IQ and gene link confirmed

Repeated twin studies stretching back for around a century have shown that IQ is highly genetic. But it seems most likely that high IQ reflects good functioning in several areas or aspects of the brain. High IQ could be seen as all the brain working well together in a perfect symphony. So it has long been thought that many genes would be involved. The study mentioned below appears to have isolated one of the more significant genes. You are most UNLIKELY to learn of the findings below in the Media

If you're particularly good with puzzles or chess, the reason may be in your genes. A team of scientists led by School of Medicine psychiatric geneticists has gathered the most extensive evidence to date that a gene that activates signaling pathways in the brain influences one kind of intelligence. The researchers confirmed a link between the gene CHRM2 and performance IQ, which involves a person's ability to organize things logically.

"This is not a gene for intelligence," said Danielle M. Dick, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author on the study. "It's a gene that's involved in some kinds of brain processing, and specific alterations in the gene appear to influence IQ. But this single gene isn't going to be the difference between whether a person is a genius or has below-average intelligence." .... [But it will raise your chances of being generally bright]

Dick's team comprehensively studied the DNA along the gene and found that several variations within the CHRM2 gene could be correlated with slight differences in performance IQ scores, which measure a person's visual-motor coordination, logical and sequential reasoning, spatial perception and abstract problem-solving skills. When people had more than one positive variation in the gene, the improvements in performance IQ were cumulative.

The study's findings are available online in Behavior Genetics at bga.org and will appear in an upcoming print issue of that journal. IQ tests also measure verbal skills and typically include many subtests. For this study, subjects took five verbal subtests and four performance subtests, but the genetic variations influenced only performance IQ scores.

By comparing individual differences embedded in DNA, the team zeroed in on CHRM2, the neuronal receptor gene on chromosome 7. The CHRM2 gene activates a multitude of signaling pathways in the brain involved in learning, memory and other higher brain functions. The research team doesn't yet understand how the gene exerts its effects on intelligence....

Dick's team is not the first to notice a link between intelligence and the CHRM2 gene. In 2003, a group in Minnesota looked at a single marker in the gene and noted that the variation was related to an increase in IQ. A more recent Dutch study looked at three regions of DNA along the gene and also noticed influences on intelligence.

More here

Journal abstract from Behavior Genetics, Volume 37, Number 2, March, 2007:

Association of CHRM2 with IQ: Converging Evidence for a Gene Influencing Intelligence

By Danielle M. Dick et al.

The cholinergic neurotransmitter system is thought to be involved in many aspects of memory, attention, and higher cognition. In the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) sample, we have previously reported linkage and association to the cholinergic muscarinic 2 receptor gene (CHRM2) on chromosome 7 with evoked EEG oscillations (Jones et al. 2004), providing evidence that this gene may be involved in human brain dynamics and cognition. In addition, a small number of genetic markers were genotyped in CHRM2 in the Minnesota Twin and Family Study (Comings et al. 2003) and a Dutch family study (Gosso et al. 2006, in press) and both research groups found evidence that this gene may be involved in intelligence. In the COGA sample, we have extensively genotyped SNPs within and flanking the CHRM2 gene. We find evidence of association with multiple SNPs across CHRM2 and Performance IQ, as measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). These results remain significant after taking into account alcohol dependence and depression diagnoses in the sample.

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ELSEWHERE

I put up cartoons fairly often on my blogs and quite a few of them come from Seadog Bytes. So for a good laugh go there any time. They poke fun at both the Left and the Greenies.

Muslims keeping up the pressure to retake Cordoba cathedral: "Despite being rebuffed by the local bishop and the Vatican, Muslims are still trying to retake the Cordoba cathedral. "Catholic-Muslim turf war still resonates at Cordoba cathedral: The scuffle over La Mezquita is echoed throughout Spain these days as members of each faith tests the other's tolerance" is a weepy piece by Tracy Wilkinson in the Los Angeles Times, lamenting that Muslims can't pray there. It never seems to occur to her that there are innumerable churches all over the Islamic world that were turned into mosques, and no one is agitating in Constantinople for the Hagia Sophia to be opened again for public Christian prayer, or in Damascus for the Umayyad Mosque, built atop a demolished church dedicated to St. John the Baptist, to be opened to Christians."

Castro sides with Big Oil!: "A letter signed by Cuban leader Fidel Castro, titled "More Than 3 Billion People in the World Condemned to Premature Death from Hunger and Thirst," circulated in the media Thursday. In his first major statement in months, Castro rejects the use of crops for biofuel production. He says his letter is a response to U.S. President George W. Bush's recent meeting with the "Big Three" automakers -- DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. -- and that he is concerned that their enthusiasm for flexfuel vehicles will have disastrous environmental and food-price consequences for developing countries.'

Obama Still Hiding White Grandma : "NewsMax's recent story about Sen. Barack Obama's white grandmother by independent journalist Andy Martin has created a firestorm across the Web. In his commentary "Free Obama's White Grandma," Martin details how the Obama campaign has "locked his granny away and refused to allow her to be seen." Obama's father was a black Kenyan, and his mother was a white woman from Kansas. His white grandmother, his mother's mother, is Madelyn Dunham. She raised Obama after he returned to Hawaii from Indonesia, where his mother had gone to live after separating from his Kenyan father. But Martin alleges that the Obama campaign has been hiding Madelyn, while at the same time producing photos showing Obama with his black step-grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama - even though she never saw the future senator until the 1980s. Martin maintains that the moves are politically motivated - presidential hopeful Obama is hiding his white background to solidify his support in the black community."

An interesting story here about how evil American soldiers search houses in Iraq. Good manners and courtesy were met with good manners and courtesy.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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GEORGE LAKOFF

One of the great gurus of the American Left is linguist-turned-psychologist, George Lakoff. Most of his ideas are just corny old stuff that Leftist psychologists have been spouting for around 60 years -- and which have much evidence against them. But Lakoff shows little awareness of the research background on his subject. Like most Leftists, he just KNOWS: Evidence not necessary.

One idea he has made his own, however, is that conservatism is masculine and Leftism is feminine. It is an idea that has some intuitive appeal and conservatives come up with it from time to time too. Unfortunately, like a lot of appealing simplifications, the facts are against it. If it were true, we would expect a big sex polarization at election time -- but we usually in fact get close to a 50/50 split. George W. Bush and John Kerry split the female vote roughly 50/50 in the last presidential race, for instance. Again, however, Lakoff does not let such large facts as that get in his way.

