FREE TRADE AGAIN

"The No. 1 U.S. enemy is ... Bermuda. At least that's what John Kerry seems to want American voters to believe. At almost every campaign stop, he attacks 'Benedict Arnold corporations' that move to Bermuda. One could almost conclude that Bermuda is a predatory regime that shelters scoundrels. .. It's difficult to decide which is most objectionable, Mr. Kerry's smear of a friendly regime or his disregard for accuracy. The denigration of Bermuda is certainly reprehensible, particularly since the territory's market-based tax policy and race relations are both much better than can be found in the United States. (It's worth noting, too, that Bermuda has much tougher anti-money laundering laws than the United States.)"

A reader draws on his studies of accountancy and business management for some insights about outsourcing: "There is much talk of outsourcing being either good or bad. Both views are quite ridiculous. Each firm must make its own "make or buy-in" decision. There is no absolute view as to whether it is appropriate. The simple question of whether it is cheaper to make or buy-in is relatively minor. Most of the weighting is for qualitative factors such as whether the quality and timeliness of supply could be assured, the effects on other parts of the firm, and so on. Like pre-emption, outsourcing is merely an option; circumstances determine its efficacy. I think the outsourcing trend may also be one reason why a decreasing number of men are entering universities. While the dysfunctional educational system in this country may play its part, isn't it also possible that many men have realised that the work of plumbers, electricians, mechanics and others cannot be performed overseas whereas much of the work performed by university graduates will soon enough be at hazard? Given this, and the likely shortage of such people in the future, it seems that the many men's decisions to forgo university could be quite rational." The Happy Carpenter would agree.

Thomas Friedman of the NYT is again arguing for the mutual benefits of outsourcing simple jobs to India. He says that conformist and inefficient India is no threat to innovative and efficient America.

"Last week, European nations slapped a 5% tariff on the prices of hundreds of American exports because Congress is stubbornly clinging to a tax break for U.S. companies. It violates world trade rules by letting firms sell products at artificially low prices. The penalty is expected to hurt European sales of U.S. goods ranging from fruit grown in California to sheet-metal cabinets made in Ohio to textiles woven in the Carolinas.... The tax-cut bidding war pits a few special interests against the larger good of the country. By making the right choice, Congress can ensure a robust U.S. export sector doesn't shrink - and help prevent the U.S. deficit from expanding."

There is now a blog devoted to the "Blame India" nonsense -- the claim that the loss of technical and other support jobs is India's fault for "undercutting" Western workers.

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EDUCATION

Walter Williams: "The low academic quality of many of our teachers is neither flattering nor comfortable to confront, but confront it we must if we're to do anything about our sorry state of education."

Bureaucratized public schools: "Although many students there are now receiving a much better education thanks to vouchers enabling them to choose better schools, the failing public schools themselves have not improved as well as some expected. Hiatt rightly argues that the reason is clear. 'The system was designed to insulate the public schools from the consequence of failure.'"

A Sydney talk-radio host has put on the net an article originally printed over 30 years ago in the Sydney Morning Herald which detailed plans by the then Communist Party of Australia to use the schools to promote Leftist ideas. The article does make an interesting read. Most of what the CPA planned seems to have come about. The CPA folded up a few years ago under the influence of the Soviet implosion -- probably because funding from Russia dried up at that time. I knew the last boss of the CPA -- Mark Aarons -- slightly. His girlfriend was the younger sister of my girlfriend at one stage. The Johnson sisters were/are two very fine women.

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ELSEWHERE

I drink very little alcohol these days so it was for the first time in years that I had a couple of glasses of German white wine with my dinner last night. It took me ages to find someone in Brisbane who sold German wine. Even so, it cost me only $10 for the bottle (about $6.50 in U.S. dollars). I think it is one of the everyday miracles of capitalism that I can buy a Rheinhessen Qualitaetswein half a world away from where it was made for such a small sum. It rather perplexes me, though, that German wine has such a patchy following around the world. Maybe its uniformly high quality makes it boring. French wine is mostly rubbish by Australian or German standards but I suppose the challenge of finding a good one makes it interesting. Australian winemakers wouldn't dream of making such a nasty product as French vin ordinaire. Even a $5 ($3.50 U.S.) bottle of Australian red is pretty good.

The French elites hate Hollywood but the French people love it -- so the elites want to "protect" the French people from it. That hardly shows much faith in their own culture. Protecting the French from Hollywood's politics might make some sense, though.

Wow! We have here a complete summary of French philosophy from a French philosopher: ""Despite his clarity, Seneca still must be taken seriously as a philosopher." Note: "Despite his clarity". I said a few days ago (on 8th) that French philosophy aims to obfuscate, not clarify. No wonder Leftists like French philosophy: Clarity of thought would be fatal to them.

Even The Guardian admits that not everyone hates Guantanamo Bay. Some ex-prisoners liked it. They say that the food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and the warders were kind: "Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don't have anything against them," he said. "If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America." "

Middle-aged Madness is a good blog. He has a great list of the things that Kerry and the Democrats believe -- and I like his "we found Nemo" graphic too.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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MORE FROM BROOKES NEWS

The US economy: jobs and recovery The real question should be: "Is the recovery sustainable?" If by sustainable one means that there will not be another recession then the answer is no. Only a strict metallic monetary system can cure the boom-bust cycle.
Kerry's rise and media censorship The free pass that the media is giving Kerry once again highlights the extent to which they have combined into an Orwellian Ministry of Truth that rewrites history to advance the interests of the Party. However, the net is coming to the rescue.
Ann Coulter is kidnapped by terrorists, and President Bush calls on Bunny Champers to save her and the world Bunny does it again - in more ways than one. First he dates Ann Coulter, and then he has to save her, and the world, from terrorists.
What has gay marriage to do with Beijing and national security? Beijing rooted for a Gore victory. Come November it, like Pyongyang and Tehran, will be rooting for a Kerry victory, a man for whom the Beijing has only contempt. So what has gay marriage to do with it?
An Atheist Defends Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ The Passion of the Christ is a powerful telling of the story of the Temptation and the Crucifixion of Jesus, and is in no way anti-Semitic. It is intense in its violence toward the hero, but that only makes his own triumph against hatred and evil all the more compelling.

