Dick McDonald has picked up on a good point from Condoleezza Rice's recent 9/11 testimony. She pointed out that it took many years for America to become fully democratic -- i.e. a place that treated blacks as people -- so it was absurd to expect an overnight transformation to mature democracy in Iraq.

MORE ECONOMICS

The socialist love of the State still flourishes: "A famous theory about taxes has it that wealth belongs to society and taxation merely determines how much of it the citizenry may use. This is what is argued in The Myth of Ownership by co-authors Thomas Nagel and Liam Murphy (Oxford, 2002). You and I do not own even our labor. It belongs to society and government is in charge of telling what we get to use and what remains in its coffers. According to this socialist view of wealth, there are no private property rights at all, only government grants."

There is a most illuminating and very fully referenced article here about the "Dickensian" British factory system of the 19th century and how it "abused" child labour. Economic historian Bill Hutt shows that the accounts of the system we almost always hear come from its opponents -- the romantics and do-gooders of the day. And that more objective evidence is readily available that shows factory work to have been the preferred employment of the day -- as it was "lighter" (less physically demanding) and better paid than the main alternative then available -- agricultural labour. And the health of factory workers was at least no worse than that of the general community at the time.

Icelandic blogger Willy Sutton has a good lesson in pictorial economics up. It takes a little while to load all the pictures but they certainly educate

Outsourcing is a natural force in the free market "Free markets provide what the great economic historian Joseph Schumpeter called a process of 'creative destruction.' Always dynamic, always progressive, free markets constantly generate new products, new jobs, and new wealth on the foundations of earlier creations. In the end, they replace these earlier creations. Free markets propel society forward."

Corruption: "To put it in very simple words, countries that have a free market policy are the least corrupt, whereas countries that are dependant on government are the most corrupt. This then is the simple truth about corruption. ... The government is not the solution for corruption, but it is definitely the precursor of corruption."

****************************************

ELSEWHERE

Is there anything John Kerry won't say? "Democrat John Kerry said yesterday that if he is elected president, he will not let government programs outside of security and education grow beyond the rate of inflation. Kerry pledged to abide by spending caps, even if it means cutting some of his own campaign promises and existing government programs."

Australian Labor Party leader Mark Latham has really blotted his copybook by calling for Australia to do a Spain and withdraw its troops from Iraq. Not only is the Australian public generally against it but so are many Leftists. Even such rabid Leftists as Margo Kingston are now urging Latham to keep the troops in: "I don't know about you, but when I saw Latham say we had to bring our 850 troops home after June 30 "to defend Australia" I was disgusted. Pure populism it was, and I thought Australians would see through it big time, which they have.... Is Latham really saying the danger to Australia is so acute that we need 850 troops to join the 51,0000 troops stationed in Australia? That's scare mongering at its worst. As Howard rightly said speaking to his motion in the House of Representatives today that troops should not be withdrawn before the job is done, that would mean hauling back our troops from East Timor and the Solomons too. Stupid. .... But we did invade, and we're there now trying to secure the peace, a vital task for the West to stop Iraq being over run by al Qaeda and company."

With a film about the Alamo just released, the WSJ reminds us of the point that the Left would seemingly like us to forget: "Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, in the inclusive view, is a neutral figure, even though he set himself up as a military dictator after being elected president of Mexico in 1833 and jailed those who peaceably petitioned to protest his violations of the 1824 constitution. And then there was his brutal putting down of the rebellion in Texas. Lest we forget, the rebels who captured San Antonio and the Alamo against superior forces were trying to separate themselves from Santa Anna's dictatorship. His efforts to curtail-- if not obliterate-- trade, immigration and democracy are what sparked the rebellion in the first place.

See here for a typical Leftist bleat about "poverty" being the cause of Islamic terrorism -- together with a pointed reply from one of my readers.

A good last word on Spain: "Climaxing over three centuries of defeat and decline on the world stage, Spaniards bowed to terrorism when they voted. Americans are considerably less likely to make that choice".

The wicked one has an idea that Texans should like.

Today's recipe is for Parsee Pillau. Forget fried rice. Forget steamed rice. This is the best rice. Goes well with any Indian food. See here.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH

********************************

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.

********************************

SOME ECONOMICS

"The number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in more than three years" -- and that's only part of the good news: "It turns out that since last May, when all of the president's tax cuts finally got implemented, the payroll survey finds 675,000 new jobs. Here's the kicker- that's the pessimistic survey; the one that tends to miss new start-ups because it's based on established businesses. The other one, the household survey, shows an increase since last spring's tax cut of almost 800,000 new jobs. Some "jobless recovery", huh?"

Globalization fights high taxes: "In a competitive global economy, the United States cannot continue to ignore the mounting costs of doing business at home. Other countries are liberalizing their economies, providing a more business-friendly environment. Ireland is a perfect example of a tax-friendly country. The government reduced its corporate tax rate from 16 percent to 12.5 percent in 2003, well below the EU average rate of 30 percent and lower than the 35 percent federal rate in the United States."

