Privileged French students demonstrate to preserve their entitlements

The French government wants to make all young people more employable by making it easier to fire duds, but .....

The current demonstrations by students of French universities against a proposed liberalization of the labor laws, so that it will be easier for French employers to hire and fire young people, remind me very much of the strike by miners on the Witwatersrand in South Africa in 1922.

The demonstrators in France and the strikers in South Africa are and were supported by their respective national communist parties. The miners went on strike because the mine-owners proposed to replace expensive white labor with cheap black labor, hoping to increase profits. This move provoked one of the most bizarre political slogans of all time, promoted by the communist party: Workers of the World Unite for a White South Africa!

What are the French university students demonstrating for? By opposing the proposed law of Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, they are in effect demanding that the children of Maghrebin and African immigrants stay exactly where they are, in the dismal and dispiriting housing projects that surround all French towns and cities, and accept their state of dependency on handouts derived from the taxes of their elders and betters.

The students are demonstrating for the continuation of their own protections and privileges once employed, as most of them soon will be. They do not wish employers to have the freedom to sack them, except at the cost of huge redundancy payments that the law currently grants them. Obliviously, of course, they are in effect also demonstrating for the continued segregation of the Arabs and the Africans.

And you can be sure that the "principled" young Frogs demonstrating are all Leftists. (Excerpts above from Theodore Dalrymple)

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ELSEWHERE

About time! "The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said today it had defrocked seven priests accused of molesting children, as it cleans house following a 2002 scandal over paedophile priests. The seven included Rev Monsignor Frederick Ryan, a former vice-chancellor of the archdiocese accused of abusing two teenage boys and photographing them naked about 25 years ago in his quarters at the archdiocese's chancery. Ryan was placed on administrative leave in March 2002. "This moment provides an opportunity to express to the survivors of clergy sexual abuse and to their families my deepest sorrow for the grievous harm done to them," Archbishop Sean O'Malley said. The Boston Archdiocese, faced with an $US93 million ($126.23 million) bill to settle cases involving about 1000 sex-abuse victims, has shut more than 60 churches to raise money since the scandal erupted in Boston in 2002 and spread nationwide. The seven men are no longer allowed to perform any public ministry in the church and can no longer receive any financial support from the archdiocese."

Wrong target: "Last week, invoking national security concerns, members of Congress hastily acted to prevent a company from the Persian Gulf nation Dubai from taking ownership of facilities at several American ports. This Wednesday Dubai Ports World announced that it plans to sell all its United States operations, presumably including the Port of Miami facility it has run for years without any problem, to an American-controlled company within the next six months. Longshoremen union members will continue to handle packages at America's ports, no matter who owns the facilities. Oddly, none of these same members of Congress have called for inspecting the disturbing history of these unions. At least three aspects of Longshoremen history suggest that these union members at our ports might pose a risk to national security. They have been associated with organized crime, specifically the Mafia. They have a history of anti-American radical politics and have committed acts of violence. But the Longshoremen have been shielded from scrutiny by their high-placed political allies - including Hillary Clinton"

Official Canadian thugs: "A Nova Scotia couple facing an $800 municipal bill for refusing to shovel the snow from their sidewalk have paid half that amount to save their home from being sold by town officials. John and Rona McQuillan of Guysborough have refused to shovel the 20 metres of sidewalk in front of their house since the municipality introduced a snow-clearing bylaw five years ago. The municipality told the couple they would have to pay at least $400 by Friday or face losing their home in a tax sale -- a demand the McQuillans called blackmail. ... 'It gives people four hours after the end of a snowfall to clear their snow, and an awful lot of the people work outside of Guysborough,' said McQuillan. 'It was a bad bylaw and we took on the job of objecting to it.'"

Direct from Iraq: "General John P. Abizaid, commander, United States Central Command, puts out an annual statement on the posture of the United States Central Command. The 2006 posture statement that discusses various topics on the Global War on Terrorism is now out. Some of the topics include "Nature of the Enemy", "Situation Overview in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa", "Other Regional Partnerships" and "Iran and Syria."

Palestinian parasites to feel cuts: "If Israel withholds revenues from a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and donor countries reduce aid, the Palestinians would be thrown into a deep depression, with personal incomes dropping 30 per cent this year alone. A new World Bank study says the Palestinian economy would shrink by 27 per cent in 2006 - a one-year contraction that compares to the 1930s Depression. Unemployment would nearly double, to 39.6 per cent, and two-thirds of the population would be living below the poverty level."

The useless TSA again: "Security screeners at 21 airports across the United States failed to detect materials that could be used to make bombs in recent tests by government agents, US legislators said overnight. "The fact that government investigators were able to pass through TSA's (Transportation Security Administration) screening at 21 major airports with bomb-making material is frightening," representative Bennie Thompson, a member of the Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement. "It's like the story of the Trojan Horse," he added. "TSA has spent so much time telling people to take off their shoes and belts, that they have missed the bomb-making materials." The tests were conducted last year by the General Accountability Office (GAO), the Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security at the request of US Representative John Mica, a Republican".

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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SOME OF THE ARTICLES CURRENTLY UP ON "THINK ISRAEL"

FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE "DISENGAGEMENT" -- A STATUS REPORT by Dror Vanunu

ORTHODOX AND ISRAELI: WHEN THE TWO DON'T MIX by Avraham Shmuel Lewin

THE IDF: AN UNCOMFORTABLE ANALYSIS by Moshe Feiglin

THE FICTITIOUS 'THIRD WAY' by Caroline Glick

WHERE OLMERT LEADS, ISRAEL MUSTN'T FOLLOW by Caroline Glick

THE RISE OF HAMAS AND THE DECLINE OF ISRAELI DETERMINATION by Steven Plaut

AL-QAEDA INFILTRATION OF GAZA: A POST-DISENGAGEMENT ASSESSMENT by David Keyes

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, THE NAZIS AND AL-QA'IDA by John Loftus

WILL THE NEXT GENERATION OF (ARAB) PALESTINIANS MAKE PEACE WITH ISRAEL? by Justus Reid Weiner and Michael Sussman

JERUSALEM: A PREFERRED TARGET FOR PALESTINIAN TERRORISM IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS by Dr. Reuven Ehrlich

"PRAGMATIC HAMAS" - NOT VERY LIKELY by Gerald M. Steinberg

THE MYTH OF A MODERATE HAMAS by Barry Rubin

THE SOLUTION TO TERRORISM by Yoram Ettinger

ISRAELI VICTORY WITHIN GRASP by Richard H. Shulman

THE NEW MUSLIM ANTI-SEMITISM: Exploring Novel Avenues of Hatred by Raphael Israeli

