Too Many Men is Bad for Society

Cultures that tend choose male babies over female babies could be unknowingly contributing to the destabilization of their society, according to a new study by researchers in England and China. The researchers say their study suggests men who find themselves without marriage prospects are more likely to turn toward antisocial behavior, like crime and terrorism.

The researchers report in parts of China and India there will be 12-percent to 15-percent more men than women over the next 20 years. "These men will remain single and will be unable to have families, in societies where marriage is regarded as virtually universal and social status and acceptance depend, in large part, on being married and creating a new family," write the authors.

The men who are not able to marry are more likely to be poorer and less educated than men who are able to find a wife, according to the researchers. "When there is a shortage of women in the marriage market, the women can marry up, inevitably leaving the least desirable men with no marriage prospects," they write. With no family or outlet for sexual energy, these men could be part of trend toward increased levels of antisocial behavior and violence.

A positive outcome of an unbalanced society could be the raised social status of women, suggest the researchers. The researchers propose measures to reduce sex selection, equal rights for women, and public awareness campaigns about the dangers of gender imbalance.

Source

The same applies of course to Islamic countries -- where poorer men are deprived of women not by infanticide but by polygamy.

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Wal-Mart leads the way: "After mammoth retailer Wal-Mart announced plans this week to drop many generic drug prices to the cost of a cheeseburger, everyone it seems took note. From small independent pharmacists to big brand-name retail chains to individuals with mounting prescription drug bills, Wal-Mart's announcement that it's cutting prices of nearly 300 generic medications to as little as $4 for a 30-day supply has created quite a buzz. And it's already having an impact. Target announced Friday it will copy Wal-Mart's plan to sell $4 generics -- a move that experts say is likely to create a completely new and cheaper price structure for America's off-brand medicines."

UK: Courts set to admit wiretap evidence: "The attorney general has thrown his weight decisively behind the use of intercept evidence in court, making it highly likely that the ban on phonetap evidence will be lifted. Speaking out for the first time in favour of the move, Lord Goldsmith told the Guardian he was determined to find a way round the obstacles which now stop wiretap evidence going before a jury. 'I'm personally convinced we have to find a way of avoiding the difficulties,' he said. 'I do believe there are ways we can do that. Otherwise, we're depriving ourselves of a key tool to prosecute serious and organised crime and terrorism.'"

Sweden has learned from its own lesson: "The summary of Swedish success and failure is a story of markets against the state. Every time Sweden has taken a step towards freer markets, it has been very successful. And every time it has increased the size and power of the state, success has sooner or later faded away."

More of that great government "security": "Two teenage car thieves drove a stolen car on Wednesday without being stopped onto the US military base that commands much of the war on terror, triggering an investigation into the security breach, police and military officials said. Police in Tampa, Florida, said the joyriders were only stopped and arrested after ramming two police cruisers that had entered MacDill Air Force Base in pursuit. ... There was nothing at the gate preventing entry to MacDill, which houses the US Central Command, responsible for US military operations in the Horn of Africa, Middle East and Central Asia and therefore for much of the US war on terror. Public affairs spokesman Air Force Lt Larry van der Oord declined to discuss specific security measures in force at the gate but said an investigation had been launched."

The games bureaucrats play: "When a bureaucrat makes a comment that defies logic, like the following, it may mean something's up: It is misleading to imply that the commission could be the cause of delays. It is not up to us to tell Microsoft what it has to do to Vista. The onus is on Microsoft to design its product in conformity with European competition laws. The words are those of a spokesman for the EU, who is referring to a comment from someone at Microsoft to the effect that uncertainty over how the EU will act is making it hard for the company to make some critical decisions on how to design its new operating system, Windows Vista."

NY: 25 to life in race killing: "A homeless man was sentenced Monday to 25 years to life in prison for knifing a woman to death in a mall parking garage because she was white. ... [Phillip] Grant, 44, who is black, was convicted in July of murder as a hate crime in the killing of Concetta Russo-Carriero, a 56-year-old legal secretary. She was stabbed twice in the heart in June 2005 in the parking garage of the Galleria mall in downtown White Plains."

Kin's documentary seeks to reclaim Goldwater ideals: "CC Goldwater didn't want to send an overt political message with the documentary she produced on her grandfather, Barry Goldwater, but the message still comes through. Most of the Republicans who invoke Goldwater's name are frauds. Barry Goldwater became a national figure when he ran for president in 1964 and an icon after the conservative movement was reborn with Ronald Reagan's two terms in the 1980s. But as his name became popular, much of his philosophy was lost. That's the mistake his granddaughter tries to correct with Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater.

"Peak oil" or lots more oil?: "In May 2006 I wrote, 'I know about the 'Peak Oil' theory that says we either have or are about the reach the point of diminishing returns regarding the world's oil supply, but these recent discoveries suggest there is still plenty of oil to be found.' In that commentary I documented nearly a dozen new fields of oil and natural gas discovered since 1995. So I wasn't surprised when, on September 5, Chevron Corporation announced it had discovered new, huge reserves of oil some five miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The initial estimates were that these reserves 'could boost U.S. oil reserves by 50 percent.'"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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SCRUTON ON IMMIGRATION

In the excerpt below, "indigenous" means "English"

Decisions can still be taken, but only in the hope of limiting the damage. And even now, when opinion across Europe is unanimous that immigration must be controlled, and that Muslims must be integrated into the secular culture, liberal politicians are refusing to admit to a problem or to confess that they are the cause of it. They still preach "multiculturalism" as the sign of our "vibrant" future; they still condemn "racism and xenophobia" as the enemy; they still try to state and solve the problem by the promiscuous multiplication of "human rights." Their Enlightenment creed makes it all but impossible for them to acknowledge the fundamental truth, which is that indigenous communities have legitimate expectations which take precedence over the demands of strangers. True, indigenous communities may also have duties of charity towards those strangers-or towards some of them. But charity is a gift, and there is no right to receive it, still less to force it from those reluctant to give.

The destructive effects of liberalism are not usually felt by the liberals themselves-not immediately, at least. The first victim of liberal immigration policies is the indigenous working class. When the welfare state was first conceived, it was in order to provide insurance for poorer members of the indigenous community, by taxing their income in exchange for the benefits which they may one day need. The rights involved were quasi-contractual: a right of the state to levy contributions in exchange for a right of the citizen to receive support. The very term used to describe the deal in Britain-"national insurance"-expresses the old understanding, that the welfare system is part of being together as a nation, of belonging with one's neighbors, as mutual beneficiaries of an ancestral right.

