BLACK INTELLIGENCE AND "WHITE" IQ TESTS

I know that conjoining the two terms "IQ" and "black" casts me into the outer darkness as far as most people are concerned but psychometrics is my field of academic specialization so I feel that I have an obligation to tell what is known about the topic concerned. And I often do, because so few others are willing to tell the public all that is known.

Chris Brand has drawn our attention to a strange book recently issued by Stephen Murdoch called IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea. Murdoch attacks all use of IQ tests. Since Murdoch appears to have no academic background in psychometrics, the book is a very arrogant one. Murdoch is in effect saying that he can in one fell swoop soar above the combined thinking and research of the hundreds of keen minds who have worked on the IQ concept (which scientists call 'g') over the last century or so. There is however no sign in the book that he has anything to say that has not been carefully considered and dismissed many times in the last 100 years. Rather than soaring, he simply shows his ignorance.

I will therefore mention just one point that even Chris does not refute as well as he might: The claim that because IQ tests are devised by whites they cannot validly be used to test blacks. This claim has of course been the focus of a very large body of research and has resulted in the production of widely-used "culture fair" tests -- i.e. tests that do not depend on any particular educational or linguistic background but which nonetheless provide good predictions of success in many areas of life for many different populations. These tests show the black/white gap to be at least as large as other tests do.

What is often overlooked, however, is that one group of psychologists (McElwain & Kearney) went even further: Rather than construct a test that had NO cultural biases, they constructed a test that WAS biased -- but biased towards blacks rather than towards whites. They included in their test (the Queensland Test or QT) only those items that blacks responded well to and which actually could be shown to be valid predictors of problem solving performance among blacks. In effect, blacks constructed the test themselves -- by providing the responses used to select the individual questions within the test.

But you know what happened, don't you? On a test intrinsically biased against them, whites still greatly outperformed blacks. So there really is an underlying difference between blacks and whites. The difference is not just the result of naively constructed tests. The blacks to which the QT was applied were Australian Aborigines and Melanesians but these groups are very much like people of African ancestry in scoring much below whites on any test that has ever been tried. The QT ended up, in other words, giving results very much like those from culture-fair tests and it is now normally classified as simply another culture-fair test.

A very important point to make here, however, is that general problem-solving ability (which is what IQ tests measure) is not the only ability that is important to survival. A bright smile, an ability to run fast and an ability to get on well with other people are obvious examples of other attributes important to survival. And Australian Aborigines do have some mental attributes that are very well developed indeed. Anybody who knows them well will tell you that they are in general a very friendly and immensely polite and sociable people with an excellent sense of humour -- though alcohol transmogrifies them.

And those who know Aborigines really well will tell you that Aborigines have something else: an absolutely eerie ability to observe, remember and interpret the physical landscape around them. For this reason they were widely used in the early days as "trackers" -- people who could track someone (usually fleeing criminals) down by observing minute marks he had made while walking through the landscape. This greater spatial ability has been recorded academically in the work of Kearins -- and the report by Klekamp et al. (1994) that Australian aboriginals have a larger visual cortex than Caucasians would appear to provide the explanation of the phenomenon.

So any claim that whites are superior to blacks is simply too sweeping. In some ways whites are superior and in other ways blacks are. Which area of superiority is most advantageous will depend on the situation. In situations constructed by whites, blacks often do very poorly. That there is any remedy for that, however, seems most unlikely.

REFERENCES:

McElwain, D. W.& Kearney, G. E. (1973). Intellectual development. In Kearney, G. E., de Lacey, P. R. & Davidson, G. R. (Eds.). The Psychology of Aboriginal Australians (pp. 43-56). Sydney: John Wiley.

Kearins, J. M. (1986). Visual spatial memory in Aboriginal and white Australian children. Australian Journal of Psychology, 38, 203-214

Klekamp, J., Riedel, A., Harper, C., Kretschmann, H. J. (1994). Morphometric study of the postnatal growth of the visual cortex of Australian aborigines and Caucasians. Journal of Brain Research, 35, 541-548.

Ray, J.J. (1972) Are all races equally intelligent? Or: When is knowledge knowledge? J. Human Relations 20, 71-75.

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

ELSEWHERE

It's an old saying that some ideas are so crazy that only an intellectual could believe them. Princeton economist Alan Krueger seems to be such an intellectual. He admits that the old fallback -- poverty -- does not cause terrorism and says that it is "suppression of civil liberties and political rights" that causes terrorism. Yet nowhere in the world do Muslims have such great civil liberties and political rights as they do in Britain. So that is why there have been so many Muslim attacks in Britain, you see! Anything at all will be grasped at rather than admit that Islam is the problem.

Islam's Global War against Christianity: "From Nigeria to Indonesia, Christians are under siege in virtually every single country in the Muslim world, the victims of countless acts of discrimination, depredation, brutality, and murder that are so widespread and systematic that it can rightfully be called the new Holocaust. This time, however, the perpetrators of this Holocaust aren't wearing swastikas, but kufi skull caps and hijabs. Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are subject to relentless attack and teeter on the brink of extinction at the hands of the "Religion of Peace": Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank; Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in Iraq; Coptic Christians in Egypt; Evangelical and Orthodox Christians in Eastern Ethiopia and Eritrea; Armenian Orthodox Christians in Turkey; and Maronite Christians in Lebanon. Several of these communities date back to the beginning decades of Christianity"

Lead poisoning the major cause of crime???? "Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the "New York miracle" was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning." [It's just more epidemiological crap based on the old "correlation is causation" fallacy. See here on epidemiology]

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

The bizarre British government response to Muslim attacks

We began with the usual and - this time - quite surreal assurances from politicians, Muslim leaders and, in particular the BBC, that the latest attacks were `nothing to do with Islam'. This is what we always hear when a bomb has gone off, or failed to go off - and it is always a silly statement, based upon nothing more real than wishful thinking and a quick, thoughtless, unnecessary genuflection towards crowd control. On this occasion, though, it was subtly undermined by one of the perpetrators, doused in flames outside Glasgow airport, screaming `Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!' before being peremptorily battered by a passer-by. Also, they parked their car at a mosque - and yet, according to every bigwig, policeman and community leader interviewed, this was a mere case of coincidence - NCP being full at the time, presumably.