If you Google Lakoff, however, you will find little criticism of him. He is routinely treated as a fount of wisdom and insight. I would like to put that right. I have just updated my article on him. You can find it here. If everybody reading this who has a website links to it, it might climb far enough up the Google page-rankings to get onto the first page of search results -- and thus make known that there is an alternative perspective on Lakoff.

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LEFTIST DENIAL IN FULL SPATE

In the remaining 20 months of the Bush administration, America's leaders have to avoid the sort of "spontaneous combustion" that could produce a disastrous escalation of the country's Middle East military conflicts, a former national security adviser said at Duke University on Wednesday.

Specifically, the country has to avoid getting into an armed conflict with longtime nemesis Iran, said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's top adviser on foreign affairs throughout Carter's four years in office, including the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis.

Brzezinski said there's no reason to think a bloodbath would necessarily follow a U.S. withdrawal. "We expected that the U.S. leaving Vietnam would result in massive killings and genocide and so forth, and collapse of the dominoes in Southeast Asia," he said. "It didn't happen.

Source

Those million or more Vietnamese boat people risked their lives just for a Sunday jaunt? The millions Pol Pot murdered were just a figment of our imagination? It takes a Leftist to think that sort of thing but they do. They just edit out reality whenever it suits them

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ELSEWHERE



You will be lucky if you see the above pic anywhere in the media. It shows a kind GWB helping the 89-year old Robert Byrd to walk at the ceremony to honour the black Tuskegee airmen. We won't mention the irony of KKKByrd being there at all. Via Don Surber

The midlife crisis of the EU: "The 50th birthday of the European Union, born in Rome in March 1957 as the European Economic Community or Common Market -- of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg -- was a pallid affair. Understandably so. For though the EU has expanded to embrace 27 nations and boasts an economy equal to that of the United States, it is like a man well into middle-age whose career accomplishments are behind him. The EU birthday party was further proof, were any needed, that no transnational institution can elicit the love and loyalty of a country. World Government is a vision of elites no patriot will ever embrace. Men have died in the millions for Poland, France, Italy, England and Germany. Who would walk through fire for the European Union?"

Tedious and ignorant conspiracy theories: "I've alienated quite a few people, including close friends, over my refusal to believe in conspiracy theories. ... What started me on this particular rant this particular morning was an email I received in regard to my recent post on the lack of user-friendliness of Linux. After excoriating me for not knowing the 'simple' way to do it (which I'm still not sure I understand), the writer ended with, 'Unless Microsoft is PAYING you to spread FUD?' I'm not sure what FUD is, but I'm pretty sure it's not complimentary. I'm also very sure that Bill G. hasn't written me a check. The question is, why would anyone even think that? The obvious explanation for my post is that I'm an idiot when it comes to Linux. Hell, I freely admitted that. Can anyone honestly think that Microsoft would care what one lone very-erratic blogger says about Linux or Microsoft? I could see them bribing some big-name tech guru to say nice things, but I'm freakin' nobody! One could just as easily -- and just as ridiculously -- accuse anti-MS folks of having Apple or Sun or Novell paying them to write screeds against MS"

Obama's identity crisis: "Obama has molded himself into the male Oprah Winfrey, the crown prince of niceness, bravely denouncing divisiveness, condemning controversy, eulogizing unity, and retelling his feel-good life story about how he, the child of a black scholar from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, grew up to be editor of the Harvard Law Review. ... Beneath this bland Good Obama lies a more interesting character, one that I like far better -- the Bad Obama, a close student of other people's weaknesses, a literary artist of considerable power in plumbing his deep reservoirs of self-pity and resentment, an unfunny Evelyn Waugh consumed by indignation toward his own mother's people."

The latest Paris riots: "24 hours after the punk jihad riots, the media delivered a profile of the “kid” whose arrest sparked 8 hours of mayhem in the bowels of the Gare du Nord. The “kid” is one Angelo H. He is, it turns out, 32 years old, an illegal Congolese immigrant, and subject to a deportation order 1993. The “kid” has been in trouble since he came to France at the age of ten—twenty-two registered condemnations for violent incidents and many that went unreported… When the agents wrestled him to the ground, Angelo screamed bloody murder, a small crowd gathered in protest against the agents’ brutality. And the call to battle rang out. Almost instantly Angelo became a thirteen year-old boy whose arms were fractured by the cruel agents (shades of Mohamed al Dura). Then a pregnant woman was added to the list of victims of police brutality. All that was missing was “the infidels set fire to the mosque.”…The crowd swelled to an estimated three to four hundred, battled the police until 1:30 AM (the incident began at 4:30 PM) when calm was restored."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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Truth about the U.N.

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, spoke truth to the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday. His speech:

Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rene Cassin and other eminent figures gathered here, on the banks of Lake Geneva, to reaffirm the principle of human dignity. They created the Commission on Human Rights. Today, we ask: What has become of their noble dream? In this session we see the answer. Faced with compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women, what has the Council pronounced, and what has it decided?

Nothing. Its response has been silence. Its response has been indifference. Its response has been criminal. One might say, in Harry Truman's words, that this has become a Do-Nothing, Good-for-Nothing Council. But that would be inaccurate. This Council has, after all, done something.

It has enacted one resolution after another condemning one single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements-and there will be three more this session-Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world-millions upon millions of victims, in 191 countries-continue to go ignored. So yes, this Council is doing something. And the Middle East dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you it is a very good thing. That they seek to protect human rights, Palestinian rights.

So too, the racist murderers and rapists of Darfur women tell us they care about the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet care about the occupied; and the butchers of Muslims in Chechnya care about Muslims.

But do these self-proclaimed defenders truly care about Palestinian rights? Let us consider the past few months. More than 130 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian forces. This is three times the combined total that were the pretext for calling special sessions in July and November. Yet the champions of Palestinian rights-Ahmadinejad, Assad, Khaddafi, John Dugard-they say nothing. Little 3-year-old boy Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Prime Minister Haniyeh's troops. Why has this Council chosen silence?

Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the dictators who run this Council couldn't care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights. They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else: to distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights. You ask: What has become of the founders' dream? With terrible lies, it is being turned into a nightmare.

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LEFTISTS PROTECT VOTER FRAUD>

I wonder why? Post below excerpted from Gateway Pundit

Today the Washington Post brings you another example of scary biased reporting. Today's article by Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt discusses the "alleged" voter fraud problem in this country. The WaPo says, of course, that the country has no problem with voter fraud...

As Congress probes the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, attention is centering on who knew what, and when. It's just as important to focus on "why," such as the reason given for the firing of at least one of the U.S. attorneys, John McKay of Washington state: failure to prosecute the phantom of individual voter fraud.

Allegations of voter fraud -- someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote -- have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom.

But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud.

