Who can blame them?
Christians are fleeing Lebanon to escape political and economic crises and signs that radical Islam is on the rise in the country. In a poll to be published next month which was exclusively leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, nearly half of all Maronites, the largest Christian denomination in the country, said they were considering emigrating. Of these, more than 100,000 have submitted visa applications to foreign embassies. Their exodus could have a devastating effect on the country, robbing it of an influential minority which has acted as an important counter-balance to the forces of Islamic extremism.
About 60,000 Christians have already left since last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah. Many who remain fear that a violent showdown between rival Sunni and Shia factions is looming. "If we love our children we have to tell them to get out," said Maria, a Christian mother of one from the northern city of Tripoli, who refused to give her surname for fear of reprisal. "When my daughter finished her high school I sent her to Europe, and I will follow her if I can."
Christine, another Christian woman, said that all of her family's younger generation had left the country, adding that Tripoli had become increasingly Islamised in recent years. There is a rising number of veiled women and religiously bearded men on the streets - although she blamed economic and political instability for much of the emigration. Christians, who make up 22 per cent of the population, have historically played a major role in the development of Lebanon's political, social and cultural institutions. Currently the president, the army commander and the head of the central bank are all Maronites, and under the agreement which ended the civil war in 1989, half the 128 seats in Lebanon's parliament are reserved for Christians.
"Lebanon has always been a bastion of religious tolerance, but now it is moving towards the model of Islamisation seen in Iraq and Egypt," said Fr Samir Samir, a Jesuit teacher of Islamic studies at Beirut's Universit‚ Saint-Joseph.
More here
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ELSEWHERE
French Right promises to impoverish France: "Nicolas Sarkozy, the leading candidate for the French presidency, has emerged as an unabashed economic patriot.... Sarkozy ripped into the takeover of Arcelor, Europe's largest steelmaker, by Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian steel magnate. A "mistake," declared Sarkozy: "Look at the waste of Arcelor, which we sold off on the cheap because we believed the steel industry was history. They got it wrong. They lied." Calling free trade a policy of naivete, Sarkozy promised an "industrial policy." He has in mind retaining industry and restoring manufacturing jobs to a France that has been losing both. France's economic destiny cannot be left to the market, he told young entrepreneurs in Paris."
Census data unsafe: "Despite decades of denials, government records confirm that the U.S. Census Bureau provided the U.S. Secret Service with names and addresses of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The Census Bureau surveys the population every decade with detailed questionnaires but is barred by law from revealing data that could be linked to specific individuals. The Second War Powers Act of 1942 temporarily repealed that protection to assist in the roundup of Japanese-Americans for imprisonment in internment camps in California and six other states during the war."
The big initiative chill: "Sometimes citizens need to bypass state legislators when they decline to pass a law that voters like but politicians don't. Citizens can be wrong, of course. But it's not as if legislators pass only good laws. Besides, citizens are, often, right. Representative Kirk Adams has introduced measures to 'solve' the 'problem' of citizens having too much say. The proposals include giving lawmakers the power to gut it a few years after it has passed, letting lawmakers write the title of a measure, making it harder to fund an initiative, making it harder to collect signatures, making it harder to pay signature gatherers for actually gathering signatures. Representative Adams simultaneously tells reporters that he's not trying to undercut the power of people to make laws -- and that if his measures aren't accepted, lawmakers will have to consider ... more drastic measures."
The power of freedom: "Of the almost 7 billion people on this planet, only 300 million are Americans. To put that in perspective, less than 5% of the population of this planet are Americans- and yet, the world is obsessed with our existence and what we represent. In the course of just over 200 years, we have provided the world with ideas, contributions and realities that are in the consciousness of every human being on the planet. Given our numbers and short history, we should not have had this profound influence on history and mankind- and yet, we have. The secret to our our successes and influence can be attributed to one powerful word: Freedom. The notion that all men are created equal, is a biblical concept. It took America to make that a reality, in those ideas called freedom and democracy. "They will beat their swords into plowshares.nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore," can only come about as the result of freedom and democracy for all mankind. It is folly to believe that anything less will bring about peace"
Iraq: Jihadists behead, roast Christian toddler: ""When they cook a dish in the Middle East, it is traditional to put the meat on top of the rice when they serve it. They kidnapped a woman's baby in Baghdad, a toddler, and because the mother was unable to pay the ransom, they returned her child - beheaded, roasted and served on a mound of rice." The infant's crime was to be an Assyrian, but this story, reported by the Barnabus Fund, went unnoticed in the West, like so many other horrific accounts of Christian persecution in Iraq. Since the invasion of Iraq, Muslim militants have bombed 28 churches and murdered hundreds of Christians."