Marginal Revolution points out that the NY Times has started to talk some common sense about trying to impose international child labour standards: "It's appalling that Abakr, like tens of millions of other children abroad, is working instead of attending school. But prohibiting child labor wouldn't do him any good, for there's no school in the area for him to attend.... And that's the problem when Americans get on their high horses about child labor, without understanding the cruel third world economics that cause it."

Overlooked factor in oil hike: Falling dollar: "Gasoline and heating-oil prices in the US are at an all-time high and rising. But it may surprise Americans to learn that in Europe, they've essentially remained steady. Why the cost difference? Experts have a lot of good reasons to explain it, among them unrest in the Middle East, gas-guzzling cars, and greed among oil-producing nations. But there is another culprit that is being ignored and that is making the problem far, far worse in the US: the decline in the value of the dollar."

There is a rather depressing article here about the vast damage FDR's "New Deal" did to the American economy in the 1930s. What made the "Great" depression "great"? Why did it last so much longer than previous depressions? Mainly it was the anti-business economic interventions of FDR and his Congressional allies. FDR was of course a great admirer of his fellow Leftist economic bungler, Benito Mussolini.

**************************************

ELSEWHERE

More glories of socialized medicine: Sharon Brophy was just 34 when she died waiting for treatment in Campbelltown Hospital emergency department. The hospital's records say that Ms Brophy arrived at 1pm and was assessed by a triage nurse. However, another patient who arrived at 1pm says that Ms Brophy was already there. The same witness says that some time before 1.30pm Ms Brophy had approached the receptionist and said something like: "I feel really, really sick, can I please see a doctor?" When Ms Brophy was told she would have to wait longer, as emergency patients were being treated, she replied that she was going to be sick and went into the nearby toilet. By Mrs Madden's account, at 2pm a woman with a toddler walked into the waiting room from another part of the hospital and went into the toilet. "She came out and told the receptionist there was a woman collapsed in the toilet. That's when everybody came running out of emergency." Brigitte Ashford ... also heard Ms Brophy approach the receptionist for help. "She said, 'Please I feel really sick, I feel like I'm going to pass out, can I have somewhere to lie down.' She [the receptionist] just said, 'You wait your turn'."

If you have not seen it already, this letter from a soldier in the middle of the current Iraqi strife is a much-needed corrective to what the sensationalist media are telling us -- as is his earlier backgrounder on what is going on. Where do the mainstream media tell us: "Every day the Iraqi people stream out into the streets to cheer and wave at us as we drive by. When I'm on a foot patrol, walking among a crowd, countless people thank us -- repeatedly"?

It looks like Israel is beginning to use the Muslim horror of pigs to good advantage. Putting lard (pig fat) on buses could mean an end to bus bombings. "Though the pig is considered a defiled animal strictly forbidden in Jewish dietary laws, the Muslims forbid any contact with the animal. Any contact with the pig is punishable by denial of entry to paradise."

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of selected readiing

My recipe for today is an old Australian country recipe for rabbit pie. See here. As Mrs Beeton nearly said: "First catch your rabbit..."

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH

********************************

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.

********************************

FROM BROOKES NEWS

Getting it right on recessions and the 'wealth effect' If anyone wants the real explanation for our housing boom they need look no further than the Reserve Bank of Australia's monetary aggregates that show M1 rising from 81,943 in January 1996 to 162,135 in January 2004.
They Kill Only Jews It's illogical to try and negotiate with a culture of people who, in large part, have become 'killing machines.' At the very least, they believe in a creed of evil and death.
Bunny Champers takes on Professor Krugman over terrorism During the whole ten years of Clinton's presidency Wankerman -- or is it Krugman -- never once attacked Clinton for not tackling bin Laden, Saddam or the Taliban, despite the number of terrorist attacks against the US.
Reporter does hit job on Condi Rice The leftwing Marian Wilkinson, Washington correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald (aka The Saddam Times), has dropped any pretence at objectivity to become a media mouthpiece for the Democrats.
Washington Post lefties try to stitch up Condi Rice Leftwing journalists are worse than hyenas when they think they smell Republican blood. Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post wrote as if there was something unusual if not sinister in Condi Rice's refusal to testify in front of the 9/11 commission.
Pincus and Milbank: the low-down on two Washington Post Bush-hating reporters During the Clinton years walter Pincus was consider to a mouthpiece for NSA adviser Sandy Berger who was also a former China lobbyist. Pincus' was wife also a Clinton Administration official. On two occasions Pincus was given time off by the Washington Post to work for J. W. Fulbright.

Details here

*********************************

ELSEWHERE

The French connived at genocide! How surprising for a nation with such a high moral tone! "Rwanda's President Paul Kagame launched a new attack on Paris in a speech to mark the genocide's 10th anniversary. He accused the French of arming and training the extremist Hutu government in power in 1994 and of being aware that they intended to commit genocide".

Air America, the new liberal talk radio network, is sending minorities to the back of the bus. The network, owned by former Democratic National Committee executive Mark Walsh, debuted March 31. Ironically, the three radio stations broadcasting Air America's programs were all stations with formats featuring black and Hispanic culture. By preempting black and Hispanic cultural programs to promote their own ideology, Air America is very much in concert with the liberal policy of using minorities for their own purposes.... Now instead of communicating the needs and concerns of minorities they communicate the needs and concerns of rich white people. Instead of employing minorities they employ white liberals -- about 90% of Air America's hosts are white people.