THE SABEEL CENTER'S ONE-STATE AGENDA by Dexter Van Zile

THE PHANTOM ARAB MODERATE by Shmuel Katz

THE PERILS OF ISLAMIC OBSCURANTISM by Babu Suseelan

PEACE CRIMINALS by Jack Berger

HOW TO RECOGNIZE UNFAIR REPORTING ABOUT ISRAEL by Lee Green

THE LION THAT ROARS FOR PEACE by Kate Wright

THE LAMENTABLE CASE OF JOAN SCOTT by Phyllis Chesler, Judith S. Jacobson and Richard Landes

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ELSEWHERE

The BBC has just given a reasonably fair account of the controversy over the "racist" views of Frank Ellis, a lecturer at Leeds University. I was amused at this sentence, though: "The Students' Union claim Dr Ellis has breeched requirements for staff to promote equality and want him sacked.. Is the BBC telling us that Dr Ellis has put trousers on certain requirements? I suspect that they meant to write "breached" but did not know how to spell it. Homophones are deadly for people who rely on spellcheckers. One would have thought that the BBC had some fully literate proofreaders on staff, though. The BBC definitely "ain't what it used to be".

Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts on his usual themes, including some comments on the Frank Ellis affair.

I have just put up a story on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE that is a REAL black eye for the Left. Conservatives everywhere should be talking about it.

Blogger.com is still having a lot of service outages. Keith Burgess Jackson's blog about Brian Leiter is one of those affected. The site has been down for over a day, now, I think. Keith is fed up and is going off blogspot. His new anti-Leiter site is here.

Google are getting worse all the time. They have just declared that a conservative Christian site is "hate speech". The site concerned has a copy of their letter up. I do myself excerpt content from that site from time to time and I have never seen any "hate speech" on it. Like a lot of Christian sites, it is passionately anti-abortion but if that is hate-speech, a huge slice of America is equally guilty. I suspect that it is their criticism of homosexuality that has got them into trouble. But if that is so, the Bible is hate-speech! See, for example Romans 1: 22-32, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, and 1 Corinthians 6: 9-19.

Saddam lied. People died: "As thousands of captured Iraqi documents are translated, it becomes clearer why all the world's intelligence services were misled about Saddam's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction (WMD). A decade of UN WMD inspections did indeed destroy Saddam's WMD arsenal. But Saddam believed that he could not outright say he did not have any WMD. He believed that Iran would come after him if they believed Iraq did not have WMD. During the 1990s, the Iraqi armed forces gradually fell apart because of the UN sanctions. So Saddam needed something to make Iraq look stronger than it actually was. But why didn't the truth get out of Iraq? That's because many senior Iraqi officials believed Saddam's deception. To contradict Saddam could get you killed"

I have just put up a new recipe for Hungarian Liptauer cheese spread on my recipe blog. Highly recommended. Recipe blog mirror here.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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ACCESS PROBLEMS

There have been quite a few problems accessing sites lately. With some blogspot blogs you get this notice: "Blog under maintenance. This blog is temporarily not viewable. Please try again after some time. For more information, click here". And when you click "here" you are told that the maintenance is complete!! Another problem with blogspot blogs is that you occasionally get the message: "You are not authorized to view this page". And you can also get a general "Site down" message.

A fix that works most of the time is simply to try again or to hit the refresh button. Hitting Ctrl+F5 (cache bypass) also sometimes helps.

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Brookes News Update

How the Fed's price rule triggers recessions: The thought that there is a connection between the manipulation of rates and the so-called boom-and-bust cycle is rarely given any consideration in the US media
The Commonwealth Games is a looming financial disaster for the Bracks' Government: The economics of state-sponsored sports, including the Commonwealth games and sports stadiums, are complete rubbish. Meanwhile, the Victorian Liberal Party finds itself unable to challenge Bracks' reckless spending program
Bush is a victim of America's political civil war: The Bush presidency has revealed the enormous ideological rift that has been developing for more than forty years in America, and yet the vast majority of Americans are still not fully aware of it
Bracks' energy policies are pricing families out of the housing market: Bracks' greenie policies are pricing thousands of families out of the housing market. (Similar policies have had the same disastrous effects in California). So why isn't the Liberal Party attacking him?
Catholic thinking backs labour market reform -- but the Liberal Party doesn't know it: It's time the Liberal Party learned that despite the chatter of leftwing clergymen Christian doctrine actually supports free labour markets
Simon Crean's Gosplan mentality: Crean is still wedded to the discredited and dangerous idea of industry policy
America is waking up to the Islamic menace: It's taken a few years, countless deaths and immeasurable suffering, but mainstream America finally seems to be waking up to the Islamic menace

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ELSEWHERE



A North Korean Musical! "As far as musicals go, seeing people break into song on subjects such as starvation and public executions in North Korea may be one of the most unlikely concepts for stage entertainment in several years. Producers held a preview in Seoul yesterday of the musical called Yoduk Story that features goose-stepping North Korean soldiers and deprived prisoners wondering if they can survive into the next day. The musical is about a North Korean woman's fall from a dancing revolutionary hero to a tortured inmate along with her family at Yoduk prison camp, where she bears a guard's child, and learns to forgive her brutal captors. The production is meant to be an irony-free look at life in a North Korean prison camp that could change the way the North is depicted in South Korean entertainment. Songs in the musical include You are just like germs and All I want is rice. The producers hope audiences can find beauty in the misery of life in the prison camps."

Equality for men sought: "Who controls human conception ... and when should that control be asserted? That's really the bottom-line question surrounding the abortion issue, and nothing makes that any clearer than the recent filing of a lawsuit by the National Center for Men, 'on behalf of a man's right to make reproductive choice to decline fatherhood in the event of an unintended pregnancy.' The case is a Michigan dispute, involving one Matt Dubay and his court-ordered levy for child support, for a child he had never intended to father; since he had been informed by his now ex-girlfriend that she was physically incapable of conceiving, he had not taken further precautions against such an event occurring. They even have a pet name for the case: 'Roe v. Wade for Men,' and they're asking the court to grant 'equal protection' for a man's right to decide about fatherhood. The specific issue has more to do with later (and long-term) liability for child support for unintended offspring, in the event the man in question had neither intended to impregnate his partner, nor had expected she was able to conceive (and thus failed to avail himself or her of precautionary devices)."