Interesting that the authors talk about the close Washington State Gubernatorial Race in 2004 but don't mention the fact that there were more votes counted in King County than voters who live there.

Funny they fly over the St. Louis region where at least 16 democrats were arrested, convicted and sentenced for election crimes (and attempted murder of a federal witness) following the 2004 race alone... Election officials launched an investigation in 2004 after noticing that among the "new" voters registered was longtime Alderman Albert "Red" Villa, who died in 1990. His bust stands in South St. Louis. Local democratic operatives were hoping to revive his career.

In Missouri alone, prior to the 2006 elections, ACORN workers were indicted for turning in 35,000 questionable registration forms! ... despite your biased reporting, there are oodles of Democrats sentenced and convicted for voter crimes! Previously: Busted! The New York Times Bogus Voter Fraud Claims

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ELSEWHERE

Paris rioting puts racial tension on poll agenda: "Rioting at a major Paris train station, triggered by a ticket check, thrust security on to centre stage in France's presidential campaign yesterday. French police were bracing for fresh outbreaks of violence after hundreds of youths rioted over the arrest of an illegal immigrant at the Gare du Nord. Rampaging youths, many apparently of African or North African origin, wielded metal bars, smashed windows, looted stores, set rubbish bins alight and smashed shop windows. The violence erupted on Tuesday, during the evening rush hour, after ticket inspectors stopped a 33-year-old man for jumping over a barrier at the Gare du Nord Metro station. The man, described as an illegal immigrant with 22 convictions, allegedly head-butted an inspector. Witnesses described holidaymakers cowering in fear after stepping off trains from London, Brussels and Amsterdam. The violence was reminiscent of the riots that flared in Paris's poor suburbs in 2005 when Nicolas Sarkozy, now a presidential candidate, was interior minister. Francois Baroin, who succeeded Mr Sarkozy this week, said that the rioters had used "urban guerilla" tactics."

Blogress wins: "An Englishwoman who lost her secretarial job for writing a personal weblog won her case for wrongful dismissal in a Paris labour tribunal yesterday. The court ordered Dixon Wilson, an Anglo-French accountancy firm, to pay 44,000 euros in damages to Catherine Sanderson, 34, and to refund unemployment benefit paid to her since she lost her job at its Paris office in April. News of the dismissal turned Ms Sanderson, a Bath University graduate from York, into a celebrity with her blog, Petite Anglaise, about life in Paris as a working single mother. She is now completing a book under what is said to be a six-figure contract with Penguin. Dixon Wilson was not named in the blog but the firm argued that her unflattering accounts of office life identified the business and were damaging to it. It said that she should not have spent working time on her online journal. "I am delighted. I feel vindicated," Ms Sanderson said. "This shows that an employee who does good work should not be sanctioned in this way."

The hated Wal-Mart again: "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. increased its U.S. charitable giving 10 percent last year to $272.9 million, the world's largest retailer said Tuesday, likely defending its position as the country's largest corporate donor of cash. The rate of growth was lower than a year earlier, when Hurricane Katrina relief helped push the annual rise to 19 percent, but it was ahead of Wal-Mart's 7 percent rise in net profit last year. The company's profit for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31 was $12.2 billion.... Wal-Mart was ranked the country's top corporate cash donor in 2005 by The Chronicle of Philanthropy"

Keith Burgess Jackson pulls apart the latest bit of Wal-Mart bashing from the NYT. Leftist elitists really hate the fact that Wal-Mart appeals to ordinary people.

I have just put up another lot of postings from Chris Brand on his usual highly "incorrect" themes.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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Human evolution radically reappraised

The findings reported below are very politically incorrect stuff. They tend to show that the races of mankind are more different than was thought. Cochran, Lahn and others involved have previously got into big trouble from the Left over it. See here. One of the "more recent evolutionary changes" mentioned below was the comparatively recent emergence of new genes connected with brain size -- genes that seem to give a large intellectual advantage but which are mostly missing among Africans. See here and here for the academic journal abstracts. For the evidence linking brain-size and IQ, see section 6 here. I must say that I see pin-headed East-African refugees in the streets every day where I live. How incorrect of me to report that!

Human evolution has been speeding up exorbitantly, a new study contends; so much, that the latest evolutionary changes seem to largely eclipse earlier ones that accompanied modern man's "origin." The study, alongside other recent research on which it builds, amounts to a sweeping reappraisal of traditional accounts of human evolution. These generally assumed that humans have reached a pinnacle of evolution and stopped there. The findings suggest that not only is our evolution continuing: in a sense our very "origin" can be seen as ongoing, a geneticist not involved in the work said.

Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, a co-author of the latest study, said the research may force a radical rethinking of the story of modern human evolution. "It turns it upside-down, pretty much," he said. The traditional view of humans as a finished product began to erode in recent years, scientists said, with a crop of studies suggesting our evolution indeed goes on. But the newest study goes further. It claims the process has actually accelerated.

It also downplays the importance of a much-scrutinized era around 200,000 years ago, when humans considered "anatomically modern" first appear in the fossil record. In the study, this epoch emerges as just part of a vast arc of accelerating change. "The origin of modern humans was a minor event compared to more recent evolutionary changes," wrote the authors of the research, in a presentation slated for Friday in Philadelphia at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. The authors are Cochran and anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The findings will also be submitted to one or more scientific journals, Cochran said.

The proposal is "truly fascinating," wrote University of Chicago geneticist Bruce Lahn in an email. He wasn't involved in the work, though he did conduct earlier research finding that evolution may still be ongoing in the brain...

Hawks and Cochran analyzed measurements of skulls from Europe, Jordan, Nubia, South Africa, and China in the past 10,000 years, a period known as the Holocene era. They also studied European and West Asian skulls from the end of the Pleistocene era, which lasted from two million years ago until the Holocene. "A constellation of features" changed across the board, Hawks and Cochran wrote in their conference presentation. "Holocene changes were similar in pattern and... faster than those at the archaic/modern transition," the time when so-called modern humans appeared. But these changes "themselves were rapid compared to earlier hominid evolution." Hominids are a family of primates that includes humans and their upright-walking, more apelike ancestors and relatives, all extinct.

Hawks and Cochran also analyzed past genetic studies to estimate the rate of production of genes that undergo positive selection -- that is, genes that spread because they are beneficial. "The rate of generation of positively selected genes has increased as much as a hundredfold during the past 40,000 years," they wrote.

