ELSEWHERE

Most amusing report today: The crazy Leftist Australian journalist John Pilger was on Tuesday awarded the 2003 Sophie Prize, a Norwegian award honouring “environmental or development efforts”, for his work which “helped the public examine the real causes of the war in Iraq”. They obviously do not want their prize to be taken seriously.

Estonia is a great example of how rapidly a country can forge ahead once it is liberated from socialism.

City Journal reports that 70 percent of NY convicts are re-arrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within three years of their release -- but that there are ways of cutting that right down if all the deliberately blind do-gooders can be bypassed.

A good story from "The Atlantic" about the great glut of Soviet tractors in Cuba and why Cuban farmers prefer Oxen

After twice being successfully sued for defamation, the editor of Crikey.com.au has “implemented a new early apology strategy“. Should be more of that in the media generally. They get pretty arrogant at times.

A recent book review by Freeman Dyson really puts a spoke in the wheel of the "Greenhouse" scare-mongers. He points out that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is rapidly grabbed by plants who use it for growth and simply convert it into more topsoil in the end. So rather than doing any harm it simply becomes plant food. And Greenhouse theory seems to totally overlook the possibility that plants will gobble up any extra carbon dioxide.

Chris Brand has some skeptical thoughts about psycho-social engineering.

Michael Darby thinks there are Islamic terrorists in West New Guinea -- immediately to Australia's North.

The Wicked one thinks we need MORE global warming, not less.

In my academic posting of May 6th here, I look at a claim that people with old-fashioned views are "hostile" and show that it is not so.

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AN INDIAN VIEW OF INDIANS IN BRITAIN

I have received the following email from an Indian now living abroad but originally from Hyderabad in Southern India:

Though I am not exactly an Anglophile, I definitely do not want Britain to drown in the sea. There is much in British culture and people that is worthy of admiration and preservation -- yes worth fighting and killing for (in the past I used to think that the only worthy contribution of Britain was their TV comedies like Monty Python, Blackadder, Yes Minister etc. but you get older and wiser..). I would advise Britain to restrict Indian immigration as the Indians who move to Britain are mostly Punjabis and Gujaratis. Both communities have notorious reputations for fraudulent behavior in India and in other countries like Kenya, Hong Kong, U.S etc.

Here is an interesting piece of information for you: The Indian state of Gujarat is named after the invading tribe of Khazars (Indians to Gujjar, plural being Gujjarat). The Khazars also gave their name to the Caucasian country of Georgia. My Russian friend informs me that most "Russian gangsters" are actually Georgian and he abuses Georgians in the vilest terms as being "crooks, frauds" etc!

Punjabis are a hodgepodge of every invader that passed through their state as if it were a lily field! Sikh militarism is a very recent phenomenon.....

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AFFIRMATIVE NONSENSE

Some further comments from a reader about "affirmative action":

There was a college prof from Delaware that wrote a gut-splitting funny column on affirmative action. He announced to his class that, for future exams, he would average the points for the white males, then subtract 5 points from their scores. These same 5 points would then be redistributed to enhance the scores of minorities and women. It was the best comment yet on the nonsensical nature of this policy. Yet the "smartest legal minds in the land" (Alias - liberal Supreme Court justices) have spouted absolute nonsense about this.

I have been very skeptical about "diversity". So I contacted Peter Wood (an anthropologist from Boston U, who has studied "diversity" as much as anybody) and I asked the obvious question: Is there ANY scientific evidence that "diversity" improves any measurable index of education - and he gave me the obvious answer - to his knowledge (and he knows as much as anyone about this issue) NO.

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ELSEWHERE

Well how about that! It has taken the European Central Bank to spell out to the Brits that their creaking National Health Service is doomed as the British population ages. The bank points out that "free" (in reality "rationed") health care will at some stage have to be replaced by a system where patients pay some of the costs.

Great news! India and Pakistan are at least talking about scrapping their nuclear arsenals.

There have been a lot of sensational accusations from Australia's Left-leaning media about Dr. Peter Hollingworth, Governor General of Australia and former Archbishop of Brisbane. I know him personally to a small degree and am pleased that he is one of the few Anglican prelates who actually seems to be a believing Christian. The full story that most of the media forget to mention is available here

It looks like Canada's CBC is trying to beat Britain's BBC when it comes to political bias. The blatant dishonesty of their recent broadcast about "Greenhouse" makes a mockery of any idea that they are a "public service" broadcaster. They are a "Left-loving" broadcaster.

