THE ORIGINS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM

Many people see environmentalism as a recent phenomenon. It is not. Read the typically Greenie quote following and guess the one word that I have deleted from it:

"We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole . . . This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of Socialist thought."

How many people would have picked that I missed out the word “National” before “Socialist”? Yes. It was a leading Nazi who wrote that. Environmentalism was a part of Nazism just as it is a part of modern-day Leftism. Like the Greenies of today, the Nazis wanted to take us all back to some imaginary and romanticised rural past. And of course the Communist Pol Pot in Cambodia actually tried it! -- with the appalling results we all know. For more on ecofascism see here. Hitler and Pol Pot reveal how dangerous the Greens could be if ever they got real power. History can be most inconvenient! Though you don’t need history to tell you that Greenies are people-haters.

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ELSEWHERE

Australia’s Andrew Bolt gives an excellent summary of why so many of the world’s “intellectuals” hate the USA with a passion that transcends all reason: “Intellectuals resent a superpower that ignores them and their ideas. And the capitalist US has insulted them even more by making poor people richer and freer than the Marxism of the intellectuals ever could or will.” I guess it must be awful for them to see that conservative pragmatism beats their simplistic theories hands-down, time and time again.

Jeff Jacoby has a good article on whether or not men are “naturally” more promiscuous than women. As he points out, there is nothing in evolutionary theory that clearly leads to that conclusion. And once again the “evidence” psychologists have produced for the natural-promiscuity theory was obtained by asking college students their views! If it is like most such evidence it is highly misleading as an account of what actually happens out there in the real world. The various DNA studies showing that up to a third of the children of a marriage are not in fact the children of the alleged father suggests to me that women are highly promiscuous too -- though they may well be slower to acknowledge it -- even to themselves. I trust the DNA evidence a lot more than I trust what college students say.

An Australian reader noted my brief comments on the recent definition of neoconservatism by Irving Kristol and wrote to suggest that the dominant faction of Australia’s major Leftist party are neoconservatives too! I have posted the email here.

Further to my recent note about the “Communist Manifesto”, Gerry Jackson of Brookes News writes: “The piece on Marx and socialism was interesting. However, the author is apparently unaware of the fact that the Marx's labour theory of value came from David Ricardo who in turn got it from Adam Smith. Until the Wealth of Nations appeared on the scene it was generally accepted among philosophers that utility and not labour was the sole source of value. The Abbe Ferdinando Galiani (1728-1787), for instance, eloquently explained why there can be no value without utility. He then went on to explain how scarcity and utility combine to produce prices. I'm afraid Smith sent economics into a blind alley”

According to the NYT: “The Bush administration, while preparing for talks soon with North Korea, is also stepping up military pressure with plans for a joint naval exercise” And where will the exercise be held? Off Eastern Australia about half the globe away from Korea! That’s “pressure”??

Good news that the Tasmanian tiger may not be extinct after all.

No wonder Israel is getting huge pressure over its security fence. It is the only thing that actually has much chance of protecting Israelis.

An inspiring story about how well the Indians have done who were expelled from Uganda to Britain by the butcher Idi Amin. Non-Muslims from the Indian subcontinent who live in England shame the English by their work habits.

China Hand has drawn our attention to the announcement that China is deregulating its media to make it more market-oriented. Lots of former government outlets are even expected to go broke. It’s not exactly a free press but it’s a start.

Patriotism and nationalism generally have a bad name among Leftists -- though Leftists always have to compromise with it and do sometimes make good use of it -- as Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung did. Given the horrors that have been inflicted on the world by nationalism in conjunction with Leftism, one might be inclined to suspect that nationalism is indeed a bad thing. Such a conclusion would be however to blame the accomplice rather than the perpetrator -- as the 1977 survey that I have just uploaded (here or here) shows: I studied supporters of the Scottish National Party -- who basically want independence from England for Scotland. I found that they were centrists in practically every respect -- a far cry from any form of political extremism. And, as we now all know, they have attained a large part of their aims -- their own Scottish parliament -- through purely democratic means and with no violence at all. It is only in conjunction with Leftism that nationalism is pernicious.