The liberal view of rights, as universal possessions which make no reference to history, community, or obedience, has changed all that. Indigenous people can claim no precedence, not even in this matter in which they have sacrificed a lifetime of income for the sake of their own future security. Immigrants are given welfare benefits as of right, and on the basis of their need, whether or not they have paid or ever will pay taxes. And since their need is invariably great-why else have they come here?-they take precedence over existing residents in the grant of housing and income support. Those with a handful of wives are even more fortunate, since only one of their marriages is recognized in European systems of law: the remaining wives are "single mothers," with all the fiscal advantages which attach to that label. All this has entailed that the stock of "social housing" once reserved for the indigenous poor is now almost entirely occupied by people whose language, customs, and culture mark them out as foreigners.

It is not "racist" to draw attention to this kind of fact. Nor is it racist to argue that indigenous people must take precedence over newcomers, who have to earn their right of residence and cannot be allowed to appropriate the savings of their hosts. But it is easier for me to write about these matters in an American intellectual journal than in an English newspaper, and if I tried to write about these things in a Belgian newspaper, I could be in serious trouble with the courts. The iron curtain of censorship that came down in the wake of Powell's speech has not lifted everywhere; on the contrary, if the EU has its way, it will be enshrined in the criminal code, with "racism and xenophobia"-defined as vaguely as is required to silence unwanted opinion-made into an extraditable offense throughout the Union.

The problem with censorship, as John Stuart Mill pointed out a century and half ago, is that it makes it impossible for those who impose it to discover that they are wrong. The error persists, preventing the discussion that might produce a remedy, and ensuring that the problem will grow. Yet when truth cannot make itself known in words, it will make itself known in deeds. The truth about Hitler burst on the world in 1939, notwithstanding all the pious words of the appeasers. And the truth about immigration is beginning to show itself in Europe, notwithstanding all the liberal efforts to conceal it. It is not an agreeable truth; nor can we, in the face of it, take refuge in the noble lies of Enoch Powell. The fact is that the people of Europe are losing their homelands, and therefore losing their place in the world. I don't envisage the Tiber one day foaming with much blood, nor do I see it blushing as the voice of the muezzin sounds from the former cathedral of St. Peter. But the city through which the Tiber flows will one day cease to be Italian, and all the expectations of its former residents, whether political, social, cultural, or personal, will suffer a violent upheaval, with results every bit as interesting as those that Powell prophesied.

More here

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Capitalism cuts health costs: "Retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc., known for forcing prices down to dominate nearly every market it enters, said yesterday that it would sell nearly 300 generic drugs for $4 per prescription, whether or not a customer has insurance. Using its might as the nation's largest retailer and its legendary ability to force suppliers to cut prices to the bone, the company will begin the $4 price program in its 65 stores in the Tampa area today, in all of Florida in January, and in as many other states as possible by the end of 2007. The $4 is for a typical monthly supply of medicine, and included on the Wal-Mart list are generic versions of many popular prescription drugs, including the antibiotic amoxicillin and the heart and blood-pressure treatment lisinopril, sold under the brand names Prinivil and Zestril. Health-care industry analysts said the program has the potential to transform the $230 billion prescription-drug business the way Wal-Mart has transformed other industries"

EU's Microsoft vendetta provokes backlash: "European consumers and small businesses are suffering the effects of the European Union's continuing vendetta against Microsoft, and they're finally speaking up about it. For years, European bureaucrats have cavalierly targeted Microsoft and other American companies like General Electric and Apple, assuming that they could do so with impunity. The predictable consequence of this E.U. campaign, however, is a de facto trade barrier, resulting in inferior products, fewer choices, higher prices and delayed access to the latest technological innovations for European consumers."

More Leftist lies: "Political ads have never set a high standard for accuracy, but the citizens of Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri and Florida have recently been treated to a particularly egregious display of political dishonesty. Americans United, a liberal front group, has been running ads attempting to frighten seniors with scare stories about Social Security reform. The ads suggest Republican candidates support cutting Social Security benefits in half and, as a result, forcing retirees to spend half as much on food and medications. These ads are simply wrong on the facts. None of the Social Security reform plans debated in Washington, including the one President Bush proposed last year, would cut or change benefits for anyone retired today or nearing retirement. These seniors will continue to receive every penny in Social Security benefits promised to them. To say otherwise is quite simply a lie."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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

The US economy, the housing slowdown and the November elections: The Fed's loose monetary policy fuelled the housing boom. Now it is tightening credit. Fortunately for President Bush oil prices have started to slide. This will probably ease the economic and electoral pain of a slowing economy before the November elections
The Australian economy and the decline of manufacturing - what is really happening?: When it comes to Australian manufacturing Australia's free-market commentariat adopt a blas, attitude. For them the money simply does not matter. This is why they cannot provide an adequate explanation of the housing boom, our foreign debt and the CAD
We Are Creating Unemployment!: Our anonymous Liberal Party bard has turned out another hit. This time it's not Liberal Party corruption but the union's moral corruption. Unless you think deliberately pricing people out of work is not morally corrupt
Joseph Stiglitz and Phillip Adams slime the US economy: Phillip Adams used Professor Joseph Stiglitz to attack the US economy by using phony statistics and outright lies. As an outrageous economic illiterate Adams could only parrot what Stiglitz had apparently told him
Media frenzy over bogus Cuba 'scandal': America's freedom-loving mainstream media is still doing Castro's dirty work for him. Leading the charge was the corrupt Miami Herald, a paper that recently put a Castro agent of influence on its payroll. It was followed by the treasonous New Times, CNN, USA Today. Their aim was to silence critics of Castro's Stalinist regime. These are the same American patriots that lie about the economy, about terrorism, about Bush, about Iraq. In fact they do nothing but - in between sucking up to leftwing dictators
New York Times advises on how to reveal state secrets and thwart the Federal Government: The 'paper of record' that betrays its country and does Castro's dirty work while demanding rights for terrorists is feverishly advising its traitors in residence on how to evade detection when they once again betray the America's state secrets to terrorists
Where is the Jewish leadership?: Ehud Olmert is a disaster. He is a dangerous, impotent fool, who is putting not only his country but world Jewry at risk every time he makes a decision
Are you ready to convert to Islam?: What brand of Islam are we supposed to convert to? Do we put on suicide belts immediately after conversion or wait for an order?
Do economic indicators really make any economic sense?: Economic theory, however, must only have one purpose - to explain the essence of economic activity. But statistical methods are of no help in this respect

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ELSEWHERE

In case you have not seen it yet, there is a picture here of far-Leftist Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez displaying one of Noam Chomsky's books and recommending it. There is an old syaing: "know a man by the company he keeps". That far-Leftist Chomsky should be a inspiration to tyrants is of course no surprise. The last 100 years have been awash with far-Leftist tyrants.