"I suppose it would be considered lacking in nuance to nuke the Sunni Triangle. But so goes the unanimous vote around my household - and I'm betting millions of others - in the aftermath of what forevermore will be remembered simply as "Fallujah" ... If we were but creatures like those zoo animals we witnessed gleefully jumping up and down after stomping, dragging, dismembering and hanging the charred remains of American civilians whose only crime was to try to help them".

Econometricians have discovered that racially diverse areas are more crime prone: "The results from my econometric analysis confirm the predictions of my industrial organization theory of racial competition. The theory suggests that diversity increases both inter and intra-racial crime as racial groups compete."

There are some pretty amazing quotes from animal liberationists over at Mosaic. Here's one: ""The life of an ant and the life of my child should be granted equal consideration."

Arlene Peck: "Europeans aren't just after Israel, they're after the USA too. They know you don't negotiate with people whose only reason for living is killing. Yet, terrorism is terrorism, everywhere in the world. Except of course, when it happens in Israel. Then, it s reported as "incidents"... the Jewish State is fighting a real, honest-to-goodness war.... I think, however, that we in the United States are finally beginning to realize that Israel's problem is now a global one."

Iraq's new constitution is a gem: "IF I were a terrorist interested in Iraqi affairs, I would certainly reach for the plastique after reading Iraq's interim constitution because it would make me feel insecure, if not desperate."

Dick McDonald has bitten the bullet and started his own blog. It is early days yet but he already has some good reading up. He hasn't mastered hyperlinks yet but he is working on it.

The wicked one has put a lot of jokes up lately.

My recipe for today is for a salad with a difference: Parsee Kachumbar (onion salad). It goes well with any Indian food but particularly well with Parsee Dhansak -- for which I also gave the recipe recently. See here.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH

********************************

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.

********************************

"OUTSOURCING" AND FREE TRADE

Is the attack on "Outsourcing" Leftist racism?: "Media bias is sometimes found not only in what makes it into print but also what doesn't. This is evident in the campaign theme of "outsourcing." There probably isn't a Democratic politician who hasn't used the term to attack President Bush, and this has resulted in a flurry of news stories about the subject. But in all the media coverage, have you heard anyone refer to outsourcing as a "racial code word"? For the uninitiated, racial code words are words politicians (usually Republicans) are accused of using to supposedly help them win votes by raising whites' fears of minorities. ... To the extent that outsourcing is a racial code word, the code isn't all that secretive. An organization calling itself Make America Work For Us, which is affiliated with the 527 group Media Fund, is running an attack ad that begins, "During the past three years, it's true that George W. Bush has created more jobs. Unfortunately, they were created in places like China." As the commercial proceeds, the camera pans out to reveal a factory covered with Chinese symbols. One can only imagine the outrage that would occur if a conservative group had run such an ad."

Call center employees replaced by lower-wage workers in India don't "deserve" to lose their jobs. But that does not mean they have a right to keep them, any more than candle makers had a right to block electric lighting or blacksmiths had a right to prevent the introduction of the automobile. In all of these cases, the need to make a profit in the face of competition drove people to produce better goods or services or to produce them more cheaply. The upshot of this process has been lower prices, higher productivity and a standard of living unparalleled in history. Economic progress requires a constant shifting of resources to their most productive uses

Fighting back on outsourcing: "What has been seriously lacking in the outsourcing debate thus far is hard data. Now, at last, we are starting to get some serious studies with good numbers. They paint a very different picture of the outsourcing phenomenon ..Global Insight found that the total number of jobs lost to IT outsourcing last year was only 104,000; this amounts to just 2.8 percent of IT jobs in the United States. A much larger number were lost due to unrelated factors, including the collapse of the dot-com boom in 2000, the recession, and rising productivity. The most important finding of the Global Insight study is that the cost savings from outsourcing don't just flow into higher corporate profits. They contribute significantly to higher output in the United States, which leads to job increases elsewhere in the economy"

The hot-button issue for the Democratic Party this year is "outsourcing," the latest political euphemism that seeks to stigmatize companies voting with their feet and escaping high taxes and onerous regulations that drive up the cost of labor, increase the cost of capital and drive down rates of return on investment... The enemy of American jobs is not Japan, India or China, but rather stupid policy made in Washington, D.C. Therefore, a more apt metaphor is "refugee CEOs" who are fleeing punitive government policies that hurt both capital and labor.

***************************

ELSEWHERE

John Leo points out that the recent activities of The Anti-Defamation League (the best-known American Jewish organization) include support for abortion and gay rights, backing the effort to remove Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore from the bench in the Ten Commandments case, and opposing school vouchers in Washington, D.C. One might also note its role as a critic of THAT Christian film and conclude that organized American Jewry just does not know what side it's bread is buttered on -- considering that conservative Christians are the bedrock of America's support for Israel and considering that many Leftists are once again openly antisemitic (as they were in Hitler's day). John Leo goes on to point out however that the ADL is only one example of a special interest group that has drifted Left over time. I guess that a narrow mental focus just IS Leftist.

There is a good summary here of what a treasure the world has in Israel.

