ISRAEL AT 60

Israel's 60th anniversary has produced some wonderful essays in honour of that heroic people but the most down to earth was in my view written by Prof. Barry Rubin -- a man who has converted his love of Israel into an unceasing verbal war against all those in the media who misrepresent Israel. I reproduce an excerpt below. The whole thing, of course, is a must-read for all of us who support Israel

As part of the sixtieth anniversary celebration, Israelis are choosing their national bird but they have long since picked the national sport: self-criticism. The great Israeli humorist Ephraim Kishon described his own arrival in the country shortly after independence by joking that as the ship approached the coast it became very hot and we began criticizing the government over the weather. Daily Israel, every conceivable failing (real or imagined) is relentlessly dissected. The negative is usually highlighted, though afterward people feel optimistic at having been able to vent their pessimism. One day walking down the street I ran into a friend.

"How's everything?" he asked. "Great," I answered. "How can you say that!" he exclaimed. "Don't you read the newspapers?" This characteristic has a positive effect, by inspiring a ceaseless effort to make things better. In dictatorships and places ruled by extremist ideologies, the stifling of this process has been one of the main reasons for their failings.

I know our society could have been, and could be today, far better. Don't get me started on the teacher's strike or the low calibre of politicians. The president and prime minister have rightly both faced charges of malfeasance. One cannot help but think that if so much effort didn't have to go into self-defence, the country would be within shouting distance of utopia.

Still, when annual quality of life polls are taken, the positive scores from Israelis are into the 90th percentile. Moreover, although Israel faces very real threats, its security situation is better than the great majority of those sixty years. While there is full, formal peace with only Egypt and Jordan, most Arab states-except for Syria-have in practice made the material, as opposed to verbal, pursuit of the conflict, a low priority.

It's true that the old comradeship of decades ago has declined, as have the institutions created to build the state. As in other countries, privatization has replaced statism. I can remember when a telephone installation took a month. Now it takes a day. Television stations have gone from a single choice to dozens. The national airport has been upgraded from a place barely fit for a small provincial town to a large, thoroughly modern complex. This tiny state of now seven million people is a world leader in science, medicine, and hi-tech among other things, yet still has some of the globe's best-tasting fruit and vegetables as well as internationally exported flowers.

And nothing more symbolizes Israeli daily life than the driver behind you setting off his horn to beat the speed of light from the changing traffic signal. Yet civility, too, is creeping in gradually. With all of its problems-at times because of its problems-it is a great place to live.

Oh yes we are human beings, a fact that often seems forgotten in the hate-filled propaganda that pervades too many institutions, the slanderous misrepresentation of latest fact and longer-term history which is heard far too much. A friend told me today that he was seriously informed on an international television broadcast that former prime minister Ariel Sharon drank a glass of Palestinian blood every day.

It's often explained that criticism of Israel is not antisemitism as such but increasingly the extreme, crazed attacks precisely duplicate that hateful standpoint. More important is this: historic antisemitism's claims and assumptions have simply been adapted to Israel; the word "Zionism" simply substituted for "Judaism" and "Israel" for "Jews." We are the only people in the world continually called on to apologize because we survived, even after 85 percent of European Jews were murdered and about 90 percent of Middle Eastern Jews were expelled or had to flee the countries where they were born.

In contrast to the false accusations, we will be delighted to agree, cooperate, and celebrate the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state willing to live in peace alongside Israel. Unfortunately, that prospect seems distant. Equally unfortunately, that movement's Islamist and much of its nationalist leadership prefers to continue the conflict-and intensify their own, and our, people's suffering--rather than accept anything less than Israel, in the words of Iran's president, being wiped off the map.

A thousand years ago, Chasdai Ibn Shaprut wrote from Spain: "Dishonoured and humiliated by our dispersion, we have to listen in silence to those who say: `every nation has its own land and you alone possess not even the shadow of a country on this earth.'" But if there really was a place, Shaprut said, "where harassed Israel can rule itself, where it is subject to nobody.I would not hesitate to forsake all honours, resign my high office.and travel over mountains and plains, over land and water," to reach it. Well, now it exists and will keep on doing so, very probably long after seemingly more established states or at least societies vanish in its neighborhood or elsewhere.

Nahum Lenkin, one of my few relatives who escaped with his life from wartime Poland, wrote how his parents there often "went without food" to pay for the town's Zionist school where he and others could be prepared "to one day go as pioneers to Eretz Israel." Virtually all that town's survivors, and their children, live in Israel.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Bush set to veto $300 billion farm bill: "Administration officials have dashed hopes among farm-state lawmakers from both parties that President Bush will sign a nearly $300 billion farm bill that they finished Thursday. The veto warning sets up an effort by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, joined by many farm-state Republicans, to override a veto and defend government payments to farmers earning record incomes even as food prices soar. Administration officials said the bill, which would set U.S. food policy for the next five years, is loaded with budget gimmicks that disguise a $20 billion increase in spending. "At a time of record farm income, Congress decided to further increase farm subsidy rates, qualify more people for taxpayer support, and move programs toward more government control," Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said. Schafer dismissed lawmakers, including Republicans, pushing to override the veto. "The same people stand up and say they're against corporate welfare and tax cuts for the rich," he said. "I have visited face to face with our president and he was direct and plain. The president will veto this bill."

Big business likes big government: "Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is struggling to attract money from some of the same industries that helped bankroll President George W. Bush's record-setting fundraising. Employees from the securities, construction, pharmaceutical and energy industries, who accounted for about a tenth of Bush's money in 2004, are turned off by his record and giving more to his Democratic rivals, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. ``A significant percentage of your base Republican support, whether financial or otherwise, are not fans of McCain because of various things he's done or said or sponsored,'' said Republican consultant Eddie Mahe, who is supporting the Arizona senator. ``Many of them don't see Mr. McCain as being a lot better'' than the Democrats."

Big victory for the Iraq government: "Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of "medium and heavy weaponry." The agreement would end six weeks of fighting in the vast Shiite Muslim area that's home to more than 2 million residents and would mark the first time that the area would be under government control since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003"

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

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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)

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Buried Prejudice: The Bigot in Your Brain

Deep within our subconscious, all of us harbor biases that we consciously abhor. And the worst part is: we act on them

The heading and subheading above are from a recent article in that well-known Greenie publication, "Scientific American". I also reproduce the first part of the article concerned below. The article seems to be aimed towards making us less prejudiced towards outgroups. But the article exists in a reality vacuum. It totally ignores realities such as the incredibly high rate of violent crime among blacks and also ignores most of the research on impression-formation and stereotyping. It is largely a rehash of some well-known work by Banerji and Richeson that I have commented on some time ago.