Muslim taxi-drivers at work in Norway: "Blind woman Gry Berg, accompanied by her guide dog, was denied entry into four taxis in the center of the city of Oslo, Norway, this March. Three of the drivers claimed that their unwillingness to accept her dog was due to allergy, while the fourth one simply locked the car doors and refused to give an explanation for why he wouldn't let Ms. Berg into his cab. Andreas Strand, leader of the youth organization of The Norwegian Association of the Blind and Partially Sighted, reacts strongly to this treatment. "It makes it difficult for blind people to live a social life," he says. Strand claims that it has become an increasingly common problem that blind people accompanied by guide dogs are denied access to taxis, and has written a letter of complaint to the three companies whose drivers were involved in this particular incident."
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
****************************
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
The Leftist cry of "peace"
Now that the U.S. Congress seems intent on "peace at any price" in Iraq, it may be instructive to take a look at Leftist cries for "peace" generally -- cries that have in fact always been cries for America's defeat.
History can be both suprising and puzzling. There are probably few people alive today who remember that Leftists were once the most nationalistic side of politics (for the evidence that they were, see here). How could the people who now regard patriotism and nationalism as puerile once have been red-hot for conquest and national glory? Similarly, how can the sort of people who, from Robespierre to Pol Pot, have murdered people in droves, also be the ones who go out on the streets and demonstrate for "peace"?
Both those phenonena are part of the larger truth that Leftism is consistent only at the psychological level. It will always be driven by hate, anger and envy but the way in which such feelings are given a hopefully plausible outlet will vary with the times. Leftists may often resort to talk of high principles but they will abandon those principles in a moment if that seems convenient. The way the far-Left of American politics were pro-Hitler during the Hitler/Stalin alliance and then immediately proceeded to march in the opposite direction when Hitler invaded Russia is a notorious example of such "flexibility" but there are many such examples in modern times.
Perhaps the most amusing example of that in the 21st century so far is the way in which Leftist intellectuals dug up the principles of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 to justify their opposition to the American overthrow of Saddam Hussein (e.g. here). Something as antique and "establishment" as the Peace of Westphalia would once have been responded to by Leftists with at best a raised eyebrow.
The Vietnam era (the 1960s and 1970s) marked one of the big changes in Leftist thinking. America's involvement in Vietnam was initiated by an old-fashioned patriot, J.F. Kennedy, perhaps best known today for his quote from Pericles: "Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country". And patriotism remains strong among the American people generally to this day -- which is why mainstream Democrat politicians always have to huff and puff about people "questioning their patriotism" -- questions which are normally well justified.
Among Leftist thinkers, however, Kennedy was a holdover from the pre-1945 world in which Leftists were the great asserters of American supremacy, authority, glory etc. One only has to remember the founder of the "Progressive" party, Theodore Roosevelt, to know what American Leftists were like from the late 19th century onwards. TR was a great critic of business and arguably the most successful Greenie of all times (America's national parks are mostly his doing) but he also put his trust in battleships and managed to get America to undertake two successful wars of conquest in Cuba and the Philippines. He even took part in the first of those personally and was a great propagandist for war as an ennobling enterprise that cleansed the national spirit -- a theme later taken up enthusiastically by a certain German leader.
The antics of that German leader did however greatly discredit aggressive nationalism in the eyes of the world so Leftists could not continue with it. They would have looked like dinosaurs if they had -- and very dangerous dinosaurs at that. So a reversal was needed. But such a far-reaching reversal could not be achived overnight and the American Left remained at least patriotic for some time -- with Kennedy being just about the last significant holdover.
In general, however, the memory of past beliefs and attitudes had faded by the 1960s -- particularly among the young -- and the new anti-nationalist stance that seemed more in tune with the postwar era could reach full flower. So we had the "peace" movement of that era, which was much more a rejection of American assertiveness and wisdom than it was about peace.