Good to hear: "Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, claimed last night that the Bush Administration threatened to bomb his country "into the Stone Age" if it did not co-operate with the US after 9/11, sharply increasing tensions between the US and one of its closest allies in the war on terrorism. The President, who will meet Mr Bush in the White House today, said the threat was made by Richard Armitage, then the Deputy Secretary of State, in the days after the terror attacks, and was issued to the Pakistani intelligence director."

Familiar IQ findings under another name: "Research has found that key skills in learning to read and spell - the ability to sound out words and read unusually spelt words - are affected by your genes. The study, which examined 650 identical and non-identical twins, also revealed that the same sets of genes affect both reading and spelling. Assoc prof Anne Castles said the research found these reading and spelling skills were more than 50 per cent inherited, with experience accounting for the rest. It also discovered that reading and spelling had a common genetic basis so if children had difficulty reading they would also struggle to spell. "This is the first study to put reading and spelling together in genetic models," Prof Castles said. Prof Castles said researchers would now like to identify the genes responsible. The research was conducted in conjunction with Queensland Institute of Technology and Macquarie University".

28 hour week in Germany! : "Vehicle manufacturer Volkswagen AG said its sales for all brands through the end of August were up 11 per cent compared to last year, but warned that its German plants were barely profitable... The German plants have barely generated profits "and are miles away from our profitability goals,'' he said. Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car maker, is seeking to drastically cut production costs for its VW-brand vehicles such as its flagship Golf, which are selling strongly but bringing in little profit. It disclosed last year that it intends to cut as many as 20,000 jobs in Germany. Since June, about 85,000 VW workers in western Germany have been offered severance packages ranging from euro 41,000 to euro 250,000 ($A69,338 to A422,797), depending on their salary level and years of service. The company also wants to extend the work week at six plants in western Germany that manufacture VW-brand cars from the current 28.8 hours to 35 hours, but talks with its union, IG Metall, have not yielded any deal. The talks are set to resume on Friday."

Cruel precedent: "That's how government abuses work. They start small. They start with an excuse that many of us are willing to buy. And then, as the public is desensitized, the abuses are gradually increased. By the time we realize the level of the abuse to which we're being subjected, it's too late for us to have nipped it in the bud. In fact, it's often too late to do much at all. But just as one kitten can be rescued, so can one gun owner. Just as one dog can be saved, so can one property owner. Precedents can be set in the opposite direction."

Advice to defendants: "I receive requests several times a week from defendants who suddenly find themselves forced to defend their lives, their right to use medical cannabis and even the Bill of Rights. Like you, each defendant is suddenly forced to cope with a predatory criminal justice system that judges them guilty, until proved innocent. This advice is intended to help provide you with the necessary tactics to succeed against the terrifying challenge you now face."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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THE TAJ MAHAL IS A HINDU, NOT A MUSLIM CREATION

Standard histories credit the Arabs with a great civilization in the Middle Ages. Those who look at the detail of the civilization concerned, however, cannot help noticing that not much of it is Arab. It is generally derivative -- derived from the Byzantine Greeks whom they lived alongside for 500 years or from conquered people in Assyria, Persia etc. Some details of that can be found here. So was the Taj another example of that? Was it a product of Muslim culture or was it stolen from the Hindus? First let us have a look at a few pictures. First below, the dome of the Taj:



Now a closeup of the finial on the dome. Do you see Hindu cattle horns or an Islamic moon crescent?



And below we see the same inlaid pinnacle pattern in the courtyard



And below we see the sealed doors and windows at the back of the Taj



Below we see typical Vedic style corridors



Below we see a locked room on the upper floor



Below we see the OM in the flowers on the walls



Below is the staircase that leads to the lower levels



Below we see the 300 foot long corridor inside the apartments



Below we see one of the 22 rooms in the secret lower level



Below we see a secret walled door that leads to other rooms



Below we see a Vedic design on the ceiling of a locked room



Below we see a huge ventilator sealed shut with bricks



So what are we to make of all that? Below is an answer:

"If you have ever visited the Taj Mahal then your guide probably told you that it was designed by Ustad Isa of Iran, and built by the Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Indian children are taught that it was built in 22 years (1631 to 1653) by 20,000 artisans brought to India from all over the world.

This story has been challenged by Professor P.N. Oak, author of Taj Mahal: The True Story, who believes that the whole world has been duped. He claims that the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz Mahal's tomb, but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya), worshipped by the Rajputs of Agra city. In the course of his research, Oak discovered that the Shiva temple palace had been usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. Shah Jahan then remodelled the palace into his wife's memorial. In his own court chronicle, Badshahnama, Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai Singh for Mumtaz's burial. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur is said to retain in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for the surrender of the Taj building.

The use of captured temples and mansions as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers. For example, Hamayun, Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions.

Oak's inquiries begin with the name Taj Mahal. He says this term does not occur in any Moghul court papers or chronicles, even after Shah Jahan's time. The term 'Mahal' has never been used for a building in any of the Muslim countries, from Afghanistan to Algeria. 'The usual explanation that the term Taj Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal is illogical in at least two respects. Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani,' he writes. 'Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name for the building.' Taj Mahal is, he claims, a corrupt version of Tejo-mahalaya, or the Shiva's Palace. Oak also says that the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale created by court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists. Not a single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan's time corroborates the love story.

Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting that the Taj Mahal predates Shah Jahan's era:

* Professor Marvin Miller of New York took samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan.

* European traveller Johan Albert Mandelslo, who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz's death), describes the life of the city in his memoirs, but makes no reference to the Taj Mahal being built.

* The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz's death, also suggest that the Taj was a noteworthy building long well before Shah Jahan's time.

Oak also points out a number of design and architectural inconsistencies that support the belief that the Taj Mahal is a typical Hindu temple rather than a mausoleum. Many rooms in the Taj Mahal have remained sealed since Shah Jahan's time, and are still inaccessible to the public. Oak asserts they contain a headless statue of Shiva and other objects commonly used for worship rituals in Hindu temples.