Great! South Africa has resumed using DDT to control mosquitoes (scroll down). And guess what? They have virtually eliminated malaria -- thus saving thousands of lives that would otherwise have been lost if they had listened to the Greenies. There has of course never been any good evidence that DDT is harmful.

There is a list here of the major myths about “Greenhouse” and climate change -- plus a scientific demolition of each.

The Australian PM has rightly just rejected any FORMAL “Anglosphere” grouping of Australia, Britain and the USA. When you have the underlying reality already there, there is no need for treaties and the like.

I mentioned the methodologically ludicrous work of Marxist anti-economist Michael Pusey yesterday. A more detailed demolition of his work can be found here (PDF file).

China hand once again tells us of the massive real estate developments -- both residential and commercial -- going on in his part of China. No more village life there! Modern high-rise apartment buildings are common.

On his other site China Hand makes the point that libertarians such as myself should embrace freedom of immigration -- though he acknowledges that the Australian government’s very successful control policy has almost universal support in Australia. He does make a good case, however, for Asian maids being allowed to work in Western countries.

Michael Darby (post of 4th) pays tribute to the remarkable work being done among impoverished Ugandan children by an Australian woman teacher.

The Wicked one has accounts of blockheaded official behaviour from both Taxachusetts and Canada.

Chris Brand has posts on British nationalism and British antisemitism.

In my academic posting of May 5th here, I offer my fellow psychologists a better way of measuring materialistic ambition.

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HAVE THE BRITISH MISSED THE POINT ON IMMIGRATION CONTROL?

The flood of 100,000 "asylum-seekers" arriving in Britain every year is immensely unpopular with British voters for very good reasons and the British government is of course keen to do something about it. But wringing their hands seems to be the main thing that they have done about it so far for fear of the Leftists in their midst who frown on anything that might be considered "inhumane". That the Leftists are just hypocrites who did not at all mind the infinitely more inhumane Saddam Hussein regime seems not to be noticed. The latest British proposal is to try and make the problem go away by sending all "refugee" arrivals to processing centres in Russia. That is of course a copy of the Australian policy of sending such arrivals off to remote Pacific Islands for processing.

What they overlook, however, is that it is not the "Pacific" policy that has worked for Australia at all but rather the fact that Australia sends all such arrivals straight to gaol -- whether in the Pacific or in Australia itself. The gaols concerned are very modern and humane but illegal immigrants are often held there in limbo for long periods before having any prospect of release and this regularly causes dramatic protest riots among the inmates. These riots are of course great fodder for the media and receive worldwide TV coverage. And after a few of these riots were publicized, guess what happened? The refugees just stopperd coming! Australia now has essentially no illegal immgrant problem to deal with! Would-be illegals did not like what they saw of Australia on TV and so have gone elsewhere to impose themselves on more weak-willed governments.

So the British proposal MIGHT work -- as long as there are plenty of riots among the illegals sent for "processing" to Russia.

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THE “PAIN” OF MIDDLE-AUSTRALIA

Craig McGregor has written a rather sycophantic review of Michael Pusey’s latest book The experience of middle Australia. The book’s basic thesis is that economic reform has caused great anguish to middle-class Australians. Both the book and the review have such a strong and evident Leftist bias that I was going to leave it to other conservative bloggers to “fisk” both as I like to put my efforts into making my own points rather than demolishing somebody else’s obvious nonsense. Since I know the author of the book quite well, however, China hand has persuaded me that I should put up a few notes.

The first laugh I had when I read the review was: It's a bold and formidable achievement (with endorsements from Noam Chomsky and others on the cover). That should be enough for most people who are wary of bias.

But anyway: Up to 1983 I had an office next to Michael Pusey at the University of N.S.W. and found him to be a most pleasant, bright and friendly fellow. He was however a keen Marxist at that time so his claim now that he is a "middle-of-the-road social democrat" is at least not the whole truth.