Among the most notable physical changes have been ones affecting the size of the brain case, according to Hawks and Cochran. A "thing that should probably worry people is that brains have been getting smaller for 20,000 to 30,000 years," said Cochran. But growth in more advanced brain areas might have compensated for this, he added. He speculated that an almost breakneck evolution of higher foreheads in some peoples may reflect this. A study in the Jan. 14 British Dental Journal found such a trend visible in England in just the past millennium, he noted, a mere eyeblink in evolutionary time. Research published in the Sept. 9, 2005 issue of the research journal Science by Lahn and colleagues found that two genes linked to brain size are rapidly evolving in humans.

Anthropologist Jeffrey McKee of Ohio State University said the Hawks and Cochran study bears out predictions he made in a 2000 book The Riddled Chain. Based on computer models, he argued that evolution should speed up as a population grows. This is because population growth creates more opportunities for new mutations; also, the expanded population occupies new environmental niches, which would drive evolution in new directions.....

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Full circle: Remember when grocery stores switched from paper bags to plastic bags in order to save trees? Well, now the city of San Francisco is making them switch back. A ban is going into effect that would outlaw the usual plastic grocery sacks. Instead they will be required to only offer alternatives like paper and cloth.

Iceland's Laffer Curve: "The Wall Street Journal notes that corporate tax revenue has jumped dramatically in Iceland, even though the corporate tax rate has been slashed to 18 percent. That sentence actually should say that revenues jumped because of the lower tax rate. Iceland is a clear example of the Laffer Curve. As the rate fell, companies had less reason to avoid taxes. The low rate also encouraged additional economic activity. Iceland's workers are the biggest winners, of course, since they now enjoy higher incomes and more prosperity:

Day care likely to cause disruptive behaviour?: "It is a hot-button issue in the child-care debate: will it be good for my baby? A major US study has found keeping preschoolers in long day care for a year or more increases the likelihood they will become disruptive in class later, persisting into grade 6. But the study tracking more than 1300 American children in a range of care arrangements, also found time spent in high-quality day care centres was linked to gaining higher vocabulary scores in primary school. The negative finding - associating more disruptive behaviour with formal day care irrespective of the centre's quality - was also reportedly "slight, and well within the normal range for healthy children", The New York Times said. But a lead author of the study, Jay Belksy, said it invited a broad social question: "What happens in classrooms, schools, playgrounds and communities when more and more children, at younger and younger ages, spend more and more time in centres, many that are indisputably of limited quality?"

Egyptian blogger puts the blame where it belongs: "Where does the government, the corrupt ministers, the ruthless SS officers and their soldiers come from? Aren't they egyptians? Don't they come from egyptian families and households? Aren't they born and raised here like the rest of us? Well, what does that exactly say about us? Whether we like it or not, the government is a reflection of the people. So if the government is ruthless, corrupt and dictatorial, what does that say about the people? What does it say about the parents of the police officers that order their soldiers to beat up and sexually assault women? What does it say about the families of those corrupt government officials who sign away our future and that of our children for a bunch of dirty money? What does it say about a nation that produces such a government, and accepts it, even as it plunders the country and enslaves its people? Maybe the government is right: Maybe we don't deserve Democracy."

More French ethics: "French oil giant Total SA is being investigated for illicit dealings with a rogue regime in the Middle East. This time it's Iran, but maybe you recall its experience with another dictator and something called Oil for Food. A French judge is investigating bribes that Total executives allegedly paid Iranian officials to secure business in the Islamic Republic. Last week, the judge issued preliminary charges of abuse of company funds and corruption of foreign agents against Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie. The company and Mr. de Margerie deny any wrongdoing, but the Total experience is all too typical of the way European firms cut deals with dictators while their own governments provide political cover. Meanwhile, the same French prosecutor continues to investigate Total for alleged kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein in return for Iraqi oil."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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New evil preventing victory in Iraq

Some more wise words below from Dennis Prager

I never thought we could see a new form of evil. After the gas chambers of the Holocaust, the tens of millions murdered in the Gulag, the forced starvation in the Ukraine, the hideous medical experiments on people by the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, the torture chambers in all police states, I had actually believed that no new forms of evil existed. I was wrong.

Of course, for sheer cruelty, one cannot outdo the Nazis; no depiction of hell ever matched the reality of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. But while Islamists and Baathists in Iraq have not devised new forms of torture - there probably are no new ways left - they have devised a new form of evil: murdering, maiming and torturing as many innocents among their own people as possible.

I do not know of an analogous form of evil. When the Allies conquered Nazi Germany, disaffected Nazis did not go around murdering and cutting off the heads of fellow Germans in order to make the Allies leave. Nor did disaffected Japanese blow up Japanese students so as to make the American occupation of Japan untenable.

Here is the latest example of this new form of evil as reported by the Associated Press: "Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff, said . . . the vehicle used in the attack [on Iraqi civilians] was waved through a U.S. military checkpoint because two children were visible in the back seat. He said this was the first reported use of children in a car bombing in Baghdad. 'Children in the back seat lowered suspicion, (so) we let it move through, they parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back,' Barbero told reporters in Washington."

These same "insurgents" routinely blow up children who line up to receive candy from U.S. troops. Likewise, college students are targeted for death, as are men lining up to apply for civilian jobs, men and women attending mosques, physicians in hospitals, and so on. The more innocent the Iraqi, the more likely he or she is to be targeted for murder.

I submit that there was no way to anticipate this. And no one did. This includes all those who predicted a civil war in Iraq between Shiites and Sunnis. I include myself among those who predicted savagery in Iraq. On a number of occasions prior to our invasion of Iraq, I recounted to my radio listeners this chilling story:

As a young man, in 1974, I was riding on a bus traveling from Beirut to Damascus. The man I sat next to was an English-speaking Iraqi whom I asked at one point in our conversation, "Can you describe your nation in a sentence?" "No problem," he immediately answered. "We Iraqis are the most barbaric people in the world." I obviously never forgot that man's words, and therefore anticipated great cruelties in Iraq. But neither I nor anyone who predicted a civil war had so much as a premonition of this unprecedented mass murder of the men, women and children among one's own people as a military tactic to defeat an external enemy.

It is, therefore, unfair to blame the Bush administration for not anticipating such a determined "insurgency." Without the mass murder of fellow Iraqis, there would hardly be any "insurgency." The combination of suicide terrorists and a theology of death has created an unprecedented form of "resistance" to an occupier: "We will murder as many men, women and children as we can until you leave." Nor is this a matter of Sunnis murdering Shiites and vice versa: college students, women shopping at a Baghdad market and hospital workers all belong to both groups. Truck bombs cannot distinguish among tribes or religious affiliations. If America had to fight an insurgency directed solely against us and coalition forces - even including suicide bombers - we would surely have succeeded. No one, right, left or center, could imagine a group of people so evil, so devoid of the most elementary and universal concepts of morality, that they would target their own people, especially the most vulnerable, for murder.