The idea that Leftists favour peace is of course absurd. The hate, anger and envy that drive Leftists make them inherently aggressive and bloodthirsty -- as we see whenever they gain absolute power -- from the French revolutionaries onward through Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot -- not to mention more minor revolutionaries. And the great violence that often characterized "peace" demonstrations of the Vietnam era (see e.g. here) gave the lie to any claim that these Leftists were any different from their predecessors.
When Leftists of the post-1945 period have advocated peace, it has had one purpose only -- to curb the strength, options and influence of their own country. It is an anti-nationalist and anti-patriotic stratagem. It is intended to show them as the wise and benevolent ones who know better than the national leadership.
And the long buildup to the invasion of Iraq by Anglo-Saxon forces in 2003 saw a great upsurge in Leftists taking to the streets to demonstrate for "peace". In this respect the new Left is very similar to the old Left of the cold-war era. Throughout the Cold War era, a great cry of Leftist demonstators and their supporters was "Peace" -- which essentially meant: "Do not attack our friends, the Communists -- or even prepare to defend yourself against them".
But in typically hypocritical fashion, few Leftists were straightfoward in admitting their motivations. The peaceniks of the Vietnam era usually justified their opposition to that war by promoting the fantasy that they were the only ones who could see the evils of war and accused anyone who supported any military action of being a "warmonger".
But in fact one of the most revealing evidences of the dishonesty and hidden agendas of the Left is the way that "antiwar" demonstrations to this day commonly erupt into violence. Below is an excerpt about one of the fairly routine events of the Iraq war era:
Leftists are clearly such violent people that they cannot restrain themselves even when it makes a mockery of what they claim to stand for. They truly are Stalin's heirs.
***************************
BrookesNews Update
Is the US economy still picking up steam? : US economy: manufacturing is not signalling recession - at least not yet. Nevertheless, there is much to worry about, including Bernanke's gross error on capital and credit
Mainstream economists don't think money is important in causing inflation: Mainstream economic commentary is still getting it wrong on the nature of inflation and the damage it does to economies. Dr Shostak explains what inflation really is and how it can be defeated
Fidel Castro says adios to foreign reporters: The Castro regime - with firing-squads, prison beatings and starvings, among other methods - has killed 102,000 Cubans. Virtually every Cuban-American family has had relatives kidnapped and held-ransom. Yet journalists and media networks like AP, CNN and Reuters are still whitewashing Castro
Defending economic growth against green bigotry: The greens' assertion that a free market cannot "maintain sustainability across generations" has no foundation in theory or history, and is nothing more than a club with which to attack market economics
Michael Scheuer: the CIA's former expert on Bin Laden: Like Valerie Plame, Michael Scheuer is a symbol of the incompetence, ignorance and moral corruption that is rampant among the guardians of the CIA. It also suggests that Democrats like Plame are only loyal to the Democrat Party and not the USA
Corn cobs and energy independence: Are corn cobs part of the answer to energy independence? It seems so, believe it or not. With Russia on the verge of creating a cartel to control world production and manipulate world prices of natural gas - a Natural Gas OPEC - it is more critical than ever that we focus again on using natural gas to achieve American energy independence
Congressional Democrats vote "Disgrace and Defeat" for the United States and its military: The leftwing leadership in Congress is trapped in a quagmire of appeasing the anti-American leftists who helped get them elected by strapping domestic spending earmarks to the backs of our troops. They called this sort of behavior a 'culture of corruption' just a few months ago, but that's changed since they became the bosses
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
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
****************************
Now that the U.S. Congress seems intent on "peace at any price" in Iraq, it may be instructive to take a look at Leftist cries for "peace" generally -- cries that have in fact always been cries for America's defeat.
History can be both suprising and puzzling. There are probably few people alive today who remember that Leftists were once the most nationalistic side of politics (for the evidence that they were, see here). How could the people who now regard patriotism and nationalism as puerile once have been red-hot for conquest and national glory? Similarly, how can the sort of people who, from Robespierre to Pol Pot, have murdered people in droves, also be the ones who go out on the streets and demonstrate for "peace"?