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

I have always thought that the fanatical Leftism of the universities will be self-defeating in the end. This is a comment from a conservative student at the very Leftist Smith College: "Most interestingly though, I have met people who came to Smith being a liberal or Democrat and now say that they are more conservative or nearly Republican because of the way-left politics that some people have. I was pretty amazed by that." I think youthful rebelliousness will defeat the Leftist ideologues. (Link via PrestoPundit).

"Reparations". A very incorrect reader writes: "People should be careful what they ask for. I think that blacks could all eventually get their big check only to find that it will be seen as an end to any need for affirmative action etc. Or, since we grabbed the blacks out of Africa, maybe the payments will be available only to those who wish to return to Africa and renounce their U.S. citizenship: A cheap but fair way of deporting all the drones while keeping those who realize what they've got here."

There is an article in the NYT about Christian homeschoolers and the Patrick Henry College to which many homeschooled kids go for tertiary education. Leftists of course hate it when any kids escape the Leftist brainwashing that is normal in mainstream schools so the article does its best to make the homeschoolers look sinister. But the sentence that struck me was: "I would definitely like to be active in the government of our country and stuff," Mr. Olmstead, 19, said as he sat in a Christian coffeehouse near the campus, looking up from a copy of Plato's "Republic." So a student at a Christian college was reading one of the great works of PRE-Christian Greek literature. No prejudice against "dead white males" there. No wonder the graduates of the college do so well. They get a REAL education -- one that draws on all the strengths of the great culture that made us what we are. Even the very words from the past can be powerful. One of JFK's most famous sayings was: "Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country". Dreadful Right-wing garbage by modern Leftist standards I guess. But JFK stole the words from Pericles, the great Athenian statesman of around 450 BC.

A Jewish Francophile has her eyes opened: "Will the pacifist and pacified French stand up and defend their nation? Or will we have to leave? That is what it boils down to. Things have gone from shouting "death to the Jews" to firebombing schools and synagogues, to persecution, attacks, even murder. We have Muslim rage in schools, hospitals, and courtrooms. Police headquarters are attacked, hospital personnel beaten, judges threatened. The Republic is under siege, and what are the French doing about it? They are trashing America. This, it seems, is their new Maginot line: the sneer of hatred. Hand in hand with the government and the intellectual classes, the French media are channeling the national dismay over lost grandeur into contempt for America."

"Anti-Americanism is the prevailing disease of intellectuals today.... any accusation that comes to hand is used without scruple by the Old World intelligentsia. Anti-Americanism is factually absurd, contradictory, racist, crude, childish, self-defeating and, at bottom, nonsensical. It is based on the powerful but irrational impulse of envy-- an envy of American wealth, power, success and determination. It is an envy made all the more poisonous because of a fearful European conviction that America's strength is rising while Europe's is falling."

Dave Huber fisks some Leftist criticisms of THAT movie from Jon Voigt and others.

THAT movie is not alone in being attacked because it replays the central story of Christianity. The great German classical music composer J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750 A.D.) is now being attacked as antisemitic too! I have been a devotee of Bach since I was 13 but it was news to me! (Link via Armavirumque).

This review from a "spiritual" site says of THAT movie "The entire film seemed like the dying gasp of an old ultra-religious paradigm". Dying gasp? Not likely. I have even heard of very skeptical people being drawn to Chistianity by the film. And you should see the size of the congregations in fundamentalist churches!

I have just posted here the latest observations from Chris Brand -- including the news that propensity to marry is genetically inherited!

Interesting that the leader of New Zealand's major conservative party has attacked affirmative action. And he's getting a lot of support for it too. Maybe New Zealanders are more down-to-earth than Americans. The problems posed by New Zealand's Maoris are pretty similar to America's problems with blacks.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual big range of reading.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE

The conservative case against homosexual marriage is concisely and soberly put here (Link via Keith Burgess-Jackson). For the life of me, though, I cannot see that modern marriage is much influenced by the legal codes that surround it. As far as I can see, modern-day Western marriage is a totally individual thing: There as many types of marriage as there are couples and marriages will be good or bad because of the values, character, beliefs and attitudes of the couple concerned only. Marriage has ALREADY changed enormously from what it was -- not because of any legal changes but because of the advent of the contraceptive pill. Any committment and staying together between a man and a woman these days is entirely the doing of the couple concerned, not the effect of any regulatory framework. I just think that what a few homosexuals do or are allowed to do is irrelevant to heterosexual marriage. Perhaps I am missing something, however, so I reproduce below some more interesting conservative comments on the matter.

Jeff Jacoby says that the push for homosexual marriage is nothing like the civil rights movement of the 60s.

Sowell: "Gay marriage" is not a local issue but a national issue because maintaining the rule of law - or what is left of it - is a national issue of historic importance if we are not to see the United States degenerate into the world's largest banana republic, or worse. The time is long overdue to start impeaching judges who think their job is to veto laws they don't like or condone lawlessness that they agree with. The time is also long overdue to re-examine lifetime appointments of judges, which allows them to act like little tin gods, at the expense of our freedom and the country's elected government. An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the Constitution from which they derive their power or independent of the laws that they are sworn to uphold". There is more from Sowell here.

