AN INSIDER’S COMMENT ON BRITAIN’S “NATIONAL HEALTH”

A British doctor who started out as an idealistic supporter of socialized medicine has been disillusioned:

I assume that most doctors would want to see that patients who had the greatest need and least capacity to help themselves, would be the ones who are most likely to receive help through a State system. Sadly, the experience of my professional lifetime is the opposite. The NHS is largely a system run by the middle class for the benefit of the middle class and with emphasis on the clinical conditions most likely to be suffered by the middle class. Services are poorest, and the doctors least well qualified and equipped, in the areas where the demand is greatest.

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LEFTISTS TOOK AL-SAHHAF SERIOUSLY!

A lovely quote (Via British Politics) from a British Leftist rag of April 3rd:

“Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf’s briefings of the international media have attracted attention for their informative and often cogent content, in contrast to the contradictions of the coalition spokespersons, who have had to field numerous questions regarding the misinformation they were spinning the day before."

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ELSEWHERE

Western Australia has introduced minor price controls on petrol (gasoline). The result? On average Western Australian motorists pay more than other Australians for it. Surprise! Surprise! There is nothing like unfettered competition for keeping prices down. Argentina’s Leftist dictator Peron threatened to shoot any shopkeeper who put his prices up. Maybe the Leftist West Australian government should try that!

An Australian flag now flies over al-Asad air base. Once home of the Iraqi air force. Nice that we made a difference. General Franks says we made a surprisingly large difference.

An initiative to eliminate Spam! Good if it works. Spam is getting overwhelming. I and many others spend a significant amount of time every day just deleting it. The best defence against spam, however, is one that we can all contribute to -- NEVER buy anything that is advertised via spam or popups.

Antiwar reporter gets the sack: It’s a long way from getting balanced journalism but it’s a start.

In his latest newsletter, David Horowitz says that the "anti-war" Left does not in fact care about Iraq at all. It is led by old-guard communists who care only about their hatred of American success: "The Neo-communist left opposes America's efforts to promote freedom and supports (sometimes "critically") America's declared enemies not because of what America does, but because of what they think America is. The Neo-communist left is impervious to facts because it is a political messianism, in essence a religious movement. Its delusions of social redemption are fed on a rich diet of anti-American myths".


Did I ever say that Leftists are exhibitionists? “Two war protesters smeared themselves with ketchup and cherry-flavored Kool-Aid and briefly interrupted a lecture given by a Pratt & Whitney Aircraft executive at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.”

Most university history professors are now Leftist and that is showing up in the grossly distorted history textbooks that kids are being given to read. Would you believe that the Vikings are now being portrayed as peaceful? Neil Gaiman has a good spoof of it all. Via England’s Sword.

Limbic Nutrition calls a spade a spade in discussing London’s huge problem with black crime -- something the London police are not allowed to do.

Bleeding Brain notes how most major countries washed their hands of Saddam and concludes: "The U.S, along with Britain and Australia are now clearly holding the rudder to the ark of civilization."

Chris Brand has a post on the failure of feminism to meet women’s needs.

The Wicked one notes that the Australian monarchy is not just for old fogies.

Michael Darby commemorates Anzac day and says a special thanks to Australia’s veterans of the Vietnam war.

China hand says extramarital sex has become common in his part of China but that most people turn a blind eye to it.

I have just put up a small collection of cartoons (non-political) that I found amusing HERE

In my academic posting of April 23rd. here, I point out that older women (but not older men) are prone to present themselves in an unrealistically favourable light.

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SOME SURPRISING MILITARY HISTORY

There has of course been much justified congratulation given to the US for its use of precision guided bombs to make sure that only the intended military targets in Iraq were hit. I wonder however how many people realize that Nazi Germany also successfully deployed precision guided bombs in WWII, over 50 years ago. I wonder why we took so long to catch up? The Nazis also of course used cruise missiles and ballistic missiles long before anyone else. If Hitler had let his generals run the Russian campaign they would have won the war. Feldmarschall von Manstein destroyed two Soviet armies even AFTER Stalingrad. It was also he who organized the Blitzkrieg through France -- and his conquest of the Crimean peninsula is legendary among military historians: a frontal assault against superior forces who had nearly every advantage: a fortified position, command of the sea, the air, and tanks, while his army had not one tank.