The "amazing" thing that the researchers found was that whites (and some blacks) are more wary of blacks than they are of whites -- no matter how you measure or detect that. Such a finding would, however, surely surprise only a psychologist. If blacks REALLY ARE more dangerous to others, it is merely psychological good function to be more wary of them than of others. And I don't think even Leftists attempt to deny the high rate of black crime. So to call such perfectly proper wariness in people "bigotry" is itself bigoted. Bigotry is judging people according to a fixed and wrong set of preconceptions and it seems to me that that is exactly how psychologists are judging others when they refer to perfectly normal and adaptive behaviour as bigotry.

The one thing that the research literature on stereotyping shows most clearly is that the "stereotypes" people have in their heads are not usually (Except, perhaps in the case of psychologists) rigid or imprisoning but are highly flexible and responsive to the realities that people encounter (See for instance here and here). That fact fully explains all the behaviour that the psychologists described below view as "bigotry". If blacks change, the perceptions and expectations of them will change -- but I am not holding my breath.

Fortunately, the same literature tells us that once we get to know a particular person as an individual, the importance of the stereotype recedes rapidly -- so that the particular person will then in general be treated as we find him/her, regardless of any expectations we have about the group to which he/she belongs. A rather amusing example of that which I once came across was a white neo-Nazi whose best friend was a very dark-skinned Bengali. And there was another guy who could not stand "Chinks" (East Asians) but who was happily married to one. And Wilhelm Marr, the man who in 1879 invented the term "antisemitism" (he thought it was a good thing), was actually married to a Jewish lady! Psychologists have traditionally seen such behaviour as perverse but a good knowledge of the impression-formation research would have told them that it is normal.

"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life," Jesse Jackson once told an audience, "than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery-then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."

Jackson's remark illustrates a basic fact of our social existence, one that even a committed black civil-rights leader cannot escape: ideas that we may not endorse-for example, that a black stranger might harm us but a white one probably would not-can nonetheless lodge themselves in our minds and, without our permission or awareness, color our perceptions, expectations and judgments.

Using a variety of sophisticated methods, psychologists have established that people unwittingly hold an astounding assortment of stereotypical beliefs and attitudes about social groups: black and white, female and male, elderly and young, gay and straight, fat and thin. Although these implicit biases inhabit us all, we vary in the particulars, depending on our own group membership, our conscious desire to avoid bias and the contours of our everyday environments. For instance, about two thirds of whites have an implicit preference for whites over blacks, whereas blacks show no average preference for one race over the other.

Such bias is far more prevalent than the more overt, or explicit, prejudice that we associate with, say, the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis. That is emphatically not to say that explicit prejudice and discrimination have evaporated nor that they are of lesser importance than implicit bias. According to a 2005 federal report, almost 200,000 hate crimes-84 percent of them violent-occur in the U.S. every year.

The persistence of explicit bias in contemporary culture has led some critics to maintain that implicit bias is of secondary concern. But hundreds of studies of implicit bias show that its effects can be equally insidious. Most social psychologists believe that certain scenarios can automatically activate implicit stereotypes and attitudes, which then can affect our perceptions, judgments and behavior. "The data on that are incontrovertible," concludes psychologist Russell H. Fazio of Ohio State University.

Now researchers are probing deeper. They want to know: Where exactly do such biases come from? How much do they influence our outward behavior? And if stereotypes and prejudiced attitudes are burned into our psyches, can learning more about them help to tell each of us how to override them?

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ELSEWHERE

Tax revolt in Britain: "Gordon Brown must stop his crippling tax rises or face an election hammering, Cabinet ministers have warned him. They told the beleaguered Prime Minister that millions of decent, hard-working families have been stretched to breaking point by Labour's punishing policies. Warning that the country will revolt against any further drain on dwindling family finances, they used an extraordinary Cabinet meeting to tell the Prime Minister that voters have "reached the limit" of their endurance for his relentless hikes in income tax, fuel duty and council tax. Even Chancellor Alistair Darling is understood to be counselling that Middle Britain cannot take any more financial punishment. And in the first signs of a Cabinet revolt, ministers demanded a halt to any new taxes."

Germany: Court says Muslim girl can't skip swimming: "A Muslim girl in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia cannot skip co-ed swimming lessons because of religious prohibitions against wearing formfitting clothing, a German court ruled on Wednesday. The administrative court in Dusseldorf ruled that the state's responsibility to educate the girl outweighed the potential infringement on her religious freedom. The 12-year-old girl's parents sued her school in the northern German city of Remscheid after the school refused to allow the girl to skip swimming class. Citing religious reasons, the parents said they did not want their daughter to participate because her body would not be covered. The ruling means the girl must participate in swimming lessons starting next week, Sabine Ernst of the Alexander von Humboldt School told German news agency DDP. Ernst declined to state what the consequences could be if the girl declines to attend." [Nil!]

FBI targets Internet Archive, loses: "The Internet Archive, a project to create a digital library of the web for posterity, successfully fought a secret government Patriot Act order for records about one of its patrons and won the right to make the order public, civil liberties groups announced Wednesday morning. On November 26, 2007, the FBI served a controversial National Security Letter on the Internet Archive's founder Brewster Kahle, asking for records about one of the library's registered users, asking for the user's name, address and activity on the site. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Archive's lawyers, fought the NSL, challenging its constitutionality in a December 14 complaint to a federal court in San Francisco. The FBI agreed on April 21 to withdraw the letter and unseal the court case, making some of the documents available to the public."

An old-fashioned Christian family rich in children: "It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman - she's pregnant with her 18th child. Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins. The Duggars' oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old. The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children - whose names start with the letter J - are home-schooled... Duggar said she's six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it. "The success in a family is first off, a love for God, and secondly, treating each other like you want to be treated," Jim Bob Duggar said. "Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen."

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

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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)

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Support for US attack on Iran grows in Middle East

The potentially transforming events in the 2008 campaign are matters of war and peace. Both may be in play between now and November, in ways that add extra volatility to the presidential race. Let's start with war: The United States is already fighting two of them, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But judging from recent statements by administration officials, there is also a small, but growing, chance of conflict with Iran.

The administration is signaling the Iranians that they need to stop supplying and training Shiite militias in Iraq -- or run the risk of U.S. retaliation. The Maliki government in Baghdad, worried about the danger of escalation, is passing this message to Tehran, but so far the only consequence has been that the Iranians have broken off talks in Baghdad that were aimed at stabilizing the situation.

Saber rattling from the Bush White House may seem almost routine, but pay attention to the comment last week by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Iran is not going away. We need to be strong and really in the deterrent mode, to not be very predictable."

The risk of a U.S.-Iranian confrontation is growing in part because Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the Middle East are so eager for it. "Behind closed doors, we are praying that the Iranians will make a mistake so that you will have a reason to attack," one Saudi told me this week. Another prominent Arab official said he hopes the United States will strike Iranian training camps just over the border from Iraq.

How would a U.S.-Iran confrontation play out in the campaign? Obviously, that depends on how you read the American political mood. Usually, we assume that the nation rallies around the party of war, but that's less certain in this case. America is war-weary, and it mistrusts President Bush. So a military skirmish with Iran might backfire, adding to public dissent -- much as happened with the Nixon administration's attack on Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia in 1970.