How homosexual marriage in Scandanavia has undermined marriage: "Today's gay activists in Scandinavia, having gotten everything they wanted, now admit that their case for homosexual marriage --particularly that allowing gays to marry will encourage a monogamous lifestyle --was only a tactical argument. The goal, says Mr. Kurtz, citing two prominent gay thinkers, "was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality." "

An Australian reader writes: "I probably would have more respect for the homosexual marriage push if it were part of a serious movement to promote monogamy amongst homosexuals, however it seems primarily aimed at increasing the social approval of homosexuality as suggested by the Scandanavian article. I think here in NSW that any live in relationship beyond about 6 months qualifies as a de facto relationship for legal reasons. I doubt whether the majority of homosexuals have considered the potential legal and financial risks for exploitation this opens up for them."

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ELSEWHERE

There is an excellent article in the NYT about a long-overdue movement to make psychology more scientific. Exposing quackery in clinical psychology has in fact a much longer history than the article notes. One of the first people to apply scientific methods to evaluate conventional forms of psychotherapy was Hans Eysenck -- with whom I was associated for many years in various ways -- and Eysenck's work goes back to the 1940s. Still, it is good to see the torch being taken up now that Eysenck is no longer with us. The problem of unscientific psychology is particularly bad in political psychology -- which is overwhelmingly comprised of Freudians. You just have to read almost any issue of the journal Political Psychology to see that. Still, Political Psychology has published quite a few articles of mine over the years so they are not totally sectarian. They wouldn't take a really outspoken article from me, though, even though I was the relevant expert.

I have recently had an article accepted for publication in "SOCIETY" -- a well-established journal of social science and social commentary that has always been unusual in having some political balance in what it presents. I gather that it will "hit the streets" April 15-20 so you might like to keep an eye out for it. The title of my article is: "Explaining the Left/Right divide".

The "Invest in the U.S.A. Act," seems a good idea. Cutting tax on company profits will undoubtedly turn Leftists purple with rage but it should create lots of American jobs. Leftists would rather have people welfare-dependant, I guess. Having a black group approve the measure might help give it some legs, though.

An egotist caught at last? "The FBI arrested a California Institute of Technology student Tuesday for investigation of arson and vandalism that destroyed or damaged 125 sport utility vehicles at San Gabriel Valley car dealerships and homes last year in apparent support of radical environmentalism. William Cottrell, 23, of Pasadena was held without bail during a court appearance... If convicted, he faces a maximum of 40 years in prison"

The British Conservatives have at long last discovered the school vouchers idea. Will wonders never cease? They might finally be overcoming the trauma of having Tony Blair steal their thunder on most issues. (Link via The Applicant).

Martin Sieff says Russia is moving towards the Chinese model -- authoritarian central government combined with free-market economic policies. Similar systems in Singapore, Taiwan and Korea have worked out pretty well in the end.

The leader of Australia's major Leftist party talks a lot of conservative talk in saying that boys need more male role models but his deeds tell a different story -- oddly enough!

Steve Sailer on social statistics. It's Southern whites, not blacks, who are most likely to end up on death row. (More detail here). From the same article: "the Department of Education and other sensitive sorts have reduced the percentage of children eligible for special education from 2.2% in 1977 to 1.3% in 1997. Why? Because retardation (as defined by the Supreme Court as an IQ below 70) is found about five times more often in blacks than whites. Liberal bureaucrats prefer to cover up this embarrassing fact by tossing a lot of retarded black kids into mainstream classes to sink or swim."

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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GREENIE CORNER

Econot has some good postings up at the momnent. The mass transit one is particularly interesting. Some headings:
* Cash & Kerry: Which major funder of green and leftist causes launders money from John Kerry's wife into his campaign efforts -- including those protests by "9/11 families" against Bush's campaign commercials?
* The deadly threat to koala bears -- from animal rights activists!
* Mass transit = death by environmentalism?
* Oceana's hypocrisy -- It seems some "corporate interests" are more equal than others.
* Which green group's campaign director watched Jaws -- and sympathized with the shark?

"The Green Revolution in agriculture (mainly the introduction of hardier and higher-yielding rice varieties bred by Western scientists) has to be seen as one of the great achievements of our time. It has been the driving force behind the spectacular increases in global food supply over the last half century. " No wonder the 'Greenies' have made it a "villain of choice"

Thomas Sowell, a former Nader fan, says Ralph is unsafe at any speed: Starting his public career Nader "...denounced the Corvair in particular and blamed "engineering and management operations within General Motors" which led to such an unsafe vehicle...Years later, extensive government tests showed that the Corvair's safety was comparable to that of similar cars of its era. But, by then, the Corvair was extinct - killed off by the crusade that earned Nader a place as a kind of secular saint in the media."

Very encouraging to see the headline No future in Kyoto protocol on an article in Australia's national newspaper. The writer points out the inaccuracy of the methods used to estimate global warming effects by the IPCC (the United Nations body that is the chief support for global warming theory).

Globalization and life expectancy: "Some critics claim that globalization impoverishes...(yet) people in the more global countries tend to live the longest. The same holds true when only developing countries are examined"

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EDUCATIONAL DEPRIVATION

I recently discovered to my horror that my 16 year old son had never even HEARD of such great English poets as Wordsworth and Coleridge. He is in his last year of high school but the only poets he has ever encountered are various indigenous poets and others who were selected on their political rather than their artistic merits. So yesterday evening I got out my old GRADE 6 school reading book (from the 1950s) and read him from it three old favourites of American, British and Australian poetry -- "Hiawatha's Hunting", "Sea Fever" and the "Song of Cape Leeuwin". He enjoyed all three -- particularly the non-Greenie ending of "Hiawatha". When I remarked to him that it looked like he had been deprived of his entire cultural heritage, he commented, quite rightly: "It's racism -- racism against the English". It looks like it's up to parents these days to introduce their kids to the great cultural heritage that schools now deliberately conceal. Perhaps that's not such a bad thing, in a way. It should help engender disrespect for the corruption that passes for compulsory education these days.