No free speech for churches? "The IRS wants to strike the fear of God into priests, ministers and rabbis who venture too far into politics and activism. In a Feb. 24 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson announced that nearly three-quarters of the 82 churches and charities that the IRS investigated recently for alleged political and electoral improprieties turned out, in the IRS' view, to be violators. Among the 'offenses': Allowing candidates to speak on church premises, preachers delivering remarks from the pulpit interpreted to endorse candidates and the posting of Web links to the Web sites of candidates for office. Interest is boiling over in Ohio: There, two ministers are accused of getting too close to Ken Blackwell, the Republican secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate, as well as letting their preaching get too political (the reverends deny the charges). At issue is whether the IRS should more actively sanction or even revoke the tax-exempt status of churches and charities it believes have gone too far."

Shelby Steele on the black problem: "By accepting the idea that government is somehow going to take over the responsibility that only we can take, we relinquished authority over ourselves. We became child-like, and our families began to fall to pieces. Welfare-which promised a subsistence living for the rest of your days for doing absolutely nothing-provided a perfect incentive to not get married, yet still have babies. Then the babies will be state wards, and their babies, and so forth. The incentive is just to stay in that rut. And so the goodwill of America finally did do to us what slavery and segregation failed to do. It destroyed our family, destroyed our character, and now black America is in a struggle. We struggle to stand up like men and women and take charge of our lives, and become competitive with other people in the modern world. If we don't do this, we'll always be behind. But if we do take charge of our own lives, we'll be men among men." [HT Peg Kaplan]

There is an excellent (and sarcastic) response here to the many Leftist critics of America's armed forces.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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LEFTIST ATTACK?

Dick McDonald reports that he has been blocked by blogger.com from posting on his blog. Apparently they think it is a spam blog.

I am going to log on there myself now to see if I can help but I am posting this in case I too get hit in some way as a result of doing so. Remember: my mirror sites will remain active!

Update

OK. I have just checked and below is what appears when you try to post on Dick's blog:

"This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts.

Save your post as a draft or click here for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked."

I have sent in an unblocking request and blogger.com say that such requests are normally heeded within 24 hours. So I am pretty sure Dick will be back to normal soon.

The total blocking of Dick's blog was very aggressive, though. Normally, they respond to a suspected spamblog simply by putting up a "copy the letters" task -- which should stop any auto-spamming.

I suspect that the aggressive response means that lots of Leftists have been flagging Dick's blog as a spam blog.

THE "CLEVER" ERNEST PARTRIDGE

Ernest Partridge is employed as a philosopher by an American university but he seems to be more in the mould of a French philosopher -- in that his aim seems to be cleverness and paradox rather than clarifying anything. He says that he is a "progressive" but says that progressivism is conservative. Those who would normally be described as conservatives in modern politics he terms "regressives".

I am not really sure it is worth commenting on such superficial cleverness. The last amusing practitioners of it in the English-speaking world were people like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw about a century ago. Derrida and his ilk of course have provided similar entertainment to the French in much more recent times but that is probably little more than a comment on the way French intellectual life is stuck in the past -- in the Marxist past, in particular.

As a boring old Anglo-Saxon philosopher, however, I aim to clarify things as far as I can so I will mention just a few points about the Partridge claims that might help to put them into perspective. With that boring attention to detail that charaterizes most Anglo-Saxon philosophers, I will just look at Partridge's definition of what he believes in:

""Progressivism" is essentially the "liberalism" of most of the twentieth century, as promulgated by both Roosevelts, by the Kennedy Brothers, and by many Republicans, such as Dwight Eisenhower, Jacob Javits and Earl Warren. "Progressivism," to put it simply, is "liberalism""

At first blush, that is a fairly unremarkable statement but on closer examination it betrays either Partridge's typically Leftist ignorance of history or a rather surprising admission of Fascist inclinations. Let us for a start have a look at the two Roosevelts whom Partridge puts first in his list of admirables. Let us start with a quote from a Fascist to give us some context:

"If we are to go forward we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because, without such discipline, no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good".

Now that's mainstream Fascism, isn't it? Totally submerging the individual into an army that works only for the common good rather than individual good. The trouble is that it was not in fact a speech made by Mussolini or his ilk. It is an excerpt from the First Inaugural Address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From Hegel on, Leftism has gone under many names and many disguises but the basic desire to reduce people to an antlike status remains.

And we DO remember FDR's infatuation with Mussolini and his ideas, don't we? It was after all FDR who referred to Musso as "That admirable Italian gentleman". And we surely DO remember how in 1939, a German ocean liner, the SS St. Louis, with 1,000 Jewish refugees aboard, got so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami -- but FDR would not let them land. They returned to Germany to be exterminated by Hitler. So much for FDR. A strange man to admire.

What of the other Roosevelt -- TR, founder of the "Progressive" party and a man who of course, "entirely" agreed that as a race negroes are "altogether inferior to the whites."

No doubt TR's putting his trust in battleships is admired by Partridge and TR's view that war was needed to "cleanse" the national spirit would also be assented to by Partridge. And, of course, sending troops to take over foreign countries would also be warmly approved of by Partridge. TR certainly did that, as the slightest knowledge of American history would tell you.

What I have just said is of course only the quickest indication of what the 20th century Progressivism that Partridge so admires was all about. There is much more detail here.

Clearly, however, Partridge is either a Fascist or an ignoramus. In either case he is certainly an intellectual lightweight -- which fits in with the generally low intelligence that goes with Leftist attitudes.

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ELSEWHERE

We read here that the DNC is pushing Hillary Clinton as their POTUS candidate for 2008. Good. There is a summary here of Hillary's past which rather boggles the mind. So if she DOES become the Donk candidate for the Presidency in 2008, her past should undo her.

Liberty Corner has really got the message that it is the Left of politics who have most in common with the Fascists of history. Just the fact that FDR was an open admirer of Mussolini would make most reasonable people think if they knew of it.

The enviers can rest. The rich blow it anyway: "Whenever Rodney Zeeb gives talks on financial planning, he asks his audiences if they know the perils that arise when heirs are ill-prepared for an inheritance. Each time, nearly all heads nod, and hands shoot up: Yes, yes. 'Almost everybody knows a family or has seen a case where the money hurt somebody in the family, or the kids or grandchildren blew it all,' says Mr. Zeeb, an attorney and coauthor of 'Beating the Midas Curse,' a reference to the destructive relationships with money that splinter some families. So widespread is the problem, that 6 out of 10 affluent families will lose the family fortune by the end of the second generation, Zeeb says. And 9 out of 10 will have depleted the family wealth by the end of the third generation."

There is an article here showing that for most of its history Iran (Persia) has been good for the Jews. It is only the mad mullahs who are the problem.

