammed with his nine-year-old wife. The film is to be released next month and will be called "The Life of Mohammed."

Endemic Democrat corruption: "Just when the party needs them most, the Dems super-delegates are dropping like flies. First there was William Jefferson, followed by Eliot Spitzer, then Kwame Kilpatrick, and today, Anibal Acevedo-Vila. This morning's announcement of the indictment of Puerto Rico's governor along with twelve others, including prominent Philadelphia democratic fundraiser Robert Feldman, worries party faithful for more reasons than one. Governor Acevedo-Vila , "a Harvard educated attorney and politician," who according to AP, "was elected governor in 2004 after campaigning on an anti-corruption platform," just last month endorsed Senator Obama for president."

Cowardly Dutchmen: "Release of Fitna is causing panic in Dutch political circles. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende says Wilders' movie "threatens the nation." Wrong. It is Islamic violence which threatens Holland and all of Europe. Exactly as in the 1930s, it is the weakness of European leaders which allows the threat to grow. Just as the League of Nations refused to stand up to fascism in pre-WW2 Europe, the United Nations grovels before Islam today. But they do more that grovel. Out of fear they have actually taken up the work of Islam and are enforcing the Islamic law against "blasphemy" while the Islamists stand by approvingly"

Massive new U.S. oil reserve: "America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America's Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC's short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant. In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951."

Brits thrashing at the air: "Video games will be forced to carry cigarette-style health warnings under proposals to protect children from unsuitable digital material. The report, commissioned by the Prime Minister in response to a growing moral panic about video games, will conclude that they can harm the development of children's beliefs and value systems and desensitise them to violence. It will also recommend that retailers who sell video games to anyone under the age rating on the box should face a hefty fine or up to five years in prison, The Times has learnt. The report, written by Tanya Byron, the clinical psychologist and television parenting guru, is also expected to address the dangers of children's use of the internet."

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

The party of corruption

Events this year have exposed, once and for all, in a way that cannot be denied, elided, or spun, Democratic liberals as the party of abject incompetence and institutionalized corruption.

Eliot Spitzer worked his way to the governorship of New York State as the living embodiment of liberal higher morality, crusading against a series of dubious financial and corporate villains. His downfall as the result of a prostitution scheme too moronic for fiction might be taken as evidence of personal failings and no more were it not for the fact that his replacement, David A. Paterson, confessed to similar activities as the first official act of his administration. (If not even more egregious -- no one, after all, has accused Spitzer of trading jobs for sexual favors).

We need only add James McGreevey, ousted in 2004 from New Jersey's governorship for homosexual escapades with an aide (apppointed to a homeland security job with the state for which he had no qualifications), to conclude that liberalism has subsided to a level of corruption of European dimensions.

It's often overlooked -- thanks in large part to the Clinton "legacy" -- that such misbehavior is almost always accompanied by corruption in other spheres. Insistence by Clinton's defenders that his various lady troubles were "personal matters" succeeded in obscuring the moral connection between Big Bill's follies and the endless bribes, kickbacks, suicides, illegal mass firings, and vanishing files that made the "most ethical administration in history" so entertaining to watch.

So it needs restating as a simple truth that a man who cannot control his sexual impulses is unlikely to succeed in more complex matters. In little over a year, Spitzer threw away the goodwill engendered by his landslide victory through a series of petty conspiracies and dirty tricks, bringing New York state government to a standstill in the process. While McGreevey was a better governor than he's ever likely to get credit for (he solved the longstanding auto-insurance "crisis" that made New Jersey a laughingstock for half a dozen previous administrations), his penchant for putting his muscle boys on the state payroll undercuts any other claims for his record. The same can be said for Paterson. Though, being both blind and black, he may likely survive, revelations concerning his practice of awarding jobs and positions don't bode well for the future.

These men are clearly representative of the post-Clinton Democratic Party. They set out to follow in Bill's footsteps, have ended up much the same as he did, and have dragged their party and political doctrine along with them. (At this point somebody will bring up the names Foley and Craig. But neither stood anywhere near the center of American conservatism in the way that the Northeastern governors do with liberalism as a matter of course. Foley and Craig were rotten apples. With the Democrats, it's the whole barrel.)