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ELSEWHERE

In case you have not seen it, the "Robin Williams" peace plan is here. Item 1 of it is: "The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present........ You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega, Milosovich and the rest of those 'good ole boys.' We will never "interfere" again."

David Friedman has a great description on how debates about the deterrent effect of capital punishment or the relation of guns to crime are handled in the media. He says these debates go through three phases: Amateur statisticians comment, Professional statisticians comment and Amateurs abuse the professionals for their inconvenient conclusions.

Power corrupts: "The part of the truth Lord Acton did not realize when stating 'power corrupts' is that the corrupted seek power. Only people not able to grow tall from their own efforts and achievements seek to subdue their fellow man; only people not being able to find comfort in their own mind seek to silence others; those who are unable to produce their own wealth aim to confiscate the wealth of others." Actually, Acton did realize that. The next part of what he said is: "Great men are almost always bad men".

Yassir Arafat, Soviet disinformation agent (For a brief history of Soviet disinformation see here): "Arafat had begun his political career as leader of the Palestinian terrorist organization al-Fatah, whose fedayeen were being secretly trained in the Soviet Union. In 1969, the KGB managed to catapult him up as chairman of the PLO executive committee."

The intellectual decline of Araby...? "No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium, equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year."

What the Martha Stewart case means to you: "The Martha Stewart guilty verdict is more than troubling. It is an outrage. The very case itself typifies today's government -- an entity that is free to intrude in any area of your life, free to make up the rules as it goes along, free to allow prosecutors to make names for themselves in high-profile cases without facing any personal consequences, no matter what harm they do."

Arlene Peck says: "What does it take to realize that the Arabs have a plan and we don't -- their plan being: once they destroy the Saturday people, then the Sunday crowd is next." The holy day for Muslims is of course Friday.

The wicked one explains why men die first.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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THAT FILM AND MIDDLE-EASTERN MINORITIES

"It's only a movie": "Jews have far more to fear than Mel Gibson. Jews have far more to fear from the International Judicial Court in the Hague as it condemns Israel for putting up a security fence to protects its citizens from homicide bombers. Jews have far more to fear from university campuses that refuse to protect them from violence from Palestinians"

Defending Mel Gibson's movie: "If the movie and the Gospels on which it's based are anti-Semitic, then why are those Christians most faithful to the New Testament among the strongest supporters of Israel?"

Mel Gibson is crying all the way to the bank. And he may make some money in the courts too.

It is also the first movie to allow Aramaic speakers to hear their language on the big screen. "Use of the Aramaic language had become common by the period of the Chaldean Empire (626-539 B.C.). It became the official language of the Imperial government in Mesopotamia and enjoyed general use until the spread of Greek (331 B.C.). Although Greek had spread throughout these Eastern lands, Aramaic remained dominant and the linqua franca of the Semitic peoples. This continued to be so until Aramaic was superseded by a sister Semitic tongue, Arabic, about the 13th century A.D. to the 14th century A.D., when Arabic supplanted Aramaic after the Arab conquest in the 7th Century. However, the Christians of Mesopotamia (Iraq), Iran, Syria, Turkey and Lebanon kept the Aramaic language alive domestically, scholastically and liturgically. In spite of the pressure of the ruling Arabs to speak Arabic, Aramaic is still spoken today in its many dialects, especially among the Chaldeans and Assyrians."

With all the attention being given to Mel's movie you wonder why so few commentators, so quick to sniff out any anti-semitism in the movie, haven't wondered aloud what form of imperialism suppressed Aramaic?

As this article points out, Aramaic was the parent language of Assyrian. "Today, the Assyrian presence in the Middle East is under immense pressure. In the past 30 years, Assyrians have fled from their native lands in record numbers with more than 1.5 million having emigrated to over 30 different countries, mostly in theWest. The predominant reason for this flight is because of Assyrian religious and ethnic distinctiveness vis-a-vis their Arab, Persian, Turkish or Kurdish neighbors. Because of these differences, Assyrians are severely discriminated against and are denied basic civil, human, and political rights. In most Middle Eastern countries,Assyrians are not even recognized as a people In Turkey, Iraq, and SyriaAssyrians are officially recognized only as a religious minority, either as "Turkish" or"Arab Christians." Even in the so-called UN protected "Safe Haven" of northern Iraq, Assyrians are referred to as "Christian Kurds."In Iran, Assyrians haverecently been semi-officially recognized as a people but only after more than 90%have emigrated over the past 30 years."

As the ethnic and religious cleansing of non-Muslim minorities (mostly Christians) from the Middle East continues, the Left's selective passion for the Palestinians is all rather sickening.

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ELSEWHERE

"Greece's opposition conservatives scored a convincing win in general elections, ending more than 10 years of Socialist Party rule as Greeks voted for change amid widespread discontent over low incomes, poor public services and corruption scandals". Who would have thought it? Leftists responsible for low incomes, poor public services and corruption?

An optimistic cartoon version of how to convert Muslims to Christianity here. Only for Christians.

French nutritionists give Big Mac the thumbs up: "The relative fat-to-protein content of a Big Mac is considerably healthier than classic French snacks such as quiche lorraine and better than many other sandwiches or fast foods on the market, the authors say."

Keith Windschuttle points out that assimilationist policies have economically helped Australia's native blacks, whereas 'multiculturalist' policies have perpetuated poverty. No surprises which policy the left favours.