It's only a "lie" if a Republican says it: "When John Kerry says he supports the Kyoto Treaty even though he voted for a bill that declared the United States would never ever ratify it, that doesn't mean he's a 'liar,' it just means that ... well, to be honest, I haven't a clue what it means. You better to take it up with him."

There's no mystery why there are so few male teachers. Take this case. A male teacher was sacked because of accusations of sexual impropriety even though a court agreed that there was no evidence of impropriety. Who would want to risk entering a system as unjust as that?

Today's recipe is a simple way to make a hearty meal of chili con carne. See here.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH

********************************

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.

********************************

NEW BLOG

A lot of the postings I have put up recently concern Greenie issues so I have decided to give such postings a blog of their own. You can find it here. Greens and Leftists have a lot in common in that they both want to use the power of the state for pervasive and irrational interference with other people's lives. Neither gives a damn for individual liberty. But their motivations differ. Where the Leftist ideologue's main aim is to make himself look warm and wise and wonderful (in the absence of any real claims in that direction) Greenie ideologues are frank misanthropists. They hate and despise people and are not slow to say so. The Leftist by contrast at least keeps up a pretence about caring for other people. As the old summary of Leftist thought says: "I love humanity. It's just people I can't stand". So the two types of would-be tyrant do deserve separate consideration.



SOME "FORGOTTEN" HISTORY

Amusing: Richard Wolin's book, The Seduction of Unreason appears to be a good critique of postmodernist irrationality but he makes his book politically correct by noting -- correctly -- that in the 1930s what we now call postmodernism was primarily a Fascist doctrine. So he says that postmodernism is "Rightist" too, you see: It is not only a mental confusion of the Left. The fact that Fascism was a development of Marxism and that Hitler was a socialist seem to be "forgotten" by Wolin. It would indeed be surprising if a Rightist philosophy suddenly became the guiding light of the Left but no such thing has happened. "Postmodern" thinking has ALWAYS been a Leftist escape-hatch from reality. Although both Marxism and Fascism may be long dead in most people's minds, both are variants of socialism and both still flourish among Leftist intellectuals -- not that they are honest about it, of course.

There is an interesting article on the "forgotten" George Schuyler in Policy Review. Schuyler was an astringent black conservative writer and satirist who ridiculed the claim that black art was distinctive: "Schuyler argued that black artists in America were equally as diverse as white artists, and that to expect a uniform style or subject matter was as insulting as the stereotypes that were being rejected." He was also a conservative within the NAACP who fought that organisation's socialist ways from within". Called one of the great anti-communist writers of the 20th century, he has now largely been airbrushed from the historical record for not conforming to black victimhood.

******************************************

ELSEWHERE

Wow! The New York Times has really goofed again. Have they got a second Jayson Blair? In this story about Australia's tough stance against illegal immigration their fact-checking seems to be non-existent. They say that Australia "turned away a leaking refugee boat called the Tampa". What a laugh! The Tampa was a well-found Norwegian container ship. And only the NYT thinks it was leaking! They also say of Australia's policy: "many Australians say the price has been too high and the damage to Australia's image incalculable". So how many is "many"? I guess 20 people out of Australia's 20 million would be "many" to some. The Australian electorate certainly gave its conservative government a crashing election win over the policy. And as far as other countries are concerned, from what I have seen, almost anybody who has heard of it envies Australia's tough policy. And the "prominent Sydney lawyer" they quote is of course a well-known Leftist advocate for the illegal immigrants concerned. The whole article is sheer propaganda that would do Dr. Goebbels proud.

Capitalism has been good to China From 1978 to 2002, the average annual per-person income rose from $190 to $960. It's probably now above $1,000. (The U.S. figure: about $36,000.) Life expectancy increased from 61.7 years in 1970 to 71 in 2002. Adult illiteracy fell from 37 percent in 1978 to less than 17 percent in 1999. Infant mortality dropped from 41 per 1,000 live births in 1978 to 30 in 1999 (the U.S. rate: about seven).

I mentioned a couple of books about China on 4th. Samizdata has an extended review of another distressing book about China under Communism: Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. The details of the three year famine unleashed by Mao's "Great Leap Forward" are truly horrifying. Mao undoubtedly has the distinction of being history's biggest mass-murderer. But it was all for "the people", of course.

The wicked one has some amusing stories about technophobes.

I have just posted here the latest observations from Chris Brand about the apparent dawning of sanity about immigration in Britain.

My recipe for today is for Dhansak -- the classical dish of the Parsees (India's most affluent minority). It definitely is high-class food in every way. This recipe is for the real thing -- not the undistinguished curry that is trotted out under that name in some Indian restaurants. See here.

********************************

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.

********************************

GREENIE WATCH

Both Biddle in The American Spectator and Peter Brimelow comment on the big split within the ranks of the Greenie "Sierra Club". It is the "Old Guard" -- essentially old socialists just looking for another way of pushing people around -- versus deep-green environmentalists. The big divide between them is over immigration. The deep-green environmentalists oppose immigration on their usual anti-people grounds while the old guard see immigrants as potential victims for them to "support". Australian "Green" politicians seem to be like the Sierra "Old Guard". They get involved with a lot more than the environment. They are at least as anti-American and anti-capitalist as pro-environment. The Australian Greens, for example, opposed the Australian government's moves to halt illegal immigration whilst embracing multiculturalism and a holy war against all forms of racism real and imagined. How on earth they imagine they could run any kind of population policy with open borders is a mystery. Of course when you realise that they are more interested in social control and increasing state power than actually improving environmental quality, the paradox disappears.