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THE BERKELEY VALUE JUDGMENTS

There is an interesting post at Power Line (Via King of Fools) about the Berkeley study of conservatism that does what the Leftists themselves long ago did -- take a phenomenon and simply reverse the value judgements. Like many other conservative commentators, the blogger concerned sees some truth in the Berkeley study’s characterization of the Left/Right divide but just cannot see that it shows conservatives in a bad light.

He may not be aware that the Leftist “authoritarianism” theory underlying the Berkeley claims was itself originally borrowed from Nazi psychology (I kid you not) by the Marxist Adorno and his group (another example of Nazis and Communists being simply rival Leftist sects). Adorno agreed with the Nazi psychologist Jaensch about how people differed but what Jaensch said was a good thing, Adorno said was a bad thing. So reversing the value judgements is a very old trick in this field. Both camps are wrong however. They are mistaken in ascribing Left/Right orientation to childhood experience. The geneticists (Martin and others) have long ago shown that Left/Right orientation is MOSTLY hereditary. Leftists are born arrogant know-alls. Reality sometimes gets to them however and they turn conservative in later life (see e.g. here). See also here on the biological origins of human values generally.

REFERENCES

Adorno,T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J. & Sanford, R.N.
(1950) The authoritarian personality. New York: Harper.
Martin, N. & Jardine, R. (1986) Eysenck's contribution to behaviour genetics. In: S & C. Modgil (Eds.) Hans Eysenck: Consensus and controversy. Lewes, E. Sussex: Falmer
Eaves, L.J., Martin, N.G., Meyer, J.M. & Corey, L.A. (1999) Biological and cultural inheritance of stature and attitudes. In: Cloninger, C.R., Personality and psychopathology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Jaensch, E.R. (1938) Der Gegentypus. Leipzig: Barth.

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ELSEWHERE

Because it has already been so heavily covered elsewhere, I was not going to mention the N.E. American blackout but one of my readers has come up with an interesting observation. In this record of recent solar activity he notes that the graphs for 14 August, especially the one for proton volume, show a very interesting AC spike. He suggests that this spike could have caused a power surge in an extensive grid already carrying high levels of energy and thus burnt something out. It seems feasible in my very non-expert view. The other causes so far put forward seem pretty vague. A solar flare burned out a large part of Canada's electricity grid in 1989.

Irving Kristol has just defined what he sees neoconservatism as consisting of today. He should know. My definition of a couple of days ago -- “Neocons are reformed Leftists who still have an interventionist streak in them” -- stands up pretty well in the light of what he says. They are too interventionist for my libertarian tastes.

An interesting article here on what the Communist Manifesto actually says.

A good comment by Piers Akerman here on the Leftist rubbish that Australians get from their public broadcaster.

Writing in Australia’s mass-circulation Sunday Telegraph, well known economics commentator Terry McCrann yesterday gave global warming a big raspberry. He summarized a recent article by Alan Oxley, who specializes in these matters. An earlier Oxley article is online here but neither McCrann’s summary nor the the latest Oxley article seem to be online anywhere so I have put McCrann’s summary up here.

A reader writes: “Dissecting Leftism readers should go out and have a look at Mars over the next couple of weeks. It is now closer to the Earth than at anytime in the last 58,000 years. Last time it was this close there were probably no humans in either Australia or the Americas”.

A new Australian blog has just started up with some charming quotes from a group of Australian “musicians” apparently favoured by our Leftist public broadcaster. He also points out how our wonderful close-to-nature native people were responsible for enormous extinctions of animal species in Australia.

The Wicked one celebrates the death of Idi Amin and concludes: “On all the evidence so far there is no hope for anything like a civil society in Africa”.

Writing on his other blog, China Hand is mystified to note that superannuation funds run by the labor unions in Australia have done better than commercially-run retirement funds. I myself am no fan of the big funds. Allowing a pimply 20 year old to make your investment decisions for you is hilarious in my view and I put my money where my mouth is by getting far better growth than the big funds do by managing my share portfolio myself. Nonetheless, the main reason why the union-run funds do better is clear. They are less obsessed with safety and so can afford to make some higher-yielding investments. And why are they so unworried? Because they know that with their “industrial muscle” and big membership of voters they will always be able to get the taxpayer to bail them out if they go bad! Nice one!