In turning to the presidential campaign, we need do no more than mention Madame Hillary. The Ma Barker of Little Rock is in a class by herself when it comes to political iniquity (not to mention dodging snipers). The chief puzzle concerning Hillary is how, being so blatantly what she is, she succeeds in holding onto any support whatsoever. There's a process in quantum mechanics called "renormalization", in which certain quantities with values of infinity are arbitrarily dropped back to a more manageable "zero" for the sake of solving the equation. This encapsulates Hillary's political career: truly mindboggling levels of corruption and ineptitude have been continually renormalized by fellow politicians and the media to enable her to survive. These people made a particular type of bargain when they bent the rules for Hillary. Now the ground is opening up under their feet. It has been a pleasure to watch.

Barack Obama was supposed to be another matter. Obama has ascended on a cloud of pure moral superiority and nothing else. That has now evaporated, thanks to impolitic comments from his wife and the news that he has for two decades belonged to what amounts to a racist cult. Obama has nothing else to offer in the way of experience or achievements. Beyond his current difficulties, there lie his continuing and as yet unexplained entanglement with Tony Rezko (He barely knew the man, he insists. All he did was show Rezko his new house before closing. I always clear major purchases with people I scarcely know, don't you?), along with pending revelations concerning his relationship with Bill Ayers, a former terrorist who began his career as one of the driving forces of the Weather Underground.

Obama's response, his "Kennedyesque" speech on race, was in fact purely Clintonian in that it attempted to transform his failings into virtues while placing the blame on the country as a whole. (Not to mention his innocent typical white grandmother.) In less than two weeks, Obama has succeeded in lowering himself to the same level as Madame Hillary. Quite an achievement. (As for Obama's claims to be a necessary "racial reconciliator", this reconciliation has in fact been going on since the end of segregation, quite successfully too. As is often the case with liberals, Obama is offering a solution to a problem that is solving itself.)

To this gallery we can add Jennifer Granholm, who assured that Michigan's current slide was as drastic and damaging as possible, Ed Rendell, Hillary's consigliere for Pennsylvania, John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Kwame Kilpatrick, charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and malfeasance in office. That's the Democratic Party, the bastion of American liberalism, as it stands. A party whose entire leadership cadre, including presidential candidates, state governors, and Congressional leaders, are corrupt or incompetent or both, a party more suitable to ruling a Balkan or Central African peapatch than the world's reigning superpower.

More here

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

ELSEWHERE

Hillary's Other Fabrication: " She said that Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 and happened to duck into a coffee shop when the airplanes hit. She said that this move saved Chelsea's life. But Chelsea told Talk magazine that she was in a friend's apartment four miles from ground zero when the first plane hit. Her friend called her, waking her up, and told her to turn on the TV. On television, she saw the second plane hit, disproving Hillary's claim that "she heard the plane hit. She heard it. She did." So why did Hillary make up the story about Chelsea? Most likely to was because her co-senator (and implicit rival for the voter's affection), a real New Yorker Chuck Schumer spoke of his daughter, who attended Stuyvesant High School (Dick's alma mater) located next to the Trade Center, being at real risk on 9/11. Hillary needed to make herself part of the scene. She invented the entire story on national television, the "Today" show, and didn't blink an eye."

Interesting point from Arlene Peck about Obama's Muslim origins: "I put it to you that Obama never converted to Christianity. Such a conversion would have been marked by baptism. Had he been baptized, he would have made mention of it when referring to the baptism of his children."

More Obama deception: "In his autobiographical book "Dreams from My Father," Barack Obama paints a heroic picture of his father as having emerged from a poor Kenyan village, where he was nothing more than a simple goat herder, to become a Harvard-educated economist, destined to return to Africa to fulfill his promise. Unfortunately, the reality is much bleaker than the tale Obama tells in his book. In truth, Barack Obama senior, Obama's father, was a polygamist who had already abandoned one wife and child in Africa when he met Obama's mother in Hawaii. After being educated at Harvard, Obama senior returned to Africa, abandoning Obama and his mother, to live the life of a chronic alcoholic who ultimately killed himself in his second drink-induced car accident, while driving drunk on the streets of Nairobi."