Adding to the combustible mix is Hillary Clinton's hawkish position on Iran, which has support from the center-right of the party even if she drops out. Her rhetorical threat to "totally obliterate" Iran if it launched a nuclear attack against Israel was sharper than anything that has come out of the Bush White House. The anti-Iran stance from centrist Democrats blunts John McCain's appeal as the tough-guy candidate. But it complicates the Democrats' argument for withdrawing U.S. troops rapidly from Iraq, since the main beneficiary of such a move would be Tehran.

Source

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The Democrat defence of voter fraud



(Toon via Mamacita)

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ELSEWHERE

Real economic truth: "Does the media accurately report economic news? Some are raising that question after the release of several highly anticipated economic reports last week. The new data show that the United States is not in a recession, as the economy continues to grow. Fewer jobs have been lost than expected, with unemployment staying low at 5 percent. And the stock market has been surging over the last few months, with the Dow Jones Industrials average rising back over 13,000 last Thursday. But many news articles are painting a different picture. 'The bruised economy limped through the first quarter of this year,' the Associated Press reported. '... as housing and credit problems forced people and businesses alike to hunker down.' The article noted in the second paragraph that, 'the statistic did not meet what economists consider the classic definition of a recession.'"

British judge has obviously never heard of the age of responsibility: "A paedophile who molested an 11-year-old girl escaped jail yesterday when a judge ruled the victim had "welcomed" his advances. Judge Robert Atherton triggered outrage when he told Manchester Crown Court the child had invited Jon Dixon's attack as she had a "sexual awareness" that would make someone twice her age blush. The judge rejected an assessment by the probation service that Dixon, 20, posed a "high risk of serious harm to children".

Stopping promiscuity key to aids prevention: "The fight against the Aids epidemic in Africa is founded on ineffective strategies and should focus on male circumcision and reducing promiscuity, according to leading scientists in the field. HIV containment is generally based on the "three pillars" - promotion and provision of condoms, HIV status testing and treatment of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) that can increase the risk of becoming infected. There is little evidence, however, that any of these methods works well in sub-Saharan Africa, where two thirds of the 33.2 million people who carry the virus live, a review for the journal Science has found. It was published in a special issue to mark the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes Aids." [They think they can stop Africans from sleeping around by lecturing them??]

Hillary: Big rewards?: "Hillary may not want to stop until there's blood on the Convention floor, but apparently Big Rewards Await Clinton If She Ends Campaign Now. Like a Discover card, there are cash rewards. One of the most inviting is the near certainty that the Obama campaign would agree to pay back the $11.4 million she has loaned her own bid, along with an estimated $10 million to $15 million in unpaid campaign expenses."

Al-Masri the Egyptian falls : "Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq was captured today in the northern city of Mosul according to the Iraqi ministry of defense. Al-Masri's life parallels that of al-Qaeda itself. Born an Egyptian he followed al-Qaeda's fortunes from the Middle East to Central Asia and back. According to US sources, Masri was born in 1967, "joined the Muslim Brotherhood, and in 1982 ... joined Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which later became part of al-Qaeda. He went to Afghanistan in 1999, where he became an explosives expert. In 2004 he was put in charge of al-Qaeda's overseas networks, and in 2006 he succeeded al-Zarqawi as the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq."

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

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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)

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Conservatives are happier because they are less angry

That seems to be the conclusion to be drawn from the report of a piece of psychological research below. But that conclusion must of course be interpreted to make conservatives look bad. So the assumption is injected that they SHOULD be angry! No argument is offered to say why. I will probably say more about this when the actual academic journal article underlying the report below comes online. One of the authors, John Jost, has however previously been shown as having some strange ideas about how to define conservatism so I expect further idiocy and bias in his measure of "rationalization". There is already an extended comment on the study up at STACLU

Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities. Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.

The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are." To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.

If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings. "Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."

The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer. The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.

"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Marine recruiting ahead of schedule: "The U.S. Marine Corps has had more success than expected in attracting recruits, and has moved up the date for completing their current expansion. Last year, Congress ordered the marines to expand their strength from the current 181,000 to 202,000. At first, the marines thought it would take them four years to do it. But between the large number of recruits, and the many current marines who are staying in, the expansion will be accomplished by next year... The Marines will be back up to pre Clinton cut levels next year"

Sadr militia in a corner: "With their Basra bases destroyed, the Mahdi Army is making a last stand in the eastern Baghdad Sadr City neighborhood. U.S. troops have erected concrete reinforced roadblocks around the Mahdi Army strongholds, and then work with Iraqi troops (who do most of the fighting) to clean out the Shia militiamen house by house. Thousands of civilians have been fleeing, once they see the roadblocks go up, for they know that the Mahdi fighters use civilians as human shields. In one well reported case, a Mahdi Army warlord set up his command post next to a hospital, believing this would make him immune from air attacks. He was wrong, even though the missile that destroyed his operation also blew out windows in the adjacent hospital."

Media Boycott Of Moderate Muslims?: "We keep saying we want to hear from influential moderate Muslims who oppose the worrisome rhetoric and occasional deeds of anti-western Islamists, but what good is our wanting to hear from them if, when they come along to speak to us, the media ignores them? Today I had the privilege of attending a private meeting with Morad El Hattab, who is visiting from France. M El Hattab, who identifies himself as a Muslim, not an ex-Muslim, is a scholar and a well-known public figure in France... El Hattab has said, "I think that the criminalization of the State of Israel is the cancer of the 21st century." He has traveled extensively in Israel and the West Bank, knows members of the Palestinian Authority, and maintains friendships with both Jews and Arabs in the area... Wouldn't you think that a Muslim intellectual of such open-mindedness, prestige, learning and deep understanding of both the Muslim and Jewish worlds would be of interest to the media? He spoke today at the Universit‚ de Montreal but not a single media outlet in Quebec wanted to meet with him or interview him. Indeed El Hattab characterized the media's snubbing as a "boycott."

Wise words from JPod: "John Podhoretz has some sage advice for those of us certain that the voters will never elect such a far left candidate with no real resume and a cast of unsavory associates: "In 2004, John Kerry, the most liberal member of the Senate and nobody's idea of a good candidate, received 59 million votes. He bettered Al Gore's 2000 vote total by 17 percent. He only lost because George Bush generated 62 million votes, the greatest number in American history. Who received the second greatest number of votes in American history? John Kerry. A left-liberal can win, and will win, unless he is defeated by his rival. Barack Obama will not defeat himself. He's already too strong a candidate for that to be a possibility""

Salem witch trials all over again? "Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears. But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own. "I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue. You can't take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,'" he said. When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he'd hoped. "I said, 'Well Pat, can you explain this to me?' 'You've been accused of wizardry,' [he said]. Wizardry?" he asked."

