SOME ECONOMICS

High minimum wages create unemployment: "For the past decade, some of the least-skilled and lowest-paid workers in America have benefited from controversial programs known as living wage ordinances. Under these laws, companies with city contracts are forced to pay workers enough to live in that city, often $2 to $3 more than traditional minimum wage. But a new study shows the initiative as having mixed results in combating poverty. ... A 6 percent employment decline in cities that require a living wage, according to the study. Critics say it's no surprise that making companies pay higher wages results in their hiring fewer employees. 'They [the laws] don't work. They don't help the people that they are intended to help,' said Anthony Archie of the Pacific Research Institute. 'They're supposed to help low-skilled workers and they actually crowd them out from getting jobs.'"

Death tax bad for economy: "Permanently repealing the estate tax would save the government money in the long term and could produce 200,000 new jobs a year, according to a study released today that challenges the official congressional estimate that says the government would lose money. The study by the American Family Business Institute (AFBI) contends that congressional actuaries have continually underestimated how a cut in taxes increases economic activity and results in an increase in revenues collected by the government. The study says the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) wrongly claims repealing the estate tax would cost $140 billion in federal revenues. "The JCT is grossly overestimating the cost of repealing the death tax," said Dick Patten, executive director of the AFBI".

Finns doing well: "Fifteen years ago, Finland faced a full-scale depression, brought on by the loss of the country's most important markets as the Soviet Union disintegrated. Unemployment soared to 20 percent. But the Finns took control of their future, made painful adjustments and came out of the crisis with an economy that the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, ranks as the most competitive in the world.... A relatively backward agricultural country became a high-tech powerhouse with labor productivity as good or better than that in the United States, but also a welfare state as generous as any in Europe. Perhaps the most revealing statistic behind this transformation is Finland's commitment to research and development. The Finns put 3.5 percent of their domestic product into R&D last year, second in the world to Sweden (about 4.3 percent) and far ahead of the United States (about 2.6 percent) or the E.U. as a whole (less than 2 percent).... Finland steadily increased government spending on R&D throughout the 1990s, when all other spending was either cut or frozen... Funding from public institutions constitutes only about a third of R&D expenditures; the rest comes from businesses"

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

ELSEWHERE

A California Latino conservative says: "Much has been said about the Hispanic’s contribution to this great nation and to the state of California. Many came to this great country of ours to create a better life not only for themselves but for their children. Unfortunately, the Democrats’ message has been misleading and has taken the Hispanic vote for granted.... Seems like the depressed Democrats will sink to any level to stir the pot creating discontent and hatred. What the liberals do not understand is that while they view us as needy, poverty stricken or social service seekers, we as a people are in reality, entrepreneurs, and hard workers in pursuit of the American dream. Sure many of us started by working in the fields, picking, pruning, cultivating the crops. But many have pulled ourselves out of poverty by acquiring education or skilled trades that have helped us be successful... In 2004 there were over two million Hispanic owned businesses that generated $247 Billion dollars in the United States. A testament that the Republican philosophy of giving a “hand up” and opportunity, is far better than any “handout” the Democrats can contrive. We are basically entrepreneurs by nature and are not afraid of hard work."

Islamic totalitarians: "Seeing Islam as the basis of a political system touching every aspect of life, fundamentalists are totalitarian. Whatever the problem, "Islam is the solution." In their hands, Islam is transformed from a personal faith into a ruling system that knows no constraints. They scrutinize the Qur'an and other texts for hints about Islamic medicine, Islamic economics, and Islamic statecraft, all with an eye to creating a total system for adherents and corresponding total power for leaders. Fundamentalists are revolutionary in outlook, extremist in behavior, totalitarian in ambition. Revealingly, they vaunt Islam as the best ideology, not the best religion-thereby exposing their focus on power. Whereas a traditional Muslim would say something like, "We are not Jewish, we are not Christian, we are Muslim," the Malaysian Islamist leader Anwar Ibrahim made a very different comparison: "We are not socialist, we are not capitalist, we are Islamic." While fundamentalist Islam differs in its details from other utopian ideologies, it closely resembles them in scope and ambition. Like communism and fascism, it offers a vanguard ideology; a complete program to improve man and create a new society; complete control over that society; and cadres ready, even eager, to spill blood".

Leftist hatreds distort their response to terrorism: "In my estimation, the Left can't get past its overwhelming "Bush hatred" and "blame America first" attitude that predisposes it to have sympathy for America 's enemies. Unfortunately, the political Left is rife with terrorist sympathizers who can't fully fathom the heinous nature of evildoers that target innocent civilians for death. Denial, in my opinion, is an element when considering the Leftist mentality. In the wake of the London terrorist attacks, Bill O'Reilly's comments to a Leftist journalist were spot-on. The journalist thought that we needed to understand the perspective of terrorists: O'Reilly replied, "Serial killers have perspectives, too! We don't take their point of view!" Exactly. Arab grievances? Why should we make any excuses for murderers?"

Public broadcasting is socialist nonsense: "Congress is once again debating the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which partially funds the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). Public broadcasting doesn't require fine-tuning. Like most other remnants of the Great Society, it needs to be killed. Much of the discussion centers on the question of public broadcasting's bias. That question was settled long ago. PBS' and NPR's programming has had an obvious leftist tilt since their inception."

Leftist blogosphere bad for Democrats: "While Moulitsas recognizes that the left-wing blogosphere is a world unto itself, if establishment Democrats have any awareness of that fact they have yet to betray it. Where Trudeau feels bloggers are a bunch of shut-in half-wits, the Democratic party seems to be under the impression that bloggers are an enormous, important constituency--and that it must go to whatever lengths necessary to win the hearts and minds of this virtual community. This seems like a major miscalculation, because the politics of the left-wing blogs are far out of the American mainstream. Where most of the 120 million Americans who voted in the last election bear a benign indifference to political matters, the left half of the blogosphere seethes with hatred for George W. Bush and his supporters. What's more, the blogs take numerous positions that would strike all but the most passionate Democratic partisans as patently preposterous. For example, several of the left-wing blogs recently ran an advertisement that referred to West Virginia Senator and former Ku Klux Klan Kleagle Robert Byrd as an "American Hero.""