Both those phenonena are part of the larger truth that Leftism is consistent only at the psychological level. It will always be driven by hate, anger and envy but the way in which such feelings are given a hopefully plausible outlet will vary with the times. Leftists may often resort to talk of high principles but they will abandon those principles in a moment if that seems convenient. The way the far-Left of American politics were pro-Hitler during the Hitler/Stalin alliance and then immediately proceeded to march in the opposite direction when Hitler invaded Russia is a notorious example of such "flexibility" but there are many such examples in modern times.
Perhaps the most amusing example of that in the 21st century so far is the way in which Leftist intellectuals dug up the principles of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 to justify their opposition to the American overthrow of Saddam Hussein (e.g. here). Something as antique and "establishment" as the Peace of Westphalia would once have been responded to by Leftists with at best a raised eyebrow.
The Vietnam era (the 1960s and 1970s) marked one of the big changes in Leftist thinking. America's involvement in Vietnam was initiated by an old-fashioned patriot, J.F. Kennedy, perhaps best known today for his quote from Pericles: "Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country". And patriotism remains strong among the American people generally to this day -- which is why mainstream Democrat politicians always have to huff and puff about people "questioning their patriotism" -- questions which are normally well justified.
Among Leftist thinkers, however, Kennedy was a holdover from the pre-1945 world in which Leftists were the great asserters of American supremacy, authority, glory etc. One only has to remember the founder of the "Progressive" party, Theodore Roosevelt, to know what American Leftists were like from the late 19th century onwards. TR was a great critic of business and arguably the most successful Greenie of all times (America's national parks are mostly his doing) but he also put his trust in battleships and managed to get America to undertake two successful wars of conquest in Cuba and the Philippines. He even took part in the first of those personally and was a great propagandist for war as an ennobling enterprise that cleansed the national spirit -- a theme later taken up enthusiastically by a certain German leader.
The antics of that German leader did however greatly discredit aggressive nationalism in the eyes of the world so Leftists could not continue with it. They would have looked like dinosaurs if they had -- and very dangerous dinosaurs at that. So a reversal was needed. But such a far-reaching reversal could not be achived overnight and the American Left remained at least patriotic for some time -- with Kennedy being just about the last significant holdover.
In general, however, the memory of past beliefs and attitudes had faded by the 1960s -- particularly among the young -- and the new anti-nationalist stance that seemed more in tune with the postwar era could reach full flower. So we had the "peace" movement of that era, which was much more a rejection of American assertiveness and wisdom than it was about peace.
The idea that Leftists favour peace is of course absurd. The hate, anger and envy that drive Leftists make them inherently aggressive and bloodthirsty -- as we see whenever they gain absolute power -- from the French revolutionaries onward through Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot -- not to mention more minor revolutionaries. And the great violence that often characterized "peace" demonstrations of the Vietnam era (see e.g. here) gave the lie to any claim that these Leftists were any different from their predecessors.
When Leftists of the post-1945 period have advocated peace, it has had one purpose only -- to curb the strength, options and influence of their own country. It is an anti-nationalist and anti-patriotic stratagem. It is intended to show them as the wise and benevolent ones who know better than the national leadership.
And the long buildup to the invasion of Iraq by Anglo-Saxon forces in 2003 saw a great upsurge in Leftists taking to the streets to demonstrate for "peace". In this respect the new Left is very similar to the old Left of the cold-war era. Throughout the Cold War era, a great cry of Leftist demonstators and their supporters was "Peace" -- which essentially meant: "Do not attack our friends, the Communists -- or even prepare to defend yourself against them".
But in typically hypocritical fashion, few Leftists were straightfoward in admitting their motivations. The peaceniks of the Vietnam era usually justified their opposition to that war by promoting the fantasy that they were the only ones who could see the evils of war and accused anyone who supported any military action of being a "warmonger".