Fearing political backlash, Indira Gandhi's government tried to have Oak's book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the Indian publisher of the first edition with dire consequences. The only way to really validate or discredit Oak's research is to open the sealed rooms of the Taj Mahal, and allow international experts to investigate.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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A LEFTIST WISES UP TO THE DANGEROUS REALITY-DENIAL OF HIS FELLOW LEFTISTS

A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a "war on terror." We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise. This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.

Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope. Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities. Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb — and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise. And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.

At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.

I don't know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate. The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world's Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals...

In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.

Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise... To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Some amazing logic from "USA Today". They say: "The Iraq war continues to be problematic for Bush. Six in 10 people said he does not have a clear plan for handling Iraq (two-thirds said the same for Democrats), and 56% said Congress is not doing enough to oversee U.S. policy there. So more people (66% versus 60% for the GOP) say it is a problem for the Donks, yet "USA Today" says it is a problem for GWB?? Maybe "USA Today" does not know that two thirds is 66%. If the writer studied under Leftist professors, I wouldn't be surprised.

German economic doldrums: "German economic confidence has plummeted to its lowest level in more than 7« years this month, in what analysts said was a sign that growth is past its peak in Europe's largest economy. The unexpectedly sharp drop in the ZEW business confidence index, its eighth consecutive fall, will chip away at the determination of the European Central Bank (ECB) to raise interest rates. Concern among investors that a predicted slowdown in the United States could damage Germany's huge export sector helped to drive the ZEW index down to minus 22.2 for September, from minus 5.6 last month. It was the lowest level since January 1999. Rising interest rates and a plan to raise VAT by three percentage points to 19 per cent from the start of next year, which has been proposed by the coalition Government led by Angela Merkel, are also expected to damage business."

Archbishop speaks out: "The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to "violent" Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope's "extraordinarily effective and lucid" speech. Lord Carey said that Muslims must address "with great urgency" their religion's association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the "clash of civilisations" endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole. "We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times," he said. "There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths."

Two reasons why I love international trade: "This Friday, after work, we are going to have a beer fest and take lots of photos to send back across the puddle to our new best friends in Austria. So, that is why I love international trade. It gives us the opportunity to see people from across the globe, not as scary and threatening foreigners who are a part of the monolithic 'Chinese' or 'Europeans,' but as fellow humans, individuals, parents, children, businessmen, innovators, friends and drinking buddies."

Duke's Reichstag fire: "More than six years ago, I wrote about contrived campus 'incidents' in which college students falsely report racial (white on black) or sexual attacks as a modern form of the Reichstag Fire. Certainly, the patterns are the same. After the 1933, the German parliament gave the Hitler government carte blanche to do whatever it wanted to 'prevent' future attacks .... Thus, we come to another version of the campus Reichstag Fire, that being the false accusations of rape against three Duke University lacrosse players. As has been documented in a number of previous articles, the charges are transparently false, and if any crimes have been committed, they were carried out by District Attorney Michael Nifong and the Durham police."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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GERMAN FAILURE AGAIN

Socialism is very German (Marx and Engels were German, not to mention a certain National Socialist -- and Bismarck made Germany the world's first welfare State in the late 19th century) -- unfortunately for Germans

Koerber is one of 145,000 Germans who fled the fatherland last year amid record postwar unemployment, pushing emigration to its highest level since 1954, Federal Statistics Office figures show. Last year was also the first since the late 1960s that emigrants outnumbered Germans returning home from living abroad, the statistics office said. Even more troubling to German officials and business leaders, many were skilled workers like Koerber. The loss of such people, they say, may threaten Germany's economic competitiveness in the future.

"Many highly qualified young people are leaving our country to seek their fortunes elsewhere, while only very few top people have been attracted to Germany in recent years,'' said Ludwig Georg Braun, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, which represents more than 3 million companies. ``This development is causing us growing concern."

Unemployment reached 5.2 million, the highest level since World War II, in February 2005. Joblessness has declined since Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats took office last November. Still, the unemployment rate stood at 8.2 percent in June, according to internationally comparable figures published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. By the OECD's reckoning, the jobless rates in neighboring Austria and Switzerland were 4.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.

"People say things aren't getting better in Germany, and nothing's going to change any time soon,'' said historian Simone Eick, director of the German Emigration Center in the northern port city of Bremerhaven. Indeed, ``some indicators suggest that this may be the start of mass emigration."

For Koerber, the decision to leave was largely one of taxes. In Germany, where the highest tax bracket starts at 52,152 euros ($66,600), he would have to pay 42 percent of every euro above that level. In addition, the German value-added tax -- a kind of national sales levy -- is 16 percent, which is scheduled to rise three percentage points next year. ``I only get 25 percent deducted from my salary and that includes everything,'' said Koerber of his pay packet in Canada. ``And I'm in the highest tax bracket!'' The goods and services tax in Alberta is 6 percent, cut from 7 percent in July, he said.

Other German expatriates cite what they say is the over- regimentation of the labor force. ``Life in Germany is totally over-regulated,'' said Christian Kaestner, 38, an attorney who moved from Munich to Cape Town, South Africa, in 1997. ``There are hardly any freedoms left, and you keep bumping into regulations and prohibitions.''

Today's emigrants are likely to choose Canada, New Zealand and Australia, or, within Europe, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands. An estimated 2,300 German doctors are working in Switzerland, more than 8 percent of the Swiss total, said the Bern-based FMH Swiss Medical Association. Taking into account gross pay, taxes, insurance and the cost of living, doctors make more money in Switzerland, said Matthias Dettmer, 31, an assistant pathologist in Zurich from the southern German city of Tuebingen. He makes more than double his former colleagues in Germany, who earn what he calls a ``cleaner's pay.''

More here.

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ELSEWHERE



The Communist roots of Islamic terrorism: "Modern terrorism was born within a year, 1967-1968. International socialists (communists) started the fashion all over the world simultaneously, which should make us suspicious about the common roots. National socialists followed suit, turning Marxists of Muslim origin into Islamists of Marxist origin. In May 18th, 1967, Yuri Andropov took over the leadership of the KGB. The Russian security services evolved into a state within the Soviet state, as it became clear when Andropov became the communist party's general secretary after Leonid Brezhnev's death, in 1982. During Andropov's era, which was far longer than that of any other KGB chief, the Soviet secret services supported international terrorism through satellite states and Marxist "liberation fronts". "On becoming chairman of the KGB in 1967, Andropov immediately announced his intention to revive KGB 'special actions' as an essential tool of Soviet policy during the Cold War."