Chris Brand has just put up a VERY incorrect proposal for how to deal with suicide bombers on buses and trains.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

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

Forgotten blogiversary

I seem to be good at forgetting my blogiversary. I missed it last year, too, I think. I first started blogging on July 10, 2002. I reproduce part of that very first post below:

DENIAL OF REALITY

"The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." (H.L. Mencken)

There would seem to be some possibility that excess ego can be curbed. The traditional Christian preaching of humility certainly assumes that. It is doubtful, however, that another underpinning of Leftism can be much influenced: Denial of reality.

Denial is perhaps best known through the work of Sigmund Freud as a classical neurotic symptom or coping mechanism. Instead of dealing with uncomfortable truths, the neurotic acts as if those truths simply do not exist. This is, of course, very maladaptive and creates at least as many problems as it solves.

Sadly, however, it would seem that reality denial is far from limited to psychiatric cases. Denial would appear to be in fact much more common even than excess egotism. Human beings generally do not handle reality well. That is why humans are such a drug-using species. Whether it be alcohol, cannabis, opiates, Khat, cocaine, nicotine or merely caffeine, few of us seem able to face life without chemical crutches. Straight reality is generally too much for us.

But WHY are human beings so uncomfortable with reality? Why do they use so many means to "escape" it? Again it probably goes back to more primitive times when reality was very oppressive and dispiriting. Only those who could escape reality in some way had the heart to carry on. So a talent for ignoring unpleasant truths was adaptive. In the modern world, however, reality is much more benign and, as Freud saw, denying it can easily descend into the psychopathological.

So any attack on the reality-denying habits of Leftists would appear doomed to failure. Even such an overwhelming reality as the utter collapse of the world's 70 year experiment with Communism caused them not at all to abandon their equalitarian mania but only to change their focus somewhat.

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

ELSEWHERE

British idiocy: "The main spokesman for the Metropolitan Police on Thursday was Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick. He also complained about attacks on "purely innocent members of the public", thereby making one think that there might be other people (police? soldiers? politicians?), who are not purely innocent and should have been attacked instead. Asked about the nature of the terrorists, Paddick said: "Islam and terrorism don't go together.... Embedded in modern government are too many advisers who believe in a quietist policy. To them, the most important thing is to avoid a "backlash" against Muslims. But the truth is that the backlash only threatens because the terror strikes"

Principled Leftists: "The war in Iraq is a neo-conservative project, right? Yes, in the sense that in the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have come to believe that “the defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom.” But little noticed is the fact that some of the strongest supporters of this revolutionary idea are on the left. Prime Minister Tony Blair, leader of Britain's Labor Party, is the most obvious example. "A democratic Iraq,” he insisted earlier this year, “is not just a giant step forward for Iraq itself; it is a blow right at the heart of the global terrorism that seeks destruction not just in Iraq but in Britain and every major country in the world." Blair may be a rare figure on the left – but he is hardly alone, as has now been demonstrated by Thomas Cushman, Professor of Sociology at Wellesley and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Human Rights. Cushman has edited “A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq,” a collection of essays by two dozen liberal/left thinkers, all of whom, Cushman writes, represent “what might be called a third view. The basic elements of this perspective are a strong liberal commitment to human rights, solidarity with the oppressed, and a firm stand against fascism, totalitarianism and tyranny.”"

Why isn't there more of this?: "A prominent Islamic scholar who exhorted his followers after the Sept. 11 attacks to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops was sentenced today to life in prison. Ali al-Timimi of Fairfax was convicted in April of soliciting others to levy war against the United States, inducing others to aid the Taliban, and inducing others to use firearms in violation of federal law. The cleric addressed the court for 10 minutes before his sentencing."

Proof that Islamic terrorism is all because of Israel: "Thailand plans to replace 3,600 civilian teachers in the country's violent south with graduate soldiers and police. Deputy Education Minister Rung Kaewdaeng says only 1,000 of the mostly Busddhist teachers, who have requested transfers, will actually leave the region.The rest will move to town schools in remote areas. Most of Thailand's six million Muslims live in the south of predominantly Buddhist Thailand. An insurgency has flared sporadically in the region for decades, with more than 800 people killed since the latest unrest began in January 2004. Education Ministry data shows about 1,000 teachers have already left the region, where schools have been frequent militant targets as symbols of the government. As incentives to stay, the Education Ministry is offering 3,000 free flak jackets and faster licences for 1,700 teachers waiting to buy pistols."

An outbreak of commonsense: "As planning for terrorism becomes a part of daily life in the Western World, a growing number of disaster experts are calling for a dramatic reassessment in the way the nation plans for emergencies. The problem, they argue, is that the current top-down approach views the public as a problem to be managed rather than an asset to be utilized. Officials don't take into account people's natural willingness to help or address their most basic needs -- like concern about the safety of their spouses and kids. This upstart group of sociologists, physicians, and terrorism experts contends that the use of ordinary citizens during a large-scale emergency could save hundreds if not thousands of lives. And they are determined to ensure the public is properly prepared before the next catastrophic event."

Les Bates has an amusing example of sheer Leftist ignorance. I find that sort of thing in emails I get from Leftists too. Their ignorance of the facts is so vast that I do not know where to start sometimes. Not that facts bother them.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

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

Happy birthday to me! I turn 62 today



Brookes News Update

Government MPs plan to rip millions off in subsidies for ethanol producers : Trade Minister Mark Vaile and Nationals senator-elect Barnaby Joyce are proposing ethanol subsidies that will rip millions out of taxpayers' pockets
What is NAIRU?: Explains why the concept of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) is an economic fiction
Market reality vs. socialist myths: Despite the collapse of the Soviet Empire and China's move to a capitalist oriented state socialist ideas still plague much so-called economic thinking
Free trade, manufacturing and wages: In the 1920s continental unions argued that their countries needed tariffs to protect their members' jobs from high-wage American labour
G8 bows to Islamic terrorism: USAID from spending millions on helping Arab Palestinian terrorist organisations

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

ELSEWHERE

When Hitler bombed London, was Churchill to blame? "Last Thursday's London massacre of almost three score innocent people who were simply smashed to bleeding fragments on their way to work, has thrown a harsh light on the British Left. Normal people learned something from the horror – the shocking inhumanity of the attackers, perhaps. Not so the Left. Within twenty-four hours, the Guardian of London was pumping out its daily propaganda line: Don't blame the killers. Blame Bush and Blair for knocking over Saddam Hussein. Which makes me wonder whether the editors' own parents blamed Winston Churchill for the Nazi bombings of London. The Brit Left continues to mix up "the fire and the fire brigade," in Churchill's phrase. That is not by accident. In the upside-down prism of the Left there are no criminals, only police brutality. There are no hard-working achievers, only exploiters of the poor."