The lost baggage airline is also now the no beef airline: "British Airways has ditched beef for economy class passengers this summer in an attempt to appeal to a more international passenger base. The familiar cabin crew inquiry of "chicken or beef?" will not be heard in economy after the airline ditched the national dish in favour of what it calls a lighter, healthier option. Critics will suspect that the relentless pressure to cut costs that all airlines are facing is behind the move, although BA said cost was not a factor. A spokesman for the airline told The Times: "We were looking for something with broad appeal. Research trends have shown us that fish pie is very popular in supermarkets so we decided to go with that and chicken and tarragon for the summer. "We can only serve two options and beef and pork obviously have religious restrictions," the spokesman added. BA's second-biggest long-haul market, after transatlantic routes, is to India".

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

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

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)

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Israel At 60: The Hope

Hope is deeply ingrained in the Israeli consciousness, along with resilience, creativity, progress, democracy, self-criticism, and decency. There is sometimes unavoidable friction among them, but cumulatively they make Israel a unique modern miracle among nations. May 8, the 60th anniversary, offers the lesson of Israel's experience to the world.

Israel's Left and Right argue and re-argue about how to relieve Israel of the burdens and threats from Gaza and the West Bank, and Iran. These arguments, however, are largely subsumed by hope, hope without much evidence to support it. There's quite a difference between constructive optimism and potentially lethal leaps. Still, the strengths of Israel's other national characteristics are what makes hope possible. For example, Colette Avital, a Labor Party Knesset member, argues:

At the end of the decade, the traditional disagreements between left and right have lost much of their relevance, as a majority of Israelis support the end of occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state. Moreover, the debate on the path to follow seems to be over, too. Unilateralism is largely discredited as an option. Our negotiating partner is our partner, however imperfect. Israelis may be less hopeful than they were, but they are more realistic in their demands. They know the limits of military power. What's more, they know that time is running out. It may just be that sense of urgency that will make an agreement possible at the end of 2008.

One may be excused for dismissing this hopefulness. But, it must be realized it is deeply felt by a broad range of the public in Israel and the US, and comes more from strength than from weakness of spirit. Hope is what Israel is, ultimately, about. Israel's national anthem is Hope, Hatikvah. That Hope is based upon the diaspora's return to Israel to live in peace and progress.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Bernanke gets it wrong: Bernanke is said to be an expert on the Great Depression and that it has shaped his thinking about the role of the Fed. Be that as it may, Bernanke's actions suggest that far from absorbing the lessons of the 1930s he has in fact hammered them into a Keynesian mould. And this is why we just got another rates cut
Emissions trading - a weapon of mass taxation: Although consumers in many countries will bear the oppressive costs of a carbon tax, there may be no reduction whatsoever in CO2 emissions, and no beneficial effect on the world's climate. But parasitic companies formed to exploit carbon tax will reap billions from ripping off the public and savaging its living standards
Debt and monetary policy - is there a link?: It is a pretty sorry state of affairs when economic commentators can write of consumer spending and debt driving the economy without once referring to monetary policy. It is even worse when the same commentators write about monetary policy without even alluding to the money supply
Body of South American youth mutilated near Guantanamo: Has Cuba's Stasi-trained secret police been murder South American students for their organs? The mutilated body Beatriz Porco of a 22-year-old Bolivian student found near Guantanamo suggest that this is the case. But this should not surprise us considering that Castro ordered political prisoners to be drained of their blood
Wages and risk: another leftwing fallacy: Leftists argue that labour flexibility and productivity schemes are attempts to shift the risks of doing business from the firm to its employees. This is pure baloney
Feed the World: Though he is already being belaboured by the self-haters in the left-wing commentariat, the Western consumer did not choose to implement costly and economically nonsensical biofuel policies; he had such ill-thought out intervention foisted upon him by ignorant politicians and greenie fanatics
The silent jihad against the west: Active jihad, the holy war, is terrorism. But there is also another form of jihad that is part of the deliberate effort to have Islam replace all concepts of morality and the values held dear by the rest of us. The name of this silent fifth column effort is Sharia Banking

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ELSEWHERE



Osprey exceeds expectations in Iraq test : "Textron Inc and Boeing Co's MV22 Osprey, the world's first operational half-helicopter half-airplane, performed far better in its Iraq combat debut than had been predicted by critics, the general in charge of Marine Corps aircraft said Friday. The hybrid aircraft is "just going to become more and more valuable across the board," including for Air Force special operations, said Marine Lt. Gen. George Trautman, deputy commandant for aviation. "Most of the critics are just plain wrong in many of the things they say," Trautman told a Pentagon briefing marking the return from Iraq last week of the first Marine Corps operational Osprey squadron. He said Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 did "every single mission that they were asked to do" during a seven month deployment. The Marines were just starting to exploit the tilt-rotor aircraft's "new and revolutionary technology," he added"

CNN Declares Itself a "Wright Free Zone," Explaining That "Our Viewers Want Us to MoveOn.org (TM)": "Funny how the networks are quick to accede to the political desires of liberals, without worrying too much about "pandering" or subcontracting their own highly-trained sense of news-value to the lay public, so long as that lay public can be used as a pretext to do what what the liberals in the newsroom want to do anyway. Imagine if FoxNews announced "We're going to have Wright updates every half hour, because that's what our viewers want." I imagine they'd be castigated for deferring to their bitter, gun-clinging audiences' wishes. Because CNN has a better audience, of course. It's liberal, and, as such, can be trusted to help make the big news-judgment decisions. Because ultimately it's not a J-school credential that empowers one to decide what should and should not be in the national debate -- it's an adherence to the liberal political philosophy."



Bratton for Britain: "The man who cleaned up the streets of New York is to help mastermind Boris Johnson's crime crackdown in London. U.S. police chief Bill Bratton will advise the new Tory mayor on how 'zero tolerance' of graffiti, fare-dodging and other minor crimes can prevent more serious offending. The move underlines Mr Johnson's determination to wage war on youth violence and anti-social behaviour. It chimes with David Cameron's promise to fight back against social breakdown and is further evidence that the capital will be a test-bed for a future Tory government. Yesterday Mr Johnson proposed the creation of up to 100 weekend clubs, involving 'competition, discipline and punishment', to help troubled teenagers. The 'respect schools' will offer youngsters activities such as football and boxing alongside academic subjects to help them perform the 'handbrake turn' needed to put them on the path to educational achievement. Mr Johnson will today flesh out his manifesto pledge to tackle crime on public transport, with patrols on buses and Tubes and a ban on drinking alcohol on the Underground."

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

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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)

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Hillary Clinton's Radical Past

By Jonah Goldberg

Carl Bernstein has a long post up over at the Huffington Post.... Bernstein illuminates an under-discussed fact of the campaign. Hillary Clinton's ties to 1960s radicals are far more serious than Barack Obama's (no news to readers of my book). Yes, Obama knows William Ayers, and I for one think that's not insignificant. But Hillary's history with the radical left is much more profound. Bernstein is absolutely right to criticize the Clinton campaign's hypocrisy for attacking Obama about Ayers, while airbrushing her own past. But Bernstein also wants to make the case that Clinton's ties are entirely irrelevant too. His case in this regard rests almost entirely on assertion. It's just not a big deal because I say so.