The U.N. pisses on itself again: "To the sound of cheers, and by an overhwelming majority of 40 out of 47 votes, the UN Human Rights Council today elected Jean Ziegler, the co-founder of the "Muammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize," as an expert advisor representing the Western world. And for its new Palestine expert, the council chose Richard Falk, who, like Ziegler, accuses the U.S. of being responsible for many of the world's ills and describes Israel in Nazi terminology"

Ho hum! London's new airport chaotic: "Thousands of families heading on holiday this weekend face chaos after Heathrow's new 4.3 billion pounds terminal was reduced to a shambles on its opening day by the complete failure of its baggage system. British Airways will begin today to wrestle with a huge backlog of passengers, many of them left stranded at Terminal 5 overnight, after the airline cancelled at least 34 flights. BA, the sole occupant of the new terminal, suspended baggage check-in shortly before 5pm and dozens of flights departed half-empty last night carrying only those passengers who had only hand luggage. Passengers on in-bound flights had to wait up to four hours for bags to be unloaded. The problems, which BA blamed on staff not being familiar with new systems, forced many outgoing travellers to abandon their plans and head home. The disastrous opening was a severe embarrassment for BA and BAA, the Spanish-owned company that operates Heathrow. Both had spent five years claiming that the new terminal would transform passengers' experience of Heathrow and work efficiently from Day 1." [The expected British bungling]

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

More psychopathic lying from the Left

Very similar to Bill's psychopathic (foolish and easily falsifiable) lies about her being named after Sir Edmund Hillary. And what a contrast with "straight talk" McCain!

Bosnia-gate is bad for Clinton. It goes to the heart of the issue around her and her husband: their stunning ability to stare you in the eye and lie. In her own foreign policy speech last week in Washington, Clinton repeated claims she has been making for months: that a trip to Bosnia was made under death-defying circumstances.

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." The story had already been discredited when US comedian Sinbad, who was also on the trip along with Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, told The Washington Post earlier this month that the only thing scary about the trip was he did not know where he would next get something to eat.

In a press conference after the speech, Clinton was asked about the Sinbad comments and dismissed him as simply a comedian. "We were told to run to our cars. That is what happened." She was clear-eyed and emphatic. Then Togo West, a former army secretary in the Clinton administration who was on the trip, stepped to the microphone and confirmed the story, saying the first lady was told to "run, duck, this is a hotspot and this is serious".



But CBS's footage of the event is damning. Clinton's casual stroll from the helicopter with her daughter to be greeted by an eight-year-old girl is now the stuff of legend on YouTube, clocking up one million views. A bunch of satirical films have emerged too. It is Clinton's descriptions of that day that are simply a breathtaking falsehood.

For what purpose? She knew there was television footage of the event - she was the first lady and had a travelling media contingent. It was simply a matter of time before production staff checked archives. It will not play well. Not with voters and not with super delegates.

More here. Obama is good at fabulism too. See here

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

ELSEWHERE

I have been debunking some amazing crap on my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog lately.

Al Qaeda losing its base? "There really is a broad rethink sweeping the Muslim world about the practical utility -- and moral defensibility -- of terrorism, particularly since al Qaeda began targeting fellow Sunni Muslims, as it did with the 2005 suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman, Jordan. Al Qaeda knows this. Osama bin Laden is no longer quite the folk hero he was in 2001. Reports of al Qaeda's torture chambers in Iraq have also percolated through Arab consciousness, replacing, to some extent, the images of Abu Ghraib. Even among Saudis, a recent survey by Terror Free Tomorrow finds that "less than one in ten Saudis have a favorable opinion of Al Qaeda, and 88 percent approve the Saudi military and police pursuing Al Qaeda fighters." No less significant is that the rejection of al Qaeda is not a liberal phenomenon, in the sense that it represents a more tolerant mindset or a better opinion of the U.S. On the contrary, this is a revolt of the elders, whether among the tribal chiefs of Anbar province or Islamist godfathers like Sayyed Imam. It would be a delightful irony if militant Islam were ultimately undone by a conservative, Thermidor-style reaction."