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MORE ON THINK-TANKS

A reader writes:

“These outfits were established as a reaction to leftist domination of public sector academia. Conservative and market oriented thinkers found the leftist monopoly of state subsidied tertiary education corrupt, narrow and intellectually oppressive. Behind the facade of a progressive, social reformist academia and intelligentsia is the reality of careerism, vested interest and power politics played at public expense.

The social science arms of our universities these days are in many ways not much more than the marketing department of big government. I think it is appropriate to examine closely whether recommendations from private think tanks represent the special interests of their largest corporate donors. However the same skeptical eye also needs to be cast at the output of government financed universities and agencies. Just because someone works in the public sector, there is no reason to assume that they magically become an economic eunuch.

The left is always warning us about the cynical vested interests of the military industrial complex allegedly maniupulating public policy for their sectional gain. But is this risk mysteriously confined to those in uniform? what about the academic-big government complex? Few government-paid academics are prepared to bite the hand that feeds them. In fact this common sense observation underlies much of the work of the think tanks and is still resisted in State academia.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

The brutal tragedy of Beijing's one-child policy. The number of self-professed Western liberals who support and publicly rationalise Beijing's brutal population control polices depresses rather than amazes me.
Compulsory Statism. It is really not that surprising that the likes of the Greens, the Australian Democrats and Labor support compulsory voting. What excuse a so-called conservative party like the Liberals have for also supporting it beats me.
How Clinton's Beijing deal endangered America. Seeing as so many democrats and their allies in the media have been screaming about intelligence failures and the President Bush's foreign policy, I think it's time to once again turn to the Clinton administration and its dangerous dealings with Beijing.

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

HEATWAVE: IS GLOBAL WARMING TO BLAME? A professor of biogeography pours cold water on myths about the hot Northern summer. I must say that the very word “heatwave” amuses me. What the English call a heatwave is a normal summer where I come from.

Libya has formally accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland. When Ronald Reagan had him bombed that really caused Gaddafi to pull up short but now that he has seen what has happened to other terrorist-supporting regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq he is backpedalling furiously. Does anybody believe that U.N. resolutions would have made him do that?

Greenie opposition to budget airlines is elitist: “All this cheap-and-easy flying is supposed to be Another Bad Thing. As the budget airlines' profits soar, the cries of NIMBY campaigners grow ever more shrill. Cheap flights are blamed for global warming, noise pollution, the need for more airports and their ability to give working-class oiks the ability to use Europe as their playground on a regular basis”.

What a slipup for the NYT. They described a female company head thus: “She is simultaneously warm and controlled, a gracefully aggressive entrepreneur who favors scarves and pearls.” The feminists will castrate them for that -- if they can find anything to castrate.

I must say I agree with the $20,000 fine some trigger-happy moron got for killing a condor -- though I would have sent the big hero to jail as well.

“The essence of Mr. Bush's big government conservatism is a trade-off. To gain free-market reforms and expand individual choice, he's willing to broaden programs and increase spending.” I think that’s wishful thinking. Bush has a slight conservative lean -- no more. A U.S. President has to be a centrist to win and retain office and even Ronald Reagan failed to cut back overall government spending. But GWB’s conservative leanings do make him a lot more realistic than Left-leaning centrists like Clinton.

V.D. Hanson is at his inimitable best here. He calls for some long overdue realism about America’s so-called “allies”

Real men don’t do quilting and feminist refusal to recognize that is cruel to boys in the educational system.

China Hand has given us a little of the story of his earlier years in China. When I met him around 1970 he was a conservative but he later went to university and veered to the far Left. Various people then told him that if he thought Mao was so great he should go to China. Leftists were of course regularly told to “go to Russia” in the old days but China Hand is the only one I know of who really did put his money where his mouth was.