This article by the courageous Michael Fumento reminds us all how bad the AIDS scare was for many years. Millions of American heterosexual deaths were predicted. It is obvious to all who know anything at all about it now that widespread AIDS among heterosexuals just did not happen, but Fumento said the scare was a hoax in 1987! -- based simply on looking at the basic science of the matter. The parallels with the scare over global warming are extensive and instructive -- particularly the way both the media and the scientists directly involved profit from such scares.

Here's another report from Fumento: The Peruvian government had a huge silver, lead and zinc mine that was injecting huge amounts of dangerous pollutants into the environment (just like similar operations in the old Soviet bloc). Things got so bad that Peruvian government gave up and sold the mine to a private mining American company -- who promptly reduced the pollution enormously. So who are the Greenies now harassing over the mine's pollution? I don't need to tell you.

Biodiversity: The decline of British butterflies does not put us on the brink of a man-made mass extinction: "Thomas also told me that there had been much debate between the nine authors of the paper about the interpretation of their findings... In its concern about preserving the 'natural' world, the biodiversity agenda stigmatises human activity. The natural is valued indiscriminately, almost religiously... The diversity of species has never been richer than during the relatively brief period that humans have been around".

********************************

ELSEWHERE

Saddam DID have WMDs. "For seven years, before he was tortured and sentenced to death, Rashid (not his real name) worked at the top of Iraq's scientific establishment. He says he regularly met Saddam Hussein and his cousin and strongman deputy prime minister Abdul Tawab Huweish. After the Gulf War he was put in charge of a taskforce code named "Al Babel" to develop stealth technology to make aircraft and missiles undetectable on radar. Rashid, who now lives in Melbourne, also claims to have had access as a trusted insider to secret underground bunkers where chemical weapons were stored."

Poverty is in the eye of the deceiver: "Last month the Senate released the report of its inquiry into poverty in Australia. It is the most dishonest document of its kind I have ever seen in Australia... the only way they could pretend poverty is booming is to define it as inequality. From this flawed start the report descends into farce. Some of its more outrageous errors are documented in a paper from the Centre for Independent Studies called Lies, Damned Lies and the Senate Poverty Inquiry Report" For the CIS Media release on the matter see here.

I never thought I'd feel sorry for Ralph Nader but the arrogant treatment he got on Air America really was a disgrace. Yet another example of the Stalinist fear of free speech that typifies American "liberals", of course.

A former terrorist speaks : "The "Palestinian refugee" problem, [Walid] Shoebat said, results from international hypocrisy. Fifty-six years after the first Arab-Israeli war, Arabs continue to live in deplorable squalor in camps maintained by UNWRA, he said. Past Israeli governments often proposed replacing the camps with apartment buildings, he said. But Palestinian and Arab UN general assembly members vociferously rejected each such plan as "provocative." Meanwhile, Shoebat said, Middle Eastern Arab and Muslim governments expelled more than 900,000 Jews after Israel's 1948 war of Independence-and confiscated their homes, bank accounts, even their clothing- without recompense. Israel resettled Jewish refugees, he said. They became productive citizens. Arab League member states, by contrast, refused to help their brothers in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Instead they exploited the "refugee" camps as a propaganda tool that even today perpetuates the international jihad with a myth of Arab and Muslim victimhood, he said. "

Hitler made Germany Judenrein ("Jew-free") by killing all Jews he could find. Arab countries did the same after the establishment of Israel by expelling all Jews they could find. Jewish families have been able to claim off Germany for at least their financial losses and at long last there is some prospect that similar claims against Arab countries may get somewhere.

Britain's own terrorists "Eight young Muslims, all British-born citizens of Pakistani descent, have been detained and half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, a basic ingredient of home-made bombs, was discovered in the west London suburb of Hanwell. .. Something like the horror inflicted on holidaymakers in Bali may have been narrowly averted; ...instead of teaching a bland, rights-focused multiculturalism ... our educators should think hard about their failure to inculcate our values, be they religious or secular or a combination of the two, in the minds of Britain's very own generation of terrorists"

Bill Keezer points to the sheer dogmatism of academic Leftist arguments against the Iraq war. How amusing that the academic Left try to tar conservatives with dogmatism! See also today's posting on PC Watch.

The wicked one has a Jewish joke up (Risky!) and a thought-provoking comment on the complete pervasiveness of globalization.

Today's recipe is for Korean spring rolls. Very different from any other spring rolls you know and very more-ish. See here.

********************************

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.

********************************

CHINA

Fighting China's silicon curtain Numerous efforts are under way in the West to help Chinese web users get around China's censorship of the internet

China does have some conservative traditions: "Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu advised political rulers to rule with the lightest touch: Administer the empire by engaging in no activity. The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world, The poorer the people will be. The more laws and orders are made prominent, The more thieves and robbers there will be. Therefore the sage [ruler] says: I take no action and the people of themselves are transformed. I engage in no activity and the people of themselves become prosperous."

