RELIGION

It's not uncommon for religious and spiritual leaders to deride entrepreneurial capitalism. Robert Sirico reminds them of the parable of the talents: "As a group, entrepreneurs are frequently depicted as greedy, immoral, and cutthroat. This prejudice can be found equally among business and religious leaders, not to mention among cultural elites and individual people. But such criticisms, though justified far too often, fail to acknowledge the implicit spiritual dimension of enterprise..While it is true that entrepreneurs-like any other group of people-have been stained by sin, they must not be judged more severely for their moral failings merely because their profession involves the creation of wealth.......The Parable of the Talents implies a moral obligation to confront uncertainty in an enterprising way. There is no more apt example of such an individual than the entrepreneur"

The recent story about a Catholic charity being ordered by a Californian court to pay for contraception was so manifestly bizarre and unjust that it went all over the world, even popping up on Australian radio news bulletins. As a follow-up to the story, a reader has mentioned an employer he knows of who of his own accord added contraceptive coverage to the health plan for his employees. To fund the change, the firm had to put up the the co-payment premiums and deductibles -- so that the average woman now pays more for the insurance than the cost savings on contraception! So it would be poetic justice if the Catholic charity simply did as the court ordered and saddled the grasping employees behind the original complaint with the resultant costs.

Handicapping religion: "The State of Washington awards handsome college and graduate scholarships to gifted students of modest means through the Promise Scholarship Program. But reminiscent of discrimination against blacks, Jews, or the Irish, a disturbing exception is celebrated. Students pursuing devotional degrees need not apply. ... The purpose is to discourage faith-based professions or vocations, an illicit government objective under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. Yet a decisive 7-2 majority in the U.S. Supreme Court constitutionally blessed the scholarship exclusion last week in Locke vs. Davey. Religious neutrality -- the customary commandment of the First Amendment -- was cast out of the constitutional heavens."

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ELSEWHERE

The terrorist attack in Spain seems to have convinced at least some Europeans that America's tough line against terrorism was not so "stupid" or "cowboy-like" after all.

But the conversion will probably be far from complete so perhaps we should still look at what a German writer says about the disagreements between the USA and "Europe" (meaning in fact only Germany and France -- U.S. allies such as Spain, Italy, Denmark and Poland are apparently not in Europe!). The article makes a big thing about the importance attached to "international law" by Europe. But the chief proofs of what a joke "international law" is come from Europe! Who do they think Hitler and Mussolini were? Americans? Or have Europeans forgotten how Hitler and Mussolini simply walked out of the League of Nations when its resolutions did not suit them? What use is "law" that is unenforceable? Saddam defied United Nations resolutions for 11 years and the United Nations did absolutely nothing of any moment about it. And in the United Nations itself the most disgusting and lawless tyrannies are highly influential -- with regimes like Iran and Libya heading important committees! I think the USA pays TOO MUCH attention to the ridiculous fiction of international law!

And the United Nations is also hopelessly corrupt. Take the UN oil for food program. As it says here: "In the growing scandal over the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, which from 1996-2003 supervised relief to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and his staff have excused themselves from any responsibility for the massive corruption involving billions in bribes and kickbacks that went on via more than $100 billion in U.N.-approved contracts for Saddam to sell oil and buy humanitarian supplies. U.N. officials have denied that this tidal wave of graft in any way seeped into their own shop

Iraq freer than ever: "The press coverage from Baghdad is so gloomy that it's hard to remember that a dictator is gone, oil is pumping again and the proposed interim constitution contains strong human rights guarantees. We seem not even to recognize freedom when we see it: Shiites by the hundreds of thousands walking barefoot to celebrate in the holy city of Karbala, Iraqis turning up at town meetings and trying out democracy for the first time, newspapers and free media sprouting everywhere, daily demonstrations in the streets. If freedom is the only goal that redeems all the dying, there is more real freedom in Iraq than at any time in its history..."

Ho Hum! The American Leftist media is now resorting to barefaced lies to discredit the Iraq intervention. As Peg Kaplan reports, they are saying that Clinton handed over to Bush a plan to grab Osama and Co. but Bush ignored it. The truth is that it was Clinton who knocked back offers by Sudan to hand over Osama.

Nice to see The Guardian taking note of the Muslim slave trade that tyrannized Europeans for centuries.

THAT film: "Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an Orthodox rabbi and popular radio talk-show host, has also repeatedly defended Gibson and "The Passion". Rabbi Lapin points out that it is not Gibson's movie, but the irresponsible and vehement accusations coming from Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and other self-appointed Jewish leaders that are most likely to cause anti-Semitism.... "Rabbi Lapin says. "Christians heard Jewish leaders denouncing Gibson for making a movie that follows Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion long before any of them had even seen the movie. Furthermore, Christians are hurt that Jewish groups are presuming to teach them what Christian Scripture `really means.'" Rabbi Lapin says that "instead of helping the Jewish community," leaders like Foxman "have inflicted lasting harm." "By selectively unleashing their fury only on wholesome entertainment that depicts Christianity, in a positive light," he says, "they have triggered anger, hurt, and resentment.... I consider it crucially important for Christians to know that not all Jews are in agreement with their self-appointed spokesmen." I must say that I myself was amazed by the folly of Foxman and Co. They are living in the past rather than the present. They should have held their fire for their real enemy of the present day -- Islam -- rather than attacking their best friends of today -- Christians.