The Wicked one thinks that the death penalty kills too many innocent people,

My latest academic upload here (or here) addresses an old chestnut (Can you address a chestnut?): How different are the Scots and the English?

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..

ARNIE

Anti-Schwarzenegger liberals are playing politics with the holocaust but another blogger has used some of my points about the Leftist nature of Nazism to answer the Leftist attacks on Arnold’s father. That should confuse ‘em -- if they listen.

Matt Welch at Reason has an interesting summary of the immigration policy splits in the California election. Interestingly Big Arnie formerly was an advocate of Prop 187. This was voted in by the California voters and then blocked by legal appeals. Prop 187 was a 1994 popularly initiated referendum that barred illegal immigrants from access to state provided public services and welfare. See here. The willingness of the Left to oppose and block a popularly supported amendment shows how much they love democracy.

The Christian Right may be peeved that Arnie is no morals crusader but I suspect that his attitudes in that regard are what is needed to win in California.

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WMDs AND “LIES”

Robert Kagan points out that the threats GWB identified which the Left describe as “lying” were all noted by Chirac, Gore and Clinton at different times too. How odd that they escape criticism for it! Clinton, for instance insisted before 9/11 that the world had to address the "kind of threat Iraq poses . . . a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists . . . who travel the world among us unnoticed." The liar!

Francis Fukuyama asks whether the 'missing' WMDs represent U.S. government lies or proper U.S. government caution.

Robert Novak says WMD evidence will be released soon

Thomas Sowell says "so what" if WMDs are never found. Intelligence has always been an art, not a science

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HOW THE LEFTISTS DUCK AND WEAVE!

John Moore has snared another Leftist who does not let the facts get in the way of his argument. He agrees with the findings of the Berkeley study of conservatism because:

“Adorno proved all this in the late 1940's with ex-Nazi party members. And don't give me that bull that Fascism is really different from Conservatism. Name a single significant German conservative party or individual which did not enthusiastically endorse Hitler.”

The facts are that Adorno did NOT study ex-Nazis. He mostly studied normal Californians undergoing college education. Former German Nazi leaders WERE studied by others and they were NOT of the “new anthropological type” described by Adorno. They were all different types. And German monarchists were among the victims in the Nazis’ “Night of the Long Knives” but both the orthodox socialists (SPD -- Gerhardt Schroeder's party) and the Communists voted WITH the Nazis in the Reichstag on various important occasions. I could go on ....

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ELSEWHERE

Just when you thought it was safe to drink the water, fluoride conspiracy theories are back, from the left!

Daniel Pipes reports on Newsweek vs the Koran!

An interesting comment on Prime Minister John Howard's foreign policy: Sophisticated alliance management in Australia's interests. Hardly the the "all the way with LBJ" position the Left accuses him of.

It looks like there is good economic news breaking out all over the world at the moment. Should be good for reducing unemployment and supporting the bull run on shares. All the retired people -- including me -- who own company shares will be particularly looking forward to the latter.

It looks like Saudi Arabia is finally doing its bit in the war on terror.

The latest Tourbus newsletter says that the State motto of California is: “The land of fruits and nuts”. Naughty!

A new blogger has got some amusing “definitions” of liberalism.

Chris Brand has not posted much lately so I have put it all up here. He says that whiter blacks are brighter and that testosterone is good for creativity.

My latest academic upload here (or here) looks at the Leftist claim that conservatives are particularly dogmatic. My survey showed -- surprise, surprise -- that Leftist and Rightist voters in the community at large were equally likely to be dogmatic.

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RACIFORNIA

“As if the unprecedented effort to recall California Governor Gray Davis isn't enough excitement for one special election, the campaign promises some racial fireworks as well. Sharing ballot space on October 7 with Mr. Davis's would-be successors will be Proposition 54, also known as the Racial Privacy Initiative. The measure prohibits state and local government entities from collecting and using racial data. ...The main proponent of Prop. 54 is Ward Connerly.... Mr. Connerly has said the goal of his current initiative is to get the state government 'out of the racial classification business' and move us one step closer to a colorblind government. The backers of Prop. 54, he says, 'seek a California that is free from government racism and race-conscious decision making.' That sounds like a core American aspiration, or at least it was until racial preferences became a political industry. ... Down the path of the Supreme Court's recent Michigan decision lies a nation divided by race, not united in common principle. Prop. 54's success would be a fitting rebuke to the Supreme Court (all the more potent because it would come from the nation's largest and most racially diverse state) and a public reaffirmation of the Constitution's colorblind commitment to equal protection under the law."