Dennis Prager on SCOTUS: "We don't know who President George W. Bush will nominate to succeed Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But this is certain: Democrats will smear the nominee. It will not matter how personally honorable, how intellectually honest, how legally profound this nominee is. Indeed, the greater the individual, the greater the personal attacks will be. Why? There are three reasons. First, Democrats believe that conservatives by definition are bad people.... The reason they see conservatives this way is that most people on the Left are certain that they mean well; therefore their opponents do not mean well. Moreover, liberals tend to assess policy positions on that basis -- are the motives good? -- rather than on the basis of what actually does good".

The Left does NOT support the troops: "Liberals, Democrats and others on the Left frequently state that they "support the troops." For most of them, whether they realize it or not, this is not true. They feel they must say this because the majority of Americans would find any other position unacceptable.... But most of the Left does not want the troops to win in Iraq. The Left's message is this: "You troops may think you are winning; you may think you are doing good and moral things in Iraq; you may believe you are fighting the worst human beings of our age and protecting us against the scourge of Islamic terror. But we on the Left believe none of that. We believe this war is being fought for oil and for Halliburton and other corporations; we believe you are waging a war that is both illegal and immoral; we believe you have invaded a country for no good reason and have killed a hundred thousand Iraqis [the Left's generally mentioned number] for no good reason; but, hey, we sure do support you."

Antisemitic graduate students: "A new survey of attitudes toward Israel among graduate students at top U.S. universities offers a disturbing if not frightening picture of increasing sympathy for the Palestinian cause and blame on the Jewish state for the lack of peace.... Titled How The Next Generation Views Israel, the report was written by Frank Luntz, a pollster who has conducted a number of surveys on the attitudes of young people toward Israel and Jewish life for the Israel Project and other groups. It was based on "face-to-face group interviews" Luntz conducted with nearly 150 students under age 30 in New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles. They attended law, business, journalism or government programs at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and UCLA.... What's more, Luntz found a thin line between anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment among "these young elites," noting that "they may not be in the `Zionism is racism' camp, but they're not all that far away." He said the students "view any U.S. support of Israel as generated by wealthy Jewish special interests rather than as a reflection of the national interest.""

Welfare and foreign aid: "The world just witnessed a major campaign by well-intentioned individuals to shower billions on dictators and tyrants who use the money to exploit their own people. The West calls it compassion. One thing you can say about foreign aid is that is welfare writ large. It is the dole on the grand scale. And it has the same effects. When you pay people to be dysfunctional the amount of dysfunctionality will increase."

Surprisingly well done! "On 7/8, Markos Moulitsas announced at Daily Kos: "Today I did something I've never done before (not even during the Fraudster mess), and wish I'd never had to do. I made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarrassing conspiracy theories. ... You know the ones -- Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can't imagine what f---ing world these people live in, but it sure ain't the Reality Based Community."

An interesting question about the London bombings: "Let's see, have we heard anything from Senator Durbin? Maybe his cell phone went down. Maybe he can't get to the Senate floor to decry the London attacks and those who did so as being of the same ilk as Adolf Hitler, the Soviet Gulags and the murderous Pol Pot."

I loved this headline: "Study: Blacks in LA lag in many areas" [And grass is green too]

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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 HISTORY

A Leftist at work: "Mao was an early radical but he was driven by an overwhelming lust for domination. He championed women in his early writings but he exploited, betrayed, and consumed droves of them and drove into madness or despair three of his four wives. He had scorn or contempt for peasants and cared little if they died of hunger. Far from being a great guerrilla leader, he often commanded his forces into losing situations. Most of his closest colleagues feared his murderous tendencies and did what he wanted not out of loyalty but ultimately-Zhou Enlai is the outstanding example here-out of fear. Mao opposed fighting the Japanese despite the urgings of Josef Stalin, and never forgave the commanders of the only two battles against them. During the guerrilla period Mao encouraged the production of opium whose sale greatly swelled his treasury. His policies led to the death of up to a million landlords. He encouraged Kim Il Sung to attack South Korea. His economic policies and contempt for the peasantry led to the world's greatest famine in 1959-1961, in which at least 37 million people died. He provoked the Cultural Revolution and demanded detailed accounts of the torture and killing of its victims."

Leftists think nothing of lies: ""I am not and have never been a member of the Communist Party," Alger Hiss said under oath on Aug. 5, 1948, and calmly refuted the accusation of former Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers. The House Un-American Activities Committee had subpoenaed Chambers two days before. Then a senior editor at Time magazine, Chambers had testified reluctantly. Hiss, however, was not content to deny his communist ties. "So far as I know," he added, "I have never laid eyes on [Chambers], and I should like the opportunity to do so." The unruffled demeanor of Alger Hiss unnerved the HUAC members, who had trusted Chambers, but it did not surprise Chambers. He knew from experience that Hiss had the strength to be a communist, "that sense of moral superiority which makes communists though caught in crime, berate their opponents with withering self-righteousness." What would have shocked Chambers is if Hiss had yielded and wept and told the truth".