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THE GINGRICH BLAST

Gingrich made some good points in his blast at the State Dept.:

He dismissed the State Department aid arm, the U.S. Agency for International Development, as useless and said that it should be abolished.
Instead he advocated the Army Corps of Engineers the job of rebuilding Iraq, saying that in Afghanistan, where USAID is responsible for reconstruction, "not a single mile of road has been paved in two years."

He strongly opposed Powell's reported trip to Syria as long as the Arab state continues to support terrorist groups. Instead, he urged the administration to take advantage of the opportunity brought by the victory in Iraq and "apply genuine economic, diplomatic and political pressure." ... "The concept of the American secretary of state going to Damascus to meet with a terrorist-supporting, secret police-wielding dictator is ludicrous," said Gingrich.

I certainly think that the Syrians should be VERY heavily leant upon at the moment.

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ELSEWHERE

There is a fascinating piece of academic research reported in the latest issue of the highly respectable Journal of Developmental Psychogy. The researchers found that even among 19 month old children there were highly recognizable differences in aggression and that most of the difference in aggression was genetically inherited. So some kids are just born mean -- for all that Leftists would like to tell you to the contrary.

On 9th November last year I took exception to the constant Leftist insulting of Britain’s Prime Minister as “Bush’s poodle” and proposed here instead: “Let's resurrect a famous old metaphor for Britain on this occasion and start referring to Tony Blair as "Bush's Bulldog".” I am pleased therefore to see that the Editor of the “Washington Times” has had the same idea. He also gives the Australian Prime Minister a guernsey in the same article. Via The Federalist

I never thought I would agree with a Leftist about “asylum-seeker” policy but I agree with this comment about the Vietnamese boat people presently headed for Australian waters and who look to be in danger of sinking in the middle of the ocean: “There is only one humanitarian option here -- that is for the Australian authorities to get these people off these boats that are death traps and ensure that they are secure," I have great sympathy for the hard-working Vietnamese. They put up a great fight to save their country from Communism but were left in the lurch by a peacenik-influenced US Congress who cut off their military supplies.

What cheek! The UN has ruled that a sign at an Australian sportsground is offensive and should be taken down even though the Australian High Court has already ruled to the contrary! The sign is in any case just an example of perverse Australian humour but nobody would expect rthe UN to understand that. The sign refers to a famous Australian cricketer called “nigger” Brown -- called that because he was so pale-skinned!

A fun recap here of what the punditocracy were saying about the Iraq war while it was actually going on (not to mention what they said before it started!). They were declaring it to be a “quagmire” almost up until the day that Saddam’s statue fell. Interesting that the President and his team were infinitely more accurate and reliable than the media moaners were!

Even the San Francisco Chronicle sees that Senator Santorum’s rejection of legal activism concerning gays may not hurt him politically. What he said was no more derogatory than what “liberals” routinely say about Christians, conservatives and others they disapprove of. “Those who live in glass houses .....”

Carnival of the Vanities is up again. The Left get a bit more of a look-in this time.

China hand has some skeptical comments about the Chinese response to SARS.

On his other site, China hand has a snarl at the Leftist Australian media. As an ex-Leftie himself, he really feels these things.

Michael Darby has a report that “low cost” public housing in fact costs heaps more than privately-built housing.

Chris Brand notes that Britain’s favourable treatment of “asylum-seekers” is fueling a rise in support for the British National Party -- previously seen as “far Right”

The Wicked one is pleased to note that drinking tea is much better for your health than coffee-drinking is.