A JUDGE to raise wages?? "The federal receiver in charge of fixing California's prison health care system asked a judge Tuesday to bypass the bureaucracy in Sacramento and grant $24 million in raises to medical workers in order to attract more of them to the state's penal institutions. Saying he was skeptical of the state's excuses for inaction on salary adjustments, receiver Robert Sillen asked U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to raise pay by up to 64 percent.... Sillen's "motion for a waiver of state law" was his first exercise of muscle since Henderson last winter hired him to bring the prison medical system into compliance with constitutional standards for humane care. A judicial order at the time specified that if the state put up legal or other roadblocks, Sillen should ask Henderson to set them aside. Sillen on Tuesday told Henderson that staffing vacancies -- 44 percent among X-ray technicians, for example, and 42 percent among pharmacists -- are crippling his efforts."

Why Michiganders are moving out: "Liberals dissatisfied with the Bush economy have, through the wonders of federalism, an alternative. They can move to Michigan. The state represents a rough approximation of ideal liberal economic policy. It is heavily unionized, taxed, and regulated in a failed attempt to close its eyes to the dynamic forces of the market and globalization all around it. This stew has helped make Michigan the economic sick man of the Midwest. It is suffering from a one-state recession all its own, mostly because it has failed to foster the most profound economic force in the universe - opportunity. The state has been losing out to more business-friendly environs both overseas and in other states for decades, but has refused to adapt accordingly."

The State: An Anecdote: "Reported in "Harper's Index" (Harper's, October 2006, page 13): Minimum amount of USDA farm subsidies since 2000 that have been paid out to people who do not farm: $1,300,000,000. That's $1.3 billion. One program. And this by an institution -- the state -- that many conservatives trust to build nations abroad and many left-liberals trust to make better decisions for each of us individually than each of us individually will make for ourselves."

Some new cities outsource city hall: ""Newly formed cities are giving the keys to city hall to private companies that say they can run a government better than bureaucrats. Mayors in 'contract cities' say they get better services for less money; more flexibility, because private employees can be hired and fired more easily than workers under civil service rules; and lower debt, because they can own fewer buildings and less equipment."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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AMERICAN LEFTISTS AND THE RECENT WAR IN LEBANON

Kofi Annan has recently stated that Israel's "excessive use of force is to be condemned," and in a recent interview taken during the war, Jimmy Carter said, "I think they should declare an immediate cease-fire on both sides, Hezbollah said they would comply, I hope Israel will comply, and then do the long, slow, tedious negotiation that is necessary to stabilize the northern border of Israel completely." And while we're at it, let's try to diplomatically work out a long, slow, tedious negotiation between a full bathtub and a plugged-in toaster.

This military action was apparently also upsetting too many liberals back in America who believe that the only good Jew besides Al Franken, Barbara Streisand and Arthur Sulzberger is the kind that have been used to wash your body with in the shower. Yes, American liberals are just fed up with Israel not staying put when bestial player-hating Muslims push its buttons, and they are absolutely outraged when Israel dares strike back when they are messed with (don't those Jews know their whole "eye for an eye" thing was rendered obsolete by Gandhi?), not to mention the American Jews back home from those scheming neo-cons (code word for "Jews") like Paul Wolfowitz to obstinate Democratic deserters like Joe Lieberman (the only man liberals would call a traitor), who simply believe in the concept of self-defense for both the U.S. and its close Jewish ally. Liberals would sooner defend the "right" of an Arab Muslim to defend himself from the impending threat of a bus filled with women and children by blowing himself up in it than they would Israel protecting itself.

Liberals also like to shroud their anti-Semitism with the claim that it is not Jews they are against, but the Israelis because of their alleged "belligerence" - a term that was used against Israel in a statement made by the organizers of the Locarno International Film Festival, who dropped the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a festival sponsor this year. Belligerence? Are they talking about when Ariel Sharon went against the will of his Likud Party and withdrew from Gaza, which only preceded daily firings of rockets into Jewish communities? Or the belligerence demonstrated by Ehud Olmert's plan to evacuate the Jews from 95 percent of Judea and Samaria - all land they won fair and square after the war of 1967 - which the Arabs felt so grateful for that they kidnapped two Israelis and provoked what was the doormat of the world and then wasn't for a few weeks?

Why can't we just let the Jews finish the fight? A lot more bloodshed lies in the way of securing peace - which is an absolute imperative. Let's get it over with. If Israel can take out Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear facility as they did in 1981, they could also do the same with Iran - a rogue nation led by the new Hitler of the Middle East which they are already indirectly dealing with by attempting to wipe out from Lebanon the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah terrorist group.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

New dawn for Sweden? "A centre-Right alliance led by Moderate Party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt won power in Sweden today, ending 12 years of Social Democrat rule. The Moderates had promised to lower taxes and trim the welfare state. Social Democrat Prime Minister Goran Persson, one of Europe's longest-serving leaders, has conceded defeat after 10 years in office. He will quit as party leader. According to almost complete results from Sweden's Election Commission, the four-party opposition bloc had won 48 per cent of votes to 46.2 per cent for Mr Persson and his allies. Taking the stage with his arms raised, a jubilant Reinfeldt told supporters, "We campaigned as the New Moderates. We won as the New Moderates, and together with our alliance partners we will rule Sweden as the New Moderates".



When will the nonsense about Islam stop? "The hardline Muslims who took to burning churches this weekend in the wake of Pope Benedict's remarks supposedly linking Islam to violence seem to have proved his point. In keeping with the ludicrous over-reaction to a Danish newspaper's decision last year to publish cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed, churches around the world have been firebombed and death threats issued." [Pope protest in Srinagar above is a picture worth 1,000 words]

No dialogue with Islam possible: "The irony of this row is that it is the opposite of what the Pope was trying to achieve. Benedict ended his speech by hoping for a new dialogue between the sciences, religions and cultures "which is so urgently needed today". It looks, from this miserable episode, as if you can only have a conversation that deals - however remotely - with Islam on Muslim terms. Not much of a dialogue, then."

The Anchoress has a very detailed coverage of the controversy over the Pope's speech.

Australia's Islamic neighbour: "Indonesia is in the middle of an explosive debate about whether conservative Islamic morality will become enforceable law in that nation of 230 million. It is a debate that threatens to unravel the secular foundation of the republic itself. Amid street protests, the DPR, Indonesia's newly democratic legislature, is debating a reactionary Anti-Pornography Bill that is really an attempt to introduce hardline interpretations of sharia (Islamic law) by stealth. The bill would criminalise much sexuality, force women to cover up almost completely, largely exclude them from public space and tightly censor the arts and media.