Grumpy old Sod has this excellent piece of wisdom: "Australian Politics is a new, highly articulate and well-organised blog which highlights the ridiculous, the unfair and the plain dishonest in modern Australia". He deserves a link for that!

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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Why the West will attack Iran

Excerpt from an interesting article from last January that now seems to be not far from coming true

Why did French President Jacques Chirac last week threaten to use non-conventional - that is, nuclear - weapons against terrorist states? And why did Iran announce that it would shift foreign-exchange reserves out of European banks (although it has since retracted this warning)? The answer lies in the nature of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Iran needs nuclear weapons, I believe, not to attack Israel, but to support imperial expansion by conventional military means.

Iran's oil exports will shrink to zero in 20 years, just at the demographic inflection point when the costs of maintaining an aged population will crush its state finances, as I reported in Demographics and Iran's imperial design (September 13, 2005). Just outside Iran's present frontiers lie the oil resources of Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and not far away are the oil concentrations of eastern Saudi Arabia. Its neighbors are quite as alarmed as Washington about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and privately quite happy for Washington to wipe out this capability.

It is remarkable how quickly an international consensus has emerged for the eventual use of force against Iran. Chirac's indirect reference to the French nuclear capability was a warning to Tehran. Mohamed ElBaradei, whose Nobel Peace Prize last year was awarded to rap the knuckles of the United States, told Newsweek that in the extreme case, force might be required to stop Iran's acquiring a nuclear capability. German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the military option could not be abandoned, although diplomatic efforts should be tried first. Bild, Germany's largest-circulation daily, ran Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad's picture next to Adolf Hitler's, with the headline, "Will Iran plunge the world into the abyss?"

The same Europeans who excoriated the United States for invading Iraq with insufficient proof of the presence of weapons of mass destruction already have signed on to a military campaign against Iran, in advance of Iran's gaining WMD....

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ELSEWHERE



A good email from a reader about the Leftist mythology surrounding Tasmania: "In one of the latest Lonely Planet books "The cities book : a journey through the best cities in the world" there are a few pages of pictures of Hobart and a fact page. Which of the following list under Weaknesses stands out to you?: 1). Relatively expensive if good accommodation; 2). Aesthetically challenged Federation Concert Hall; 3). Tasmanian wine (more expensive than mainland wine); 4). Aboriginal massacres by the colonists. Yes, apparently tourists visiting 21st century Hobart will have to tread carefully to avoid the piles of Aboriginal bodies littering the streets. The Left just can't help themselves in reflexively accusing Australia of massacre and genocide even in the middle of a travel book".

What a disgusting racist statement!: "A complaint has been made to race relations investigators after Newcastle was described as "hideously white". The remark was made at a conference by Neil Murphy, a Government official who is working on secondment at Newcastle City Council. At the same conference, the city council's assistant chief executive, Paul Rubinstein, described the Tyne & Wear area as one of the "whitest" in the North".

Taranto on the NYT: "Tom Fox, a member of the anti-American Christian Peacekeeper Teams, has been murdered by terrorists in Iraq who held him hostage for more than three months, the New York Times reported on Saturday. On Sunday, the paper carried a follow-up report that Fox "had apparently been tortured by his captors before being shot multiple times in the head and dumped on a trash heap next to a railway line in western Baghdad." The story of Fox's death ran on page A8; the story of his torture, on page A10. So what made the Times' front page on Saturday? Yet another story about Abu Ghraib".

Taranto also has the latest installment of frothing at the mouth by the world's greatest sore loser -- Al Gore.

British justice for once: "Plans to give housewives without children the right to the basic state pension have been thrown out by ministers - but women who give up work to bring up children or care for elderly relatives will be entitled to the full state pension under new government plans.... John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has decided to stick with a pension based on contributions. However, in a radical reworking of the scheme, the Government will pay the contributions of women who sacrifice years of work to bring up children or care for sick relatives." [Why should women who have spent neither time nor money on bringing up children be entitled to support from other people's children?]

A smart Dutch initiative: "Two men kissing in a park and a topless female bather are featured in a film that will be shown to would-be immigrants to The Netherlands. The reactions of applicants will be examined to see whether they are able to accept the country's liberal attitudes. From Wednesday, the DVD -- which also shows the often crime-ridden ghettos where poorer immigrants might end up living -- will form part of an entrance test, in Dutch, covering the language and culture of Holland. Those sitting the test will be expected to know which country Crown Princess Maxima comes from (Argentina) and whether hitting women and female circumcision are permitted.... The new test -- the first of its kind in the world -- marks another step in the transformation of Holland from one of Europe's most liberal countries to the one cracking down hardest on immigration. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, known as Iron Rita, has introduced compulsory integration classes, higher age limits for marriage to people from abroad and the removal of residency permits if immigrants commit petty crimes. She has also talked of banning the burka. Applicants will sit the exam at one of 138 embassies around the world. They will answer 15 minutes of questions and those who pass the first stage will have to complete two "citizenship" tests over five years and swear a pledge of allegiance to Holland and its constitution."

The prologue to Craig Winn's book "Prophet of Doom, Terrorist Dogma, In Muhammad's Own Words" is now up on Spelled Sideways. "Winn uses the most respected Islamic sources, the Qur'an, the Hadith of al-Bukhari, the Biography of Ibn Ishaq, and the History of al-Tabari to link Islam's beginnings directly to the terror the world is experiencing today." In the book Winn "shines a bright and revealing light on Islam, Judaism, Christianity, political correctness, profiling, intelligence gathering, politics, martyrdom, the peace process, and the media's fear of the truth."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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Islam as a good religion for dummies

As far as I know this analysis is completely unoriginal but I feel it needs to be more widely known

IQ tests suggest that Arabs are dumb. And despite vast propaganda to the contrary, their (lack of) intellectual achievements bears that out. See here.

So why have they succeeded in imposing their brutal religion on over a billion people? That is pretty good.

Randall Parker has often pointed out the answer to that. It is because of polygamy. Under polygamy, the rich and smart guys get all the women and leave lots of young Muslim men with no female access. So what do they do with their energies? -- energies that were designed to cope with the large task of caring for a family?

They go to war. They throw their lives away. Suicide bombers are a vivid example of that but reckless aggression as troops in an army fulfils a similar function.

So polygamy makes big numbers of young Muslim males careless of their lives. And that did historically make them fearsome opponents of more traditionally motivated men. Their armies won for a long time because the individuals in those armies fought with such careless aggression and reckless abandon.

So polygamy produced virtual military robots -- destructive of the robots but effective. And most effective BECAUSE of the limited intelligence of those involved. Smarter young men would have found other ways of using their lives.