An Unlikely Refuge: Muslims Fleeing Darfur Rebuilding Lives in Israel: "Even though we're Muslim, the Islamic world has done nothing to protect us," said Yassin, one of the first Darfurians to make it into Israel across the border from Egypt and now director of Bnei Darfur [Sons of Darfur], which assists Sudanese refugees to integrate into Israeli society. "All of the Arab countries support the government of Sudan - our problem is with the Arab League," he said. As far as Yassin is concerned, Israel has provided for his people in a way that no Arab country would - and for that he's eternally grateful.

A problem for the Democrats: "We're not French. Americans want to succeed, not just get by. They don't dream about a better safety net. They dream about getting ahead. If Democrats default to a traditional recipe of expanding the safety net -- and that is all they offer -- they will hit the brick wall of public antipathy toward "big government." In a February 2007 poll conducted by Democracy Corps, 57% of Americans agreed that "government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life," and 54% thought that "government mostly gets in the way of the economy and job growth." While people not hurt by recessions are open to helping those who are, Democrats cannot assume that economic recessions automatically translate into broad public support for major government interventions."

Gallup says: "A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination. This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters, more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee."

Michelle Obama on how ignornant Americans are: ""We don't like being pushed outside of our comfort zones. You know it right here on this campus. You know people sitting at different tables- you all living in different dorms. I was there. You're not talking to eachother, taking advantage that you're in this diverse community. Because sometimes it's easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance... That's America. So the challenge for us is are we ready for change?" [Can anyone imagine this bitch as a First Lady?]

Bush saved Social Security: "At long last the damage from the disastrous Clinton administration has been cleaned up by President George Walker Bush. He has returned Social Security to the solvency it had when his daddy left the White House in 1993. Don't go by my word alone. Paul Krugman of the New York Times blogged: "The latest report of the Social Security Trustees is out. I think the key message is what has happened to the estimate of actuarial balance - the difference between projected outlays and projected revenues over the next 75 years." Krugman downplays the miracle that just happened. But of course. But if we are going to blame every problem on Bush, then every success is his as well."

Evil Minds Cooked This Up: "Palestinian children gathered for an exhibition that depicts Israel burning children in a crematorium. Young children are seen standing beside dolls being placed into a model of a cremation oven. According to the article in Al Ayyam (March 20, 2008), "The National Committee for defense of Children from the Holocaust opened its activities with a Holocaust exhibit. The Exhibit include a large oven and inside it small children are being burned, the picture speaks for itself."

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

Krugman proves himself right

Paul Krugman, professional economic gloomsayer and New York Times columnist has something truly flabbergasting to say about the role of the clueless prognosticator in modern society.

Reading some of today's news, it suddenly struck me: we're living in the age of the anti-Cassandra. Cassandra had the gift of prophecy - she saw, correctly, what was coming - but was under a curse: nobody would believe her.

Today, our public discourse is dominated by people who have been wrong about everything - but are still, mysteriously, treated as men of wisdom, whose judgments should be believed. Those who were actually right about the major issues of the day can't get a word in edgewise.

Krugman, of course, by virtue of his Times pulpit, is able to get plenty of words in edgewise, which (in an irony certain to be lost on the author) validates his own thesis.

Case in point, Krugman has predicted economic recession in each of the last six years. That's 24 consecutive fiscal quarters (we're actually up to 25 now, and 26 if we keep our heads above water for the next 6 days) without a single reading of negative growth, despite Krugman's perennial prophecies of wreck and ruin around every corner.

Getting back to the central point of the professor's article though, what's most astounding about Krugman's body of work is that it illustrates - perhaps better than any other's - that a career in economic pontification can not only survive, but thrive in the modern media spotlight, despite (or perhaps thanks to) consistent and egregious errors, so long as that systematic variance tends in a media-friendly direction.

It's not a new phenomenon that credit for accurate predictions greatly outweighs discredit for inaccurate ones (people continue to pick through Nostradamus' zillions of predictions so they can breathlessly present a few that vaguely resemble modern events). But it's genuinely astounding that the media's undisputed heavyweight champion of the asymmetry of prediction consequences should recognize this phenomenon without the faintest hint of self-awareness.