Pathetic envy: "A painting that featured the words Israel and the United States and replaced each 's' with a Nazi swastika was removed from an Oslo art exhibition." How is it possible to confuse the tiny Jewish state with the vast Nazi empire that attempted to exterminate the Jews? And how is it possible to confuse the United States, which liberated Europe from Nazi shackles, with the Nazis themselves? This would appear to be a phenomenon that French author Jean-Francois Revel has called "reversal of culpability." It is particularly disturbing when it is propagated not at secret meetings of Osama-worshiping jihadis but at an "art exhibition," in Oslo, the cosmopolitan capital of Norway, an exceedingly civilized country."

If you have not seen the exchange between Rumsfeld and Senator Kennedy in Scrappleface you must read it. You will only get the joke if you know what Chappaquiddick stands for, of course. I gather that the exchange is satire but it could well have been fact.

Pat Buchanan on "Who started the culture war?": "Who is on the offensive? Who is pushing the envelope? The answer is obvious. A radical Left aided by a cultural elite that detests Christianity and finds Christian moral tenets reactionary and repressive is hell-bent on pushing its amoral values and imposing its ideology on our nation."

Why Haiti won't get any better: "Haitian government appears to have no "core," to use the economist's term for instability. Most of the population is illiterate but extremely smart and distrusting of their governments. The distrust is so strong as to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. No leader can command lasting popular support or form a stable political coalition."

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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CHRISTIAN ETHICS

A very small meditation

Although any idea of "God" ceased to be meaningful to me over 40 years ago, I have never abandoned Christian ethics. I don't claim to be any Abou Ben Adhem but I have always found that if I do the "Christian" (kind, helpful, forgiving, generous etc.) thing, I get a reward for it -- usually quickly and it is often a substantial reward. For me, Christian ethics work. They work so well that I do well understand how Christians would see in such things the hand of their God. I myself see such rewards as evidence that Christ was a very wise teacher who had an understanding of human psychology that is still better than what most modern professional psychologists have.

An instance of how Christian ways have worked for me is one most readers of this blog will know by now. When Keith Burgess-Jackson had just started his blog, I read it and noted with pleasure the philosophical clarity of his writing (Anglo-Saxon philosophy aims to clarify; Continental philosophy aims to obfuscate). When I therefore also noted that he was having trouble with his template, I immediately offered to help and was able to do so. As a result Keith was very appreciative and has always since been quick to link to my postings -- and I of course also link back to his. So we have been able to steer our respective readers to one another -- which some readers at least appreciate. So my initial Christian deed (which took me only a couple of hours) has benefited Keith, me and our respective readers! Beat that for an ethical system that works!

As an aside, it is perfectly consistent with Keith's energetic and extraverted style (a style I enjoy greatly) that he posts up some of the congratulatory emails that he receives. But I would never be able to do that. Perhaps it is my traditional British reserve. I only post on this blog emails that address some topic that I think has general interest. I do in fact receive congratulatory emails all the time and every one of them is greatly appreciated so I hope my readers understand my reserve about posting any of them.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

Homosexual marriage and incest: the time has come If homosexual marriage is recognised then Ferdinandsen must be freed and his incestuous relationship with his daughter recognised as a legitimate marriage, and their defiance of the law treated as an act of civil disobedience that advanced the cause of civil rights.
US economy and recession: theory and counter theory Although the causes of the recession are still being hotly debated, with some focusing their attention on monetary factors, the overwhelming number of commentators still haven't got it right.
Homosexual marriage and judicial tyranny join hands When we look at what is really happening regarding homosexual marriage we see that Bush had little choice. Bullying Democratic judges forced the issue when they wilfully exceeded their authority and turned the issue into a battle for the rule of law.
Bunny chats with Saddam and then joins Hillary on the Jerry Springer Show Bunny relates how President Bush called on him to help with Saddam. As if that was not enough for our hero, he found himself sharing the sheets, as well as Jerry Springer's stage, with her Royal Highness Princess Hillary.
Forgetting the economic lessons of history It's necessary to resort to economic history if mistaken economic policies are to be avoided. But in order to do this successfully policy makers, or at least their advisers, should have an understanding of the economic forces at work.
Hong Kong's freedom virus causes pain in Beijing If the men in Beijing are wise, they will accommodate themselves to what is unfolding before them and embrace it. To do otherwise could bring an enormous amount of misery to hundreds of millions. And China has already suffered enough this century.
Mao's aura can't help CCP bosses Nearly three decades after his death, Mao Tse-tung's tarnished halo is being polished by Chinese Communist Party leaders and their critics alike, albeit for different reasons.

Details here

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MORE ON IMMIGRATION

A reader writes: "Check out these posts by the Republican Party base voters and tell me that Bush is not in trouble over immigration. These are the little people that pay the taxes and send in $25.00 year to the Party."

Gary Bezowsky replies: "I read the comment from one of your readers claiming the Republican base is in turmoil over the immigration reform proposals and Bush would lose if the election were held today. This may be so. But it boggles the mind to believe any intelligent rightward leaning voter would prefer a Bush lose and a Kerry victory. Kerry is further to the left on immigration and would go far beyond anything Bush would propose. This is insanity. Immigrant bashing doesn't win at the polls. Look at the state of the Republican party in California. After the party became tied to anti-immigrant proposals, it lost election after election, unable to influence policy. Only the disaster that is Gray Davis allowed Arnold the opportunity to claim the governor's chair. These Republicans and their anger would inflict the same damage on the national level. Electoral success is about coalition building, the largest coalition wins. The winners make public policy. If they are upset about the policy, the only way to change it to their liking is from inside the governing party."

Australia has thousands of miles of uninhabited and largely unguarded coastline so it should be even easier for illegal immigrants to come here than it is for them to go to the USA. In fact, illegal immigrants have virtually given up coming to Australia. Why? Because Australia's conservative government does its best to catch them and locks up any it catches. Illegal immigration can be controlled if there is the will to do it.