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ELSEWHERE

If you want to see some REALLY offensive cartoons, have a look at some Korean cartoons about the Japanese. Because Japan conquered and controlled Korea for many years (up to 1945), Koreans hate the Japanese. An amusing story about that: When the Koreans decided that they wanted some high speed trains, did they import the famous Japanese "Shinkansen" trains from virtually next-door? No. They imported them from FRANCE!

Another problem for Social Security: "Harry Weinstein used to think of 93 as ancient. Now that he's reached that age -- well beyond today's average life expectancy -- he's looking forward to turning 100.... People much older than Weinstein could become the norm, said Stanford University biology and demographics Professor Shripad Tuljapurkar. He believes medical advances in anti-aging technologies could increase Americans' average life expectancy in the near future from just under 80 years to 100. Society needs to consider the possibility, Tuljapurkar argues, because the implications for programs like Social Security are mind bending. Would retirement begin at, say, 85? How will we care for everyone?"

Why the Islamists have whipped up hatred of Denmark: "... the government introduced drastic measures to curb the influx of low-skilled immigrants from Third World countries. "There is no danger that Denmark will become a multicultural society, because this is not our goal," Rasmussen said before the elections. The new government introduced legislation that made it harder for immigrants to enter Denmark and to acquire Danish nationality. Copenhagen began to repatriate illegal immigrants and encouraged rejected asylum seekers to leave. It implemented stricter rules to determine who should receive residence permits. It slashed social benefit payments to newcomers, allowing them only a box of bare necessities. As a result, the number of asylum seekers in Denmark dropped from 12,100 in 2000 to 3,222 in 2004. The number of people recognized as refugees decreased from 5,159 in 2000 to 1,607 in 2004. Residence permits for family reunification dropped from 10,021 in 2000 to 4,791 in 2003. The number of people acquiring Danish nationality fell from 18,811 in 2000 to 6,583 in 2003, with Asians down from 7,844 to 1,436 and Africans from 2,371 to 312. People who wanted to become Danes had to pass a language, culture, and history test.

The VERY dubious CAIR: "The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), headquartered in Washington, is perhaps the best-known and most controversial Muslim organization in North America.... The Department of Homeland Security refuses to deal with it. Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York) describes it as an organization "which we know has ties to terrorism." Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) observes that CAIR is "unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect." Steven Pomerantz, the FBI's former chief of counterterrorism, notes that "CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups." The family of John P. O'Neill, Sr., the former FBI counterterrorism chief who perished at the World Trade Center, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having "been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism" responsible for the September 11 atrocities. Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson calls it "a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas."...."

Those evil whites again: "South Africans are worse off than they were before the end of apartheid, at least as measured by real incomes. In Incomes in South Africa Since the Fall of Apartheid (NBER Working Paper No. 11384), co-authors Murray Leibbrandt, James Levinsohn, and Justin McCrary document that decline and attempt to explain what has happened. They show that average incomes of South African men and women fell by about 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, and note that there has been little improvement since then.... Their focus is on economic well being as measured by income, rather than on other ways of evaluating social welfare, including measurement of political freedom. The change in income is most pronounced in the lower half of the income distribution and has disproportionately affected younger workers, women, and blacks".

The Dutch are slowly learning: "Dutch judges convicted nine men yesterday of belonging to a terrorist group, a landmark verdict that concludes promoting a violent version of Islam can itself be an act of terrorism. The case opens a new way for prosecutors to stop potential terrorists and for the Netherlands to tackle the broader problem of the spread of radicalism among Muslim youth... Two men received 15- and 13-year prison terms for attempted murder after a clash with police during their arrest. One received a five-year term for possessing a loaded machine gun. The convicted men, known as the Hofstad Group, included Mohammed Bouyeri, who already is serving a life sentence for the November 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The rest were sentenced to up to two years in prison. All were found to have spread hate propaganda among their friends and on the Internet, encouraging Muslims to join a holy war against the West. Geert Wilders, an anti-immigration politician who was threatened by the Hofstad Group, said the ruling didn't go far enough. "This is a judgment befitting a banana republic: very weak and unacceptable," he said, adding that judges "don't understand the threat posed by Muslim extremism."

Both Chris Brand and I have recently put up elsewhere comments about the Frank Ellis case -- where Leeds university students in the UK are trying to get one of the teachers there sacked for "racism". See here and here.

I have just put up an excellent satire on Australian Politics, though you probably have to be an Australian to get it all.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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WHAT A LAUGH!

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, whose fidelity to left-wing politics never diminishes while its share of the Canadian television audience diminishes steadily, will present tomorrow and Monday its version of the man it has proclaimed "The Greatest Canadian." That man is Thomas Clement Douglas, "Father of Canadian Medicare," the leader of the first socialist government elected in North America and founding leader of the socialist New Democratic Party. A CBC contest, conducted among the 10 percent of Canadians who watch the federally funded network, bestowed the "Greatest Canadian" title upon Tommy Douglas two years ago.

Pre-broadcast reviews of the CBC's four-hour television portrait of the man - unintriguingly titled "The Tommy Douglas Story" - were far from universally ecstatic. The chief criticism was that the show is boring, the central hazard of all hagiography. It didn't need to be boring. To make it interesting, all the CBC had to do was describe the evolution of the real Tommy Douglas, instead of the legendary one. That show would have instantly become the talk of the country, while devotees of the legend would have been carted away with heart palpitations, spluttering expletives and threatening violence.

But the facts are the facts, and so far the Canadian left has been able to keep them away from the major media, which probably wouldn't run them anyway on the grounds that the legend has become unassailable. But the truth is that "the Greatest Canadian," up to his mid-30s, like many others of the Canadian and American left, was a passionate believer in eugenics. After Hitler showed the world how eugenics would work out in practice, the left made a panic-stricken flight from the cause, often adopting new organizational names, such as eugenicist Margaret Sanger's "Planned Parenthood of America."

However, some were unfortunate enough to leave inextinguishable tracks behind them, and one of these was the CBC's "Greatest Canadian." Douglas's thesis for a master's degree in sociology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, published in 1933, the year of his 30th birthday, reads like something out of "Mein Kampf."

Applying good eugenics doctrine to his chosen land, the Scottish-born Douglas described at length and in painful detail his solution for Canada's economic problems. Canadians must be bred scientifically, he said. People of lesser intelligence or deficient morality - natives, criminals, adulterers are specifically designated - should be sterilized. Homosexuals who persist in their perverse conduct should be incarcerated in insane asylums...."

More here. It sounds like the guy was a blood-brother to Salvador Allende. All socialists are tyrants under the skin.