Christopher Lingle's review of "EAST AND WEST: China, Power, and the Future of Asia", by Christopher Patten: "Patten exposes the proponents of "Asian values" as apologists for authoritarian rule. He stresses that it is inappropriate to attach regional adjectives when discussing essentially universal human values and human (individual) rights. Such references only reinforce racial divisiveness and do little to enhance our understanding of how Asia's economies have developed"

Autocratic Ghosts and Chinese Hunger" by Bryan Caplan: "Only twelve years into his thirty-year reign, Mao Zedong surpassed Joseph Stalin as history's leading mass murderer, according to evidence released recently by the People's Republic of China."

************************************

ELSEWHERE

SPAM: Those sad and jealous souls who hate Microsoft are not going to want to face this but Microsoft do a brilliant job of blocking spam. I have two main email boxes that I use -- with Yahoo and Hotmail. But the address that I use all the time and which has for years been plastered up in many places on the internet (I have around 500 files online) is the Hotmail one. So which one gets the most spam? The Yahoo one by far. Both Yahoo and Hotmail let very little junk though to my main inbox (less than ten emails a day in both cases) but I get at least 100 emails a day in my Yahoo junk-mail inbox. I just empty the box without looking at them. In my Hotmail junk-mail inbox, by contrast, I get around a dozen emails in one day -- few enough for me to at least scan the subject line before I delete the lot. And I have rescued quite a few genuine emails by being able to scan them first. So the number of junk emails that Microsoft block without my seeing them at all must be enormous. They are obviously very confident in and very successful with their spam-blocking algorithms and procedures these days. So I think the cure for spam has already arrived: Get a Microsoft Hotmail box. May Google-mail be as good.

The New York Times agrees with President Bush!: "The Arab world's need to defy Washington and revile Israel is not a valid excuse to perpetuate medieval autocracies and repressive dictatorships. The claim that the Middle East is somehow immune to democracy, whether through tradition, history or religion, is equally spurious. Striking evidence of this was provided by a gathering of Arab intellectuals and nongovernmental organizations at the Alexandria Library in Egypt in mid-March. The statement they issued is a ringing proclamation of universal democratic values and the urgent need to spread them through the Arab world."

Washington DC surprises no-one: "The report card, required by the No Child Left Behind Act, indicates that most of the District's schools have fallen way short of national standards in math and reading in the 2002-03 school year. In fact, 83 of 151 schools tested failed to make adequate progress on last year's standardized tests"

Dumbed down teachers: "Despite the exalted rank implied by the term 'National Board Certified,' the content knowledge required of K-12 teachers who want to earn such a title through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is only that of an advanced high school class, according to a recent commentary published in the Teacher College Record under the title, 'National Board Certification of Teachers: A Billion Dollar Hoax.'"

A good comment from a reader on the large Muslim presence in Europe: "These "kind and gentle Europeans" who just can't deal with violence because "peace" is morally superior - have let Muslims take the place of the Jews that were expelled or killed -- not a good trade, considering the declining economics of Muslim communities as compared to the thriving economies of Jewish "Ghettos" both before and after the Holocaust. I don't believe "God did it", but if I did, I would believe that God replaced the expelled Jews with Muslims to punish the Europeans for their ancestors' sins".

Don't believe this hype about OPEC oil cartel being good for the economy by 'stabilising prices'. It in fact is a major reason why the price of motor fuel fluctuates so much.

Weaselteeth has a good human interest story about a very large man.

Some excellent quotes about the old Soviet system. One example: "Stalin famously said: "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.""

Doctors flee Illinois: "In key Illinois counties -- including Madison, which has become infamous as perhaps the most plaintiff-friendly venue in the United States -- doctors, hospitals, and some local elected officials are warning of a medical system collapse. They are taking their warning and a plea for tort reform to the most powerful voters in the state: the elderly, who are also the biggest health care consumers."

We don't hear much about one of the Arab world's largest countries -- Egypt -- a country that receives billions in American aid and would probably starve otherwise. So are they appreciative of America? Anything but. If you want to read the most obscene anti-American propaganda, read this summary of what appears in the Egyptian media. Americans just make fools of themselves by supporting these poisonous loonies.

The Atlantic has just heard about Edmund Burke: "Edmund Burke understood before anyone else that revolutions devour their young -- and turn into their opposites"

There is just no need for government financed sport stadiums "privately financed sports stadiums pay for themselves"

My recipe today is for Keema -- curried mince (ground beef). See here.

********************************

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.

********************************

Dick McDonald of the California Republicans should really do his own blog but in the meanwhile I have posted his three most recent emails here. If you like his stuff, tell him so. His email is: RAMcDonald@aol.com

GREENIE CORNER

"The Kyoto Protocol has become a well-known political slogan. President Bush has called it "fundamentally flawed," while some environmentalists in America and Europe have said it is essential for saving the Earth's climate and the future of humanity itself. Many on the right have called it economic madness, while for many on the left it is an ecological article of faith.... But the facts have always made it clear that Kyoto would be outrageously costly and completely ineffective -- as designed, it would not even noticeably influence the climate. And more importantly, in light of recent developments, the treaty is essentially defunct". In other words, it is the Greenie version of a hair shirt -- an exercise in self-punishment and nothing more. Its motivation is religious, not scientific.