From the Wall St. Journal via The Federalist

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MEXIFORNIA

Being blind to race, colour and creed is good public policy but being blind to illegality certainly is not. A reader writes concerning the way California is being overwhelmed by illegal immigration:

“Brenda Walker, in a review of Victor Davis Hanson's MEXIFORNIA takes the author to task for not wearing his more well known hat as a military historian. Will California truly become Mexifornia by a successful non-military invasion? Will Americans continue to flee the increasingly alien state for somewhere that is still recognizable as their country? California's U.S.-born population actually declined by 1.5 million people in last decade while the overall population increased by over four million.This crisis calls out for an analysis from a military expert-which Hanson strangely fails to provide. The critical reviewer (Brenda Walker) has elsewhere highlighted that multiculturalism is a women's issue, but not in the sense that most left wing feminists would be prepared to recognise.”

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JUST FOR FUN

I recently received a rather combative email from a Leftist lady named Julie. I was completely objective in my initial reply but when she persisted with her combative approach I gave her a bit of her own medicine. I reproduce the exchange below. Her initial comment was about my post of July 27th. in which I described a Leftist attack on me as “pathetic”.

Julie: A little defensive, are we?? I was never one to be convinced by name-calling!
JR: Attacks have to be defended and I think I showed why I saw the comments as pathetic.
Julie: Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but I think I would be much more convinced of your argument without the defensive, combative rhetoric. Oh well, what can be expected from a conservative! Thanks though, amusing as always.
JR: Amusing that you cannot address the content of my argument -- only the style. But what can one expect of a Leftist?
Julie: Exactly what you can expect from a Leftist, you are correct! I'm not interested in engaging in simplistic, black and white arguments with you, particularly ones that consist of name-calling. I'm flattered that you are interested in my opinion, but choose to decline your invitation for combative mud-slinging. Reply not necessary
JR: A little defensive, are we?? I was never one to be convinced by name-calling!
Julie: LOL! You're pretty funny for a conservative! Like a little parrot, how sweet. You wanna cracker? Hahahahahaha!
JR: What a simplistic black and white response!
Julie: I'm done with you.
JR: Hoist with her own petard!

Note that she accuses ME of being combative! Typical Leftist projection -- seeing their own faults in others.

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ELSEWHERE

The teacher’s unions all hate it but there have been many studies over the years showing that smaller class sizes do not improve education. The latest is here

Useful Fools thinks that Baghdad blogger Salam Pax is a whiner and a baby.

A good comment here on the Leftist perversion of history that is now taught in many schools.

Interesting to see that anti-racketeering laws are now being used by private individuals to help stop illegal immigration into the U.S.

The Wicked one is very critical of U.S. farm policy.

My latest academic upload here (or here) looks at the causes of racism and the constant Leftist finger-pointing at conservatives as being the ones to blame -- which is pretty rich considering that the greatest racist of all time was a socialist. What I found in two general population surveys in England and Scotland was, of course, that racial dislikes were equally common among Leftist and Rightist voters. Everybody is most comfortable with their own group.

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CONSERVATIVE “THINK TANKS”

There is a very confused article here by a Leftist about Australia’s small number of conservative “think tanks”. It thoroughly mixes up conservatives, neoconservatives and libertarians. I think Greg Lindsay of the CIS would be amazed to hear that he is a neocon. Neocons are reformed Leftists who still have an interventionist streak in them whereas Greg has always been primarily a libertarian. I should know. I was one of the donors who helped Greg set up the CIS in the first place. And I was not a “rich businessman” at the time. I was a junior university teacher.