The maker of the "Path to 9/11" TV series reports: "I am neither an activist, politician or partisan, nor an ideologue of any stripe. What I am is a writer who takes his job very seriously, as do most of my colleagues: Also, one who recently took on the most distressing and important story it will ever fall to me to tell. I considered it a privilege when asked to write the script for "The Path to 9/11." I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a single goal--to represent our recent pre-9/11 history as the evidence revealed it to be. The American people deserve to know that history: They have paid for it in blood. Like all Americans, I wish it were not so. I wish there were no terrorists. I wish there had been no 9/11. I wish we could squabble among ourselves in assured security. But wishes avail nothing. My Iranian parents fled tyranny and oppression. I know and appreciate deeply the sanctuary America has offered.... Clearly, those enraged that a film would criticize the Clinton administration's antiterrorism policies--though critical of its successor as well--were willing to embrace only one scenario: The writer was a conservative hatchetman."

IL: Veto of "living wage" law stands: "The so-called 'living-wage' ordinance that would have required mega-retailers here to pay their workers higher wages was successfully turned back Wednesday as supporters on the City Council could not muster enough votes to override Mayor Richard Daley's veto. Daley, who vetoed the ordinance this week saying it would cost the city jobs and hurt people who need those jobs the most, was able to convince enough aldermen who voted in favor of the ordinance in July to change their votes. The vote was 31-18 in favor of overriding the veto -- three short of the necessary votes to do so."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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"Progressives" aren't progressive

A follow-on from my post of 15th.:

It's usually the people on the Left who joyfully choose to be called "progressive"-there are several left of center and far Left publications that contain "progressive" in their title, for example. In this instance, however, the designation fails to fit altogether. That is because instead of moving forward, getting away from past practices, in short, instead of making progress, those on the Left are actually regressive, even reactionary, in their politics. I give you one major example.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the fathers of the modern Left, proposed, in their Communist Manifesto, as their first order of business the abolition of private property. They and thousands of intellectuals who followed in their ideological lead over the last century and a half have believed, often sincerely, that this made them all progressives. But that is just not so.

In the era prior to the rise of modern capitalism there was virtually no acknowledgement of the right to private property for all but some at the top. It is government-by way of the monarch such as the king or czar or pharaoh-who was deemed to own everything. So when ordinary folks like you and me occupied and worked some plot of land, for example, the government had to grant this privilege. We had no right to private property, only a grant of privilege and we all had to pay taxes for it to boot. (Remember that Robin Hood didn't steal from the rich but from those who took taxes from us all, seeing how unjust this was!)

Clearly, then, the rejection of private property rights was part and parcel of much of pre-capitalist political economy, where it was government that deemed itself authorized to grant people rights. The idea that the individual has a natural-pre-political, pre-legal-right to private property was a radical, actually progressive notion which unseated government from its high and mighty position, robbed it of its phony sovereignty.

Contemporary Leftist "progressives," then, want to return to something very old fashioned and misguided, namely, the idea that government is supreme and we are all its subjects. (Sadly, the U. S. Supreme Court has given them support in this recently, via its July 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, Ct.) There is absolutely nothing progressive about what the Left wants and please realize that the term is applied either because of rank ignorance or as a simple ruse. The Left is, in fact, reactionary and regressive.

More here

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BRITISH BLOGGING

Judging from my emails, most readers of my blogs are American or Australian. Since I blog from Australia about mostly American issues, that is not at all surprising. I am a little disappointed however that I have so few British readers. I in fact give quite a wide coverage to British news and views on my blogs but the coverage is scattered across several blogs so it may not be obvious to British readers that I am, among other things, a "British blogger". In case it helps me to communicate more with British readers, therefore, I have decided to round up all the "British" posts from my various blogs every day and put them up all together on a single, separate blog. Once I have prepared something for posting, it takes me only seconds to put it up elsewhere so the new blog will not be any appreciable burden on my time. The new blog is now up and running and is called "Eye on Britain". I would be obliged if anybody who knows Brits would direct their attention to it.

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ELSEWHERE

I had rather a good weekend just past. I have put up a brief memoir of it here.

Victory for the American taxpayers: "Pardon me. I must crow. The public just won a big one. And it was in spite of little or no coverage in the mainstream press, not to mention underhanded trickery in the U.S. Senate. This major milestone was the passage in the U.S. Senate of a bill to increase budget accountability and transparency by establishing a public database to track federal grants and contracts. The Senate passed S.2590 on September 7, 2006 and the House passed HR 5060 on June 21, 2006. Both votes were unanimous."

The grand tax illusion: "Let us put ourselves into the position of those complaining. Wages should rise -- a noble goal. How, exactly, are we to achieve this? By what mechanism are we going to reshuffle the current distribution of income so that more flows into the moth-eaten wallets of the hardworking US citizens? Simple: Abolish the Corporate Income Tax .... For, you see, corporations don't actually pay taxes. Only people pay taxes. This is an idea called "tax incidence". It means that people we think aren't being taxed are in fact coughing up the dough demanded by a specific impost... as a working paper from the Congressional Budget Office tells us: "domestic labor bears slightly more than 70 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax."

Religious leaders bash the global market: "Religious activists are more outspoken than ever about the problem of global poverty. So why do they so often and so energetically attack multinational corporations -- the very organizations that are helping developing nations create jobs and grow through broader trade relations? To a certain way of thinking in religious circles, large global corporations are often perceived to make excessive profits, exploit the poor, damage the environment and exercise undue influence on governments -- especially struggling democratic nations in the developing world. In many ways, these companies are visible and easy targets for the anti-globalization crowd."

Strange new idea in SF: Enforce the law: "San Francisco police will begin enforcing the city's long-ignored curfew for young teenagers, send authorities to truants' homes and flood high-crime neighborhoods with officers on overtime as part of a $3.7 million package of measures that Mayor Gavin Newsom hopes will turn back a surge of violence in the city. The package emerged from meetings among mayoral aides, judges, probation officials, prosecutors and police that Newsom convened as the city's homicide rate spiked in recent weeks. Sixty-six people have been slain in San Francisco this year; at that pace, the year's total would about equal last year's 10-year high of 96 homicides. The plan would make greater use of laws already on the books and provide more money for existing strategies, disappointing some critics of Newsom who had called for a sweeping attack on crime that would include new social programs."