The murderous Che Guevara: "It's safe to assume that many people now sporting radical-chic Che T-shirts oppose capital punishment, but Che Guevara served as an executioner for Castro, as Guevara himself admitted in some of his diary entries... But Che Guevara's killing spree didn't reach its apex until after the corrupt Bautista regime collapsed and Castro put Guevara in charge of the San Carlos de La Caba¤a prison. Jos‚ Vilasuso, a lawyer and professor in Puerto Rico who had served with the group in charge of the judicial process at La Caba¤a prison, told Vargas Llosa that one night in 1959 he witnessed the execution of seven political prisoners. Another witness, Javier Arzuaga, a clergyman more inclined toward the liberation theology of Leonardo Boff than the conservatism of the former Cardinal Ratzinger, told Vargas Llosa that Che Guevara never overturned a sentence. He said he personally witnessed 55 executions, including that of a young boy named Ariel Lima. Estimates of the number of executions of political prisoners during the six months that Che Guevara was in charge of La Caba¤a vary. Economist Armando Lago has compiled a list of 179 executions. Pedro Corzo, who is making a documentary about Che Guevara, puts the number at 200. Vilasuso told Vargas Llosa that 400 political prisoners were executed under Guevara's command. Whether Che Guevara executed 400 political prisoners or "only" 200, it's hard to see how self-styled "progressives" can continue to justify their worship of the murderer".

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and America's support for the Afghans: "Just as radicals today like to think of themselves as "anti-anti-Saddam" so then they were anti-anti-Communist. In practice this meant they were the mainstay in the West for the Soviet empire and its expansion into vulnerable nations on its periphery like Afghanistan. The United States provided training and arms for the Muslim mujahideen in Afghanistan because its conscience was roused by the Soviet invaders whose scorched earth policies killed a million defenseless Afghan civilians before the resistance, with America's help, was able to stop them..... the victory of the mujahideen, made possible by America's gift of missiles, not only defeated the Red Army, but triggered the chain of events which led to the fall of the Marxist empire. In other words, U.S. support for the mujahideen eventually liberated a billion people whom the Soviet comrades of American and European leftists had enslaved for fifty and seventy years. In other words, America's support for the Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi terrorists (Osama among them) who flocked to the cause was a somewhat bad deed in the service of a very great good one. It was not as bad a deed for example as saving and arming their friend Joe Stalin and his Marxist butchers in order to defeat Hitler, but it was an equally good one"

The Catholic "Treasure Chest" comics from the 1960s are reproduced here. The anti-Communist series is still pretty close to the mark.

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

ELSEWHERE

A true hero: "A Danish pizzeria owner was jailed Tuesday for refusing to serve French and German tourists in protesting their countries' opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. A Danish court found Aage Bjerre guilty of discrimination and fined him $900. Bjerre refused to pay, and will now serve an eight-day sentence. "I'm doing it to show my sympathy with the United States. It shows how seriously I mean it," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "But one should also remember that eight days is a small price to pay when American soldiers go to Iraq and risk their limbs and lives." In February 2003, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Bjerre posted two signs barring Germans and French from his pizzeria on Denmark's western island of Fanoe. His refusal to serve them drew criticism in this Scandinavian country, where the government supported the war while its citizens were split. The 46-year-old received hundreds of fan letters from the United States, but had to sell the pizzeria after repeated vandalism and a large drop in sales. He is bringing a photograph of President Bush and Laura Bush, as well as an American flag, to decorate the walls of his prison cell: "I think that will brighten up the room," he said.

San Francisco's Mark Morford is good for a laugh at times. I still get a blast out of his description of "Good" Christians: "They are streaming into huge beautiful nonjudgmental buildings all over San Francisco and Chicago and New York and Boston, etc., places that welcome gays and oddballs and spiritual nomads and pantheists and anyone else who might be feeling a divine pull, and please leave your Jesus extremism at the door and let's talk about Sufism" but his latest post is something one hears more commonly. He pisses on people who have routine jobs and extols those who drop out to engage in "spiritual" pursuits. It's a celebration of immaturity though. Most of us have to do routine things at some time in our lives and the world would be a sorry place if nobody did them. And who says that people in routine jobs don't enjoy their work? Routine can be very relaxing and reassuring and I think it is just Leftist arrogance to look down on people who do routine work. And as for the alternative activities that Morford extols, they sound like nothing more than overinflated egos at work to me.

A new lot of posts from Chris Brand have just gone up here -- including his acerbic comments on the London bombings.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of select reading

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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

Economy shames prophets of doom: "We were told at the beginning of the year that the American economy was in trouble. The boom in house prices was producing a bubble that would burst. The dollar would fall, and the federal budget deficit rise, increasing inflationary pressures and forcing a growth- stifling rise in interest rates. And soaring oil prices would be the final straw that broke the back of the economy. In the event, the housing market remains strong, with sales at record levels. Instead of falling, the dollar has risen, helped along by the sag in the euro as it becomes apparent that the eurozone economic model is on the road to nowhere. The budget deficit has declined, thanks to robust tax receipts and in spite of a battle between President George Bush and Congress to see who can be the most profligate. Inflation has remained tame, and long-term interest rates have not responded significantly to the Federal Reserve's attempts to force them up by raising short-term rates."

CAFTA opponents ignore NAFTA: "Last week's 54-45 U.S. Senate vote in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was a modest step forward for U.S. taxpayers and consumers.... liberal voices from the past continue to echo through Washington. "CAFTA contains inadequate protections for workers' rights and will only increase the power of corporations to exploit workers," the International Brotherhood of Teamsters website exclaims.... This rhetoric is mild compared to so-called "progressive" opinion outlets that equate CAFTA with corporate-sanctioned murder.... Over ten years ago, before the inception of NAFTA, Canada had a GDP of $617.7 billion. Since then, its GDP has expanded over 65% to $1.023 trillion. In addition, Canada's December 2003 unemployment rate was 11%; in 2004, its unemployment rate had dropped to 7% (a 36% decrease). Mexico's economic numbers since the signing of NAFTA do not reveal a "brutal exploitation" either, but measured progress, and a higher standard of living. In 1994, Mexico had a GDP of $740 billion. Ten years later, Mexico has seen its GDP expand over 35%, to $1.006 trillion today. In addition, its 1993 GDP growth rate was .4%. In 2004, it boasted a 4.1% annualized growth rate. These numbers are hardly indicative of the dangers of free trade. Like Canada and Mexico, the United States has witnessed similar economic prosperity since NAFTA".