The one attempt he makes to draw a meaningful distinction between 60s radicals and Hillary is that she rejects their faith in revolutionary violence. Okay. Fair enough and bully for her. But does that mean that so long as you reject radical violence in favor of "working through the system" your roots in sixties radicalism are completely irrelevant? I think many liberals would agree with Bernstein and answer, "Yes."

This is of a piece with establishment liberalism's general approach to 60s radicals like the Weathermen and the Black Panthers. They ritualistically deplore their tactics, but they quickly start spouting sympathy for their goals, even their idealism. We're told that the only real sin of these would-be revolutionaries was that they "cared too much." This was certainly the attitude of many Great Society liberals in the 1960s and I think its the attitude of countless liberal sixties-nostalgists today. But surely it says something about your views about America and politics in general if your only serious difference with Marxist radicals is one of means rather than ends.

Do I think Obama's relationship with Ayers disqualifies him for the presidency? Of course not. Do I think it says something about the milieu he emerged from? Yes I do. Likewise, I don't think Hillary's affinity for the Black Panthers nor her work at the most "important radical law firm of the day" (Bernstein's words) should disqualify her from public office. But I think Bernstein & Co.'s attempt to make any consideration of these facts into "McCarthyite" guilt-by-association is undiluted hogwash. Sixties radicals weren't just tactically misguided, their aims were wrong too. Of course not all of them. They were right about racial equality. They were out of their gourds about much else.

And, while it's not a new point, it should be noted once again, that this is hardly a standard liberals apply to conservatives. Republican politicians who have tenuous unsavory relationships and associations with various confederate, racist or otherwise "extremist" groups do not endorse violence either, and yet liberals routinely find such associations relevant. Heck, Bill Clinton tried to blame the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush Limbaugh & Co., that was real McCarthyite guilt-by-association.

Source

Andy McCarthy adds in response to the above:

Jonah, the Clinton hypocrisy grates more than usual here. One of my last cases as a federal prosecutor was a lengthy litigation to keep Weather Undergrounder Susan Rosenberg in prison serving her richly deserved 58-year sentence, imposed by a federal judge in New Jersey. (She was claiming that she was lawlessly being denied parole because of New York conduct - the infamous Brinks robbery - for which she had never been convicted.) After I finally convinced the New York federal judge not to disturb the sentence, Clinton pardoned Rosenberg and another Weather terrorists, Linda Evans (serving a 40-year sentence), on his last day in office. To get a sense of what a Clinton/Obama web this is, Bill Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn, did several months in the slammer for contempt of a grand jury subpoena - she was refusing to testify about ... Susan Rosenberg.

Source

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The Italian Revolution

Comment by Michael Ledeen

We are in Italy. Sicily, actually. And we are watching something amazing: an Italian revolution. The new Parliament, sworn in yesterday, does not have a single member who calls himself "communist." That's the first time since World War II. Gianfranco Fini, the new speaker of the House, announced that the post-war era was over, and he was entirely right. No one knows it better than he, because for most of his adult life he has been called a "fascist," and scorned by most of the writers, salon hangers-on, and politicians in the country, even though he led his right-wing party through a profound transformation from its neo-fascist past, embraced Israel, actively supported Jewish causes, and challenged the Left's ostentatious support of radical antisemitic and anti-Israel terrorists. He dissolved his own party into Berlusconi's umbrella organization, and is now one of the three most powerful politicians in the country. Wow.

There is more. In the last few days, the city of Rome fell to the Right. Once again, the leader was a former neo-fascist, Gianni Alemanno, who had abandoned the bad old ways. Alemanno defeated one of the Left's most adored icons, Francesco Rutelli, who had twice before been elected mayor of Rome and who was heavily favored to win again. But Alemanno won by a huge margin, just as Berlusconi on the national level.

Why has all this happened? Above all, it is the result of the demonstrated incompetence of the Left to govern Italy effectively, along with the usual corruption scandals, and the Left's snooty disregard for law and order, particularly regarding illegal immigrants. The people I've spoken to (in Sicily the Right also won an overwhelming victory) all basically said the same thing: the Left is a disaster, let's see if these other guys can do better. It is not an ideological transformation; it's above all a search for someone who can advance the interests of most Italians.

Source

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Green Genocide

Post below recycled from Charlie Foxtrot:

fun from Europe:

At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the “dignity” of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called “plant rights” is being seriously debated.

see-dubya at Michelle Malkin says:

Sure, you vegans thought yourselves so morally pure. But according to the Swiss government, your hands are stained with the chlorophyll of innocent beings.

So this leads me to a couple of questions...

1 - Does this make the Haitians progressive for eating dirt cookies

2 - Will it be considered a 'Crime against Horticulture' to use Ethanol in your car?

I can see the protest signs now..."Save the Plants, Burn Oil!!" However when it comes to food, I guess we will have to resort to more dramatic measures

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There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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

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

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)

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A comment on Britain's new Conservative hero

By veteran British conservative columnist, William Rees-Mogg

I followed the local elections in London and in Somerset. If one had to choose a mayor of London from the characters in Shakespeare's plays, there is no doubt one would have to choose Falstaff. He combines a big personality, a shrewd intelligence, a certain reputation where women are concerned, an eye for the main chance and an enduring warmth. So far, London voters have consistently voted for the candidate who most resembled Falstaff in character; Boris Johnson is now closer than Ken Livingstone, who has never been sure whether he was playing Falstaff or Jack Cade.

The most successful mayors of New York, such as the great wartime mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, have come out of the same mould. They have given personality to a great city. I doubt if Boris will ever be called "the little flower", but he will personify London. He will also add to the innocent amusement of the nation.

I expect him to be a good mayor; he is highly intelligent, basically good-natured and a surprisingly skilful politician. David Cameron will find him a nuisance from time to time, but he will be amply rewarded in additional votes. Boris Johnson may make it fashionable to vote for the Conservatives; he makes Toryism fun.

I'm certain he will not change. He was a contemporary of members of my family when he was at Oxford; I have heard him being discussed for the past 20 years. In that time he has not changed, and I cannot see why he would change now. One can safely disregard the stark warnings of those who have never liked him. He poses no threat except to political rivals and to attractive young women of nubile age.

Boris Johnson has done something very important. He has won London for the Conservatives against the most skilful London politician since Herbert Morrison, who led Labour in London to the great 1945 victory. London is the leading city of the nation and by far the wealthiest. It is always a strong influence on British politics. London usually leans to the left, as most big cities do. Only an exceptional Conservative politician can take the lead in London and deliver the big city for his party. Boris's London victory makes an overall Conservative victory at the next election far more likely. I do not expect the Conservatives to throw that away.