That is why we have not yet prevailed in Iraq. Even without all the mistakes made by the Bush administration - and what political or military leadership has not made many errors in prosecuting a war? - it could not have foreseen this new form of evil we are witnessing in Iraq. That is why we have not won. There are respectable arguments to be made against America's initially going into Iraq. But intellectually honest opponents of the war have to acknowledge that no one could anticipate an "insurgency" that included people leaving children in a car and then blowing them up.

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Fallout fear puts deadline on nuclear sites attack

IRAN is several years away from nuclear capability but any plan for a pre-emptive attack on its nuclear sites may have to be implemented before the end of the year to avoid the danger of serious radiation fallout. Sources cited by The Jerusalem Post say a US or Israeli strike on the Iranian facilities would probably be carried out before Iran had enriched weapons-grade material in sufficient amounts to trigger a nuclear catastrophe if hit. Iran is believed to be attempting to produce a critical mass of enriched uranium before the end of the year. Any attack after that would risk triggering fallout that could kill civilians over large distances and make parts of Iran uninhabitable.

The same consideration figured in the timing of Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981. The Israeli cabinet decided then to approve the attack when it learned that a shipment of enriched uranium fuel rods was due to arrive at the new reactor south of Baghdad. An attack on the reactor once it became "live" would release massive radiation, experts had warned. It would turn the bombing into a nuclear attack, despite the use of conventional armaments. Israeli warplanes demolished the Iraqi reactor before the rods could be installed.

In view of the possibility of an early strike against the Iranian facilities, several foreign embassies in Tehran are reportedly updating their emergency evacuation plans, including choosing alternate land routes out of the country. Israeli officials welcomed Sunday's decision by the UN Security Council to impose tougher sanctions on Iran in an effort to persuade Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program. The officials said earlier sanctions by the Security Council, though relatively mild, were already having an effect. They said influential voices were being heard in Tehran calling on the Government to avoid escalating the confrontation with the international community....

More here

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Brookes News Update

The US economy: the coming recession and what to look for: Every credit boom ends with a bust. Although it is impossible to predict the precise timing of an impending recession, one can look out for certain danger signals. Let us begin with the fallacy that consumer spending drives economic growth
The Iraq surge: why it's working: Early signs are positive; early indicators say that we're winning. As General Petraeus cautiously concluded, 'We'll be able to evaluate the situation for sure by late summer'
Turning the tide against terrorism and the Democrat Party: In 1973 the Democrats callously cut off all aid to South Vietnam so that it could not defend itself against communist aggression. Today the Democrat Party is trying to do the very same thing to the Iraqi people. Once again the Democrats have revealed their total indifference of the suffering and pain of others. This party is without remorse, pity, integrity and
patriotism
President Bush versus the Democrats' phony attorneys scandal: At the heart of the latest dust-up in Washington is the news that the Bush administration, through Gonzales' Justice Department, fired eight federal prosecutors
US economy: will a housing bust cause a recession?: Terry McCrann of the Herald Sun unwittingly revealed the truly dismal state of economic 'debate' in Australia. According to him inflation is 'the absolute foundation of sustained growth in the economy and of living standards"

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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IRRELEVANT EXPERTISE: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CONSULT A ZOOLOGIST ABOUT STATISTICS

We read:

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt. Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet. But the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".

The Lancet medical journal published its peer-reviewed survey last October. It was conducted by the John Hopkins School of Public Health and compared mortality rates before and after the invasion by surveying 47 randomly chosen areas across 16 provinces in Iraq.

Shortly after the publication of the survey in October last year Tony Blair's official spokesperson said the Lancet's figure was not anywhere near accurate. He said the survey had used an extrapolation technique, from a relatively small sample from an area of Iraq that was not representative of the country as a whole.

But a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson [A zoologist], on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."

To see what statisticians experienced in the research method concerned say, see here and here. I am myself a much published user of that research method and I made the following comments last year:

None of the comments I saw appeared to be by people who are experienced users of cluster sampling -- the method used for the Lancet study. I am a VERY experienced user of cluster sampling -- with many of my academic publications based on it. And the glaring error which rather explains why the study appeared in a medical journal rather than a more statistically sophisticated journal is that there was NO VALIDATION of the survey results. That your survey-takers might just sit down under a tree and "make up" their "interview" results is a routine peril and it is routine to take precautions against it -- usually by going back on a later occasion and checking with the alleged respondents a proportion of all interviews handed in. Just the awareness that a sample of the respondents will be re-interviewed tends to keep the interviewers honest -- though not always so, regrettably. So the results reported in the Lancet study have no credibility at all and must be regarded as garbage.

It is astounding that the authors of the study were so naive. Perhaps they WANTED their interviewers to "fudge" the results -- making clear what the desired results would be, of course.

Another oddity in the Lancet article that suggests something peculiar about the authors is the claim that their interviewers were all DOCTORS -- and not just any doctors but doctors bilingual in Arabic and English. I have never seen the like of that before. Experienced interviewers of some kind were what was needed and that is what is usually used, not doctors. Can we really believe that a whole corps of these rare doctors abandoned their medical duties for so long in order to do something outside their normal expertise? If true it certainly suggests a heavy political committment on the part of the doctors concerned -- exactly what one would NOT want in a study claiming to be objective. To me the whole claim seems like the sort of "gilding the lily" that con-men engage in.

Other critics have noticed other vast implausibilities in the results reported -- the amazingly high (98%) success-rate at getting people to consent to an interview, for instance --- garbage, garbage garbage. And the lie about the death certificates actually shows how bogus the results were.

"Those guys were not even trying to do real research. It was just a propaganda circus. I strongly support Moore's point about the survey's lack of demographic information. That is so unthinkable in survey research that the article would never have been published in an academic journal that knew anything about survey research. The Lancet should stick to medicine.

And as Iraq Body Count note:

"Between January and June 2006, there were 91 violent deaths recorded by the Lancet survey. This would correspond to over 180,000 deaths in the first 6 months of 2006, and an average rate of 1,000 per day. The daily death rate over the same period based on UN reports (which sum Baghdad morgue and Ministry of Health data) is 80 violent deaths per day. Cumulated media reports provide a somewhat lower figure. If the Lancet extrapolation is sound, this would imply a further 920 violent deaths every day (1000 minus 80) which have been recorded by neither officials nor the media. As these are averages, some days would see many more deaths, and others substantially fewer, but in either case, all of them would remain unnoticed."