In my academic posting of April 22nd. here, I note the amazing "mental flexibility" that scientists can show in resisting demonstrations that their findings are spurious and point out that the phenomenon is widespread among psychologists.

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THE IRAQ LOOTING

A reader writes:

The "Looters in Iraq" issue has something of a life of it's own and facts are few and far between but this hasn't stopped all kinds of pundits from weighing in from every possible angle (including the idea that the Iraqis are just getting their own back). So maybe we can play the game and look at this "hypothetical" situation: Imagine if before the war Bush, Blair or Howard went back to their electorates (or, better still, went to the UN) and said that in addition to combat forces, they also want x thousand extra cops, jailers and peacekeeping troops to send in behind the combat forces to ensure that the iraqis don't pilfer their public hospitals, don't destroy their schools, don't loot food aid warehouses and don't smash their own museums. Can you imagine the response?

My guess is that such a request would be painted by leftists as a grossly insulting example of western arrogance and racism. Muslim and NGO spokespersons would be saying 'ordinary Iraqis are civilised and just don't behave like that'. A few ex-pat Iraqis and foreign visitors to Iraq would come on TV and tell how they left the house in Basra unlocked for years over there without being robbed. "You really want those extra troops to impose your will on a reluctant people, not to protect them".

Of course, assuming you got your peacekeepers, and once they had prevented social chaos, the same critics would use this success as evidence that your request was unwarranted and unnecessary. Am I being too cynical?

It is probably a good idea not to involve frontline troops too heavily in peacekeeping, so maybe this is why Centcom has not come down hard on Baghdad's "Ali Baba" looters as many Baghdad citizens would like.

British paratroopers in the Cold War were expected to have very short combat survival prospects when pitted against Warsaw Pact troops. So naturally their training and psychology was very aggressive as displayed in the Falklands. But putting them on the streets of Northern Ireland to deal with civil disturbances like "Bloody Sunday" probably only made a bad situation worse.. In fact the commander of the UK Paras in Northern Ireland's seems very cynical about politicians deploying combat troops to deal with civil order situations and then 'hanging them out to dry' when things go wrong.

On the other hand, history has shown, dealing sternly with looters and rioters, including the a credible threat to use deadly force, does seem to bring these situations under control quickly. But the international and domestic political consequences, especially back in the US and UK, if allied troops were to shoot rioters or looters would be enormous, even if it may just be true that most law abiding Baghdad citizens would welcome it.

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GREENS FOR SADDAM

Paul Sheehan lists the many measures of energetic support that Greenpeace worldwide gave to Saddam Hussein. It's "Green" to support a Fascist butcher? "Greenpeace" should be renamed "Redpiece". Saddam was a socialist dictator, after all. A reader adds:

Greenpeace's recent antics in Sydney harbour remind me of when i was a civilian dockyard worker at Garden Island Naval Dockyard in the 1980s where "no nuclear ships" was the flavour of the month. i was co-located with the dockyard's own safety and rescue personnel who, thanks to anti-nuke protestors, had the job of pulling any protestor or unfortunate cop in danger below a ship out of the drink. they were the last line of safety. owing to the risks these stunts (protests is not the right word) created for them, not only on the day of the stunt, but in their training as well... they didn't really share a high opinion of the anti-nuke crowd, despite a healthy cross section of political opinion in the team. Anyhow one day one of the safety team pointed out to me that prominent "peace flotilla" activist Ian Cohen, who has now turned his self-publicity efforts in for a New South Wales parliament (Upper House) seat, used to have his surf ski delivered to the waters of Woolloomooloo Bay courtesy of the roof rack of a commercial TV station's current affairs programme's van!!!

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ELSEWHERE

Somebody has kidnapped an Ayatollah! Should be more of it.

Australia’s major Leftist political party is attacking the conservative government because the government has not given enough tax cuts! Australia is a very conservative country by world standards.