Source

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Far-Left KOS sends itself up



See the yellow highlights. They were criticizing John McCain for not knowing the difference between Shias and Sunnis (He did but was unduly deferential to Joe Lieberman). But, in criticizing McCain, Kos showed above that THEY certainly did not know which was which. They actually thought that Al Qaeda was Shia! Full story at Blue Crab

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Media frauds trip themselves up

North Pole fables: "On the NBC nightly news there was a heart-throb report of an attractive British teen-ager who had skied across the North Pole with her father to demonstrate how the Arctic ice pack is receding in the face of global warming. Oh, horror. Oh, how terrible. The pictures were beautiful: Her pretty face, her gentle smile, her soft voice, her snow-crusted parka, the blue skies, the brilliant white ice, the cascading chunks of ice calving from glaciers, the two penguins standing on an ice floe.... Wait a minute. Penguins? At the North Pole? Not that we ever heard of. So much for science, as reported by NBC News. [See the video concerned here]

A commenter on the above adds: "Actual photo below from my journey to the lowland rainforests of Nepal, where the penguins have all been killed for their ivory tusks"



[For any products of a modern education reading here, the South Pole has penguins but no bears and the North pole has bears but no penguins]

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ELSEWHERE

Democrat distortions shown up: "Howard Dean made his much-anticipated appearance on Fox, and found the environment much less friendly than did Barack Obama last week. Chris Wallace pressed the DNC chair hard on the latest ads from his organization, which even the nonpartisan group Fact Check insist are distortions of John McCain's remarks on the economy and on Iraq. Dean sputters and spins, but doesn't make any headway against Wallace in this appearance. He flashes a piece of paper that supposedly contains what McCain really said, but Wallace calls his bluff and shows the whole clip. Wallace also scornfully ripostes Dean's contention that it would take "six minutes", when it only takes less than ten seconds to show how the DNC used creative editing to distort the remarks."

White farmers from Zimbabwe bring prosperity to Nigeria: "Musa Mogadi says he is better off since "the whites" came. He's got a new job, learned new farming skills, and he can chat on a mobile phone while zipping around the countryside on a motorbike. Three years ago, Mr. Mogadi got by as a subsistence farmer. But he now earns a regular wage as a supervisor on one of this town's new commercial farms. He's applied skills he learned from some of the two dozen white Zimbabwean farmers who moved to Nigeria in 2005, after being kicked off their land by President Robert Mugabe and later attracted by large parcels of land on offer under 25-year leases and commitments of support from the Nigerian government."

European middle classes getting poorer: "The European dream is under assault, as the wave of inflation sweeping the globe mixes with this continent's long-stagnant wages. Families that once enjoyed Europe's vaunted quality of life are pinching pennies to buy necessities, and cutting back on extras like movies and vacations abroad. Potentially more disturbing - especially to the political and social order - are the millions across the continent grappling with the realization that they may have lives worse, not better, than their parents.... A study by the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin found that the broad middle of the German work force, defined as workers making from 70 to 150 percent of the median income, shrunk to 54 percent of the population last year, from 62 percent in 2000."

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

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

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)

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Derb defends Darwin

John Derbyshire replies below to a post by a young Jewish writer in defence of Intelligent Design. The controversy arose from Derb's criticism of some fairly extreme statements by Jewish creationist Ben Stein (Someone whom I admire, in general).

Although I am an atheist, I myself think that it is entirely proper that schools teach BOTH Intelligent Design and evolution. As they say in boxing, "Let the best man (or theory) win"! From a purely scientific point of view, I think that there are deficiencies in both theories.

No, David. "The world is truly revealed as upside-down and backward" when intelligent young Jews sign up to the anti-science crusade. One of the best reasons to be a philosemite in our time is sheer gratitude at the disproportionate contribution Jews have made to the advance of Western civilization, and to our understanding of the world, this past two hundred years. The U.S.A. dominated the 20th century in culture and technology, to the great benefit of all mankind, in part because of the work done in math and science by the great tranche of pre-WW2 immigrant Jews from Europe.

Now you have joined up with people who want to trash the scientific enterprise and heap insults on one of the greatest names in intellectual history. For reasons unfathomable to me, you and Ben Stein want to sneer and scoff at our understandings, hard-won over centuries of arduous intellectual effort. Don't the two of you know, don't Jews of all people know, where this anti-intellectual agitation, this pandering to a superstitious mob, will lead at last? If you truly don't, I refer you to the fate of Hypatia, which you can read about in my last book (Chapter 3), or in Gibbon (Chapter XLVII). Your new pals at the Discovery Institute no doubt think Hypatia got what she deserved. Civilization is a thin veneer, David. Reason and science are bulwarks against the dark.

I am sure you know the fine speech that Robert Bolt put in the mouth of Sir Thomas More, but "people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed":

More: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: (Roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on Roper) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Bolt's More understood a thing you and Stein don't understand, the thing that Waugh credited Kipling with understanding in that quote I posted earlier in the week, and that Adolf Hitler (hey, you started the reductio ad Hitlerum), in his own way, and of course from the other side of the Wall, also understood. You and Stein are playing a dangerous game, a game that Jews should be the very last to play. The ADL, for all its faults, at least understands that.

I really, seriously wonder how much of a future the U.S.A. has. We are sinking into a bog of mediocrity, frivolity, superstition, and ignorance. When even Jews join the parade of folly, it's hard to keep hoping.

Yesterday (thanks! to a generous friend who got me in) I had the colossal privilege of watching Kurt Masur conduct Anne-Sophie Mutter in rehearsal. While Tchaikovsky's wonderful music filled the hall I found myself thinking, as I always do: How long shall we have this? How long will it last? How long before it is all swallowed up in the great grinning, jeering maw of hip-hop, the worship of worthless "celebrities," reality TV, Oprahified politics, and "intelligent design" - junk religion meets junk science? How long have we got?

Our civilization is on the way out. I hope it at least outlives me, but I am less and less sure it will. I'll be damned if I won't go down fighting, though.

Source

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Tony Blair: "You didn't realize how much you needed me"?



Rightward movement in both London and Rome: "In less than a week the major political parties of the Right in Britain and Italy scored unprecedented electoral victories by winning mayoral races in Rome and then in London. Since the end of the Second World War, the Right had never controlled those two offices. To grasp what this means, consider that "Londonistan" is the title of an excellent book by Melanie Phillips which warns of the descent of that great city into a radical Moslem polity. The citizens of Londonistan have chosen an iconoclastic Conservative Party leader, Boris Johnson, who has campaigned on the need to reduce crime in London and who has condemned the academic boycott of Israel by British universities as "disgusting and one sided." Although Johnson is more an offbeat moderate than a strong conservative, in Londonistan the change is dramatic and sweeping compared to what it had been before. His defeated opponent, "Red Ken" Livingston, was a blatant fan of every Marxist thug and radical Moslem in the world."