Source

The comments above from "Suitably Flip" are just. But I think Krugman has hit on a truth. Paul Ehrlich comes to mind as a complete false prophet who is nonetheless still honoured by the Green/Left

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

Democrat dishonesty in the race against McCain

John McCain is scheduled to deliver a major foreign policy speech Wednesday in Los Angeles, one with a heavy Iraq focus, but chances are Democrats won't be listening. They've already distilled his views into an easy to remember formulation: 100 years of war. It is a reference to an offhand remark made by McCain in January about the possible duration of the U.S. presence in Iraq, a comment that Democrats now portray as the equivalent of the McCain Doctrine.... On a recent conference call with reporters, Howard Wolfson, Clinton's bulldog operative, mentioned four times in two minutes that John McCain "wants to be in Iraq for 100 years." ....

McCain never actually went so far as to call for a century-long occupation. Rather, in response to a New Hampshire town hall questioner who asked about President Bush's statement that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 50 years, McCain interrupted and said, "Make it 100." "We've been in South Korea . . . we've been in Japan for 60 years," he continued. "We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that's fine with me. I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day."

More here

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

ELSEWHERE



For those who are interested, Obama has been having a lovely vacation in the Virgin Islands, in his usual (crackpot) sort of company. More here

Shocker: NYT Uses Dreaded L-Word To Describe Obama: "At the core of Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign is a promise that he can transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars and build a new governing majority. To achieve the change the country wants, he says, "we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things done." But this promise leads, inevitably, to a question: Can such a majority be built and led by Mr. Obama, whose voting record was, by one ranking, the most liberal in the Senate last year?

Hmmmm... I've got to give the NYT some praise for reprinting in full a recent speech by McCain. Other outlets just picked out the bits they felt able to criticize. I am on the mailing list for the McCain campaign so I was able to check that the NYT DID reprint the speech in full. It is a most interesting speech for the way it seriously attempts to explain what is going on -- instead of the series of cheap shots and vague generalizations that the Democrats usually put out. It once again makes clear that an interest in the facts is one of the major things that marks out conservatives as different from the Left. McCain is treating the voters as intelligent. Let's hope that works.

Nancy Reagan is endorsing McCain

The Wall St problems: "The problems are due to basic mistakes that even the most unsophisticated among us can grasp. Lenders loaned too much money on too easy terms to borrowers who did not have the capacity to make their payments. No alchemy by even the brightest minds on Wall Street could turn bad loans into good assets. Sound simple? It really is."

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

So, who really won the Cold War?

Post below lifted from Whats that Smell. See the original for links

Particularly here in Great Britain:

How many citizens who were robbed knew that the police didn't even bother to look for the criminals, didn't even set a case in motion, so as not to spoil their record of completed cases - why should they sweat to catch a thief if he would be given only six months, and then be given three months off for good behaviour? And anyway, it wasn't certain the bandits would even be tried when caught.

Finally, sentences were bound to be reduced, and of course for habitual criminals especially. Watch out there now, witness in the courtroom! They will all be back soon, and it'll be a knife in the back for anyone who gave testimony!

Therefore, if you see someone crawling through a window [...] shut your eyes! Walk by! You didn't see anything!

Three guesses as to who wrote that.

Peter Hitchens? No.
Melanie Phillips? No.
Theodore Dalrymple? No.

It was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describing the state of Soviet criminal law under Stalin in The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956. It is what happens in a society when they accept the Marxist idea that crime (of the non-political type) is borne out of economic hardship rather than having a cost-benefit and moral implication. When I read that part of his book, I became more and more convinced, not that I needed it, that the West may have won the military conflict, but the Communists won the ideological conflict. Particularly here in the UK.

As time goes by, and more and more records are declassified, it is becoming more and more apparent that Joe McCarthy was mistaken about the amount of Soviet infiltration of American institutions: He underestimated it. There was something like over 400 Soviet agents and fellow travellers in the State Department, alone, where he had estimated 200.

Now, imagine the amount of Soviet infiltration into institutions in a country that was not actively looking for Soviet infiltrators. And what you get is modern-day Britain.