I have not read the book nor do I intend to as I gather that it is based on face-to-face interviews and anybody who knows anything about social research knows how much room for observer bias that data gathering of that sort enables. And that the researcher was biased McGregor clearly tells us. He says that Pusey is “an absolutely committed critic of economic and structural reform and globalisation, using his research results to mount a passionate condemnation of the social impact of these reforms.” Pusey gets a bit much even for for McGregor in the end -- he says that the epilogue to the book “descends into an anti-American rant. "The United States has gone mad," he writes”.

That researchers find what they expect to find is known among psychologists (Pusey is a sociologist) as The Rosenthal effect. It is an amazingly powerful effect and not easily avoided. One reason why psychometricians such as myself rely heavily on multiple choice questionnaires is that it enables the researcher to have NO contact with the people being studied -- thus precluding a major source of bias. In most of my research career, until the numbers came out of the computer I had no idea what I was going to find. Questionnaires have their limitations, too, of course, but that is another story.

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ELSEWHERE

It seems that Iraq's former information minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf was actually quite brave to do what he did.

Fascinating: “THE director of a Paris theatre that staged a play critical of US President George W. Bush, has been beaten and slashed across the face with a box cutter.” Apparently, the assailants associated anti-Bush sentiments with pro-Arab sentiments and LOTS of Frenchmen do not like the large Arab minority foisted on them by their governments.

Good if it happens: “AN effusive and appreciative US President George W.Bush has set a personal deadline for a historic free trade agreement by Christmas, after thanking Australia for its courage and sacrifice in the war in Iraq.”

“With 900,000 citizens living in foreign countries Australia has one of the largest diasporas relative to population of any nation in the world”. That’s nearly 5% of the population. We do get around.

Chris Brand notes that eugenics has worked well in Cyprus.

China hand says that a restaurant offering Western food is being set up near him. I guess even the Chinese can have enough of Chinese food -- good though it is.

The Wicked one is rather pleased that “natural” medicines are often poisonous.

Michael Darby points out that under the Australian constitution, the Governor General is our “Head of State”.

In my academic posting of May 3rd here, I look at the popular claim that racists are maladjusted and point to evidence contradicting that claim.

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BLACK REALITIES

In response to the story of the “whites only” prom that I mentioned yesterday, one of my readers in Texas (a professional man who deals with blacks regularly) writes:

How can anyone ask White students to treat Blacks as equals when everyone knows that Blacks are not held to the same standards for either academics or behavior?

In a related story, in Austin TX (as elsewhere) the behavior of Blacks in high school is noticeably worse - this is just a fact. So, there are more Black students disciplined - along comes the NAACP complaining that there is just too much disciplining of Black students. Solution? Essentially, eliminate all discipline [This was the worst system I have seen - my wife quit after two months when students threatened her, called her names out loud, were physically violent in the classroom, etc.- and the principal simply didn't want to hear complaints].

Predictably, some Black thug with a long history of behavior problems killed a girl with a knife on school property. In rides the NAACP on its white horse to investigate an "unsafe environment" in the schools.

These "paleo-activists" just think they are still in the 1960's. They just can't call a spade a spade - and they just can't figure out why Blacks are still not treated as first class citizens

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IMMIGRATION CAN AND SHOULD BE CONTROLLED

A good article by Anthony Browne arguing that Britain has to call a halt to accepting “Asylum-seekers”. Excerpts:

A hundred years ago, most people in the west rarely moved even to the next village; now whole villages from Bangladesh are relocating to northern England. People once, at most, moved to their neighbouring country, one often culturally and ethnically similar, whereas now they move around the world to radically different cultures whose populations have a completely separate history and character. Immigration is historically rare. The fact that there were virtually no border controls until the 20th century illustrates this: there was no need to control borders because so few people ever wanted to cross them

Pro-immigration campaigners who tell the people of Europe that “mass immigration cannot be stopped, so it must be welcomed” are adopting the policies of despots through history of quelling opposition by telling opponents that resistance is futile. The evidence is otherwise. All that is needed is political will.

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ELSEWHERE

Cheeesh!! Why is Colin Powell being so soft on the Syrians -- asking them nicely if they will please some day get around to closing down the offices of undisputed terrorist organizations that operate in Damascus?