[There is a good humorous piece by Boris Johnson here]

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ELSEWHERE

How Many Communists Does It Take to Discredit an Anti-War Movement? "Not In Our Name (NION) is a group of people who sit around writing paranoid diatribes about the Bush administration with campy names like "Pledge of Resistance" and "Statement of Conscience." They collect signatures from celebrities and professional radicals, then publish the things in big, expensive newspaper ads. Then everyone involved pretends like they've just done something courageous and heroic. NION's money shot was the "Statement of Conscience," which they claim has been signed by over 15,000 people. Those courageous signatories include Angela Davis, two-time vice-presidential candidate on the Communist Party ticket; unindicted traitor Jane Fonda; convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal; and left-wing usual suspects like Ed Asner, Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon, Al Sharpton, Martin Sheen, Gloria Steinem, and Gore Vidal. Oh, and Yoko Ono. Nobody gives a movement credibility like Yoko Ono! The folks at NION aren't content just to write self-indulgent "pledges" and "statements." They also have an "activist" arm, the Not In Our Name Project, which organizes "anti-war" demonstrations."

Hillary's Jobs Ad Shows Indiana Plant Closed By Bill Clinton: "U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton stood in a Washington Township gymnasium last month and publicly said President George W. Bush was forcing the American military to rely on "Chinese spare parts" by allowing the sale of a Valparaiso defense contractor. But fresh questions are being raised in the wake of Hillary's much-publicized comments questioning why Bush failed to stop Chinese investors from moving Magnequench to China and closing the Northwest Indiana plant. For example, if the sale of the company to Chinese investors was going to jeopardize national security, why did President Bill Clinton's administration approve it in 1995? Magnequench made the sophisticated magnets needed to guided "smart bombs." Today, bomb-makers have to buy the magnets from the Chinese."

Happy 60th birthday to Israel: "Melanie Phillips says that the prosperity and growing cultural confidence of Israel is a fitting riposte to the Western intelligentsia, American meddling and the daily propaganda assault that ignores the Islamisation of the Palestinians. Indeed, much of the responsibility for these six decades of conflict lie with a Western world which, from 1921 onwards, has chosen to appease Arab violence while shedding crocodile tears over its Jewish victims. But the future of Israel is the future of the West. If the front line in Israel were to go down, the West would be next. Given its current internal appeasement of Islamism, however, the West may go down anyway. At least Israel knows it has to fight to survive. As a result, in 60 years' time it will still be there. Can the same be said for Britain or Europe?"

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

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

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)

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Triumph for truth! New York Governor signs law protecting residents against suits in foreign courts

New York state fought back today against terrorism apologists who have used foreign libel laws to silence opponents as Gov. David Paterson signed a law granting protections under the First Amendment. The Libel Terrorism Protection Act was inspired by New York-based author Rachel Ehrenfeld's battle with a British court over her 2003 book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Funded and How to Stop It."

New York officials said the law will make it more difficult for "libel tourists" to threaten authors and publishers with foreign libel suits. It bars enforcement of a libel judgment in foreign courts unless a New York court determines the decision is consistent with the free speech and free press protections guaranteed by the U.S. and New York state constitutions. "New Yorkers must be able to speak out on issues of public concern without living in fear that they will be sued outside the United States, under legal standards inconsistent with our First Amendment rights," said Paterson. "This legislation will help ensure the freedoms enjoyed by New York authors."

Britain's libel law has been used in a number of instances against writers who speak out against international terrorism. As WND reported, Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz filed suit against Ehrenfeld after she named him in her New York-published book as a funder of Islamic charities that supported terrorism. She asserts there are more than 10 lawsuits outstanding by numerous plaintiffs in the U.S. claiming billions of dollars in damages from Mahfouz's alleged involvement in financing the 9/11 attack of the World Trade Center. Only 23 copies of her book were sold in the United Kingdom, but Mahfouz took advantage of the country's liberal laws and filed the suit there, charging damage to his reputation.

The British court issued a $225,000 judgment against Ehrenfeld after she refused to appear, on advice of her counsel in Britain. The author then sought a judgment in New York declaring the British decision unenforceable in the U.S., because her work is protected under American law. The New York Court of Appeals ruled Ehrenfeld's suit could not be heard under state law unless legislature made changes. Paterson, who succeeded disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer last month, urged the federal government to take similar action.

"Although New York state has now done all it can to protect our authors while they live in New York, they remain vulnerable if they move to other states, or if they have assets in other states," said Paterson. "We really need Congress and the president to work together and enact federal legislation that will protect authors throughout the country against the threat of foreign libel judgments."

State Sen. Dean G. Skelos noted "the truth is a critically-important component of the war on terror." "American authors, like Dr. Ehrenfeld, who expose terrorist networks and their financiers should not be subject to intimidation and lawsuits in foreign courts designed to circumvent our First Amendment rights," he said. "This is important legislation, and I thank Governor Paterson for signing it into law."

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Boris! "Britain's Labour Party has suffered its worst local election defeat on record and lost control of London, forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next national election. Conservative Boris Johnson, a journalist-turned-politician prone to gaffes, wrested the prized post of London mayor from Labour's maverick Ken Livingstone, who has run the capital since 2000. After an often bad-tempered campaign, Mr Johnson paid tribute to Mr Livingstone as a "distinguished leader" of the city, singling out his efforts after the Tube and bus bombings in 2005. He promised to those who did not vote for him to "work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me". To those who did vote for him, he said: "I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence." ... Mr Johnson will be in charge of an $23.31 billion budget covering public transport, police and fire services in a city of some 7.5 million people. He will oversee preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games and be responsible for promoting policies on housing, the environment and the economy in Europe's biggest financial centre."

Navy Announces Commissioning of Submarine North Carolina : "The Navy's newest attack submarine North Carolina will be commissioned Saturday, May 3, during a 10 a.m. EDT ceremony at Port of Wilmington in Wilmington, N.C. Designated SSN 777, the fourth submarine of the Virginia-class will bear the name North Carolina to honor the Tar Heel State. The submarine will be the fourth ship of the U.S. Navy to bear the name North Carolina. The Virginia-class is designed and built to fulfill all current warfighting requirements and provides the Navy with the capabilities required to maintain the nation's undersea supremacy well into the 21st century. Equally adept at operating in the world's shallow littoral regions and deep waters, North Carolina and her sister ships will significantly contribute to the mission areas of anti-submarine warfare; anti-surface warfare; special operations forces; strike; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; battle group support; and mine warfare. Capt. Mark E. Davis, a native of upstate New York, will become the ship's first commanding officer and will lead a crew of approximately 134 officers and enlisted personnel. North Carolina will be homeported in Groton, Conn., as a member of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. The 7,800-ton North Carolina was built under a teaming arrangement between Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Electric Boat."