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ELSEWHERE

I mentioned yesterday the knee-jerk reaction of the L.A. Times to the term "pro-life". A reader writes: "That's nothing compared to an edit I remember from some years ago by a Boston paper. In an article about the State's budget deficit, after their automagic rewrite, the Governor was quoted as saying, "I promise to put the State's budget back in the African American!"

Michael Darby has a new lot of posts up: On Zimbabwe, Pinochet, France and many Australian issues.

I have just put up here a short article by Dick McDonald about pro-Democrat media bias in the run-up to the Presidential election.

And I have just put up on PC Watch an email from a Sydney reader about the annual "Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras" that was held in Sydney over the weekend. The reader notes that, as usual, the number of homosexuals taking part was vastly exaggerated.

The wicked one has just put up a very incorrect picture.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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IN DEFENCE OF FREE TRADE

"The United States must not hide its economy behind a protectionist wall, President George W. Bush said today, during a joint press conference with visiting Mexican President Vicente Fox. "We must reject economic unilateralism," Bush said after talks with Fox at his private ranch in Crawford, Texas. He said the United States would "gain nothing in building walls".

Politics and trade: "Years divisible by four are not good for free trade. When Americans go about the quadrennial chore of choosing a president, the candidates seeking their votes know one thing: everyone disadvantaged by the free international movement of goods and services and jobs knows who they are. But the winners -- consumers who get cheaper goods, shareholders in businesses that profit from free trade, workers whose jobs are created by free trade -- are a diffuse group, often unaware that their good fortune is a result of free trade."

An email from a reader: "Outsourcing, the practice of moving jobs from domestic to foreign locations, has been and will continue to be a major political issue in the upcoming presidential election. But once you get past the rhetoric of "two million jobs lost since GWB took office", what are the facts about job loss, particularly factory jobs since they have been the subject of so much recent debate? Robert Reich, who served for 4 years as secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, and hardly a "right-wing extremist", wrote an interesting article in December , 2003, for the "The American Prospect Online", a far-Left magazine. Surprisingly, while the USA lost 11% of our factory jobs between 1995 and 2002, we weren't the biggest losers. Japan and China lost 16% and 15%, respectively. Brazil lost 20%. Unlike the liberal establishment looking to make this an issue in the election, Secretary Reich blames the loss of these jobs around the world to productivity gains, not "corporate greed", as has so often been espoused by our good friends on the Left." A good quote from Reich's article: "We should stop pining after the days when millions of Americans stood along assembly lines and continuously bolted, fit, soldered or clamped what went by".

"Jobs protection has become the rallying cry of the Democratic presidential campaign. Yet Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards never present a clear-headed plan on how they would create new jobs. Instead, they vow to tear down growth-producing free trade treaties, an effort that would impoverish, not expand, the U.S. work force. Among the many flaws of this year's Democratic argument on jobs is the total absence of facts to back up the claims. Take the Democrats' position on jobs outsourcing, their idea that the country is bleeding away a finite number of jobs to far-off places like India. Outsourcing is not a new issue, but its one that Democrats are using to circumvent the reality that the U.S. economy is surging toward a new boom cycle and that it's President Bush who has us headed that way."

"So now I wonder: when they write the history of the world 20 years from now, and they come to this chapter "Sept. 11, 2001, to March 2004" what will they say was most important? The attack on the World Trade Center and the Iraq war? Or, as Mr. Rao suggests, the convergence of PC's, telecom and work-flow software into a tipping point that allowed India to become part of the global supply chain for services the way China had become for manufacturing -- creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, India and China, and giving both nations a huge new stake in the success of globalization"

Dishonest Dobbs does it for dollars. Some excerpts: "Not too long ago, the people who watch Lou Dobbs's evening business program on CNN tuned into see someone who looked just like Lou Dobbs ranting about free trade and corporations that outsource jobs--"Exporting America," he calls it. It's as if whatever made Linda Blair's head spin around in "The Exorcist" had invaded the body of Lou Dobbs and left him with the brain of Dennis Kucinich. No public figure has moved so far left so fast since the transfiguration of Arianna Huffington. What's weird is what a lonely fight it turns out to be. This Tuesday, after Lou described "the shipment of hundreds of thousands of high-tech jobs to cheap foreign labor markets," a CNN reporter's piece on the outsourcing of computer jobs bowed in Lou's direction, then quoted an industry source who says they still can't meet the demand here for programmers. Later, after Lou teed up Ohio's manufacturing job losses, a CNN reporter found evidence to blame Ohio itself--its crummy educational performance and an uncompetitive tax structure with nine income-tax brackets"

U.S. manufacturers say that constant lawsuits and burdensome environmental regulations are the main destroyer of U.S. factory jobs.

The Happy Carpenter has more on what the Government COULD do to keep jobs at home -- WITHOUT going the failed socialist route of restrictive legislation.

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ELSEWHERE

One of my readers replies as follows to the email by Gary Bezowski that I put up yesterday: "Mr. Bezowsky should read Steve Sailer's statistics about Hispanic voting habits over the past 30 years before he throws out the old, old bromide about Hispanic conservative values. 80% of Americans want this damn invasion stopped yesterday! I can assure you as someone who works in my State Republican Party that this immigration insanity by the Bush administration has depressed his base. I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying that most of the astute Party workers that I have run into on a National or State level concede now that if things remain as they are today Bush will lose. You might want to check out www.freerepublic.com and read the immigration threads; the Party base is going insane"

Peg Kaplan has now joined the ranks of the Krugman demolishers. Perhaps I am being a Pollyanna but my impression is that the new editor of the New York Times is trying to swing the paper back closer to middle ground. Quite a bit that is congenial to conservatives appears there these days. If they really want to get away from their reputation as a Leftist propaganda outlet, however, they will have to do something about columnist Krugman. Giving Donald Luskin a column too would be one idea.