My wife is doing some research for her Fine Arts degree on Abstract Expressionism. Her research is leading her down toward the direction in which madness lays...She has discovered the physical, academic, and institutional links between modern art, the Institute for Social Research (aka the Frankfurt School), Antonio Gramsci, the Ford Foundation, and loads of other links in the Communist/Socialist movements of the 20th Century. She had no idea the full extent of the forces working to undo Western Civilisation, with that end being part of their stated goals.

And it is becoming more and more apparent, the more one looks at what these people and their fellow travellers actually stated what they would do, and what has come about in the West over the last 50 years, that there just might be a link between the collapse of the Church, the state of higher education, the intellectual dishonesty of the mass media, and the intentions of the Communists.

Unfortunately (?), there is no central COMINTERN to control the direction of the growing disorder in the West. And now that the Pandora's Box has been opened, one wonders whether these forces that were unleashed beginning from the 1920s (or even before), will ever be stopped. I do believe we live in "interesting times" as the Chinese curse goes. There is more Solzhenitsyn to come...My copy of The Gulag Archipelago now has several dog-eared pages to indicate more gems like the one above.

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

ELSEWHERE

Don Surber has a crushing reply to a wind-power freak. Read to the end of his post.

New York's replacement for Governor Spizer seems to be a similar sort of scum. See here. He is a black, however, so perhaps I should be a good Leftist and not judge him by white standards.

Skype passwords are not secure. And that affects Yahoo email addresses too. I'm glad I no longer use one of those.

A reminder here of the corruption Hillary was involved with during the Presidency of her unzippered husband.

I note that Taranto today is referring to Obama as a Rorschach inkblot. I believe I may have been one of the first to do that -- on Dec. 14, 2006. I was quoting John Podhorez on Dec 12, 2006, however, so I was not absolutely first. I have also been referring to Obama as the "empty vessel" since July 21, 2007, which is now a common usage. There too, however, I was not the first.

Bash Habash: "The homicidal career of George Habash, who died on January 26, documents that the hateful seed of Arab extremism sometimes takes root in non-Islamic soil. Islamism's apologists always evinced glee in pointing out that Habash, founder of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was of Christian origin. But to call him a "Palestinian Christian," as so many have, is too much: He was an old-fashioned idolator of the state on familiar Leninist lines. Habash will be remembered for masterminding a series of hijackings, the murder of 47 travelers in the bombing of a Swissair flight, and the murder of 27 people at an Israeli airport. He utterly rejected Israel's right to exist and denounced all efforts at reaching a two-state solution. That Mahmoud Abbas ordered three days of mourning for this apostle of murder suggests that the hateful spirit of Habash's life outlives the man."

Tax Competition May Force Maryland to Reconsider High-Tech Tax: "Greedy politicians in Maryland are between a rock and a hard place. They want to confiscate $200 million from the state's computer industry, but they increasingly recognize that the geese with the golden eggs may fly across the border: Under a bill passed in November, such tech services as Web design, computer repair and programming would all get hit with a 6% tax statewide. If the tax isn't repealed before it takes effect in July, it would be one of the most burdensome regimes in the nation on the growing industry. ... Wait until they see what happens to revenue when business begins to leave the state. Many Maryland companies and small businesses say they could be forced to relocate if the tax isn't repealed. And nearby states are courting potential departees"

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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

The outer room

Post below lifted from Belmont Club. See the original for links

The AP reports that "Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service."

Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of Coreis, the Islamic religious community in Italy, said he respected Allam's choice but said he was "perplexed" by the symbolic and high-profile way in which he chose to convert. "If Allam truly was compelled by a strong spiritual inspiration, perhaps it would have been better to do it delicately, maybe with a priest from Viterbo where he lives," the ANSA news agency quoted Pallavicini as saying.

All that I can say is that there are more -- many more who have secretly converted from Islam. Some sites have claimed that nearly 700 Muslims convert to Christianity per hour, though I wonder how accurate those numbers are. In that context Pallavicini's question makes sense: why did Magdi Allam make such a high profile conversion on the occasion of the Easter Vigil too? It's extraordinary for any Catholic to be baptized by the Pope. What's the message?

Maybe it is to remind the Islamic world that despite the frequency of these conversions there are no widespread calls to burn mosques, kill imams or desecrate Korans among the converted. Magdi Allam's public conversion is witness to the quiet of all those which have been made in private. And maybe that message is filtering through to the more thoughtful imams.