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ELSEWHERE

Democrat corruption coverup?: "Democrats promised reform and instituted "a moratorium" on all earmarks until the system was cleaned up. Now the appropriations committees are privately accepting pork-barrel requests again. But curiously, the scorekeeper on earmarks, the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service (CRS)--a publicly funded, nonpartisan federal agency--has suddenly announced it will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number or background of earmarks. "They claim it'll be transparent, but they're taking away the very data that lets us know what's really happening," says Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. "I'm convinced the appropriations committees are flexing their muscles with CRS."

America's coming tax disaster: "Earlier today, I wrote a post discussing the Democrats proposed budget for next year. I briefly mentioned that this proposal is a sham to the American taxpayer. Having now listened throughout the day to their acrobatic attempts to justify it, I wanted to specifically tell you why it is so bad. Here we go... Their budget proposes the largest tax increase in American history - The Democrat's budget calls for a tax increase of every tax bracket, slashes the child tax credit, raises the death tax, and reinstates the marriage penalty. And this is just a sampling, there is more. In all, the Democrat's plan will cost taxpayers over $390 billion in the next 5 years. What is particularly frustrating about this ill-advised action is that the Democrats are blatantly ignoring the economic consequences and fiscal benefits that lower taxes have brought to the treasury the past few years. Revenue has increased in double digits the last two years alone because of the economic expansion encouraged by reduced taxation. This revenue growth has been crucial in reducing the deficit. The Democrats refuse to recognize this, though, and instead they just want to tax us to death. This is a recipe for disaster."

The media don't have a clue: "Noemie Emery has a great column in The Weekly Standard that rips Time magazine for its assessment of the current Administration and conservatism. In "How the Right Went Wrong", the writers at Time seem to have conveniently forgotten how, in a similar analysis done toward the end of the Reagan's Presidency (1987), they unanimously dismissed his legacy; while in the new article, they wax nostalgic about what a great man Reagan was; a beacon of purpose and clarity, a statesman of genuine vision and character, dwarfing the pygmies who have frittered away his inheritance."

No Leftist "liberation" campaign for Zimbabwe?: "This puzzle of the heartless Left came into focus tonight when I watched Abdel Bari Atwan of Al Quds newspaper claim on another BBC show that the problems of Zimbabwe stem solely from the sanctions imposed by Britain and America. America, apparently, was to blame for the Mugabe regime's policy of burning farms and the replacing white farmers with incompetent cronies that has sowed famine and economic catastrophe in a once-fertile land. This is a sorry state of affairs. The same Left that rails against Israel and the United States and organizes marches for the "liberation" of Palestine will not acknowledge the political crisis in Zimbabwe because it would mean siding with America."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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WARNING ABOUT VIRUS CHECKER

I recently installed the virus detection system from PC Security Shield. I found it to be crap. It progressively disabled my access to all sorts of sites and applications. The first sign of trouble was when I could no longer access YouTube videos. I put up with that for a few days but when it got to the point that I could no longer create a new document I deleted the whole thing. And, hey presto! Everything is working again. I emailed the firm concerned but received unhelpful form-letters in reply only. They promise a refund to dissatisfied customers but my request for one was met with a crashing silence.

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Islam Expert: Netherlands Tolerates Muslim Excesses

Dutch politicians and media are downplaying excesses of multicultural society and thereby increasing these, in the view of Islam expert Hans Janssen. "The Netherlands should resist, using non-peaceful means", he argues in weekly magazine Opinio.

Jansen, Professor of Modern Islamic Ideology at Utrecht University, characterizes the Dutch as inhabitants of "a peaceful enclave" who have, however, "forgotten that peace sometimes needs to be defended through violence". A peaceful society that wishes to remain existent and stay peaceful "will have to find a way to defend itself through non-peaceful means from people who are not peaceful", as the Arabist writes. "It will be hard to explaining this convincingly to all those respectable and friendly people in the (Christian coalition parties) CDA and ChristenUnie. And to the rest."

As Jansen sees it, the Netherlands is too indulgent to violence of fundamentalist Muslims. But he also suggests that moderate Muslims, too, strive after an Islamic society in the Netherlands. They intentionally make use of the radicals to enforce their wishes, according to the Arabist.

According to Jansen, Muslim fundamentalists frequently make threats, but the Dutch media remain silent about them. He is pleading for a central reporting station for all Dutch people who are being threatened.

Source

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Articles recently up on ICJS

BGU President Disses Overseas Donors
Zionism in the Age of Dictators
Liberalism a luxury during war
Concert
Jews against Zion
Liberty fades as rights talk grows
University accused of censoring anti-Semitic Islam lecture
Et tu, BBC?
Islamicization of Antwerp

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ELSEWHERE



I rarely post to my Leftists as Elitists blog these days but I have just posted there a story I could not pass up.

The pathetic EU anniversary: "Equally mysterious is why the European Union is so pleased with itself. The fiftieth anniversary bash held in Germany at the weekend has been an odious spectacle. It was a politically correct modern version of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. That one of the exhibits on display was a collection of cakes from the 27 member states was accidentally appropriate, since this is an organisation sharing Marie Antoinette's attitude towards its "citizens". It was bizarre to witness political leaders acting as if they were attending a celebrity birthday party. Though the occasion symbolised a collective detachment from reality, it contained a message within the pious "Declaration of Berlin" that was formally launched yesterday. The heirs to Thomas Jefferson will have no reason to fear the competition from this. The text is turgid and it is contains near-comic double-talk"

More media deception: "On March 17, I noticed that Bud Cummins, one of the fired U.S. Attorneys, had directly contradicted the major premise of an L.A. Times article published about him. It's now been over a week, and the paper has done nothing to correct the record. It appears clear to me that they aren't going to tell their readers that the subject of an article has publicly claimed that the central premise of the article was wrong. If you're looking for an L.A. Times scandal, you've found it. This nonsense about Andres Martinez isn't a scandal. Hiding the truth from your readers is. On March 16, the L.A. Times published a story titled Cummins fears corruption investigation led to his firing. The article said that Cummins had looked into allegations relating to potential corruption by Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. It quoted Cummins as speculating that this investigation may have had something to do with his being fired: "Now I keep asking myself: `What about the Blunt deal?'" In an e-mail to TPM Muckraker, Cummins said that The Times got it wrong: "Unfortunately, that isn't what I said, or at least what I intended to say, and it is not the case."

Reality dawns in Quebec: "With three days left in one of the most tightly contested elections in decades, Quebec's electoral officer yesterday reversed his decision to allow Muslim women to vote without having to lift their face veils to identify themselves. Chief Electoral Officer Marcel Blanchet invoked emergency powers to change his mind on one of the controversial minority-rights issues that have roiled the campaign and led to death threats, public outrage and repeated criticism by Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair. Mr. Blanchet said his office had been inundated with calls and emails about his decision to allow women to wear the niqab when they voted. His staff was worried and he was assigned two bodyguards. He feared some angry voters would turn out "in the craziest disguises you can imagine" and disrupt Monday's election."