The last item on "Best of the Web" of 5th. shows that the Los Angeles Times also has a long way to go in easing its Leftist bias. Apparently, their sub-editors automatically change "pro-life" to "anti-abortion" -- with sometimes hilarious results.

There is a carefully-reasoned article by a Bible Christian here arguing that Islam is a Satanic religion. If I were a Christian I think I would agree with him.

I am pleased to say that one of my German readers has responded to my request yesterday for a copy of one of my academic articles that I had lost. See here or here. The findings in it throw into a cocked hat almost all of the research into attitudes that psychologists have ever done. No wonder it has been thoroughly ignored!

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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IN DEFENCE OF THE REPUBLICAN "LEFTWARD DRIFT"

Gary Bezowsky writes:

"I don't think it's entirely correct to assign a leftward drift to the Republican efforts during the Bush term. Sure, we have carping from the right wing against the Bush policies on immigration reform, the deficit and prescription drugs. However, I would defend immigration reform and prescription drugs on conservative grounds and the deficit on economic grounds. Bush ran on a platform that included support for prescription drugs. It should be no surprise that he championed this bill in his first term.

It should be noted this bill includes features with a decided market oriented twist. It allows certain Medicare eligible beneficiaries the right to use private insurers. Additionally, it allows for the first time everyone to establish tax friendly private insurance accounts to cover major medical expenses and pay for minor medical expenses out of pocket.

Immigration reform is the first real effort to offer any policy changes in this area. It brings these people out of the shadows, provides background checks and forces the illegals to pay fines but does not offer automatic citizenship. The illegal are not going away. Americans are not going to chase after the illegals employers. Bush has recognized the Mexican voting block will only grow in the future and is determined to bring this naturally conservative constituency into the Republican's fold.

The anger over the deficit is misplaced. It's appropriate to run deficits during periods of slow growth and it will go away as spending slows and the economy grows from the proper fiscal policy prescriptions of lowering marginal tax rates. Deficits are now running at 4% plus of GDP. At this level, they are not a problem.

I think Bush is taking a page out of the left's playbook. Get a little bit of what you really want each year. A single bill is never the cumulation of the effort. It's just the first step of a long journey. I'm ok with the strategy.

Look for making the tax cuts permanent, privatizing social security and more Medicare reform with more market oriented elements in the second term. Just watch the economy boom with this brew. I think the efforts on the war on terror will increase in the second term. Although I don't have a prediction about the direction.

I'm more upset with the steel tariffs (since rescinded) and a lackluster effort to get a better free trade agreement with Australia. These suffer from domestic politics"

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ELSEWHERE

As a libertarian who sees no need for government in regulating marriage anyhow, I have no dog in the current fight over homosexual marriage. I think that marriage should simply be a personal and private contract that can be enforced like any other contract. As Tibor Machan says here: "Sure, the Massachusetts Supreme Court affirmed the right of gays to get married. Did that shove anything down anyone's throat? Not by a long shot, no more so than a court's affirming the right to be free of enslavement or some other government imposed restriction shoves anything down anyone's throat." But, unlike Machan, I DO find objectionable that unelected judges can legalize homosexual marriage just because they feel like it. They have now "liberated" themselves from all constraints. Judges have always made law. The Common Law consists of nothing else. But the Common Law evolved over hundreds of years as the judicial expression of what the community as a whole saw as just. But note how things have changed: "The Defense of Marriage Act, which became law eight years ago, was enacted overwhelmingly by Congress, with margins of 342-67 in the House and 85-14 in the Senate. Public opinion polls show similarly high support among Americans for defending marriage." Judges who try to usurp democracy by making the law up as they go along clearly are one of America's biggest problems. The homosexual marriage issue is only a sideshow to that more basic problem. I think the constitutional amendment that GWB should be concentrating on is one that would allow the people to vote any judge out of office. People might eventually take to shooting them otherwise. They are pure power without responsibility at the moment. That cannot go on forever.

NYT gets real about poverty: "Now many scholars from across the political spectrum agree that money alone will not significantly improve the lives of poor families. "Not only does behavior matter," Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution wrote in The Public Interest last year, "it matters more than it used to. Growing gaps between the rich and poor in recent decades have been exacerbated by a divergence in the behavior of the two groups." If you graduate from high school, wait until marriage to have kids and work full time (at whatever job), it is almost certain that you will not remain poor. Sawhill's research indicates that we could double the amount we spend on welfare programs, and we would not make an important dent in poverty."

Hugh Hewitt says that current Leftist beliefs are simply silly: "John Kerry... stated bluntly that George W. Bush heads the "most inept, reckless, and ideological foreign policy in the history of this country." No matter how one evaluates recent events in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya--and they look pretty good to me--they cannot seriously be compared negatively with losing a war in Vietnam, watching Iran slide into virulent Islamism, or allowing Osama bin Laden to nest and metastasize in Kabul and its precincts. Still, millions of Americans will believe Kerry's outlandish excess not because of evidence that he has presented, but because they want to." For those who do not know their history, the last three disasters Hewitt lists happened under Democrat Presidents (LBJ, Carter and Clinton).

Communist Vietnam has a new friend: Germany, of course. Communists are MUCH easier to get on with than that "Hitler" George Bush.

Carnival of the Vanities is a little late this week but as good as ever.

I have just posted here the latest observations from Chris Brand. He is enjoying the divisions among feminists over the publicity-hungry Naomi Wolf.

The wicked one has just put up some light-hearted comments about Israel, improbable though that may seem.