But in fact one of the most revealing evidences of the dishonesty and hidden agendas of the Left is the way that "antiwar" demonstrations to this day commonly erupt into violence. Below is an excerpt about one of the fairly routine events of the Iraq war era:
Two reports of the March 20 2007 "peace" protests in Milwaukee near the University of Wisconsin campus
Police reported arresting at least four people and questioning about 20 more after protesters damaged an Army recruiting office on Milwaukee's east side Monday night. Milwaukee police Sgt. Eric Pfeiffer said officers were called to the area when Iraq War protesters wearing black clothing and ski masks were reported to be carrying torches, setting off smoke bombs and throwing paint while approaching the recruitment center. Pfeiffer told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel someone threw an object through a window at the recruitment center and spread what appeared to be feces inside before running away.
http://www.twincities.com/searchresults/ci_5479244
Peace Action Wisconsin does not condone violence, said the group's project organizer Julie Enslow, but some anti-war protesters might feel the need to be violent to get their point across. "We do not use those tactics ourselves, but the movement is very broad, and as this war continues, the anti-war movement is going to take many forms - not all of which everyone feels comfortable with," Enslow said.
An anti-war rally at O'Donnell Park on Saturday drew a large crowd that listened to several speakers, including U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee), before marching to the Reuss Federal Plaza, Enslow said. The peaceful gathering contrasted sharply with the arrests Monday night at the Army recruiting center near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, where protesters broke a window and threw smoke bombs, paint and human excrement, police said. There were no injuries reported.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=580318
I have given the links to the original stories above but such stories do not stay online for long of course. Gateway Pundit has more details - plus some pictures.
Leftists are clearly such violent people that they cannot restrain themselves even when it makes a mockery of what they claim to stand for. They truly are Stalin's heirs.
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BrookesNews Update
Is the US economy still picking up steam? : US economy: manufacturing is not signalling recession - at least not yet. Nevertheless, there is much to worry about, including Bernanke's gross error on capital and credit
Mainstream economists don't think money is important in causing inflation: Mainstream economic commentary is still getting it wrong on the nature of inflation and the damage it does to economies. Dr Shostak explains what inflation really is and how it can be defeated
Fidel Castro says adios to foreign reporters: The Castro regime - with firing-squads, prison beatings and starvings, among other methods - has killed 102,000 Cubans. Virtually every Cuban-American family has had relatives kidnapped and held-ransom. Yet journalists and media networks like AP, CNN and Reuters are still whitewashing Castro
Defending economic growth against green bigotry: The greens' assertion that a free market cannot "maintain sustainability across generations" has no foundation in theory or history, and is nothing more than a club with which to attack market economics
Michael Scheuer: the CIA's former expert on Bin Laden: Like Valerie Plame, Michael Scheuer is a symbol of the incompetence, ignorance and moral corruption that is rampant among the guardians of the CIA. It also suggests that Democrats like Plame are only loyal to the Democrat Party and not the USA
Corn cobs and energy independence: Are corn cobs part of the answer to energy independence? It seems so, believe it or not. With Russia on the verge of creating a cartel to control world production and manipulate world prices of natural gas - a Natural Gas OPEC - it is more critical than ever that we focus again on using natural gas to achieve American energy independence
Congressional Democrats vote "Disgrace and Defeat" for the United States and its military: The leftwing leadership in Congress is trapped in a quagmire of appeasing the anti-American leftists who helped get them elected by strapping domestic spending earmarks to the backs of our troops. They called this sort of behavior a 'culture of corruption' just a few months ago, but that's changed since they became the bosses
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
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).
**************************
"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
****************************
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Passover Seder
My best wishes to my Jewish readers at this holy time. I hope they have had or will be having (timezones are pesky) a good and fortifying Seder that helps them to deal wisely with the many follies and false gods of this world.
I like the idea of the four cups of wine at the seder. In my Presbyterian days, all we got at Communion was a tiny glass of unfermented grape juice! Quite pathetic.
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Leftists in the Middle East betrayed by Western Leftists
SKIMMING through the Middle Eastern press these days can produce unexpected results. It's not rare to see a virulently anti-American article by an American or Western European leftist - and, alongside it on the same page, a pro-American article from an Arab, Iranian or Afghan progressive figure....
Having all but abandoned its traditional opposition to capitalism and the bourgeois democratic system, much of the Western Left is forced to cling to anti-Americanism as its backbone....
In the Middle East, however, a good part of the Left, while not especially enamored of the United States, sees it as an ally against Islamist and totalitarian pan-Arab movements. "Anti-Americanism is a luxury we cannot afford in the Middle East," says Adnan Hussein, a leftist Iraq writer recently picked by the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential columnists in the world. "Blinded by anti-Americanism, the Left in the West ends up on the same side as religious fascists and despots."