No brakes on Soros spending: "The following is a statement by Mark Fitzgibbons and GrassrootsFreedom.com, regarding grassroots legislation currently being considered by Congress as part of lobbying reform: “George Soros-financed Open Society Institute, a 501(c)(3) ‘private operating foundation,’ spent nearly $65 million financing mostly left-leaning 501(c)(3)s that engage in lobbying and/or public policy advocacy in just 2005 alone according to its tax return, IRS Form 990 available at Guidestar.com. “The attached partial list of recipients of this ‘largesse’ shows the distinct political, lobbying and public policy purposes of these expenditures, including (1) influencing judicial nominations, (2) advocating for gay marriage, looser immigration and social security legislation, (3) taxpayer-financed elections and (4) gaining more ideological control of the news media. “None of these lobbying and grassroots expenditures would be disclosed under the grassroots legislation written by lobbyists and being considered by Congress, even though the organizations that receive Soros’ financing clearly ‘influence’ the general public and Congress to take action on policy, legislation and judicial nominations. Yet other citizen-supported grassroots causes communicating on the same issues would be required to track their expenditures, report them quarterly to Congress, and would be subject to civil and potential criminal penalties based simply on the exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as the right of citizens to petition the government."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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BBC pays 200,000 pounds to 'cover up report on anti-Israel bias'

The BBC has been accused of "shameful hypocrisy" over its decision to spend 200,000 pounds blocking a freedom of information request about its reporting in the Middle East. The corporation, which has itself made extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism, is refusing to release papers about an internal inquiry into whether its reporting has been biased towards Palestine.

BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence fee payers money trying to cover-up the findings of the so called Balen Report into its journalism in the region, despite the fact that the corporation is funded by the British public. The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC's coverage in the region.

BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias. The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.

The BBC's decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent. Politicians have branded the BBC's decision to carry on spending money, hiring the one of the country's top public law barrister in the process, as "absolutely indefensible".

Source

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Brookes News Update

US economy: will a housing bust cause a recession?: Last month the Fed reported that factory production and the output of mines and utilities leapt by 1.0 per cent. This is a big figure - and an important one. If the higher stages of production are still expanding then the country is not yet on the verge of a recession
Tony Abbot and the Liberal Party screw up again on labour market reform: The Liberal Party, including Tony Abbot, was provided with the necessary information to defeat the critics of reform. For some reason the Liberals refused to use it. The result is that opponents of reform have been given more opportunities to try and discredit it
Another Murdoch journalist slimes the Iraq War while giving leftwing thugs a pass: Matt Price - a columnist with The Australian - smeared Libby, Cheney and Prime Minister Howard. But when it came to Vietnam's murderous regime and sadistic terrorists the heroic Mr Price had nothing to say
Castro loves hippie software: Software guru Richard Stallman founded Free SoftWare Foundation. Was a recent guest of honor of Castro's Stalinist regime. True to form, Stallman embraced the regime that jails the most journalist per capita on planet earth. So while people were being tortured in Castro's gulag Stallman was praising the torturers while ignoring the plight of their victims
The US and Australia: are their foreign debts a problem?: Our economic commentariat refuses to even consider the role monetary policy plays in distorting the pattern of production, destabilising exchange rates and creating balance of payments crises. It's as if they would rather the economy sank than admit they were wrong

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ELSEWHERE



As Al Capone said: "Vote early and vote often": "Muslim women wearing the niqab or burka - veils that hide the face entirely - will be allowed to vote in the Quebec elections, without showing their face. That's the directive from the Director general of elections, despite the fact it goes against the electoral law. Typically a voter is to present photo-I.D. But women wearing a full-face veil will have to either swear that they are who they say they are - or have an adult with them verifying their identity."

Anti-semitism rules come in at British universities: "Measures to tackle antisemitism in British universities will be unveiled this week amid concern about rising discrimination. The government will warn vice-chancellors they must not ignore antiJewish activity on campuses and must prevent prejudiced lecturers, guest speakers and extremist political organisations stirring up hatred against Israel. A recent Commons report highlighted attacks on undergraduates, a lack of respect by lecturers and tutors for the needs of observant Jewish students and a growing tolerance of extreme language against Israel during student debates on the Middle East. There is particular concern about so-called "Islamic" antisemitism, with radical Muslim clerics, or their followers, being allowed to preach antiJewish hatred in universities".

The dreaded Wal-Mart has now opened a store just outside Washington, D.C.: "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opened its first store inside the Capital Beltway yesterday. The Landover Hills store, the closest to the District, is the chain's latest store in an urban setting. Nationwide, Wal-Mart is focusing on urban locations such as the District, Chicago and Atlanta for new customers as it saturates rural and suburban areas... The store will have an expansive selection of Hispanic groceries -- such as Goya beans and rice -- and a broader collection of Latin, gospel and R&B music. The store also carries Wal-Mart's urban clothing line, Exsto, in addition to its Metro 7 and George private clothing lines.... The store will have 330 employees, and it received more than 11,000 applications, Mr. Restivo said. He said he didn't have information on how many employees are from Prince George's County. Wal-Mart said last month that the Landover Hills store will be one of 10 urban areas it planned to help revitalize with jobs and small-business assistance."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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DRAT!

Yet another one of my websites has gone out of existence. Background: I have always had a website in webspace provided by my ISP but one does of course lose that if one changes to another ISP. And some ISP websites I have known have had big glitches that make them of only limited use. So I have always had "backup" websites with my writings on them. But the backup sites nearly all seem to be run by arrogant nerds who feel free to delete a customer's account any time they like. And they do like. I have never tried to keep track of it all but there must be about 10 addresses where my writings once appeared but which now just give an error message. The latest such is here.

I have enquired why the site just mentioned was deleted but got only a form-letter reply that gave me no clue about what my sin was in their eyes. The fact that I occasionally mention the most obscene four letter word of the modern age -- "r*ce" -- probably accounts for a lot of the cancellations I have had. Using that word makes me guilty of "hate speech" of course and webspace providers usually seem to have a "policy" about that. That I use the word in a scholarly way is obviously too deep a distinction for a lot of nerds.

The most reliable hosting service for me has in fact been blogspot -- though they go offline for a short while every now and then. Anyway, I cope with the unreliability of it all by putting up multiple copies of everything I write in different places on the net. So if my writings cease to be available in one place they will still be available somewhere else. The three "home pages" I list at the bottom of all postings here are all to sites that DO currently work most of the time and that do have most of my writings on them. So if at first you don't succeed, don't keep trying: try another one!