I have just posted up what seems to be just about the last of my published academic journal articles. See here or here. It shows that criminals have very anti-authority attitudes -- which should be no surprise -- but psychologists generally seem to believe the opposite! I do have one other article in print but no lonnger have a copy of it so cannot post it up. It is: "Acquiescent response bias as a recurrent psychometric disease: Conservatism in Japan, the U.S.A. and New Zealand" It is in a German journal that no library in Brisbane seems to hold: Psychologische Beitraege of 1985 (pages 113-119) so if anyone can dig a copy out of THEIR university library and either scan it in or mail me a xerox of it, that would be appreciated.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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THAT MOVIE AGAIN

Ann Coulter has a very acid comparison between the Leftist reaction to the Gibson movie and their reaction to Islam.

I myself am pleased that (Australian) Mel Gibson's film about the crucifixion is helping the Christian faith of many and may even bring some people into the Christian fold. Even some conservatives, however, are concerned about the film on the grounds that it will inflame antisemitism. Monica Charen, for instance says: "It grieves me to object to Mel Gibson's movie because I know that millions of Christians in this country and around the world will be moved and possibly even transformed by it -- and that is a welcome thing. As a Jew, I can unhesitatingly declare that the world would be a better place if it contained more believing Christians. And yet Gibson has seeded his film with images of Jewish guilt and perfidy that will fall on fertile anti-Semitic soil around the world." Dick McDonald has sent me an email that begs to differ:

"Monica Charen criticizes Mel Gibson's "Passion" as an antisemitic hate piece because it will ignite those feelings in many people around the world who hate the Jews for killing Jesus. Oh, were the case that simple! Having been reared in a Christian minority among a Jewish majority in the Fairfax district of West Hollywood, I have some insight into why they are hated, the least of which is that they killed Jesus.

The first indictment about Jews I've known is they are smarter than any other oppressed minority on the face of the Earth. In general, they are smarter than any majority. Whether we like it or not, envy is the blight on intelligence.

Secondly, they compete for money and power, with the ferocity and guile reserved to those who have been chased from almost every land on Earth. As a whole they are immensely successful, knowing their time might soon come to leave. Their business success everywhere has bred the brutal side of envy.

Thirdly, they stick together. Whenever possible they do business with each other to the exclusion of others. I was chided that we gentiles had only produced Jack Kemp during my time in school, whereas they (the Jews) had hundreds of millionaires. They honor the old tradition of exclusion of other sects thus creating animosity and envy.

Now, there are many other areas we could talk about but just these three traits and the scorn they precipitate have got them in more trouble than their scriptured complicity in Christ's death. I went through my minority as a minority among Jews and can't recall or remember ever discussing their alleged complicity with Christ's death. The "Passion" is a convenient excuse to deflect from the real problem Jews have: SUCCESS. Unfortunately, everyone takes potshots at the guys on the top."

I am sure someone will accuse Dick of antisemitism for mentioning Jewish differences -- particularly that Jews "stick together" -- but they should note that various studies sponsored by the Anti-defamation League of B'nai B'rith (e.g. Quinley & Glock, 1979) came to conclusions similar to Dick's. Here is a quote from Quinley & Glock: ""Another common stereotype of Jews is that they are clannish... The perception of Jews as clannish has some basis in fact and can thus be accepted without necessarily being a symptom of prejudice." There is a long (and unsympathetic) catalogue here of Jews acknowledging Jewish differences and Jewish tribalism. My own sympathetic account of Jewish differences and tribalism is here.

Reference:
Quinley, H.E. & Glock, C.Y. (1979) Anti-semitism in America. N.Y.: Free Press.

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ELSEWHERE

No double standards for Israel: "Look who's preaching to Israel: Last Wednesday, the U.S. State Department released its annual report on the state of human rights around the world. ... A country that is holding 660 Afghan detainees at Guantanamo without trial and depriving them of basic rights is in no position to criticize administrative detentions carried out by other countries. A country that is holding members of the Iraqi political leadership in detention without trial, far from view, is in no position to complain about the conditions of detention in the prisons of other countries. And a country that is maintaining a tough military occupation regime in Iraq doesn't have the right to fulminate against a different occupation regime, however cruel it may be, in the Palestinian territories."

"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" no more? "Israeli police said on Thursday they had arrested an ultra-nationalist Jew who had confessed to a three-year bombing campaign against Arabs and to plotting the assassination of Israeli Arab lawmakers". The troubles there would probably be over now if there were more like him.

Once again, they're praising Hitler with impunity in Germany

A general Leftward drift: "For some decades now, it has been axiomatic to say that the two American political parties have become increasingly polarized along ideological lines - the Republicans becoming more conservative and the Democrats more liberal.... What seems to be happening in 2004 is the Democrats are whirling around more liberal than ever, while the Republicans are abandoning their conservative principles on a daily basis...The Democrats, having flirted for months with nominating the extreme liberal Howard Dean, have abandoned him in favor of John Kerry, who is in fact more liberal than Dean. Kerry is.. more liberal than anyone the Democrats have ever nominated for President. He is also more liberal than any of the other candidates in this year's field, if you will allow me to dispense with the burden of classifying Al Sharpton... And what of the Republicans? Have they, in mirror image, moved rightward in 2004? Heck, no. The biggest complaint about George W. Bush is that he has abandoned the conservatives in his party, on immigration reform, the prescription drug program, deficit spending and other issues".

Jeff Jacoby has an appalling story about those wonderful humanitarian Canadians. How they hate anti-Communists!

A former member of the U.S. army in Vietnam ridicules the observations about U.S. Army misbehaviour that John Kerry claims to have made from his Navy boat.

Texas Conservative delivers a fisking of John Kerry's recent UCLA speech on terrorism.

The wicked one has just put up some facetious diet advice that could make us all vegetarians.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

Comments? Email me here or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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