Labor unions: "The truth is that unions are essentially parasitic organizations that thrive only by draining and ultimately destroying the companies and industries they control. The essential goal of the unions is to compel the payment of higher wages for the performance of less work and less productive work. Unions are notorious for their hostility to labor saving machinery and to any form of competition among workers, for featherbedding practices, indeed, for "making work" by deliberately and arbitrarily increasing the number of workers required to accomplish a given task and sometimes even by compelling the disassembly or destruction of products already produced. It should be no wonder that the percentage of the labor force controlled by unions tends progressively to decline. Where the unions hold sway, companies cannot compete. Their market share falls and they ultimately go bankrupt. The only way that unions can maintain any given share of the labor force is by finding new victims to replace the ones they have sucked dry".

Fabulous news from Greece: "The government is seriously considering introducing a single, 25 percent income-tax band as part of its broader effort to boost the economy. The rate would be the same for both individual and corporate earnings, and would be introduced on January 1, 2007, applicable to incomes earned in 2006. Should the government go ahead with the reform, which appears likely, it will be announced by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis in early September at the Thessaloniki International Fair, where premiers traditionally announce the government’s policy for the following year. Under the present system, annual income up to 11,000 euros is tax-exempt, while the portion of the income between 11,000 and 13,000 euros is taxed at 15 percent, between 13,000 and 23,000 at 30 percent and above 23,000 euros at 40 percent. According to sources, introduction of the flat rate will be accompanied by a rise in the tax-exempt portion of the income to 13,000 euros. The government, meanwhile, has already begun decreasing corporate taxes, from 35 percent to 25 percent."

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

ELSEWHERE

It looks like the conventional theory that comets are "dirty snowballs" is beginning to be accepted as wrong after the mission to Tempel 1. Tempel 1 seems to have been just a dust-covered rock: ""The major surprise was ... [data] that suggests the dust excavated from the comet's surface was extremely fine, more like talcum powder than beach sand. And the surface is definitely not what most people think of when they think of comets -- an ice cube," said Deep Impact's principal investigator." That means that conventional theories of the origins of the solar system are called into question too -- not that that would be a surprise to Andrew Prentice or to These people.

Arlene Peck says: "England has always had such a welcoming attitude to her Muslim immigrants too. In fact, they had such a warm, huggy relationship with "the immigrants" that everyone thought Britain was immune from Islamist violence, because of it's more than acceptable behaviour toward Muslims who live within her borders. In fact, long before the recent horror of the bombings, Britain had allowed itself to become a breeding ground for hate..... Muslims make up 9% of the city's population and the attacks occurred near districts where they are concentrated. Now, these same "peaceful Muslims" living in Britain are concerned that the recent "incident" just might upset the delicate balancing act they have been performing all these years. I hope it turns out to be a wake-up call; that roaches must be exterminated and not embraced."

Tomorrow belongs to the GOP: "Migration from liberal bastions in the Northeast and Midwest to the Sun Belt states will boost Republican electoral strength in the coming decade, making it tougher than ever for Democrats to win the presidency without carrying states in the South or Southwest. The Census Bureau's latest projection of population shifts, the first in eight years, shows a dramatic movement from the North to Southern and Western states over the next 30 years. The study points to a political movement as well. Heavily Democratic states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Michigan will go on losing congressional seats and thus electoral strength in presidential elections, political analysts say. At the same time, they say, Republican states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada likely will gain congressional and electoral clout. "The net beneficiary of this will continue to be the Republican Party because the population shift is moving into an environment that is heavily dominated by the Republicans," says Merle Black, a professor of politics and government at Emory University and author of books on political shifts in the South."

Right Wing News has a very good post titled: "Debunking 8 Anti-War Myths About The Conflict In Iraq"

I have just posted here a libertarian defence of America's Iraq intervention.

There is a particularly outrageous story up on Strange Justice at the moment.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

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

TUESDAY ROUNDUP

Once again I list what I think were the best posts on my various blogs in the preceding week.

On Dissecting Leftism I give some history of Leftist racism

On Political Correctness Watch I note that cake is now incorrect

On Greenie Watch I note the significance of the fact that the House of Lords has rubbished Britain's climate change policies

On Education Watch I note that a five-week teacher training course gets better results than a four year teaching degree

On Socialized Medicine I note the first official announcement of medical vouchers

On Gun Watch there is a spirited defence of gun rights from English libertarian Sean Gabb

On Leftists as Elitists I note that Democrat self-love is their undoing

On Blogger News I ask is the term "liberal" still meaningful? (Also posted on Conservative Philosopher)

On Majority Rights I note that feminism seems to be faltering

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

ELSEWHERE

The motive behind the London bombings: "The post-modern liberal mind cannot make sense of terrorism -- why would anyone want to kill women and children? What would drive someone to do such things. Surely, our political system can provide a safe outlet for their grievances. Don't we have departments of multiculturalism? Don't we give foreign aid? Don't we have racial affirmative action? .... Such a response does not understand the terrorists. To understand them is simple, if terrifying: Read their writing and listen to their speeches. They want the world to be ruled by sharia law, where the only constitution is the Qu'ran. They want a theocracy, like Afghanistan was and Iran is, where infidels are killed, or kept in a state of submission, called dhimmitude. Read Osama bin Laden's speeches, not those of his lawyers and psychologists in the media. Like Hitler's Mein Kampf, bin Laden is plain about his intentions. There was no half way, no compromise, no win-win possible with Hitler. The Jews didn't do any one thing in particular to him -- he hated their very existence. The West didn't do any one thing to bin Laden that caused his hate -- other than to live freely and outside his authority. Sixty-five years ago, Britain understood Hitler was evil, and responded with Spitfires, not psychologists. Here's hoping Britain today has the same clarity of thought."

Australia's treasurer points to bias against conservative churches: "Treasurer Peter Costello yesterday lashed out at the hypocritical treatment of churches in politics, saying conservative churches were seen as sinister while Left-wing clergy won nothing but praise. Mr Costello strongly defended the Hillsong Church from charges it was "a danger to democracy". The Treasurer supported the mass-member Pentecostal worship in Sydney's outer suburbs against establishment churches. He said Left-wing leaders within the Anglican and Uniting churches were given more credence on social issues than conservatives from organisations such as Hillsong. "Everyone goes around and says, 'well we are worried about the influence of the Pentecostal churches'," Mr Costello said. "You know, they might get involved in politics, but we will defend the right of Anglican Archbishops to engage in politics. And the difference is the general view in the media is a churchman is entitled to speak on a social issue as long as he has a Left-wing perspective."