Voting shouldn't require a heroic act of patience: "Of all the issues that decide federal elections, the length of lines at polling stations shouldn't be one of them. Yet, as egregious as that would be, they may. And as implausible as that would be, nobody seems to care. After two straight close presidential elections, the 2006 midterms and the 2008 election are likely to be nail-biters, too. This means that the integrity of the election process matters more than ever. Is there cause for concern? Yes. Consider the 2000 presidential election. George W. Bush won the presidency by a margin of just 537 votes in Florida. Assume (optimistically) that all the voters were properly registered and marked their preferred candidate, and that no voting machines malfunctioned. Even then, if only 538 Floridians who came to the precincts did not vote due to the widely reported long lines, the election outcome would be in doubt."

Remember Reno!: "The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an established sect. Many FLDS families in the Utah and Arizona communities have lived there since well before the two states were formed. ... FLDS polygamists are peaceful people, engaged in what appear to be consensual living arrangements. Yet the federal government has described Jeffs, who was unarmed and did not resist arrest, as extremely dangerous. In May, the polygamist was placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, alongside Bin Laden. As the polygamists become part of the media's demonology, we'd do well to remember another crusading prosecutor, Attorney General Janet Reno."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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Bush policies are here to stay

From an Australian commentator:

One of the greatest mistakes the opponents of George W. Bush in the US, and of John Howard in Australia, perennially make is to consider the respective leaders as aberrations and to think, therefore, that they represent odd cul-de-sacs of history. Closely allied to this is the rooted faith that once the dark leader, winner of dark victories through dark satanic methods, passes from the scene, the nation will return to normal. However, Bush and Howard represent the absolute mainstream of their nations in domestic as well as foreign policy.

Surely, you say, the neo-conservative excesses of Bush's foreign policy are sui generis. Consider this classic Bush formulation: "If a nation shows that it knows how to act with decency ... then it need fear no interference from the US ... but brutal wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilised society, may finally require intervention by some civilised nation ... the US cannot ignore this duty."

That's about as crisp a version of the neo-con idea as you could get. But actually I'm kidding when I say it is a Bush formulation. The words come to us from more than a century ago, from Theodore Roosevelt. Yet in his book Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger sets up TR as the ultimate foreign policy realist, the opposite pole to Woodrow Wilson and his liberal internationalism. The most astute analysts of US foreign policy see much more continuity than radical change in Bush, especially when the magnitude of the 9/11 terror attacks of five years ago is added. It would have been inconceivable, and utterly inconsistent with US history, for Washington not to have responded with great vigour to the 9/11 attacks.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I think whatever happens in the November mid-term congressional elections, and then in the presidential election of 2008, it is most likely the broad elements of Bush's foreign policy will stay. There may well be a repudiation of the Bush personality in either or both of these elections. However, there almost certainly won't be a fundamental change of course. By the time Bush ends his presidency in 2008 (technically in January 2009), he will have influenced directly four national elections. He won the presidency in 2000 and was re-elected with an increased majority in 2004. He also oversaw very large Republican gains in the mid-term congressional elections in 2002. In this year's congressional elections, it is most likely the Democrats will make gains. All of the House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate and 36 governorships will be up for grabs. Local issues will influence many of these contests, but it is fair to see them in some measure as a referendum on Bush and in particular on the conduct of the war in Iraq.

The campaign in Iraq is not going well and is not especially popular. But the politics of this are extremely complex. I am drawn to the argument by Harvard Law School professor William Stuntz that the US public attitude is not so much get out now but, rather, win or get out. In other words, Americans will continue to support the Iraq operation provided the Bush administration can tell a convincing story about the value of what the US is doing there....

However, it is in some senses easier to predict that the next presidential election will not produce drastic change in US policy. This analysis proceeds from two factors: the politicians likely to be involved and the structural forces at work in the world. On the Republican side, the frontrunner is Arizona senator John McCain. He is critical of the Bush administration on issues such as the treatment of detainees, but he would put more troops into Iraq to make sure the victory is won. He is also if anything more hawkish than Bush on Iran. He says, for example, that the only thing worse than the US bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would be a nuclear-armed Iran. The other highly prominent Republican is former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. He came to prominence entirely as a result of the 9/11 terror attacks and would run hard on national security, as would any of the other Republican contenders.

On the Democratic side the leading candidate is Hillary Clinton. She has a ton of money and would be an extremely formidable candidate. Since entering the Senate she has assiduously established her national security credentials. She serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She backed the war in Iraq. She sponsored legislation to ban the burning of the US flag. She strongly backed Israel in its recent conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Former vice-president Al Gore has become famous for his environmental campaigns but in office he was the most hawkish member of the Clinton administration. John Kerry, the loser last time, tried to run as the military candidate. All these Democrats understand that they cannot win an election unless some southern conservative states believe they can manage national security.

This will dovetail with the structural factors at work in the world. Any US president will continue the war on terror vigorously. And any US president will have to deal with the situation in Iraq as it exists and will not want to create a strategic disaster by immediate, total disengagement.

Here's a final thought. The body language of the Bush administration regarding Iran looks to me as though it is not planning to let Iran progress to nuclear weapons. A US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Bush before the end of his administration strikes me as at least an even money bet. And that, of course, would transform and polarise the politics of the US once again. If you don't like the US now - or if you do - you'll probably feel the same way in two or three years.

More here

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Brookes News Update

The economic lesson the US economy can teach Japan : The lesson for Japan is to follow the American example of allowing markets greater flexibility in eliminating malinvestments. The alternative leads to economic stagnation
The Australian economy, recession and monetary policy: The surge in manufacturing is entirely due to the Reserve's reckless monetary expansion. Even if this monetary injection is sufficient to avert an imminent recession it will only be delaying the inevitable
The Australian economy and the export-growth myth: Although it's indisputable that a falling dollar will tend to encourage export growth, it's simply fallacious to think this will generate economic growth"
The media vs. the war on terror: While President Bush and Prime Ministers Blair and Howard wage war on Islamic terrorism the ABC, CBS and NBC try to subvert the war by falsely accusing the Administration's terror-fighting tactics as being dangerous, abusive and illegal. But don't dare question these lefty journos' patriotism
Beneath the veil of 'media objectivity' and Republicans: The Fourth Estate hates Republicans, particularly the likes of Senator Rick Santorum who actually behaves like a Republican in the vast majority of cases
The more times change, the more things stay the same: In 1929, the Arabs rampaged through Hebron, on a killing spree that managed to almost wipe out the Jewish population. Now, their grandchildren and great grandchildren have attempted a similar act with their recent massacre in Hebron
The World Trade Center: The movie Spielberg should have made: I just returned from seeing 'The World Trade Center'. In my opinion this is the film Spielberg should have made. Instead of mocking the murders of Israeli athletes at Munich. Evidently Spielberg's spin on history doesn't bother with truth

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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A STUPID KRAUT

Prof. Dr. Gert Weisskirchen is a stupid Kraut and I want to tell you why. For a start, Kraut is the German word for cabbage and -- perhaps due to their liking for Sauerkraut (sour cabbage) -- it has become a contemptuous term for Germans generally. It was a term much used in two world wars during which Germans killed a lot of people.