Egypt's highest Islamic cleric, the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, wrote last year against the killing of apostates, saying there is no worldly retribution for Muslims who abandon their religion and that punishment would come in the afterlife.

A conversion to Christianity is not an announcement of superiority, but an acknowledgement of need. Only sinners need come to the Cross. "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

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

ELSEWHERE

Sinbad Was Right-- Hero Hillary Lied About Bosnia (Video Proof): "There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base..." It was all a lie. Every single word was a lie except for the fact that she was in a plane and it landed. Here is more proof that the Clinton's will do anything- and SAY ANYTHING- to get back into the White House."

Hillary opposes law enforcement: "Hillary Clinton's endlessly recalibrated position on providing driver's licenses for illegal aliens captures her career in miniature. After arguing that a New York proposal to give illegals driver's licenses "makes a lot of sense," she promptly denied having said such a thing, gave an incomprehensible and classically Clintonian non-answer to the question at the Democratic debate in Philadelphia, and now offers this gem of an explanation: "I do not think it is appropriate to give a driver's license to someone who is here undocumented, putting them frankly at risk, because that is clear evidence that they are not here legally." To repeat: Clinton opposes licenses for illegals because such documents might provide evidence for American law-enforcement agencies. As first lady, she garnered valuable experience in hiding evidence of wrongdoing, but we never expected she'd make a policy proposal out of doing so."



The peaceful Dalai Lama is a terrorist?? "Far from heeding international calls for dialogue with the Dalai Lama, China has accused Tibet's exiled god-king of colluding with Muslim terrorists to destabilise the country before the Olympic Games. State-run newspapers have issued prominent leading articles that are part of a campaign to portray the Dalai Lama as the mastermind of the deadly riots that have rippled through Tibet and ethnic Tibetan communities. In Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, yesterday local TV issued the No 7 list of those most wanted in connection with the riots on March 10 in which Chinese officials say 22 people were killed, including a baby boy burnt to death in a garage and one paramilitary police officer."



Islamic nut does his best to destroy the Indonesian tourism industry: "Firebrand Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has called on his young Indonesian followers to attack tourists - including Australians - in a fiery sermon. In the talk given in October last year Bashir urges his followers to "beat up" western tourists, whom he likened to "worms, snakes and maggots", The Australian newspaper reported on Monday. "God willing there are none (tourists) here," he told the young Indonesian audience on October 22. "If there were infidels here, just beat them up. Do not tolerate them. "Worms, snakes, maggots - those are animals that crawl. Take a look at Bali ... those infidel tourists. They are naked." Bashir was convicted of conspiracy over the 2002 Bali bombings - which killed 88 Australians - serving 26 months in prison."

Socialists can't run an airport: "The opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow [Britain] last week has been hailed as a new beginning for the airport, but the four older terminals are still a disgrace, according to travellers. A list of the best and worst airports, decided by 7.8 million passengers, suggests that Heathrow's transit system is comparable with the chaos encountered at Bombay airport and that its reputation for baggage delivery is at the same level as the airport at Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. Heathrow was ranked 103rd out of 162 airports, with the main complaints regarding its snaking security queues, surly immigration officials and infuriating baggage system. The airport fell 58 places in the rankings last year, which was due partly to a luggage crisis in August, when British Airways was so overwhelmed that it had to hire a fleet of lorries to transport unclaimed bags from Heathrow to a sorting facility in Milan. Heathrow, which is operated by the British Airports Authority, has the largest number of delayed flights in Europe, with more than one in three departing at least 15 minutes late." [I advise visitors to Britain to come down in Paris and take the Eurostar (train) to London]

Nutty archbishop of doom: "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, gave a warning yesterday against materialist greed and prophesied the collapse of civilisation. In his Easter Day sermon at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams said that the luxuries we took for granted could not be sustained for ever. In our culture, thoughts of death were too painful to manage, he told worshippers. Criticising modern society's approach to mortality, Dr Williams said: "Individuals live in anxious and acquisitive ways, seizing what they can to provide a security that is bound to dissolve, because they are going to die," he said".

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

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

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

"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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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