If blogspot ever bans me that will be pretty pesky (they DO delete blogs on "hate speech" grounds. See e.g. here) so keep handy a link to my only Wordpress blog -- IMMIGRATION WATCH -- in case that happens. I will use the Wordpress site to redirect readers to new non-blogspot sites in case that should ever be needed. The owners of blogspot are of course G*ogle -- which is why I generally mention their name in modified form only. I want to be as far below their radar as possible. They DO run searches to see what people are saying about them. There are around 1500 other blogs that link to Dissecting Leftism alone so all those links would become dead if blogspot got nasty with me.

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BEND OVER ATLANTA

Post below lifted from Boortz

OK .. here's the way it works:

1. Steve learns to weld.
   


2. Steve would rather be an artist than working in a machine shop
   


3. Steve obtains some scrap metal and starts welding it together in odd shapes which he declares to be art.
   


4. Steve can't find anyone who will voluntarily pay for the piles of scrap metal he has welded together.
   


5. Steve changes his name to Stephano and drops his last name.
   


6. Still nobody will buy Stephano's art, though there is one Buckhead matron who has taken a rather prurient interest in some of Stephan's other talents.
   


7. The Buckhead matron allows Stephano to place a pile of scrap metal in her garden and begins to refer to it as a sculpture.
   


8. Buckhead socialites, after encountering Stephano's "sculpture", and desiring to pander to the matron's artistic tastes, decide that Stephan is being greatly wronged because nobody will pay him for his artistic efforts.
   


9. The buzz among the Buckhead social set is heard in the halls of the Atlanta City Council and the arts community.
   


10. A sense of anger builds that we have yet another artist in our midst who simply cannot manage to find a willing buyer in a free market environment.
    


11. Stephano and his backers become increasingly frustrated with the lack of respect the great unwashed have for his artistic talents.
    


12. The arts community -- which, by the way, won't buy any of Stephano's art either -- tells Atlanta's political leaders that Atlanta simply cannot survive or be considered a world class international city unless Stephano's "art" is displayed citywide.
    


13. A plan is hatched to use the police power of the Atlanta city government to fun the purchase of Stephano's piles of junk.
    


14. The city seizes money from residents and writes some fat checks to Stephano for more artwork.
    


15. Stephano, no longer needing to service the needs of the Buckhead matron, tells her to find another cabana boy.
    


16. Atlanta residents wake up one morning wondering when someone is going to come along and remove those piles of scrap metal someone left in their neighborhood overnight.

This scenario, or something very close to it, is playing out in Atlanta right now. A task force appointed by the Mayor has determined that Atlanta needs a cultural investment fund in the amount of at least $10 million that will provide money to artists, arts organizations and what it refers to as "cultural organizations." The suggestion is that there should be a tax on businesses operating in Atlanta to provide the funds. The story in this morning's Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that "Many of those who work in the arts in Atlanta said they hope to see some progress on arts funding soon."

At this point you shouldn't need a translation of that quote from the AJC. But then again, many of you went to government schools, so I'll provide that translation for you. Many of the people in the arts community in Atlanta remain frustrated by the fact that Atlanta residents will not voluntarily pay for their art. So, of the Atlanta residents won't voluntarily buy their art, the government should step in and make them buy the art by seizing their money and transferring that money to artists and arts organizations.

And what about this idea of placing a special tax on Atlanta businesses? What we have here is the arts community taking advantage of the ignorance of our government-educated residents. They know that many people think that if the tax is placed on the businesses this means that the rank and file Atlantans won't be paying for the art. Sadly, they're possibly right. Our education is so pathetic that most people can't noodle out the fact that all taxes paid by businesses are passed on to the consumers of whatever service or goods they sell.

When I was driving from the Charlottesville, Virginia airport into downtown Charlottesville yesterday I noticed many piles of scrap metal scattered around the local highways and biways. No ... seriously. I did! I learned later that this is all from a taxpayer-funded program called "Arts In Place." You should have heard the shouts of approval from the audience at the Charlottesville Omni ballroom last night when I made a less-than-complimentary comment about this "art." Then I wake up this morning to see that the welfare artists in Atlanta are after even more of our money.

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ELSEWHERE



I have just put up another lot of postings from Chris Brand on his usual highly "incorrect" themes.

German decay?: "Germany – A German judge has stirred a storm of protest by citing the Koran in turning down a request for a speedy divorce from a Muslim woman who said her husband beat her. In a ruling that underlines the tension between Muslim customs and European laws, the judge, Christa Datz-Winter, noted that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu, in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives. The Koran sanctions such physical abuse, she wrote in her decision. News of the ruling brought swift and sharp condemnation from politicians, legal experts and Muslim leaders in Germany, many of whom said they were confounded that a German judge would put seventh-century Islamic religious teaching ahead of German law in deciding a case of domestic violence. The court in Frankfurt abruptly removed Datz-Winter from the case Wednesday, saying it could not justify her reasoning."

Duke case ending: "It seems that the trumped-up charges against three young men who played for the la crosse team at Duke University will be dismissed either today or sometime next week. That will mostly end their ordeal, though they'll still have to deal with millions of dollars in legal fees (which, in the end, the city of Durham, N.C., will probably have to pick up). The same can't be said of their false accuser - who is in a world of trouble, since you're not supposed to make false accusations to the authorities. But her dire fate will seem positively sunny compared to that of Durham DA Mike Nifong - who is certain to be sued for defamation, likely to be disbarred and very possibly charged with an open-and-shut case of perjury that could land him in jail for a long time. Yet some of the most disgraceful actors in this case will go unpunished. I'm referring to a huge cohort of the professors at the top-flight university attended by the three unjustly accused men. Some 88 of them - more than 10 percent of the entire Duke professoriat - engaged in a shocking rush to judgment in the weeks following the party where the accuser falsely alleged she had been raped... Since the academic work of those who organized the ad centers around the notion that the white male power structure subjugates and violates all those who are neither white nor male, the case was actually a dream come true for them." [Dr Sanity has some good comments]

Baby bottles now a terror weapon: "Fanatical terror suspect Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife, Cossor, 23, are among those being interrogated by police as suspects in the massive plot to attack trans-Atlantic flights in midair. What the outwardly normal couple had secretly plotted is almost too horrifying to consider, cops said. The Alis planned to use 6-month-old son Zain's baby bottle as a liquid bomb, blowing themselves and their child up, along with hundreds of others aboard the flight... The baby was later turned over to her grandparents."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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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