Parviz Khosravi, a veteran of Iran's Communist movement, cites history as justification for the Left's rejection of "banal anti-Americanism." "During the Second World War, all movements of the Left supported an alliance with the Western democracies led by the United States because the common enemy was Fascism," he says. "Today, we are in a similar position. Progressive forces in the Middle East are threatened by an Islamist version of Fascism. An alliance with Western democracies is not only desirable but necessary."
PRESIDENT Bush, the bete noire of liberals and leftists in the West, might be surprised to learn that he has a better image among liberals, leftists, secularists and even moderate Islamists in the Middle East. While Chomsky and Moore see the United States as "an evil power," many leftists in the Middle East see it as a force for good that ended the tyranny of the Taliban in Afghanistan, dismantled the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and forced the Syrians out of Lebanon after 30 years of occupation.
More here
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Income Inequality, Monetary Policy & The Left
Some words of wisdom from Sweden. Post below lifted from Stefan Karlsson's blog, which see for links. Leftists won't even try to understand it, though. It's easier being ignorant
The New York Times reports that income inequality in America rose sharply in 2005, to its highest level since 1928. This was also noted by the leftist Economic Policy Institute. What is missed is why inequality has increased. Leftists typically blame foreign trade and Bush's tax cuts, while paleoconservatives , in addition to trade, often blame immigration. Yet while there may be some limited truth in these explanations, the perhaps most important explanation is left out.
What explanation, you might wonder. Well, ask yourself, what was special about 1928? The answer is that it was the peak of a stock market bubble and strong cyclical boom. Income inequality then fell sharply during the great depression. Similarly, income inequality previously peaked in 1999, at the height of the tech stock bubble, and then fell back in 2001-2003.Only to rise again in 2004-2005. See the pattern here? Income inequality rises during booms and falls during busts, as the prices of assets mainly held by the wealthy rise druing booms and falls during busts.
This is the way it has always been, and it is predictable from a theoretical perspective. Because newly created money tends to affect asset prices before product prices and product prices before wages, monetary driven booms will tend to increase relative income for the wealthy and reduce it for the poor.
So if the left really thinks rising income inequality is so bad, why don't they fight for hard money? In reality, Economic Policy Institute and other leftists typically supports inflationary monetary policy, see for example here. The idiots at EPI in fact seems to be under the illusion that inflationary monetary policies will reduce income inequality, when basic economic theory and all historic evidence shows that it will increase it.
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ELSEWHERE
There is a fascinating article here by Charles Murray which looks at the reasons behind the exceptionally high average IQ among Jews. Unlike Cochran et al., he argues that high IQ is not recent among Jews. He goes far back into history in his explanations and certainly ends on an amusing note for the serious scientist that he is.
Germans NEED to demonize America: "Anti-Americanism is hypocrisy at its finest. You can spend your evening catching the latest episode of "24" and then complain about Guantanamo the next morning. You can claim that the Americans have themselves to blame for terrorism, while at the same time calling for tougher restrictions on Muslim immigration to Germany. You can call the American president a mass murderer and book a flight to New York the next day. You can lament the average American's supposed lack of culture and savvy and meanwhile send off for the documents for the Green Card lottery. Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn't making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there's no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness."
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
****************************
My best wishes to my Jewish readers at this holy time. I hope they have had or will be having (timezones are pesky) a good and fortifying Seder that helps them to deal wisely with the many follies and false gods of this world.
I like the idea of the four cups of wine at the seder. In my Presbyterian days, all we got at Communion was a tiny glass of unfermented grape juice! Quite pathetic.
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Leftists in the Middle East betrayed by Western Leftists
SKIMMING through the Middle Eastern press these days can produce unexpected results. It's not rare to see a virulently anti-American article by an American or Western European leftist - and, alongside it on the same page, a pro-American article from an Arab, Iranian or Afghan progressive figure....
Having all but abandoned its traditional opposition to capitalism and the bourgeois democratic system, much of the Western Left is forced to cling to anti-Americanism as its backbone....