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ELSEWHERE

Rocco DiPippo points out that the American peacenik recently murdered by Islamic terrorists in Iraq was the victim of his own delusions. Most Leftists know that their pro-Islam talk is nonsense. They only say it as a means of knocking GWB and the GOP. The poor twit who got murdered actually believed the rubbish.

A good comment from a Smith College student: "Dr. Lawrence Summers' comments about the possibility that women may be less inclined toward the sciences did not bother me. What did irk me was the overblown reaction to statements that were taken out of context and not spoken with sexist intention. While I was disheartened at the news of his recent resignation, I certainly do not blame him for leaving. Summers' now infamous comments regarding women and the sciences were not implying any personal beliefs of his own, but were simply meant to encourage more open thought and dialogue. Yet his free expression was met with unnecessary and exaggerated fury. Last week, I thought of this overblown reaction with some fury of my own as I listened to my Smith government professor actually give credit to the idea that conservatives have lower IQs than liberals. His comments, however, were only met with the class' sheep-like nodding of heads, and the only ones to cringe were the two Republican students in the room who, I assure you, are quite intelligent".

An old fart hungry for publicity: "Add lefty literary luminary Kurt Vonnegut to the list of notables who think comparing President Bush to Hitler is the trendy thing to do these days. According to the Columbus Free Press, Vonnegut was speaking at Ohio State University earlier this week when he offered his insights on the Bush presidency. "I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president,” the "Slaughterhouse Five" author opined. Without elaborating on that insult, Vonnegut quickly segued into his next anti-Bush blast: "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected.""

Arizona border strengthened: "Gov. Janet Napolitano on Wednesday ordered more National Guardsmen posted at the Mexican border to help stop illegal immigrants and curb related crimes. National Guard troops have worked at the border since 1988, but Napolitano signed an order authorizing commanders to station an unspecified number of additional soldiers there to help federal agents. Once the funding is approved, the troops will monitor crossing points, assist with cargo inspection and operate surveillance cameras, according to the order. 'They are not there to militarize the border,' the governor said. 'We are not at war with Mexico.'"

Pierre Kandorfer says: "Almost the entire "Hate America" agenda is a carbon copy of the Euro-Trash culture. Our left-wing is almost a "victim" of their agenda and beliefs. They are Anti-American because they hate the American Way of Life, our democracy, of Bill of Rights, our morals, and our values. They hate our capitalism, our free market society, close to everything the fiber of the American Soul is made of. And they hate us because we say what we do, and do what we say. This is probably the worst thing the Euro-Trash and its US ultra-left-wing surrogate can encounter!"

Terrorist kites!: "Flying a kite in Pakistan is a dangerous pastime. Already it's banned for all but 15 days of the year but a provincial minister warned kite-flyers this week that any who cause injury or death with string made from metal or coated with glass could be tried under anti-terrorism laws. The Punjabi chief minister's unprecedented threat came just ahead of the start of an annual kite-flying festival in the provincial capital, Lahore, on Sunday. Kite-flying in Pakistan and neighbouring India often involves aerial duels in which participants try to bring down each other's kites using string coated in a sticky paste of ground-up glass or metal. Every year, Pakistani media report dozens of deaths and injuries caused by kite flying, mainly of children and motocyclists whose throats are sometimes cut by metal or glass-coated string."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Connection Between Legal and Illegal Immigration

An email from Mark Krikorian of America's CIS:

"Legal immigration good, illegal immigration bad." This is often the limit of the analysis underlying debates over immigration in Congress. Supporters of amnesty and guestworker programs often claim that if only illegal aliens were legalized, the problems they create would disappear. In addition, many of the immigration proposals currently being considered would significantly increase ordinary legal immigration; Sen. Arlen Specter's bill, for instance, would double the number of green cards issued, to as many as 2 million each year.

To add some depth to this superficial understanding of the issue, the Center for Immigration Studies has released a new report, Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Connection Between Legal and Illegal Immigration by James R. Edwards, Jr., Ph.D. Edwards, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and co-author of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, explores the intertwined histories of legal and illegal immigration and how current immigration policy encourages lawbreaking. The report, available online here , finds the following:

* Legal and illegal immigration are inextricably related. As legal immigration levels have risen markedly since 1965, illegal immigration has increased with it.

* The share of the foreign-born population who are illegal aliens has risen steadily. Illegal aliens made up 21 percent of the foreign-born in 1980, 25 percent in 2000, and 28 percent in 2005.

* Mexico is the primary source country of both legal and illegal immigrants. Mexico accounted for about 30 percent of the foreign-born in 2000, and more than half of Mexicans residing in the United States in 2000 were illegal aliens.

* The level of illegal immigration is severely masked by several amnesties that legalized millions of unlawfully resident aliens. The largest amnesty was the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which legalized 3 million aliens.

* Amnestied aliens to date have been fully eligible to sponsor additional immigrants. This has contributed to the ranks of immigrants, both legal and illegal (and often both).

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ELSEWHERE

Muslims oppose Voltaire: "A municipal cultural center here on France's border with Switzerland organized a reading of a 265-year-old play by Voltaire, whose writings helped lay the foundations of modern Europe's commitment to secularism. The play, "Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet," uses the founder of Islam to lampoon all forms of religious frenzy and intolerance. The production quickly stirred up passions that echoed the cartoon uproar. "This play ... constitutes an insult to the entire Muslim community," said a letter to the mayor of Saint-Genis-Pouilly, signed by Said Akhrouf, a French-born cafe owner of Moroccan descent and three other Islamic activists representing Muslim associations. They demanded the performance be cancelled."

A good comment on the Indian connection: "Historic is a much over-used word nowadays. But the deal concluded in New Delhi...in which George W. Bush brought India in from the diplomatic cold after decades of nuclear isolation would qualify. In effect, the U.S. agreed to tear up almost four decades worth of established counter-proliferation law and policy to accommodate a country that the president sees as one of the great powers of the 21st century. It remains to be seen how China, the other great emerging power and one of the five nuclear weapons states to have official recognition under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, will react. It was, of course, fear of China's permanent nuclear dominance over Asia that partly motivated the U.S. to accede...to most of India's wishes. There can be little doubt that Mr. Bush faces a tough battle convincing the many doubters on Capitol Hill whose approval is necessary for it to go ahead. Many will argue that the exclusion from international safeguards of India's existing fast breeder nuclear reactor-which has great fissile material-making potential-is a bridge too far. America's 'non-proliferation ayatollahs', as India calls them, are unlikely to be mollified by the inclusion of all future fast breeder reactors, since they do not yet exist."