Commo-loving black "Democrat": "Congressman Charles Rangel-a frequent, forthright defender of civil liberties on national television-has long been a paladin of black political and human rights in this country... Because of his record, I was surprised when-as nonviolent Cubans had the courage to gather in Havana on May 20 for the first public mass meeting for their freedom during Castro's 46-year dictatorship-Rangel was among the only 22 members of the House of Representatives who voted against a resolution (392 in favor) supporting this "historic meeting." Then, as noted in last week's column, Rangel attacked American politicians who "refuse to give the [Castro] government the respect that it deserves." And he dismissed the Cubans defying the dictator-who, in 2003, locked up for long sentences more than 70 dissenters".

Radioblogger is an interesting site. Go there for all your transcripts of Leftists making fools of themselves on air. I liked this excerpt from an interview with Ronald Reagan junior -- who made the usual Leftist claim of "no connection" between Saddam and terrorism. Christopher Hitchens replied: "When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world. The same is true of the shelter and safe house offered by the Iraqi government, to the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer, and to Mr. Yassin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993".

There is an article from last year here that traces the origins of Al Qaeda back to the Arab Nazis of WW2

That abuse expert and mini-Chomsky, Brian Leiter, has just copped another well-deserved blast for his anti-intellectualism. Leiter's highly intellectual response was to "out" his critic as homosexual. Charming!

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

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

A MARXIST WET DREAM OR A DEMOCRAT WET DREAM?

The following bit of fantasizing comes from Sam Webb, who is/was the "chair" (I hope someone sits on him) of the Communist Party of the USA. But it could just as well be Democrat propaganda. Neither has any idea of how their projected paradise might be brought about. Conservatives and anybody else in touch with reality know that it cannot. The Left had half the world to experiment on for most of the 20th century and made things infinitely worse there rather than better. In the excerpt, Comrade Webb is talking about what America would be like "after the revolution"

"I would expect that the economy would be a mixed one, combining different forms of socialist and cooperative property as well as space, within clear limits, for private enterprise. While democratic planning would begin to play a role in organizing economic life, market mechanisms would probably operate over sectors of the socialized economy for much longer than I thought years ago....

I have confined myself to the day after the revolution, but extending the time frame a bit further into the future brings additional images and possibilities. Homelessness and joblessness would be eradicated. Toxic dumps would be cleaned up and replaced with gardens and playgrounds.

Our skies would be blue and pollution free. Our neighborhoods would become places of rest, leisure, culture, and green space. The whole panoply of oppressions that scare our people and nation would be on the wane. Human sexuality and sexual orientation would be enjoyed and celebrated. The audiences at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall would look as diverse as the people of our city.

The prisons systems would be emptied and the borders demilitarized and opened. Women would be regularly receiving Nobel prizes in the sciences. The Pentagon would be padlocked and the swords of war would be turned into plowshares and we would study war no more. And, finally, the full development of each would be the condition for the full development of all."

And here is the current Democrat dream, only marginally less realistic and self-defeating:

If the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is probably the closest thing Bay Area liberal Democrats have to a government in waiting, were to take over in Washington, these would become national policy:

Access to affordable, high-quality health care would be universal. Social Security benefits would be protected, along with private pensions. The minimum wage would be raised, and workers' rights to form unions would be protected. Expiring sections of the Patriot Act wouldn't be renewed, and Congress would fight media consolidation. U.S. troops would be brought home from Iraq "as soon as possible,'' and the government would work to "restore international respect for American power and influence.''

All these points are part of the "Progressive Promise,'' an effort by the 59-member caucus of liberal House Democrats and one independent to reinvigorate the 15-year-old organization and make it more of a player in a capital city where conservative Republicans are solidly in charge

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

ELSEWHERE

More strangeness from Arkansas: The retiring Republican governor of Arkansas (where Clinton hails from) Mike Huckabee, recently made a "joke" that has aroused a lot of anger. He seemed to think it amusing that "Southern white guys" like himself may soon be a minority in the State -- a State which has had a large influx of illegal Hispanic immigrants. Since large numbers of Americans are not at all amused by illegal immigration, the attitude to law enforcement revealed by the "joke" is pretty surprising in a senior Republican. There is an article here which has a sinister explanation of Huckabee's thinking. From an Australian viewpoint, the toleration of illegal immigration by America's political elites of both the Right and Left seems pretty contemptible. The Australian government has cracked down very heavily on illegal immigration.

Children of illegals NOT citizens by right: "We well know how the courts and laws have spoken on the subject of children born to non-citizens (illegal aliens) within the jurisdiction of the United States by declaring them to be American citizens. But what does the constitution of the United States say about the issue of giving American citizenship to anyone born within its borders? As we explore the constitutions Citizenship Clause, as found in the Fourteenth Amendment, we can find no constitutional authority to grant such citizenship to persons born to non-American citizens within the limits of the United States of America".

The Left never do care about reality: "The most fascinating thing about President Bush’s speech on Iraq last week was the reaction of many on the left, whose weird mind-set was best captured by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Bush’s speech, she said, tried to “exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq.” In effect, Pelosi was accusing Bush of failing to join in her favorite delusion, which is pretty funny when you think about it. It was a reminder that for Bush haters, the no-connection-with-9/11 canard has hardened into something like a religious belief. But to repeat the cliche, on Sept. 11 our world changed. We were at war — not a war in the conventional sense, against an identifiable regime with control over territory. But as in any war, we suddenly knew we had reason for heightened fear of what we did not know. Those of Pelosi’s ilk, by contrast, cling to the world of Sept. 10. They have refused to accept that we had to change our posture toward potential threats — such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. A corollary to the left’s no-link-to-Sept. 11 delusion is the belief that Hussein’s regime had no relationship with al-Qaida. Certainly, there’s little or no evidence that Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attack. But the relationship between al-Qaida and Hussein’s regime was fairly well-developed, as the Sept. 11 commission report made abundantly clear".