The article does its best to make the organizations concerned sound sinister -- all political lamebrains love “conspiracy” theories -- but there is only one secret to their influence -- they present the facts in a thoroughly scholarly way. And when you do that to a reasonable person, the facts speak for themselves. Log on here and judge for yourself.

There is a reasonably factual account of what neoconservatives are from a Leftist source here -- Though his idea that the Christian Right are antisemitic is bizarre. U.S. Christians would be second only to Jews as supporters of Israel.

A more up-to-date version of what neoconservatism consists of is given by someone who is himself known as a neoconserative here. By either definition it is doubtful that we have any neoconservatives to speak of in Australia. We just have conservatives and Leftists -- though both our major political parties are very centrist. Both parties have however been responsible for a fair bit of deregulation and privatization so the centre of politics these days is far to the Right of what it once was.

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ELSEWHERE

Michael Tremoglie writes: “Governor Howard Dean of Vermont routinely accuses President Bush of lying. However, if anyone seems to have a problem with candor, it is Governor Dean of Vermont.....” More here.

Schwarzenegger and Buffett together -- truth IS stranger than fiction. He could well be a winner with brains like that on his side.

“Critics of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” have suggested that it represents a radical departure in U.S. foreign policy: that our nearly unilateral and pre-emptive ("first strike") use of military force to topple sovereign nation's government... was revolutionary. But was it? This policy has been reinforced in presidential National Security Statements for decades. [e.g.] “We act in alliance or partnership when others share our interest, but unilaterally when compelling national interests so demand." -- William Jefferson Clinton. 2000 National Security Statement.” More here.

A Belgian court has just done something useful! They jailed an Albanian gangster for 8 years -- but only after he had smuggled 12,000 illegal immigrants into Britain!

The roots of the housing shortage: "Besides laws designed to halt 'overdevelopment,' the government reduces the supply of housing and drives up its cost in a number of other ways. Wetlands regulations often require extensive environmental studies before building is allowed to begin, and they completely prevent building on many otherwise viable sites. Licensing requirements restrict the supply of contractors, raising the cost of hiring them."

The new Puritans: "Jacobson's list of soda hazards nicely illustrates the hyperbolic approach to health advice favored by [The Center for Science in the Public Interest], which the microbiologist turned food activist co- founded in 1971 after working for Ralph Nader. Today the D.C.-based CSPI is one of the country's most influential nanny groups, with an annual budget of $15 million and some 800,000 newsletter subscribers. It has the ability to grab headlines, kill sales of products it doesn't like, and shape regulatory policy. The group is also emblematic of a troubling cultural trend whose motto might be, 'If it feels good, don't do it.'"

"In the interest of battling automobile-created air pollution, environmentalists call for more public transportation -- more buses and commuter trains and the higher taxes needed to fund them -- to get people out of their cars. Granting, for the sake of discussion, that air quality is as poor as environmentalists say it is, is public transportation really the answer?"

Protectionism may temporarily prop up inefficient industries and businesses but ultimately market forces will prevail, with the protected industry generally ending up worse off than before -- as the U.S. copper-mining industry found out to its cost.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again -- bigger than ever this time.

The Wicked one thinks that marriage should be deregulated.

My latest academic upload here (or here) should have horrified and amazed most political psychologists when it was first published. In typically Leftist fashion, however, they simply ignored something that did not suit their preconceptions. The favourite stick to beat conservatives with among psychologists is the claim that conservatives are “authoritarian” as measured by the California 'F' scale. What I show in this article is that, among the general population, highly idealistic Leftists are just as likely as conservatives to get high scores on the ‘F’ scale! Psychologists, of course, do not normally examine what happens out there in the general population. They confine their “research” to what their own students dutifully say! What a laugh!

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THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF JOURNALISM

A California reader writes of a local newspaper called Change Links which appears to be affiliated with the local University school of journalism: "One article really caught my eye. It said Iraqi Concentration Camps. It basically says that the U.S. was making Iraqi concentration camps, which is obviously false. Also, in July's issue of that newspaper, there were two articles on the back, the bottom one defending the regime of Hugo Chavez, even though Chavez is purporsely changing the Constitution of Venezeula, so he can stay in power even longer, and a defence of Fidel Castro's Cuba on the top.