In the Middle East, however, a good part of the Left, while not especially enamored of the United States, sees it as an ally against Islamist and totalitarian pan-Arab movements. "Anti-Americanism is a luxury we cannot afford in the Middle East," says Adnan Hussein, a leftist Iraq writer recently picked by the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential columnists in the world. "Blinded by anti-Americanism, the Left in the West ends up on the same side as religious fascists and despots."
Parviz Khosravi, a veteran of Iran's Communist movement, cites history as justification for the Left's rejection of "banal anti-Americanism." "During the Second World War, all movements of the Left supported an alliance with the Western democracies led by the United States because the common enemy was Fascism," he says. "Today, we are in a similar position. Progressive forces in the Middle East are threatened by an Islamist version of Fascism. An alliance with Western democracies is not only desirable but necessary."
PRESIDENT Bush, the bete noire of liberals and leftists in the West, might be surprised to learn that he has a better image among liberals, leftists, secularists and even moderate Islamists in the Middle East. While Chomsky and Moore see the United States as "an evil power," many leftists in the Middle East see it as a force for good that ended the tyranny of the Taliban in Afghanistan, dismantled the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and forced the Syrians out of Lebanon after 30 years of occupation.
More here
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Income Inequality, Monetary Policy & The Left
Some words of wisdom from Sweden. Post below lifted from Stefan Karlsson's blog, which see for links. Leftists won't even try to understand it, though. It's easier being ignorant
The New York Times reports that income inequality in America rose sharply in 2005, to its highest level since 1928. This was also noted by the leftist Economic Policy Institute. What is missed is why inequality has increased. Leftists typically blame foreign trade and Bush's tax cuts, while paleoconservatives , in addition to trade, often blame immigration. Yet while there may be some limited truth in these explanations, the perhaps most important explanation is left out.
What explanation, you might wonder. Well, ask yourself, what was special about 1928? The answer is that it was the peak of a stock market bubble and strong cyclical boom. Income inequality then fell sharply during the great depression. Similarly, income inequality previously peaked in 1999, at the height of the tech stock bubble, and then fell back in 2001-2003.Only to rise again in 2004-2005. See the pattern here? Income inequality rises during booms and falls during busts, as the prices of assets mainly held by the wealthy rise druing booms and falls during busts.
This is the way it has always been, and it is predictable from a theoretical perspective. Because newly created money tends to affect asset prices before product prices and product prices before wages, monetary driven booms will tend to increase relative income for the wealthy and reduce it for the poor.
So if the left really thinks rising income inequality is so bad, why don't they fight for hard money? In reality, Economic Policy Institute and other leftists typically supports inflationary monetary policy, see for example here. The idiots at EPI in fact seems to be under the illusion that inflationary monetary policies will reduce income inequality, when basic economic theory and all historic evidence shows that it will increase it.
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ELSEWHERE
There is a fascinating article here by Charles Murray which looks at the reasons behind the exceptionally high average IQ among Jews. Unlike Cochran et al., he argues that high IQ is not recent among Jews. He goes far back into history in his explanations and certainly ends on an amusing note for the serious scientist that he is.
Germans NEED to demonize America: "Anti-Americanism is hypocrisy at its finest. You can spend your evening catching the latest episode of "24" and then complain about Guantanamo the next morning. You can claim that the Americans have themselves to blame for terrorism, while at the same time calling for tougher restrictions on Muslim immigration to Germany. You can call the American president a mass murderer and book a flight to New York the next day. You can lament the average American's supposed lack of culture and savvy and meanwhile send off for the documents for the Green Card lottery. Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn't making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there's no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness."
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
****************************
Monday, April 02, 2007
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
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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).
**************************
"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
****************************
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).
**************************
"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
****************************
Sunday, April 01, 2007
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).
**************************
"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
****************************
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.
****************************
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
******************************
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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Saturday, March 31, 2007
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...
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
****************************
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.
***************************
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).
**************************
"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
****************************
Friday, March 30, 2007
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
****************************
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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Thursday, March 29, 2007
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).
**************************
"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
****************************
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.
**************************
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
*******************************
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).
**************************
"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
****************************
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
IRRELEVANT EXPERTISE: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CONSULT A ZOOLOGIST ABOUT STATISTICS
We read:
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:
And as Iraq Body Count note:
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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).
**************************
"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
****************************
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".
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