If you have not seen it already, do not miss the hilarious "We were stun-founded" story about Islamic fanatics in Iraq in the WSJ. You will also find there a report that American feminists are supporting a man who allegedly murdered an entirely innocent woman! These hags seem to think that Muslim treatment of women is OK too!

There’s a report on PC Watch that Britain’s socialized medicine system plans to have doctors in its hospitals only during the day! Let us hope that they will at least have doctors on call somewhere nearby in the evenings and at night. Maybe not.

Michael Darby has a letter from one of his readers who is outraged at how the media reported the Iraq war.

The Wicked one is impressed by SOME of the things that the Archbishop of Canterbury says.

Chris Brand wonders whether political realignments in Britain and the USA might be sparked by the Iraq war.

I have just added three more fun pictures to my Picture Page.

In my academic posting of April 21st here, I look at the common view that “stereotyping” is a problem in race relations and point to research results showing that it is not.

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YOU DON'T NEED COLLEGE

I posted a comment here on 20th from a reader who believes that the pervasive Leftist influence in colleges and universities has degraded them to the point where their degrees are often useless. Another reader adds:

If any young people ever ask, you don't need college. I'm the network administrator (for the northwest U.S.) for a major corporation and I have no college degree. I am entirely self taught. Most U.S. job descriptions list requiring a college degree or equivalent experience (usually 4 years). So, if you can get into the field, and get 'real' experience, you can still be considered. Of course, this is not an excuse to fail to round out your education but there are libraries and we can read on our own. The beauty of self education is that you are paid to learn (at entry level jobs) rather than paying exorbitant sums to a university....

I also referred recently to a piece of research I did some time ago that showed that higher levels of education can actually reduce economic prosperity. And way back in the 70s Ivar Berg brought together a lot of evidence to show that college education does not benefit you economically. So most people would be better off to save their money and leave the Leftist college teachers to stew in their own juice.

Reference:
Berg, I. (1973) Education and jobs: The great training robbery Harmondsworth, Mddx.: Penguin.

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WHERE THE WMDs ARE:

I said a few days ago that the US would have to go into Syria to find Saddam’s WMDs. This report from an Iraqi scientist confirms it:

The scientist told military officials that several months before the war, he watched as Iraqi officials buried chemical precursors for weapons and other sensitive material to conceal and protect them for future use. He said stockpiles of deadly agents and weapons technology had been transferred to Syria in the mid-1990s.

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TREACHEROUS TEACHERS

According to The Times, Britain's aptly-named NUT (National Union of Teachers) is trying to outlaw testing. They do not want people to realize how little the kids learn at some schools these days. The government responded:

The Department for Education and Skills condemned the decision. A spokesman said: "We are not going back to the days when we had no regular information about how pupils were doing in school. Testing at seven and 11 has meant that the literacy and numeracy strategies have produced improvements in pupils' learning that would never have been dreamt of five years ago."

In her post of 11th, Kimberly Swygert reported similar moves by Californian teachers. Teachers do tend to be Leftist worldwide. There are a lot of mini-Stalins there. They like being dictators.

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ELSEWHERE

Good to see that the Pentagon has a contingency plan for “surgical” bombing to destroy North Korea’s nuclear bomb-making capacity. Knowing of such a plan might make the North Koreans think twice about going much further with their program. Iraq will make them think twice too. Deterrence won the cold war. It could win this one.

If beautiful things give you pleasure and you are in a relaxed mood, I have just put up HERE some more pictures from an Australian garden.

Paddy McGuinness does a good job of debunking the Leftist journalists who are doing everything they can to find things to criticize about the US actions in Iraq. He says that there are reporting crimes as well as war crimes.

No comment: “New Zealand hunters, who have taken to the forests in large numbers this month in search of antler trophies, have been urged to wear orange hats or jackets after three were shot dead, mistaken for deer.”

The first trials of genetically modified crops in Africa have been a great success, leading to great increases in income among the black farmers: "The farmers were glowing, they were very happy.". But the Greenies, of course were not amused.