Can this be true? "Surveys completed in recent months by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that nearly a fifth of teens who have access to the Web have their own blogs. And 38 percent of teens say they read other people's blogs. By comparison, about a tenth of adults have their own blogs and a quarter say they read other people's online journals." [If it is true that is one hell of a lot of blogs. No wonder Technorati is overloaded into uselessness most of the time]

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

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

IMMIGRATION TO THE USA -- LATEST FIGURES:

Analysis of birth records shows that in 2002 almost one in four births in the United States was to an immigrant mother, legal and illegal, the highest level in American history. The enormous number and proportion of children from immigrant families may overwhelm the assimilation process, making it difficult to integrate these new second-generation Americans. At present, the U.S. government automatically gives American citizenship to all people born in the country, even the children of tourists and illegal aliens.

Among the study's findings:

In 2002, 23 percent of all births in the United States were to immigrant mothers (legal or illegal), compared to 15 percent in 1990, 9 percent in 1980, and 6 percent in 1970.

Even at the peak of the last great wave of immigration in 1910, births to immigrant mothers accounted for a slightly smaller share than today. After 1910 immigration was reduced, but current immigration continues at record levels, thus births to immigrants will continue to increase.

Our best estimate is that 383,000 or 42 percent of births to immigrants are to illegal alien mothers. Births to illegals now account for nearly one out of every 10 births in the United States.

The large number of births to illegals shows that the longer illegal immigration is allowed to persist, the harder the problem is to solve. Because as U.S. citizens these children can stay permanently, their citizenship can prevent a parent's deportation, and once adults they can sponsor their parents for permanent residence.

The large number of children born to illegals also shows that a "temporary" worker program is unrealistic because it would result in hundreds of thousands of permanent additions to the U.S. population each year, exactly what such a program is suppose to avoid.

Overall, immigrant mothers are much less educated than native mothers. In 2002, 39 percent of immigrant mothers lacked a high school education, compared to 17 percent of native mothers. And immigrants now account for 41 percent of births to mothers without a high school degree.

The dramatic growth in births to immigrants has been accompanied by a decline in diversity. In 1970, the top country for immigrant births - Mexico - accounted for 24 percent of births to immigrants, by 2002 it was 45 percent.

As a share of all births in the country, Mexican immigrants accounted for one in 10 births in 2002. No single foreign country has every accounted for such a large share of births.

Source

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

ELSEWHERE

Robert Mandel has a very good history lesson for the Islamic morons. If they really want to get Mecca nuked, we may eventually oblige them. (HT Les Bates)

National Association of Scholars responds to the Ward Churchill affair: "In the wake of the Churchill affair, the Regents of the University of Colorado intend to oversee a comprehensive review of the workings of the tenure process, probably the first within a major university since the formalization of the modern system in 1940. Their opportunity is not simply to avoid being stuck with more Churchills, but to restore to the process the integrity it was originally supposed to possess, or to change it as necessary. Tenure's weak point has always been its susceptibility to favor-trading-the all-too-human inclination to help the other guy if he'll be equally nice in return. Academe was once thought too high-minded for such cheapening accommodations, but apparently that is no longer so. If tenure is to be preserved in its present form, means need to be found for restoring the primacy of intellectual criteria over political ones, and frustrating the reciprocal "rent seeking" that drives down all standards. Given the strength of vested interests, this won't be easy to do. But it is an opportunity that still beckons".

Canada: Court orders US extradition of environmental terrorist: "One of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives, a suspected eco-terrorist known as Tre Arrow, was ordered extradited back to the United States on Thursday to face charges of firebombings. Arrow, born Michael Scarpitti, is accused of participating in the 2001 firebombing of logging and cement trucks in Oregon. The FBI claims he is associated with the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a group that has claimed responsibility for dozens of acts of destruction over the past few years."

At the movies: "Ordinarily I am not a paranoid person, so this hypothesis of mine is not the usual type. But recently I have noticed that when I see serious American movies, mostly the ideological take in them tends to be anti-capitalist, anti-free market, against free trade, anti-business, anti-corporate -- in short against most things associated with the United States of America. Granted, there are policies by the US Government that I, too, find very upsetting but these aren't what these movies tend to go after -- like increasing meddling in people's personal lives, Court decisions that favor the government over the private sector, preoccupation with political correctness and so forth. No, the targets of these movies tend to be ordinary American values.'

Leftist solutions have not helped blacks: "Civil rights leaders like 57-year-old Prentice McKinney, who fought to free Milwaukee's blacks from the ghetto, say gangs, drugs and violence have left those who still live in the nation's urban cores in fear of the next generation. "Back then, the enemy was clear, it was white racists, and racist police officers," said McKinney, who was a black teen-age "commando" in the 1960s and now runs a tavern once frequented by fellow activists. "It was a legalized system of segregation. And so, the challenge was between the white establishment and the African-American population. Today, the African-American population is being destroyed by its own youth ... an enemy from within." He and others interviewed before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's six-day meeting beginning on Saturday see a changed city where a generation of blacks freed from the shackles of yesterday's legalized discrimination are held hostage by today's crime and poverty.... "We marched for fair housing, and now we have homelessness," Martin said. "I remember when there was good housing stock and families thrived. Now there is empty lots. I remember business districts that were as busy as any shopping mall and now they are vacant stores."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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

The US trade deficit with China and protectionist myths The US trade deficit with China has rekindled cries about the "level playing field" and "fair trade" that are becoming ever more strident
Clerical hypocrisy takes aim at the Liberal Party It should be obvious, even to left-wing clerics, that if the churches insist on engaging in economic debates then they have a grave responsibility to educate themselves in economic theory
The Brotherhood of St. Laurence and its anti-job agenda The self-righteousness Brotherhood of St. Laurence claims that wage flexibility only "promotes greater poverty and misery for low wage workers and their families"
Union economist denies economic laws If your raise the price of any product above its market clearing value demand will fall and a surplus will emerge and vice versa. That is, unless you are a trade union
Unions, unemployment and wages Union leaders, social workers, clerics, labour politicians and 'journalists' are claiming that the Government's proposed labour market reforms will have terrible consequences for real wages