In the current issue, there was an article by Howard Zinn: Saying that it was bad for America to invade Iraq and that Communist regimes are great (why doesn't he live in one of those himself?). This is a Leftist newspaper, disguised as a "Progressive" newspaper, which I find comes nowhere near to what a progressive is. The way I see it, it's nothing but a Pro-Communist group."

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MORE GRIEF FOR THE GREENIES -- IF THEY LISTEN

There is some really elegant physical science summarized here by astrophysicist Nir Shaviv which shows that most of our global temperature change over the centuries, millennia and millions of years is caused by cosmic ray fluctuations from the big wide universe outside our solar system.

Some other links on the research concerned are here and here and here and here

So IF -- and it is a big "If" -- there has been any overall climate change this century the probablity is that the cause is totally beyond our control.

Co-author of the original study referred to in the summary was geologist
Jan Veizer. Veizer has previously run into some political flak from the Greenhouse lobby and media which is discussed here: "I never said CO2 was not a greenhouse gas," he says. "But there is this one political dogma: CO2 equals global warming equals climate change equals disaster. Now, the further you go along this equation, the iffier it is scientifically. But the moment you step away from the dogma you are excommunicated. You are undermining the environmental agenda." In fact, Veizer has no problem with the environmental agenda, which stems from a desire to reduce the amount of pollution produced by our industrial civilization. However, he points out that many people confuse this goal with reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to prevent global warming. He makes no apologies for challenging the science behind that agenda.

And as another scientist summarizes it:

"The White House must educate the public and its own federal bureaucracy about certain climate facts, as endorsed by top scientists:
* The best available data, from weather satellites and weather balloons, do not detect any appreciable atmospheric warming. Nor did the 20th century show unusually high temperatures.
* Theoretical computer models that predict climate catastrophes have never been validated and therefore should not be relied on for policy.
* Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. On the contrary, it makes crops and forests grow faster. Economic analysis has demonstrated that more CO2 and a warmer climate will raise GNP and therefore average income.
* The Kyoto Protocol with its energy-rationing schemes is not only hugely expensive but also completely ineffective in influencing climate change. As Mr. Bush correctly stated during his campaign and since - Kyoto is "fatally flawed."

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ELSEWHERE

This article of 12th by Dennis Prager scores some good goals: "Many liberal positions have been wreaking havoc on America and the world. How, then, can decent and often very smart people hold liberal positions? There are many reasons, but the two greatest may be naivete and narcissism. At the heart of liberalism is the naive belief that people are basically good. As a result of this belief, liberals rarely blame people for the evil they do. Instead, they blame economics, parents, capitalism, racism, and anything else that can let the individual off the hook.... The second major source of modern liberalism is narcissism..." Definitely worth reading the whole thing.

What arrogant elitist bastards! "A scientific panel recommended against smallpox vaccinations for the general public"

Someone should ask them why so many Canadians go to the U.S. for their medical treatment: "More than 7,000 doctors, including two former surgeons general, called for universal health insurance for the United States on Tuesday, saying it would not only be more fair, but would be cheaper and more efficient than the current patchwork system"

Some Leftist hypocrite writes of Iraq's "New Tyranny": "Now sex and drugs are freely available on the street, writes Paul McGeough in Baghdad." How Awful!

Do ideas have consequences? The Bali terrorists' lawyers are actually quoting from Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" as evidence for the defence. That Moore is a chronic liar and twister of the truth obviously needs to be publicized as much as possible. But there are so many Leftist lies ....

This list of best and worst books still holds up well.

After 9/11, dissent was "stifled," claimed the academic left. Nonsense, says Jean Bethke Elshtain. It was any reasoned religious support for the Iraq war that was marginalized... What actually has been stifled is any analysis of the religious motivations of the enemy.

The Wicked one has a couple of posts about what the new EU constitution says and what it looks set to do to Britain.

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