Chris Brand thinks that the real historical Jesus may have been quite a sexpot.

Michael Darby has an article about the Wahhabi menace from Saudi Arabia.

The Wicked one hopes that “Pope Peacenik” will not succeed in his efforts to lure back traditionalist Catholics.

In my academic posting of April 20th here, I point out that some Leftist Dutch scholars have ignored 40 years of research in their field -- thus managing to reinvent the wheel. Typical Leftist “scholarship”

My book about what Leftism is and why is online here but it runs to 200 pages -- so it may look like work for many potential readers. I have therefore divided the book into 7 parts and provided a table of contents so readers can see roughly what is in each part. That way I hope people will be able to pick out only the parts that interest them most. Part 1 together with a summary and the table of contents is given here.

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WORKING “FLAT OUT” IN BRITAIN

I received the following email from an Australian lady who is presently visiting Britain. She refers to my post of 19th about Americans working harder than Brits.

Just read your piece on the English attitude to hard work.... funny you should say that... My sister wanted to get a manicure done at short notice recently but was unable to get it done after trying 5 different "Nail Bars" in Cambridge and Saffron Walden.... a busy (now trendy) market town where she does her shopping... 50 miles from London.

Of the 2 we visited yesterday... one was closed for Easter.... an extremely busy day (Saturday) and at the other.... the one girl in the place raised her head from a personal phone call to say she was sorry she couldn't possible fit us in today as they were "flat out".... There was no one in the place!!... three seats sitting empty. Same thing in Cambridge.... two of the girls sitting chatting saying..... Oh no... sorry couldn't possibly fit you in today... and again... no one there!! One of the others was closing next month ... so wasn't taking any new clients... another had just opened as part of a solarium..... but wasn't taking bookings for nails until May??? I just don't know what the English definition of "flat out" is.

The two "Nail Bars" near where I live in Australia ...one run by Asians... are always working to full capacity ....several seats always full. I would call that being "flat out". Letting a customer out the door without fitting them in somehow.... I would say THAT is being "flat out". Very strange attitude to work here in England if you ask me.

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THE NEW LEFT

An Australian reader writes:

We have beaten back socialism but now we find our culture and media as offering fertile ground to 'new socialisms' like greens, indigenous, victim-group-of-the-month etc. The left can sound quite libertarian when defending gays or whatever and the old school christian conservatives can allow themselves to be painted as the authoritarians. This I think is short sighted, the left are I think still engaged in pushing the central state by other means, and their advocacy of gay rights, multiculturalism, a republic etc is all part of loosely connected drive to revolutionise society and by default or design put the central state in the middle of everything. So it makes sense for them to oppose family, nation, what they would call "traditional bourgeois culture" ... as these are roadblocks to the super-state.

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ELSEWHERE

We have just seen a lot of commercial Easter bunnies. HERE is a great picture of some real Easter bunnies.

The Anglican Primate of Australia added to his reputation as an inveterate Leftist by telling his congegation yesterday that “the ousting of Saddam Hussein did not justify the war”. Not much compassion for Iraqis there and no rejoicing at their rescue as lost sheep. Someone should also remind him that the founder of Christianity drove the thieves out of the temple.

The United States will seek continuing access to military bases in Iraq to maintain its strong Middle East presence. As it should. The big stick is all that Arabs understand so the big stick should stay nearby.

Exports of Australian wine to Europe have become so successful that the French are trying to find ways of banning it. Perhaps the English-speaking countries should try to find ways of banning French wine in retaliation! That would be about the only sort of “ethics” that the French understand.

The US army has just stumbled across $US650 million in cash in Baghdad cottages owned by Saddam and his supporters. And Leftists tell us that WE are to blame because Iraqi hospitals had no medicines to give sick children!

Silflay Hraka rather naughtily agrees with my suggestion that maybe the Nazis are criticized more furiously than Communists these days because Nazism is in fact more attractive to many people. He adds: “When it comes right down to it, Nazis are more appealing because they're prettier.”