Europe in big trouble: "The bad news from Europe is that its birth rates are low, far below the level needed to maintain the current population. The worse news is that the Europeans are not fighting it.... Germany, with the biggest economy and population in old Europe, is typical in its birthrates. The number of children per woman is currently around 1.4, or only two-thirds of the replacement rate (France and the U.K. are doing a little better, Spain and Italy a little worse). Germany's retirement age is 60, and within 25 years it is facing the prospect of three people of working age (about half actually working) supporting two people in retirement, according to the German Federal Statistical Department. Unless the Germans do something dramatic, it is unlikely that in 25 years the ratios will be even that good as emigration will be an attractive choice to the smart, overburdened young producer."

Public-sector pension crisis worsens: "While private-sector pension terminations and freezes are grabbing headlines, the situation is every bit as grave for government pension systems. Like many of the remaining traditional defined-benefit pension plans in the private sector, government pension plans are swimming in red ink. As of January 25, 2006, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators and National Council on Teacher Retirement reported an aggregate unfunded liability of nearly $296 billion for the 103 pension systems and 127 total plans in their Public Fund Survey. A 2004 analysis by Wilshire Associates put the unfunded liability as high as $366 billion."

What you always feared about charities: "A children's cancer charity that passed on less than $16,000 of more than $190,000 raised at a dinner featuring Cherie Blair has had strict conditions placed on its activities. Consumer Affairs has told the Children's Cancer Institute Australia it must inform it of any fundraising activities it intends to undertake in Victoria for the next five years. CCIA must provide full audited accounts of each fundraising effort for the next five years. The charity has also been forced to post a prominent apology on its website for the next year. It follows revelations that more than 90 per cent of money raised at the gala dinner was spent staging the event, including payment to Mrs Blair, wife of British PM Tony Blair. Multi-millionaire promoter Max Markson received $50,000. CA investigated the dinner, which was held in Melbourne in February last year, after a number of complaints. A CA spokeswoman confirmed last night that the charity had signed an undertaking to give donors accurate and timely details of its activities. The spokeswoman said that CCIA had agreed to pay a minimum of 60 per cent of money to its beneficiaries when it registered as a charity."

I have just put up a truly inspiring story on Australian Politics. If you are pro-abortion, don't read it.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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GREAT NEW BOOK BY JONAH GOLDBERG

Liberal Fascism : The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton Publisher's blurb follows:

Since the rise and fall of the Nazis in the midtwentieth century, fascism has been seen as an extreme right-wing phenomenon. Liberals have kept that assumption alive, hurling accusations of fascism at their conservative opponents. LIBERAL FASCISM offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg shows that the original fascists were really on the Left and that liberals, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton, have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism.

Goldberg draws striking parallels between historic fascism and contemporary liberal doctrines. He argues that "political correctness" on campuses and calls for campaign finance reform echo the Nazis' suppression of free speech; and that liberals, like their fascist forebears, dismiss the democratic process when it yields results they dislike, insist on the centralization of economic decision-making, and seek to insert the authority of the state in our private lives-from bans on smoking to gun control. Covering such hot issues as morality, anti-Semitism, science versus religion, health care, and cultural values, he boldly illustrates the resemblances between the opinions advanced by Hitler and Mussolini and the current views of the Left.

Impeccably researched and persuasively argued, LIBERAL FASCISM will elicit howls of indignation from the liberal establishment-and rousing cheers from the Right.

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ELSEWHERE

Koran under legal attack in Germany: "At the prosecutor's office at Gorch-Forck-Wall 15 in Hamburg, an unusual letter was received Monday morning, containing an indictment filed this weekend. The indictment targeted the Quran, charging that the holy book of the Moslems, according to the accuser, is incompatible with the German constitution. The accuser is "Bundesverband der B_rgerbewegungen (BVB)", which concerns itself with, in its own words, "defending basic rights and freedoms" against Islam.... The indictment has been filed in several states, including Hamburg, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bayern and probably more. In several talkshows on German TV, conservative politicians have pointed out that the Quran is incompatible with the German constitution. The Turkish-born writer Serap Cileli said on January 29 this year that "the Quran must be considered a historic document. It is not compatible with our constitution and Human Rights." Now the alliance wants the matter tried at the courts.... The indictment is against the 200 verses of 114 suras (ED:chapters) of the Quran that are not compatible with the constitution, including demagoguery, incitement to murder, murder and mutilation, war, acceptance of thievery against infidels, meaning all non-Moslems. Verses are also pointed out where the equal rights of men and women are not upheld and where people of different faiths are oppressed."

Blair turns down the heat to save the planet: "Tony Blair has promised to turn down the heating in 10 Downing Street as part of a new drive to persuade people to help the fight against global warming. The Click for the Climate campaign, launched to coincide with National Science Week, which begins today, hopes to persuade people to use energy-saving lightbulbs, cut down on car journeys and use the train instead of flying. The Prime Minister said: "I will be turning down the thermostat by one degree."

Israel gets tough: "Israel will determine its border with the West Bank if negotiations with the Palestinians fail, and then it will build a wall and move all settlers to the Israeli side, acting prime minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published on Friday. Olmert told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper that if the Palestinians "prefer to be dragged into the axis of evil of Iran", then Israel will change the path of its separation barrier in the West Bank according to national consensus and "Israelis will not live on the other side of the barrier". Olmert also threatened to assassinate incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas if he is involved in terrorism".

The Dutch crack down: "It is a lesson that Taida Pasic and her Dutch classmates will never forget. The hush of the classroom was shattered when immigration officers stormed in and snapped handcuffs on the 18-year-old pupil and took her under police escort to a deportation centre. She was four months away from taking her final exams and aspired to a place at university. Now she faces expulsion from the Netherlands and a life of uncertainty in a homeland that she barely knows... Ministers are arguing in public over the impact of the repatriation of up to 26,000 failed asylum-seekers and the Netherlands is left to consider what has become of the liberal traditions that have helped to forge the nation. Ms Pasic is one of thousands of refugees whose asylum applications were turned down and whom the Government has vowed to deport by the summer of 2007.... Ms Pasic slipped back into the Netherlands in January on a French tourist visa in an attempt to complete her education, a move that Rita Verdonk, the Dutch Interior Minister, described as fraud. And despite strong sympathy for the teenager, opinion polls suggest that a small majority of Dutch people support Ms Verdonk... Ms Pasic's lawyer has filed a final protest but said that prospects for a reprieve were dim. Her school has offered to let her sit her exams in Sarajevo".