Hooray! Libertarian though I am, I cannot help hoping that this bit of government activity works: “WEEKS after the Australian government flagged new anti-spam laws, US regulators have vowed to take swift action against bulk unsolicited email.”

Good to hear that the visit to the GWB ranch by Australia’s John Howard went unusually well

Good! The US plans to deploy an international “stabilization force” in postwar Iraq -- excluding France and Germany

Hmmm... I always thought that the Village Voice was a Leftist rag but I cannot find much to disagree with in Nat Hentoff's columns there. Jolly good stuff in fact.

One of the greatest obsessions of both Leftists and Greens these days is the "precautionary principle" -- the idea that scientists and society in general should do nothing new or different if there is any chance that some bad effects could come out of it. Fortunately, the world has not always been so lily-livered. "Spiked" lists some of the things we would not have today had the precautionary principle prevailed in the past: vaccines, penicillin, antibiotics, aspirin, X-rays, heart surgery, the contraceptive pill, aeroplanes, railways, cars, bicycles, electricity, pesticides etc.

Peter Hitchens writes: "In the the end, the Communists won the Cold War, not with tanks but with ideas. People who hate Britain and love socialism now run the Government, the schools, the Civil Service and most of our broadcasting.”

Michael Darby has a rather hilarious blurb about 9/11 from the LaRouche outfit.

Chris Brand notes some signs of sanity emerging from the People’s Republic of Scotland.

The Wicked one has some amusing stories about kids.

China hand says there is still no sign of SARS in his part of China.

In my academic posting of May 3rd here I note that, despite their Leftist inclinations, psychologists have in fact found some good evidence in favour of capitalist thinking.

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HOW TO HAVE ALLIES

The refusal of GWB to declare victory in Iraq may seem puzzling to many but it is an example of considering other people's feelings. If it is going to upset a lot of Iraqis and other Arabs to declare victory, why not be content with the reality without rubbing it in? A great charge that has been always levelled at the British is "hypocrisy" but again that usually meant simply that the British took care not to upset people's feelings insofar as as they could. In many parts of the world even people's lives are not spared. The Anglo-Saxons, by contrast, even spare people's feelings. It is one secret of their success. You usually need allies in a war and because of their civilized behaviour the Anglo-Saxons usually have allies. They had dozens of allies in the Iraq war -- even Arab ones. And how would they have fought the war without Arab bases? Only with much greater difficulty.

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THE NAVY RULES

Bearing in mind that Clinton slashed the size of the U.S. Navy, this is an interesting email from a reader:

Bush's publicity stunt on the USS Abe Lincoln yeaterday was unequaled in my lifetime. Watching him get out of the jet was just like watching John Wayne capture a town or win a battle. It was priceless. The Democrats just don't have a chance in hell to equal this. A friend with militery connections said the last time a US President visited the same ship, the Admiral had to force sailors to greet President Clinton; without a direct order, few or none would have showed up.

Hats off to the US administration by sending a strong message to everyone by pulling our military out of Saudi Arabia and Turkey - that irrelevance is not just an option - it is reality.

The New York Times, of course, did its best to pour cold water on the occasion.

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SCIENCE RACES AHEAD

"The production of eggs in the laboratory for the first time has raised the possibility that two men could become the parents of their own genetic child. Scientists said yesterday that they had grown an unlimited supply of eggs from embryonic stem cells taken from both male and female embryos. The feat was achieved with mice, but most experts believe it is likely to work with humans. If it does, and the mass-produced eggs can be fertilised, it would also mean that infertile women might not have to rely on donor eggs." What an astounding story!

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ELSEWHERE

What fun! Garlic seems to ward off prostate cancer! But what if your breath puts the lady off?

Great! Australian “Anti-Discrimination” Supremo Christopher Puplick has resigned over special help he was found to have given to his little (male) friend "Bunny". Puplick was noted for his view that Muslims can do no wrong.

There are some twits in the world. Note this comment:
"THE quick coalition victory in Iraq was, in some ways, unfortunate, former intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie has claimed. "It has legitimised the war in some people's minds and it will embolden (US President) Bush and (Prime Minister) Howard to be more reckless." ... "I don't believe we should have ignored Iraq or walked away from Saddam Hussein. "But a war had to be the option of last resort." He does not however say what the other options might have been or mention that Saddam had in fact been given 11 years to co-operate before war was resorted to.