A former Communist intelligence chief confirms that Joschka Fischer, Germany’s current foreign minister, was part of radical terrorist organizations for many years in his younger days. He was an anti-American thug then and not much has changed since. That he is also said to be the most popular politician in Germany today is therefore of some concern. Thuggish German politicians cost nearly half a million American lives in World War II.

A reasonable argument here from "Spiked" to the effect that the people in the crowds that the antiwar organizers attracted were mainly exhibitionists or nervous people who were afraid of the uncertainties that the Iraq war involved.

Jeff Jacoby points out that CNN is far from being the only “news” organization that sucks up to Islamic thugs. It is clear that what we get from most major media outlets about the Islamic world is little more than propaganda. The sooner that gets widely known the sooner people will switch off the outlets concerned -- and only THEN might we begin to see some ethical journalism from them.

Chris Brand notes that even The Guardian is now acknowledging biological differences between men and women

Michael Darby has a message of (faint) hope from Zimbabwe.

The Wicked one reports that the sun is not as stable as it looks.

In my academic posting of April 19th here, I look at three concepts much beloved by psychologists -- psychological rigidity, psychological authoritarianism and ethnocentism -- and point out that all three are “unicorn” concepts -- they stand for things that do not exist.

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IMPARTIALITY AND FREEDOM REJECTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CA

Here are some academic ideals that the University of California REJECTS:

''To convert, or to make converts, is alien and hostile to this dispassionate duty. Where it becomes necessary, in performing this function of a university, to consider political, social, or sectarian movements, they are dissected and examined--not taught, and the conclusion left, with no tipping of the scales, to the logic of the facts.''

''Essentially the freedom of a university is the freedom of competent persons in the classroom. In order to protect this freedom, the University assumes the right to prevent exploitation of its prestige by unqualified persons or by those who would use it as a platform for propaganda.''

''Its high function--and its high privilege, the University will steadily continue to fulfill, serving the people by providing facilities for investigation and teaching free from domination by parties, sects, or selfish interests.''

There is a good site here that enables American college students to expose the biases of those who purport to teach them. It makes pretty disgraceful reading but it might help some students and parents to avoid the worst of the Leftist bias.

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LEFTIST UNIVERSITIES ARE USELESS

An Australian reader writes:

I do think left domination undermines the quality of education kids are getting. The world doesn't work the way they teach it and if students are to really learn (assuming that is what they want to do) they have to ditch their academic education. Most people who actually run anything or do real work tell you they didn't start learning until after university. This is probably a major cause of the "anti-intellectualism" of Australian society that leftist intellectuals are always whinging about. They don't see the irony in this. Thank God Australians are so deeply anti-intellectual, we would be a third world country if we actually listened to these guys.

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ELSEWHERE

The 10th anniversary of the holocaust at Waco orchestrated by Clinton and Reno has just passed. That Janet Reno survived the event with her reputation intact shows how little Leftists care for human life. I think she should have been put on trial. Then all the details might have come out. The whole thing could have been solved with patience -- not tanks and grenades. Bible-loving Christians are not Arab Fascists.

Best joke of the war: “American and British troops handed out food to hundreds of Iraqis. Not surprisingly, the Iraqis handed the British food back.” I grew up on British cuisine so I know what he means.

One of Saddam’s chemical warfare scientists is now in US hands but I doubt that the US forces in Iraq will find any of Saddam’s actual WMDs. I would expect that they are all in Syria by now. They may even have been transferred there before the war. Saddam had plenty of warning.

When I read that Iraqi looters have even looted hospitals and raped the patients I am beginning to wonder if they were worth liberating. Perhaps they deserved Saddam Hussein. It certainly seems clear that Iraqi looters have done far more damage than the war did.