More BBC dishonesty: "A headline on BBC News today - 'Figures show rise in vCJD deaths' - sounds worrying until you read the article, which reveals that the 'rise' corresponds to an increase from 17 deaths in 2002, to, er, 18 deaths in 2003." {vCJD is better known as "mad cow disease"}.

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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

A politically-motivated lie: "The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a Ralph Nader organization, is charging that a March 11 Senate vote defeating a "polluters pay" Superfund amendment offered by Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) means that polluters are getting a "holiday" from their legal responsibilities." See here for the facts.

The statues of Easter Island have fascinated many for a long time now. It is now however quite clear how they got there, who put them there and why the civilization of Easter Island collapsed. Jared Diamond sums it up well. But when Diamond comes to the now well-known conclusion that the Polynesian civilization which produced the statues underwent a collapse due to their own destruction of the island's natural resources, Diamond of course moralizes that: "The parallels between Easter Island and the modern world are chillingly obvious". He says that we too could undergo a similar fate if we are not more careful of the environment. That Western man IS wiser than the Polynesians were and that we have been actively conserving our environment and setting aside natural areas for over a century and that agricultural SURPLUSES have long been the major problem for international trade go unmentioned. But Diamond WAS writing in the New York Review of Books, of course. He probably needed a Leftist slant to get his article published there.

I love it: "An ecologically-acclaimed wetland in the grounds of a school in Taiwan turned out to be the product of a leaking water pipe".

Now popcorn is bad for you: "The Environmental Protection Agency is studying the chemicals released into the air when a bag of microwave popcorn is popped or opened. Exposure to vapors from butter flavoring in microwave popcorn has been linked to a rare lung disease contracted by factory workers in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska."

Good to see that the most Leftist of Australia's major newspapers has just given a good summary of the case AGAINST global warming. They still do their best to defend the theory, of course, but in the end arrive at the key conclusion: "But if even scientists like Hennessy and Carter cannot agree on scientific data, how can politicians and policy-makers?" If we spent billions of dollars on every "maybe" around we would soon be back in the Stone Age. But that is what the Greenies really want, of course.

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ELSEWHERE

There is a very sad example of "famous last words" in "The Spectator" of 13th. The leading article by Simon Jenkins refers to a recent speech by Tony Blair about the imminent dangers of terrorism. Jenkins says that the speech "was just another attempt by the Prime Minister to scare us into believing that we are all in mortal danger. We are not". Beautifully timed to appear in print at roughly the same time as the Spanish atrocity. One of my readers comments: "Simon Jenkins commits journalistic suicide". Even without the Spanish disaster proving Blair to be right, it is pretty amazing that Jenkins sees pop singer George Michael as a good authority for the claim that Blair is stupid. Just that would tend to show that it is Jenkins rather than Blair who is stupid. I have saved a copy of the article to disk in case "The Spectator" takes it down.

A Leftist member of the British parliament gets it right: "As the full horror of the Madrid atrocity unfolds, surely the time has come to unite against terrorism - the new fascism of the 21st century, wherever it takes place".

"Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, yesterday mourned the death of the "martyr" who masterminded the hijacking of a cruise ship in which a wheelchair-bound American tourist was shot dead and his body dumped overboard." Two peas in a pod.

Michael Totten tells it like it is: "If terrorists detonate a portable nuke in a Western city, what's left of the Terror War will be nasty, brutish, and short. The West's so-far limited response will instantly become total and, in effect, genocidal. Any and all WMD-producing states will be considered targets for a unilateral nuclear counterattack, starting with capital cities. The UN will not be consulted. Millions could die in a day."

J.P. Rushton again summarizes the evidence for the very low IQ of blacks in Sub-Saharan Africa. By African standards, U.S. blacks are an intellectual elite. Despite the bad start, America has been very kind to blacks.

Black author Debra Dickerson says "it's time to get over racism": "I am not saying there isn't racism-absolutely not- I'm saying ..some strategies are more effective than others. A vast amount of energy is expended trying to pinpoint who is or isn't a racist, or trying to shut down people like me, who are on the same team but maybe have a different viewpoint. Why isn't the urgency directed toward fixing actual problems? I've seen people praying outside the Supreme Court, for example, who could be in an inner-city community teaching someone how to read."

It's always difficult to unravel cause and effect in these things but there is a lagged correlation between a falling crime rate and increased use of abortion so the view that legalized abortion has caused the drop in crime is gaining ground. For different reasons, this finding is uncomfortable for both Leftists and and conservatives. The fact that welfare recipients are both big users of abortion and more likely to be enmeshed in a criminal milieu makes sense of the finding, however. A lot of potential criminals are being aborted, in short.

Mike Tremoglie quotes evidence to show that the "offence" of "driving while black" is a myth.

"The Occidental Herald is a digest of news for supporters of the culture of the West and its peoples. Twice weekly TOH presents and comments on stories from international news sources on world events and trends that are often neglected in the national and local media. TOH aims to instill a sense of informed purpose in the defense of the West to counter the prevailing, media-inspired atmosphere of anomie and gloom."

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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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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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