Change among European Muslims? "As protests against the Danish cartoons fade, Europe's moderate Muslims are facing difficult choices about their faith, identity, and values. "The middle ground in Muslim communities is between a rock and a hard place," says Omar Shah, an Afghan-Danish commentator on Muslim affairs. "The moderate majority is having to decide where they stand." During a month of flag-burning protests in Europe against cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, the voices of Islamic radicals were the loudest. As the flames die down,however,it is increasingly clear that the cartoon affair has reignited difficult debates within Europe's 20-million-strong Muslim community. Though radical organizations have gained strength, new "progressive" Muslim groups are beginning to challenge traditional ideas. In Denmark, where the cartoons were first published, Muslims who want to live in a pluralistic, secular, and tolerant Danish society have formed a new group to publicize their ideals".

Restoring the melting pot : "Latin will never be a truly dead language, at least not as long as 'E pluribus unum' appears on our money. That's our national motto: 'Out of many, one. 'We've always been willing to welcome immigrants and help them become Americans. But the unity we once valued is unraveling. Once, new Americans were welcomed with a solemn ceremony that matched their commitment to their adopted homeland. Today's new citizens have no such uplifting experience. To qualify they need only pass a standardized, multiple-choice test, often given in their native tongue. In fact, they're not required to show much knowledge of English. If they can transcribe just one of two dictated sentences (correct spelling and punctuation don't count), that merits citizenship. And the greater problem is that too many people don't even go that far. Millions of foreigners live here today with no expectation of ever becoming citizens."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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Brookes News Update

What's driving the US economy?: The current US boom is the strangest in US history. Despite rising consumption, investment and employment a large number of Americans are convinced that the economy is on the verge of collapse
Victorian Liberal Party becomes the Dhimmi Party: Instead of pandering to Muslim bigotry Liberal Party Minister Andrew Robb should be savaging Bracks for buying Muslim votes by suppressing criticism of Islam
Danish cartoons and Muslim fury: Why are most western countries dealing with Muslims who think they have a right to punish their hosts if they dislike something they do?
Sinai Option - the road to permanent peace in the Middle East: The Sinai option: the transfer of the Arab population from the land that used to be called "Palestinian mandate" to the Sinai peninsula, an area of land comparable with the entire Palestinian mandate
An Iraqi Mayor salutes the US 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment : A letter of gratitude from the Mayor of Tall 'Afar, Iraq, to the men and women of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and their families
Government spending and jobs - another Keynesian fallacy : The Keynesian fallacy that government spending can cure persistent widespread unemployment appears to be alive and well in some of our universities
Cost and prices: another economic fallacy : Those who argue that wages rates or oil price hikes can be inflationary have fallen into the old fallacy that costs determine prices

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ELSEWHERE



Evolutionary forces work rapidly -- even in recent times: "Providing the strongest evidence yet that human beings are still evolving, researchers have detected 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, in the past 5000 to 15,000 years. The genes include some responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone structure, skin colour and brain function. Under natural selection, beneficial genes become more common in a population as their owners have more progeny. Three populations were studied: Africans, East Asians and Europeans. In each, a mostly different set of genes had been favoured by natural selection. The study may help anthropologists explain the variety of distinctive appearances, even though people's genes are on the whole very similar, said Spencer Wells, the director of the genographic project of the National Geographic Society. The finding adds substantially to the evidence that human evolution did not halt in the distant past, as is assumed by many social scientists. "There is ample evidence that selection has been a major driving point in our evolution during the last 10,000 years, and there is no reason to suppose that it has stopped," said Jonathan Pritchard, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago, who headed the study

Canadian Christians swing Rightwards: "Conservative Party popularity among churchgoers, and especially among Protestants, increased significantly this past federal election - driven largely by moral issues such as same-sex "marriage." Protestant churchgoers were 25% more likely to vote Conservative as compared to previous elections, according to an Ipsos-Reid Poll. And among churchgoing Catholics in Quebec, votes for the Liberal party were cut roughly in half compared to 2004. "For the first time in the history of polling, Catholics who are regular churchgoers shifted away from the lending the largest measure of their support to the Liberals (42 percent voted Conservative, 40 percent Liberal)," as reported by Faith Today. Those who attend Catholic Church services more than once weekly were even more likely to vote for Stephen Harper."

Wacko Jacko: "Michael Jackson, the king of pop, is "on the verge" of converting to Islam, CBS News reported last week. If that's true, it fits into a recurring and important African-American pattern.... Given Mr. Jackson's famous eccentricities, it is unclear what his Bahraini venture amounts to, but if he does convert to Islam, he will be following a path in place since the late 1940s, of African-Americans under stress turning to some form of Islam..."

Muslim rapists: "A Muslim rape epidemic in sweeping over Europe -- and over many other nations host to immigrants from the Islamic world. The direct connection between the rapes and Islam is irrefutable, as Muslims are significantly overrepresented among convicted rapists and rape suspects. The Muslim perpetrators themselves boast that there crime is justified since their victims were, among other things, not properly veiled".

GM selling off the family silver: "General Motors Corp.'s board met for the first time Monday with new member Jerome York, an adviser to investor Kirk Kerkorian and an outspoken critic of the company's turnaround efforts. In its one-day meeting, the board was expected to consider GM's planned sale of a majority stake in its finance unit, General Motors Acceptance Corp.... GM's board met the same day the struggling automaker announced the sale of a 17.4 percent stake in Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. for $2 billion."

Am I a globalist? by Tibor R. Machan: "Even though the global statism of communism is no longer a widespread theme among critics of capitalism, there are plenty who still regard the classical liberal, libertarian polity misguided. The fact that it accords best with human nature, as most reasonably conceived in the tradition of such thinkers as Aristotle, Locke, von Mises, and Rand, leaves these critics unimpressed. So they have come forth with the label 'globalist' with which to tar and feather those who support freedom for all human beings in all of their communities. Well, then I must confess to being a proud globalist myself. I consider it well established that human beings, anytime and anywhere, live better if their right to liberty, including free trade and property, is widely respected and well protected."

Australia doing well on employment: "The unemployment rate has fallen to 5.2 per cent in February on the back of a surge in new jobs. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported total employment grew 25,900 during the month. The number of unemployed people fell 3700 to 554,100. Unemployment in January had been 5.3 per cent. The median market forecast was for a rise of 10,000 in employment and a jobless rate of 5.3 per cent in February. There are now 10.058 million Australians in employment. The participation rate stayed steady at 64.4 per cent. The number of people looking for full-time work, however, fell 2800 to 394,000 while there was a small fall in those looking for part-time work to 160,000. The male unemployment rate stayed at 5.2 per cent while the female unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percentage points to 5.2 per cent.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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 Pages are here or here or here.

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