Good news: Despite their opposition to the Iraq war, it seems that Russia is still fairly friendly towards the USA -- a pleasant contrast with French hysteria. Good to see that Schroeder has backed down too.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could write the sort of brain-dead stuff that Leftist columnists write in our mainstream newspapers. This loon says that Australia is to blame for much of the suffering under Saddam because we did not donate food and medical supplies. Australian taxpayers should have paid for stuff that Iraq’s own vast oil wealth could have bought? The fact that Saddam chose to spend the money on palaces and armaments is OUR fault?

An incredible story here about the bias and prejudice displayed by an official government body that is supposed to deal with complaints of bias and prejudice. Apparently, Muslims can do no wrong in the eyes of these politically correct morons.

I suppose I shouldn’t laugh: “Chicken Armageddon has come to the Netherlands, where more than 11 million birds have been culled to stop the spread of influenza, it was revealed yesterday”. Apparently it can affect humans but not severely. Will PETA now wage war on the Dutch?

The US government has finally taken a spammer to court. About time.

Chris Brand looks at the attempt by famous psychoanalyst Erich Fromm to explain love and sex. Chris notes some of the biological factors that Fromm overlooked.

Michael Darby has some reflections from a man who fought white rule in Zimbabwe and who now comments that Mugabe has done far worse than the white rulers ever did.

In my academic posting of April 18th here, I critique three papers by Leftist psychologists which purport to study authoritarianism and show that they do no such thing.

I have just done a big revision of my monograph on Leftism -- to include coverage of Iraq and other recent events. It is however now a 200 page document so it is only for those who want a comprehensive analysis of what Leftism is all about.

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THE REGULATORS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE REGULATED

This article from "Spiked" (which is well worth reading in full) argues that the debate about "designer babies" is driven largely by a resentment of the power over their lives and futures that modern technology gives to ordinary people: "Running through the debates about designer babies, from disability to sex selection to 'designing' a baby to treat a sick sibling, is a deep mistrust of individuals". The elites want all powers of decision in THEIR hands. They do not want ordinary people empowered. They are sure that they can do better for children than the parents of the child can. This is classic Leftist rubbish, of course: "Big brother" knows best. There are of course bad and uncaring parents but there are proportionately far more bad and uncaring bureaucrats. Let people make their own reproductive decisions. It is not a proper sphere for government and the courts. The elitists will be wanting to dictate whom we can have sex with and whom we can marry next.

Being myself a parent of an IVF child of whom I am immensely proud (pic here), I would like to punch some of these "ethicists" in the mouth. What right do these tinpot Hitlers have to tell other people what children they can have? There can be few children more wanted than an IVF child so the chances of such a child being mistreated in some way by its parents are vanishingly small. Compare that to how children are often treated whilst under "official" care in orphanages and the like.

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BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

Bureaucrats in Melbourne (Australia) accused a woman of illegally sub-letting her apartment. They cancelled her rent rebate, upped her weekly rent by $110 and demanded bank statements and income receipts for her live-in companion, Barnaby, the teddy bear. Collingwood public housing authorities assumed she was living with someone because she mentioned the teddy bear on her answering machine. They could not be convinced otherwise until a consumer advocacy group intervened on her behalf.

Herald Sun (Australia) via news.com.au 8-Apr-03. Via Jerry Lerman.

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DO AMERICANS WORK HARDER THAN BRITS?

I never thought I would agree with a Pop star about anything but from my experience "Madonna" is entirely fair and accurate in these remarks:

The singer has declared that Britons don't work as hard as Americans.
"They're not willing to work - you know, stay in the office for 12 hours a day," Madonna said in remarks unlikely to impress many hard-pressed employees. "I find that people in Europe are much more interested in the quality of life. They're not so work-orientated”. "It's different. They know how to enjoy life better. But Americans know how to get things done quicker," she said.

Madonna, 44, who enraged British builders two years ago by accusing them of laziness - "the working week starts at noon on Monday and ends at noon on Friday" - added that living in England had made her appreciate the US more. "It was really important for me to get outside of America, to live in England and appreciate the fabulous things about America, like customer services and stuff."