High taxes are for others, not Leftists -- the Metzenbaum story: "Though a lifelong Ohioan, the Senator moved to Florida in 2002, according to a declaration of domicile filed with the Broward County Clerk's office in 2003. In doing so, he avoided paying his home state's income tax (top rate: 6.55%). More important as he neared the end of his life, the former Senator also saved his family from paying Ohio's death tax, which features one of the highest state rates (7%) and lowest asset thresholds - $338,333 - in the country. Florida famously has no income or estate tax, which is one reason other than the climate that it is home to so many northern-born retirees. Howard Metzenbaum thus denied the state in which he lived most of his life a parting financial gift. But he has at least provided the rest of us with a teaching moment in tax policy. If a liberal lion like Metzenbaum is willing to relocate late in life to avoid his state's death tax, maybe living politicians in Ohio will better understand how their confiscatory tax laws are driving its citizens to warmer climes."

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

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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)

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The vast hypocrisy of "There's no such thing as right and wrong" -- again

When Leftists say, "There's no such thing as right and wrong", they are normally referring to moral judgments. They use that formula when confronted with something as uncomfortable as their unwavering support for murderous Communists and Muslims. And, as such, it is a transparent fraud. They themselves reveal that such talk is at best a tantrum by going on themselves to use the language of right and wrong to condemn "intolerance", "Zionists" or the Iraq war etc. Talk of right and wrong is meaningless when conservatives use it but highly meaningful when Leftists use it, apparently. To call such reasoning "sophomoric" is to praise it too highly.

Under the rubric of "postmoderninsm", they also however extend their condemnation of "right and wrong" to statements of fact. If anyone presents facts that conflict with Leftist beliefs they evade it in various ways. One stratagem is to say that that is just "your reality" etc. Or if some fact upsets some theory that they are wedded to, they simply deny the fact in some way -- often by ad hominem arguments such as saying that the person presenting the pesky fact is "in the pay of big oil" -- or some other totally discreditable stratagem that tells you no more than that the Leftist does not want to believe the fact concerned.

And the latest example of convenience as a criterion for truth is the amazing spectacle of Pastor Wright claiming that blacks and whites have inherently different brains. He has famously said that:

"Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality," he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. "Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style, ....They have a different way of learning."

or as Heather Macdonald summarizes:

At the NAACP meeting, Wright proudly propounded the racist contention that blacks have inherently different "learning styles," correctly citing as authority for this view Janice Hale of Wayne State University. Pursuing a Ph.D. by logging long hours in the dusty stacks of a library, Wright announced, is "white." Blacks, by contrast, cannot sit still in class or learn from quiet study, and they have difficulty learning from "objects"-books, for example-but instead learn from "subjects," such as rap lyrics on the radio. These differences are neurological, according to Hale and Wright: whites use what Wright referred to as the "left-wing, logical, and analytical" side of their brains, whereas blacks use their "right brain," which is "creative and intuitive."

Most people have reacted very adversely to these utterances -- recognizing how far outside the mainstream they are. But I think that there may be something in what he has said. The behavioural differences between blacks and whites are plain to any honest observer and that the differences might have a genetic basis is entirely in accord with what the scientific literature keeps telling us about the vast influence of genetics.

I myself have also been saying for decades that black and white brains are different -- but I have been rewarded for that by being figuratively cast into outer darkness -- even by other conservatives. Anybody who mentions the plain psychometric fact that blacks are on average of much lower intelligence and that the difference is hereditary is completely outside the pale of civilization. To accept the lie that there are NO important genetic differences between the races is not just the conventional wisdom: It is a necessary passport to being acceptable and respectable in polite society. And rejecting that lie is even worse than rejecting global warming!

As Dr Goebbels knew, a big lie is often more plausible than the plain scientific facts and those of us who draw attention to the facts can easily be marginalized. Perhaps fortunately, most of the lies, deceptions and legends that I campaign against are in the medical field -- where the fate of the skeptic is mostly to be ignored rather than being stigmatized. But all the lies, deceptions and accepted myths concerned are very harmful to people. I would not bother about them otherwise.

So how come Pastor Wright can say the opposite of what is normally regarded as correct about race to thunderous applause at a NAACP convention? Simple: To a Leftist, the truth of a statement depends entirely on the use to which it is put. If a statement about an inborn difference seems to be derogatory to a favoured group (Leftists are so mentally limited that they think almost entirely in terms of groups) then that statement is WRONG. But if it defends the deviant actions of the same group it is RIGHT.

Leftists really do mean it when they say that there is no such thing as right and wrong -- absurd though that it. I guess that they do know deep down that there are real truth differences but truth is very subordinate to their political convenience. It just does not matter. They have no regard for truth at all. Truth is what is expedient. Manipulating people has priority over all else.

Ed Morrissey has also noted the hypocrisy in the response to Pastor Wright's claims.

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ELSEWHERE

The incoherence of Democrat energy policy : "The Democrats' domestic policies are an incoherent jumble: they want lower gasoline and heating oil prices, but they block the very things, oil drilling and the construction of new refineries, that would actually reduce them. At the same time, for reasons of "climate change," they want less consumption of oil and gas, which implies higher, not lower, prices. None of this makes any sense; the Democrats are just hoping that no one notices between now and November."

Slower growth is not a recession: "Despite all the doom and gloom, America is not in a recession, in fact, according to our rule of economics, "if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession. That, however, didn't happen in the last recession in 2001", and it isn't happening now. Soaring gas prices, higher food prices, and a sputtering job market aren't helping things but since the Democrat presidential candidates, in an effort to differentiate themselves from President Bush, chose the economy as a topic to beat on, well, if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it."

It's Not All About Hillary : "So Hillary was on O'Reilly last night (and again tonight), and apparently was somewhat impressive. So much so that some on the conservative side of the aisle might even view her as acceptable. Heck some obscure internet pundits have declared that she might possibly be the "most uncompromising wartime President in U.S. history" (should that be 'herstory'?). That may well be true, I dunno. But I want to say this to all conservatives who think that perhaps things wouldn't be so bad if she were to get the nomination and then win the election.... This election ain't all about the war, and this election ain't all about Hillary. The election is about all the issues, and the election is about all the people she would bring into the administration with her. It has been proven time and again that a President is limited in what he actually *can* do. It is the politicos who are brought in to take over the vast federal bureaucracies and establish/implement their policies that are the ones who can do the most good....or the most damage. So if you think that Hillary as a tough talking, uncompromising wartime president is acceptable, than you had better be ready to accept all the liberal and leftist activists who are going to take over leadership positions in Justice, Education, Immigration and Customs Enforcement , HHS, EPA, OMB, DHS, Defense, CIA, etc...."

Leftists lose big in Britain: "Gordon Brown is facing pressure from Labour MPs for a change in direction after a nightmare at the polls which saw the party slump to its worst results for four decades. With results still coming in from England and Wales overnight, Labour’s projected national vote share has been put at just 24 per cent, trailing 20 points behind David Cameron’s Conservatives on 44 per cent and beaten into third place by the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent. The margin was similar to the drubbing received by John Major in council elections in 1995, two years before he was ejected from Downing Street by Tony Blair. Latest analysis suggests that the Tories would enjoy a landslide Commons majority of between 138 and 164 seats if the results were repeated in a general election."

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

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

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)

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