"Commissioner Margot Wallstrom insists that the Kyoto Protocol is 'the only existing effective international framework for combating global warming.' This questionable argument -- Kyoto neither exists yet, nor has any scientist claimed it would yield a detectable climatic impact"

The whole global warming scare is based on work by a group of scientists headed by Dr. Michael Mann, of the University of Virginia. Climate scientist David Legates examines Mann's claim that the climate record of the last 1000 years is shaped like a hockey stick (i.e. flat until recently) and shows that the claim is based on fudged data. It is a publicity-grabbing fraud, in other words: "Our analysis, as well as independent research by Canadian scientists Mr. Steven McIntyre and Dr. Ross McKitrick, highlights many statistical flaws present in Mann's `hockey stick' reconstruction, which is why it is being challenged on scientific grounds by a number of serious scientists. We must take a closer look at the science of the "hockey stick" and, in this case, ask the question, "How much of the warming of the 20th Century was `man-induced' and how much of it is `Mann-induced'?".

What have been the real-life consequences since the world adopted the basic ideas of environmentalism? How about millions of documented human deaths? Incredible? Read this before you decide.

The imaginary Greenie paradise: "Free trade and civilization may contribute to disease transmission, but these activities also create the economic growth that grants access to the essentials of healthy living: food, pesticides, sanitation, and water disinfectants. Those suffering the most from disease epidemics need more trade and economic growth to escape from -- not return to -- the life of the primitive."

"The message from the environmental groups grew more shrill and hostile. As the environment actually improved, predictions turned more dire. Environmentalists first taught us how greedy, evil corporations were destroying the planet, and then taught us how we were all responsible for destroying the planet. Fortunately, the extreme environmentalists had a solution in mind. This solution is in accord with that of today's Muslim fundamentalist terrorists: both clubs want you and your miserable capitalistic existence exterminated. Except the environmentalists are worse--they would just as soon see all of humanity exterminated, not only the capitalists. You are the enemy. (I suppose the environmentalists somehow see themselves as a better class of humans, otherwise they'd help the cause by killing themselves first.).... The environmentalists screamed about the falling sky and the population explosion more than 30 years ago. There was no way we would be able to feed all the billions of extra hungry mouths come the turn of the century.... We did solve world hunger! We can now feed vast amounts of people on far less land with far less waste through modern agriculture.... And I was wrong about the intentions of the environmentalists. Damn the hungry, they only wanted less people; they wanted millions of starving, fly-plagued third world peasants to stop breeding and die."

Recent ecoNOT postings:
* The radical new "Manifesto for Earth": an inhuman rejection of human nature
* Environmentalists are waging war against our nation's military
* The Yellowstone controversy: is it only about snowmobiles or something far more serious?
* Citigroup sacrifices the Third World poor to kowtow to the greens

*********************************

ELSEWHERE

Hitler's Brownshirts are not dead: "The group is called "National People's Action."... A more accurate description is left-wing goon squad.. what distinguishes NPA from other liberal advocacy groups is its tactics. The group engages in what it calls "direct action" -- publicizing the home addresses of business and government leaders it wants to shake down and then busing in protesters and schoolchildren (using public school buses) to invade the private property of their victims and intimidate their families... After meeting in Washington for its annual convention this weekend, NPA members descended on the Washington, D.C., homes of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and White House adviser Karl Rove... after chanting and knocking on Rove's door, the "crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove's house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read 'Say Yes to DREAM' and pounding on the glass.""

The Happy Carpenter is a small businessman and he thinks he knows why fewer American jobs are being created at the moment than the economic upturn would lead one to expect. He thinks that many small businessmen (the major creaters of jobs) have hit a tipping point. He says that the incredible labyrinth of government regulations that the "liberals" have created has now got so bad that many small businessmen are too fearful to hire anybody -- in case they inadvertently fall foul of some regulation and it ends up sending them broke. So that, even if they are doing well, they will not expand their business if it means taking the risk of hiring someone. It's safer to stay small. For many small businessmen, in other words, the "liberals" have largely killed off the American Dream of making it big. No doubt gamblers, optimists and the legally savvy will continue to hire but limiting job creation to them means a lot of people will stay unemployed.

Michael Darby is back online with a big lot of postings: Some headings:
East Timor: Poverty and Hunger
Osama & Friends
U.S. Institute of Peace Stumbles
We are Finishing the War
Iraq is free at last
Terror and tolerance
Depths of a Depraved Culture
Iraqis Say "War Was the ANSWER"
The Threat to the Flag

Today's recipe is for my pick of Japanese cuisine -- Ton Katsu (Don Kats to the Koreans). Actually, the Japanese say they got this off the Germans but it must have been a long time ago. See here.

********************************

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.