I note that there has been a lot of media attention to the decision of some Southern U.S. High School students to hold a private party for whites only. I am rather amazed that anyone questions the right of people to invite whom they choose to their private parties. I am also glad (and a bit surprised) that it is not illegal -- yet.

I am amused that it has now become possible to defame a Presidential candidate by saying that he looks "French"! Traditional English derison of the "Frogs" has now taken root in the USA. Now why would that be?

A very successful Australian -- Rupert Murdoch -- says of Australian education: ""I think the education establishment with its insistence on tenure at a tertiary level, and its power at primary and secondary level - setting bullshit syllabuses - is really doing the country an immense disservice," he says." Good to see someone with his inflence saying so.

The Daily Telegraph UK has an article on the Katyn Forest massacre -- a Soviet deed long blamed by Leftists on the Nazis.

Peter Hitchens thinks British membership of the EU may have been a good idea back in the socialist '60s but the international trend to free trade means it's now obsolete, and exposes the Brits to an ever-sprouting Brussels bureaucracy..

In my academic posting of May 2nd here I try to introduce some rigour into the way psychologists and sociologists study alienation -- a concept that goes back to Marx, among others.

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SORRY! LEFT/RIGHT IS ALL THERE IS

In my academic postings of April 30th and May 1st. here are two published articles that have never been available online previously. I have scanned them in because they deal with one of the prime beliefs of libertarians -- that the division of politics into Left and Right is inadequate and that there is a second dimension of political orientation which is generally called Authoritarian/Libertarian. So you can be a conservative authoritarian or a Leftist authoritarian or just a lover of authority in general ... etc.

As a libertarian myself, I think that policies can be analysed in that way but, as a psychologist, I was also interested in whether people in general organize their beliefs in such a two-dimensional way. That they do is a claim of long standing in the psychological literature -- going back at least to 1954. There is however, much fault to be found with the evidence on the question and I review that in the two articles concerned. I then go on to do two further survey research studies of my own which were designed to maximize the chances of such a two dimensional organization of people's attitudes appearing. Unfortunately it did not work out that way. The fact of the matter is that it is only the good old Left/Right dimension that influences the clustering of people's attitudes in the general population. I have more to say on the question here. As the articles were originally published in a major academic journal, they can be a little bit technical but if you realize that "Orthogonal" is statistician-speak for "unrelated" or "at right-angles to" that should help a lot.

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THE DOUBLE TAX INJUSTICE

Greenspan says the tax cut is not needed for growth. How about the tax cut being needed for justice and equity? At present US company profits are taxed when the company reports them and then taxed again when the shareholder gets them as dividends. Why should people who rely on income from investments (mostly retired folks) be singled out for double tax? In Australia a LEFTIST government abolished tax on dividends years ago.

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SOME FUNNIES

Taranto's latest WSJ column is a good one. I liked this:

"China has prepared a reading list for people staying at home after karaoke parlors and cinemas were shut to stem the spread of SARS," Reuters reports:

Volumes such as the "16th Party Congress Report," former President Jiang Zemin's "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and "A History of the Chinese Communist Party" headed the list of nearly 100 titles, compiled by China's publishing regulator”.

And he heads a comment on Mexico's Cinco de Mayo (5th of May) celebrations with: "I Cinco, Therefore I Ammo". Descartes would turn in his grave.

I was a bit saddened though by the fact that he had good cause to start off another report with: "Just for the heck of it, let's make fun of the Germans". Germany has indeed sunk low these days. For the people who gave the world Bach, Beethoven and Mozart to be so mocked does show that they have lost their way.

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ELSEWHERE

Tony Blair says that the image of GWB as an intellectual lightweight is “complete bull” and “total nonsense”. Since no-one criticizes Blair’s powers, he is in a pretty strong position to know. His account of GWB is worth reading, in fact.

“Israel urged Britain on Thursday to crackdown on anti-Israeli incitement among British Muslims after Israeli police blamed a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on two Britons”. And it would be about time too.