In this month's British report on antisemitism, Prof Weisskirchen describes the causes of antisemitism as follows:

"Nationalistic or right-wing populist movements are trying to gain a foothold to varying degrees in all European States. Apart from bringing chauvinistic longings up to date, the common elements in their rationale are the emphasis on authoritarian thinking, the stirring up of resentment towards established parties and the mobilization of right-wing extremist attitudes in the form of xenophobia or even open racism and antisemitism.

A wealth of studies, beginning with the sociological writings of Theodor W. Adorno more than 60 years ago, demonstrate that xenophobia and modern versions of ethnic and racist sentiments with antisemitic prejudices are the most significant features of right-wing extremism and populism. Although they sometimes do without the key trappings of classic Fascism and Nazism, they still make use of its arsenal of discriminatory and denigrating contemptuous prejudices. In accordance with the classic scapegoat mechanism, foreigners are held responsible for whatever social problems exist, such as unemployment and failing social systems, and are disparaged as social parasites who dispute the right of the native population to the country's wealth. As a group they are ostracized as "disruptive factors" who need to be removed. Behind the "new" forms of antisemitism the old core still remains. If preventive measures are not taken to combat antisemitism at its source it will turn into a "social disease" that infests society, gradually eating it up from within and finally destroying it.

So "nationalistic or right-wing populist movements" are the prime source of antisemitism. There is absolutely no mention of Islam or Leftist "antizionism", which are by far the main forms of antisemitism today. Could the fact that the professor is also a socialist member of the German parliament have something to do with that? In his other writings he does occasionally mention Islam and European antizionism but he never mentions that antizionism is mainly Leftist nor does he discuss causes of any form of antisemitism other than "rightist" antisemitism. Apparently the causes of Leftist and Islamic antisemitism either do not exist or must not be examined.

And the amusing thing is that the alleged origins of rightist antisemitism that he mentions derive from one of the most discredited pieces of work in the whole of the social sciences -- the claims about psychological "authoritarianism" by Marxist theoretician Theodor Wiesengrund (aka Adorno). If Prof. Weisskirchen were a chemist, he would still be talking about "phlogiston".

Below are some of the books (not to mention hundreds of academic journal articles -- e.g here) that demolish in various ways the Adorno psychological theories that Prof. Weisskirchen believes in.

Altemeyer, R. (1981). Right-wing authoritarianism. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

Christie, R. & Jahoda, M. (1954) Studies in the scope and method of "The authoritarian personality". Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.

McKinney, D.W. (1973) The authoritarian personality studies. The Hague: Mouton.

Kirscht, J.P. & Dillehay, R.C. (1967) "Dimensions of authoritarianism: A review of research and theory. Lexington: Univ. Kentucky Press

The Altemeyer book is particularly interesting. Altemeyer rather likes the Adorno theory but he devotes the first half of his book to a comprehensive literature review (up to about 1973) of all the vast body of research on the theory -- and finds that none of all that evidence actually supports the theory!

How stupid do you have to be still to accept such a theory?

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ELSEWHERE



The scribble above is the new logo of the British Conservative party. How pathetic can you get? Background here. That the British Tories are now "green" seems to be the only message in it.

Change coming in Sweden? "Astonishing as it seems, it is just possible that on Sunday Swedes will throw out the centre-left Social Democrats who have governed them for all but nine of the past 74 years... But whether the centre-right alliance wins on Sunday or not, there are plenty of signs that the dream has darkened. It is costing too much, and immigration is straining the unspoken contract under which Swedes were happy to pay the Government for what they were confident they would later receive. The young challenger who threatens to topple G”ran Persson from his ten-year premiership is Fredrik Reinfeldt, who has been compared with David Cameron for his success in stitching together a coalition from the demoralised and fractured opposition on the Right. At 41, he would be Sweden's youngest prime minister. But he has been less coy than Cameron about campaigning for lower taxes, as well as for cutting unemployment benefits and demanding results from schools and healthcare. He may have struck a chord. Swedes are fed up with their high tax rates - and loathe the property tax of about 1 per cent of the value of a typical house.

Rare wisdom from a centre-Left government: "The [British] Government has pledged to use legislation to block the imposition of heavy-handed Wall Street-style regulation on the City if the London Stock Exchange is taken over by a foreign buyer. Users of the London market welcomed the promise, by Ed Balls, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, that the Financial Services Authority would be given the statutory right to veto rule changes proposed by recognised exchanges, including the LSE, if these were "disproportionate" in their impact on London. Mr Balls said in Hong Kong: "The Government's interest in this area is specific and clear: to safeguard the light touch and proportionate regulatory regime that has made London a magnet for international business." By contrast, the imposition on Wall Street of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act in response to accounting scandals such as Enron is seen as making it more difficult for New York to attract new issues. Nasdaq, the New York market, has 25.3 per cent of the LSE"

Unilateral moral disarmament: "As I write, it is one week after the Atrocity. And while we prepare for war, we ask ourselves, again and again, two questions: Why? Why would anyone be motivated to commit such a horror? How? How could the most powerful nation on earth let it happen? The answer in both cases is philosophical."

Geniuses get fewer hangovers: "High IQ scores may do more than separate geniuses from those of lesser intelligence, they could also be an indication of how much clever people are likely to suffer from hangovers. New research by Scottish scientists suggests that smart people are less likely to repeatedly experience the excruciating headache, nausea, dry mouth and sensitivity to light and sound that can follow a heavy night out. "The main finding of this study was that higher IQ scores at 11 years of age were associated with a reduced risk of alcohol induced hangovers in middle age," said Dr David Batty of the University of Edinburgh. In a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Dr Batty and his colleagues looked at IQ test scores of 11-year-olds taken in Aberdeen in 1962 and sent questionnaires to them between 2000-2003 asking about their drinking habits. Responses from more than 7000 showed a higher IQ score was associated with a lower prevalence of hangovers."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

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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