But I think most Australians find the Poms to be resentful that they have to work. It seems probable that for centuries it was mostly the slackers who stayed at home in England while the more energetic Englishmen emigrated to where greater opportunities were to be found. Australians and Americans are the descendants of the emigrants. {Only about 3% of Australians have convict ancestry (though I am one of them) -- the rest are the descendants of free emigrants.}

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THE LOOTED IRAQI MUSEUM

We have an amazing sequel to the tale of woe about the Iraq national museum looted by the liberated Iraqis. I am sure that I am one of many who felt heartsick at the news of the losses but look what we find now:

Donny George, the director-general of restoration at the Iraqi Antiquities Department, Wednesday said his staff had preserved the museum's most important treasures, including the kings' graves of Ur and the Assyrian bulls. These objects were hidden in vaults that haven't been violated by looters. "Most of the things were removed. We knew a war was coming

Donny George? Not Abu Mohammed Hamas or some such name? Sounds like an American or a Brit to me. So our people DID protect the Iraqis from themselves after all! And why didn't US forces stop such looting as did take place? Because there were people in the museum who were firing on the US forces!

There is also an article here that says that in fact Saddam and his son Uday were the chief looters.

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ELSEWHERE

Here is a good cartoon representation of what has just happened to Jacques Chirac.

Michael Darby presents a program for practical reform in Africa.

The Wicked one has a quite amazing post on the bumbling bureaucracy of socialized medicine.

Chris Brand points out that Prof. Pinker gets the wobbles when he uses his knowledge of genetics to address issues concened with race.

In my academic posting of April 17th here, I point out that “conservative” -- with its meaning of “opposed to change” -- is no longer an appropriate name for the political Right as there are in fact heaps of things about modern society that Rightists would like to change. I urge that academics at least should just call Rightists Rightists and stop calling them conservatives.

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FRENCH DECADENCE

There is an interesting book review here about the fall of France to the Germans in 1941. The combined British and French forces were in fact larger than the German forces so the defeat of the French, like the defeat of the Iraquis, happened so quickly mainly because the French did not want to fight. It argues that the French emphasis on culture, philosophy and the soft life made them unwilling soldiers and also made them arrogant towards everyone non-French. Not much has changed.

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FRENCH RACISM

A recovering Francophile tells us that antisemitism and racism generally is widespread in France with antisemitism being pervasive among the French Left:

There is little anti-Semitism among French conservatives today. They certainly do not make alliances with, or excuses for, people who cite the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as evidence of anything. Alas, this cannot be said for the old and young left that once prided itself on its principled animus to racisms of all sorts. La Nouvelle Judeophobie, written by Director of Research at the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique Pierre-Andre Taguieff and published in 2001 by Fayard, painstakingly documents how the core expressions of the self-described "anti-racist" left-- its intellectuals, academics, journalists, bien-pensants, and artists-- are downright anti-Semitic.... And their views are echoed by the polled public opinion of ordinary Frenchmen.

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NO “ROADMAP” TO PEACE POSSIBLE

In this review of Palestinian history, the author points out that all the evidence shows that the vast majority of Palestinians want nothing less than the total destruction of Israel and that they have held Jews in contempt for generations. So there is just no basis for our Western ideas of compromise there. I think the present Israeli policy of simply walling off the Palestinians from the Jewish areas is in fact the only viable solution. Excerpt:

I have come away from my examination of the history of the conflict with a sense of the instinctive rejectionism that runs like a dark thread through Palestinian history- a rejection, to the point of absurdity, of the history of the Jewish link to the land of Israel; a rejection of the legitimacy of Jewish claims to Palestine; a rejection of the right of the Jewish state to exist. And, worse, this rejectionism has over the decades been leavened by a healthy dose of anti-Semitism, a perception of the Jew as God's and humanity's unchosen

(This item crosposted on Dissecting Leftism and Israpundit.)

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