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

ELSEWHERE

Will hard-Leftist Ken Livingstone admit he goofed? Unlikely "London Mayor Ken Livingstone's previous support of a Muslim cleric who advocates suicide bombings may cause him some embarrassment as he now must speak for the city in the wake of Thursday's terrorist bombings.... Livingstone has in the past labeled Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi a "man of peace" and a "moderate," despite the fact that Al-Qaradawi has supported suicide bombings and the targeting of American allies. Livingstone invited Al-Qaradawi to London's City Hall last year as an honored guest, and the mayor appeared in a video shown at a solidarity conference for the sheikh on Feb. 17 of this year in Doha, Qatar. Livingstone has publicly defended the sheikh against critics in the media and various grassroots organizations. The Anti-Defamation League has labeled Al-Qaradawi the "Theologian of Terror," while the website GayEgypt.com has dubbed him the "Dr. Goebbels of modern Egypt," for Al-Qaradawi's anti-homosexual rhetoric... Al-Qaradawi's theological justification for suicide bombings is entitled, "Hamas Operations Are Jihad and Those Who [Carry it Out and] Are Killed are Considered Martyrs" and appears on a website linked to the Hamas terror organization".

Northeastern Intelligence Network has a lot on the London bombings

Reliapundit has an apt comment on the London attack: "How long before the Left blames Bush"?

We had an eloquent warning over a year ago about the bombing proclivities of British Muslims. A pity the types concerned were not rounded up long ago. I imagine that nothing will be done about them even now.

The Australian government did NOT kowtow to China: "The former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin, who defected from his post in Australia, has been granted a protection visa today. A spokesman for the Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says the visa will give Mr Chen all the entitlements of a permanent resident, and the visa will also apply to his wife and daughter. Chen Yonglin says he's delighted with the outcome, and has thanked the Australian Government for granting him asylum. Mr Chen claimed the Chinese Government has up to 1,000 spies operating in Australia who've been kidnapping Chinese nationals. Chin Jin from the Federation for a Democratic China, which is a political group set up after the Tiananmen Square massacre, has welcomed the news"

Muslims becoming Christians: "In the past few years, increasing numbers of Westerners have been converting to Islam. Agence France Presse recently reported annual figures in France alone of 30,000 to 50,000. But a new phenomenon - largely unreported in the Western media - is occurring: Muslims, especially in the Maghreb (north-west Africa) are becoming Christians... According to most reports, the culprits are American evangelical missionaries operating in major cities such as Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Fez to remote areas in the mountains or the countryside. The statistics differ wildly: Missionaries are reported to number anywhere from 150, according to French weekly newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, to the 800-plus figure most often used. Converts are said to number anywhere from 7,000 to 58,000. These discrepancies are easily explained by the fact that both missionaries and converts have to stay constantly below the radar. Even though Morocco is a much more tolerant country than say Saudi Arabia regarding freedom of religion, it nonetheless imprisons anyone trying to convert a Muslim for up to three years."

The Supreme Court's decision on eminent domain in Kelo v. City of New London has sparked almost universal condemnation among conservatives. I myself could not see much wrong with the decision as long as just compensation was given and Hinderaker says much the same -- but more eloquently and in greater detail than I could. Anyone interested in balance should read Hinderaker's article. I liked his conclusion: "The principal threats to property rights lie elsewhere. In particular, regulatory actions often severely limit what an owner can do with his property. Unlike urban development projects, such regulations are often adopted in forums that are remote from, and unresponsive to, the political process. And what an owner generally hopes for in such situations is to be covered by the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of compensation for the loss of use of his property, which is automatic in the case of a condemnation. So it is a good thing that the Kelo decision has focused attention on the erosion of property rights; but, despite the critical consensus that has formed among conservatives, it is far from clear that the case was wrongly decided". There is also a libertarian defence of the Kelo decision here, rather surprisingly.

A great quote: "You don't understand the class structure of American society," said Smetana, "or you would not ask such a question. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists." (from Witness by ex-Communist Whittaker Chambers, p. 616). Lots more good quotes here

The daily blog of "Enter Stage Right" is back online at a new location. See here

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). 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.

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

Wow! The London horror seems to have overloaded a lot of the internet. Blogger.com was slow to respond and I cannot get into Hotmail at all -- after several hours trying. Gmail is still accessible, though.

RACE AND POLITICS

In what must be one of the best coverups of all time, most people today are totally unaware that Leftists were great racists before World War II. Racist beliefs were almost universal at that time but Leftists were the great preachers of it. Even Marx and Engels were furiously racist and if they were not Leftists, who would be? I have documented all that at length here and here and here and here.

Conservatives, by contrast, have generally been moderate in their racial views -- which is why the British Conservative party made an outspoken Jew their Prime Minister at the height of the British empire. And to this day conservatives take a moderate view of race -- rejecting for instance the Leftist claim that the problems of blacks are all the fault of whites. As always, conservatives think in terms of individuals rather than in such crude racial terms. Leftists have now reversed the polarity of their racism but they are still the ardent racists they always were. It is just another instance of their characteristic simplistic thinking. The dreadful Hitler episode made pro-white racism unmentionable just about everywhere but since they really believe in nothing at all other than their own entitlement to power, sophisticated Leftists immediately became anti-white without a qualm. Because of their claim to have an explanation for everything, they NEED simplistic thinking.

Less sophisticated and more down-to-earth Leftists could not do a backflip so quickly or easily of course -- as we saw in the American South. The opponents of racial integration in the 1960s American South (George Wallace, Orval Faubus etc) were of course prominent Democrats, members of America's mainstream party of the Left. And the Southern Democrats had not long before been the great bastion of support for the socialist FDR. Even in 1932, Roosevelt won all the southern states. Even the Ku Klux Klan was basically a Democrat organization. A former Klansman (Byrd) sits in the U.S. Congress as a Democrat to this day.

And as for FDR, note this quote showing that FDR too was a typical (racist) Leftist of his era:

"For an excellent illustration of just how little FDR cared for the desperate plight of southern blacks, you can study what happened to the Scottsboro Boys, eight young black men unjustly accused of raping two white women in 1931 Alabama. Even the more level-headed Southerners eventually came to see that no rapes had occurred and that the accused were innocent. But given the region's fierce pride, untangling the legal mess created by their conviction took many years. FDR could have waved it all away with a single signature on a federal pardon, knowing that the party's southern leadership would see that it never became a political issue. Instead, he did nothing."

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