Fidel Castro, addressing a May Day rally of hundreds of thousands of people, accused the United States on Thursday of trying to provoke a war with Cuba. What garbage. The US could take out Castro any time it likes. They just prefer to wait for him to die.

An interesting argument here that it is individual liberty rather than democracy that should come first. Very relevant to Iraq where democracy might install a government of religious fanatics.

“The Bush administration has drafted sweeping plans to remake Iraq's economy in the American image. Hoping to establish a free-market economy in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the US is calling for the privatisation of state-owned industries such as parts of the oil sector, forming a stockmarket complete with electronic trading and fundamental tax reform.” One can only hope that it works.

Condoleezza Rice gives the French and the Russians a good blast here

The United States yesterday closed its last major military mission in Turkey. It is the Turks who have made themselves irrelevant, of course. 95% of Turks opposed toppling Saddam.

Here is an odd one: AIDS patients do not catch SARS. Not much comfort, though.

A true and very moving story in the WSJ under the title "A marine comes home". It reminds us that Hollywood is not America. Thank goodness!

The Wicked one reports that not all craziness is in politics.

Chris Brand has a review of Freudianism and psychoanalysis in which he gives a good short history of it. He is surprisingly sympathetic to it considering that most other academic psychologists regard it as mere quackery.

Michael Darby has a speech from one politician who does seem to want to do something about crime.

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THE “NOBLE SAVAGE”

A reader writes:

I came across this PDF which has a great discussion of the history of the 'noble savage' concept over the centuries and how it has been adopted by Greens. He points out that there is a body of recent scientific work that undermines the idea of indigenous people as conservationists, and that attempts force indigenous people into playing that role either backfire on the conservationists or harm the economic progress of the indigenous people. The historical discussion of the noble savage is the best part of the paper.

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CHINA AGAIN

The address for my “China” blog is rather long and ponderous so might give problems for readers in China who obviously cannot use the hyperlink here (See to the Left of this page). So for their convenience I have set up a shortcut address for it: jonjayray.tk Just typing that into the address field of your browser should get you to my “China” blog. If that does not work, http://jonjayray.tk will.

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MORE “GREEN” FOLLIES

This book review tells some of the story of the Amazon misadventures of pop star STING and "THE BODY SHOP"

A couple of older links looking at what the 1990s Green-Left love affair with the rainforests actually accomplished: Ben & Jerry's "rain forest friendly" business goes sour and a Brazilian perspective on the western left's rain forest follies

A look at the corporate money behind the US green activist outfit “Rainforest Action Network” (RAN). It is interesting to note the predominance of money from clothing and oil interests. Although this probably represents philanthropy from multi-millionaire heirs with a guilt complex, cynics may note that firms like Esprit and Levi often compete with cheap Third World imports and harming agricultural development in these countries may help their bottom line!

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LADY THATCHER SPEAKS

FORMER British leader Margaret Thatcher has praised Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for his leadership during the war with Iraq. "The prime minister (Blair) has proved a bold and effective war leader," Thatcher, 77, said on a video played to 2000 business leaders at the annual Institute of Directors convention at London's Royal Albert Hall.

"I do not think many people imagined when the Conservatives formed a government in 1979 that we would so effectively transform the economy, but I am quite sure that nobody thought we would so thoroughly transform our opponents," Thatcher said during the 10-minute interview.

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ELSEWHERE

Carnival of the Vanities is up again. And a jolly good job Dave has made of it.

Arts & Letters rate this old Wired interview with Julian Simon as one of their "classics"

There is now a campaign to revoke the Pulitzer Prize from "Stalin apologist" Walter Duranty

The BBC stands accused of repeating the KGB line ..again

Blogging as a business tool (?)

Crikey is a site that provides independent analysis of Australian political and business news. It is now rating two US libertarian think tanks' web sites (the Independent Institute and Cato foundation) as their recommendations as the best 'think tanks'.

Chris Brand notes that some U.S. black activists are getting the message that educational rigour is the way for their kids to get ahead.

The Wicked one has a list of some amazing political coincidences.

Michael Darby tackles briefly the issue of whether a committment to individual liberty entails support for “open-door” immigration.

In my academic posting of April 29th. here I look at the use of “forced choice” questionnaires and point out their folly.

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