********************************

THE ATTACK ON FATHERHOOD

On Disposable Fatherhood: "Men are now being scolded for failing to shoulder the collective responsibility of a declining birthrate. But why should men be interested in fathering children? Confronted with the very strong societal message that children do fine without fathers, is it so surprising that some men decide the risks of having children are just too high? Every week we see pregnant celebrities flaunting their decision to bear children on their own. There are howls of outrage when governments try to confine access to IVF services to families with fathers."

One of the reasons that so many women can't find a husband is that millions of men have declared a Marriage Strike. Men believe that family courts have become so unfair that in case of divorce, they will lose custody of their children and their ex will take them for all they're worth.

American injustice: "A parent pulled into divorce court against his will also must submit to questioning about his private life, questioning that Abraham has characterized as an "interrogation." He can be forced to surrender personal diaries, correspondence, financial records, and other documents normally protected by the Fourth Amendment. His personal habits, movements, conversations, writings, and purchases are subject to inquiry by the court. His home can be entered by government agents. His visits with his children can be monitored and restricted to a "supervised visitation center." Anything he says to his spouse or children as well as to family counselors and personal therapists can be used against him in court, and his children can be used to inform on his compliance. Fathers are asked intimate questions about how they "feel" about their children, what they do with them, where they take them, how they kiss them, how they feed and bathe them, what they buy for them, and what they discuss with them. According to Abraham, fathers against whom no evidence of wrongdoing is presented are ordered to submit to "plethysmographs," a physical-response test in which an electronic sheath is placed over the penis while the father is forced to watch pornographic films of children... A parent who refuses to cooperate can be summarily incarcerated or ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.... In family court, it is not unusual for a father earning $35,000 a year to amass $150,000 in attorney's fees... One of the most astonishing practices of family courts is ordering fathers to pay the fees of attorneys, psychotherapists, and other officials they have not hired and summarily jailing them for not complying."

*****************************************

ELSEWHERE

What has gone right in Iraq: "Here is a detail you might have missed: A few weeks ago, the United Nations shut down the Ashrafi refugee camp in southwestern Iran. For years Ashrafi had been the largest facility in the world housing displaced Iraqis, tens of thousands of whom had been driven from their homes by Saddam Hussein's brutality. But with Saddam behind bars and his Baathist dictatorship crushed, Iraqi exiles have been flocking home. By mid-February the camp had literally emptied out. Now, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports, "nothing remains of Ashrafi but rubble and a few stones." Refugees surging *to* Iraq? That isn't what the antiwar legions told us would happen if George Bush made good on his vow to end Saddam's reign of terror. Over and over they warned that a US invasion would trigger a humanitarian cataclysm, including a flood of refugees *from* Iraq.

Barbara Amiel points out that the Democrats and their media allies would never have allowed ANY President to act decisively against Islamic terrorism before 9/11: "What administration could, before 9/11, have sent in American boys to fight a regime in Afghanistan because it was implementing the ideas of an old man with a long white beard, sitting crossed-legged in the mountains talking about Satan America? Had I been in Congress before 9/11, knowing everything that was knowable about the Islamists, I still doubt if I would have voted to send troops to the Hindu Kush to topple the Taliban. Eardrums would have exploded all over Capital Hill from outcries of racism and imperialism if there had been serious efforts, pre-9/11, to round up suspected Muslim militants in the United States and tighten security on Muslims entering the country."

Another example of the bare-faced dishonesty of the Left: A Leftist blogger read this by Keith Burgess-Jackson: "'Conservatism is committed to a presumption in favor of tradition. Presumptions by their nature are rebuttable" and commented: "So BJ calls on us to follow tradition dogmatically" -- which is the opposite of what Keith actually said. If you regard a presumption as rebuttable, you are NOT following it dogmatically! Perhaps the Lefty blogger is such a lamebrain that he does not know what "rebuttable" means. Just to confuse him further, I might note that the claims about conservative psychology that he also refers to are rebutted here. And if he wants to get straight about dogmatism, he could look here.

Boring Radio: "If ever a talk show defines hate speech Randi Rhodes' show is it. The woman had difficulty saying two sentences without using the words President Bush and Nazis.... Randi will be one of the hosts of the new Democratic Party radio propaganda network called Air America"

USA Today hits the nail on the head: "Major cause of joblessness lies within U.S. schools". Millions of kids cannot get even the Mickey Mouse diplomas that most U.S. high schools hand out these days. I cannot blame the kids for getting tired of unending lessons in political correctness, though.

Ann Coulter shows from history how past Democrat responses to Islamic terrorism led to the 9/11 attacks. There is a similar posting here which also asks the interesting question: "There are two men, both extremely wealthy. One develops relatively cheap software and gives billions of dollars to charity. The other sponsors terrorism. That being the case, why was it that the Clinton administration spent more money chasing down Bill Gates over the past eight years than Osama bin Laden?"

Dick McDonald says that "mainstream" Islam has no religious reason to denounce terrorism because what the terrorists do is perfectly Islamic.

The wicked one has recent postings on gun control, women soldiers and the spiritual side of capitalism!

Thanks to Colonel Sanders and KFC, just about the whole world has tried Southern fried chicken. So here is something different -- Balinese fried chicken -- featuring some herbs and spices that the good Colonel probably never heard of. See here. Bali is a mainly Hindu island near Australia so is heir to a great cuisine.

********************************

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.

********************************