Then, as always happens, we had the next stage of wishful thinking. Led by the BBC's bizarrely pro-Islamist Frank Gardner, we were assured by assorted correspondents and politicians that Britain's Muslim community were, in their entirety, appalled and outraged by the attacks. Well, maybe they were - but how do you know? Did you ask 'em, Frank? Don't forget that more than half of our Muslims feel sympathy for suicide bombers in Israel and a fairly hefty minority (one in eight, at the last count) for similar action against the cockroach imperialist infidel scum (i.e. you and me) over here. Not to mention almost half of Britain's Muslims who want Sharia law in this country and do not remotely, therefore, share our norms and values.

We are told these sorts of things in order to stop us coming to unpalatable conclusions, because the government still clings, ever more precariously, to the vestigial tail of that discredited ideology, multiculturalism. Take, for example, the issue of immigration. The aspirant, useless bombers who missed their targets at Glasgow and London came here from Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. A recent Mori opinion poll commissioned by the government's Commission on Integration and Cohesion showed that almost 70 per cent of British people thought that we had let far too many immigrants into the country. This figure, incidentally, included almost half of all black and Asian British citizens polled. It was a remarkable poll not so much for its statistics, however, as for the strange response to those statistics. The establishment - the government, the BBC, the race charities and so on - professed themselves very worried and wondered what on earth should be done. A task force charged with dampening down trouble in the immigration hotspots, maybe? A few more lessons in English for the incomers and maybe fewer translators? But at no point did any of the powers that be suggest the one thing which an overwhelming majority of those polled wished for: an end to immigration. A moratorium. Or, at the least, an influx which was vastly reduced and better regulated. This suggestion, implicitly supported by almost 70 per cent of those questioned and opposed by only ten per cent, was not even considered; it simply didn't figure on the radar.....

But then, even if we had been told that the 12 or so aspirant bombers were members of al-Qa'eda and about to launch an attack against British citizens, it is unlikely we could have done very much about it, even if we had their home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Every month or so we read that the immigration appeals court has allowed some murderous lunatic from the Maghreb or beyond to stay in the country, despite his clearly stated homicidal impulses, because it would be an infringement of his human rights were he to be returned to the Islamic hellhole from which he arrived....

The public is perpetually outraged by such clear absurdities and, on this occasion at least, the government seemed a little vexed too. But there was no resolve to enact legislation (or repeal existing legislation) to prevent such outrages occurring again. Faced with the law - and in particular, international treaties to which we gladly affixed our names in simpler times - the government feels and perhaps is impotent. It is surely only a matter of time before someone who comes before the immigration appeals court is allowed to stay and later blows himself up in a public place. Perhaps it has happened already.....

The odd thing is that on all of these issues - immigration, human rights legislation, the notion that British Muslims do not share very many of our liberal values, the war against Iraq - the public seems to get it and our political leaders simply do not. There will be many more attempts at carnage on our streets before they do get it, I suspect. In the meantime, I suppose we'll just have to put our faith in al-Qa'eda's continuing incompetence.

More here

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

ELSEWHERE

I have just put up on my Marx blog an older article that gives a very comprehensive account of the antisemitism of Karl Marx.

How the BBC inspires Muslim terrorism: "How could Muslim doctors want to bomb innocent young party goers in their own country? Because for decades the BBC has been telling them how evil Britain and the West really are, every single day, without ever being questioned. Even without imported Pakistani imams to brainwash gullible young men into bloody jihad, sixty million people in Britain receive daily wall-to-wall indoctrination from the Left. Forget those two million Pakistani Muslims in London; the tax-funded BBC has become the single most suicidal force in Britain.... This is the mindset ...that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world - from colonialism to global warming... today's young Muslims are more radical than their parents. What do you expect, when they keep getting the same hate-Britain message every single day from the tenured radicals at the tax-supported BBC?"

More Islamic hatred: "In Denmark, Muslims are attacking the Inuit people, the indigenous people of Greenland, who have been a part of the Kingdom of Denmark for centuries. Whenever Muslims target non-Muslims with violence, this is blamed by the media on past legacy of colonialism, US foreign policy, Israeli aggression etc. Well, Muslims are now attacking. Greenlanders. And we all know they are evil, Zionist Crusaders with a long history of colonial aggression in the Middle East, right? Here's a Scandinavian post on the subject, with my translations.Apparently, some Arabs feel that Greenlanders don't belong in Denmark and should go back home where they came from

The crass and sexist NYT: "Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable inquiry that is spurring debate in Internet chat rooms, on cable television and on talk radio: Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife? The question may seem sexist, even crass, but serious people - as well as Mr. Thompson's supporters - have been wrestling with the public reaction to Jeri Kehn Thompson, whose youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blond hair present a contrast to the 64-year-old man who hopes to win the hearts of the conservative core of the Republican party. Will the so-called values voters accept this union?"

A Bush speech that you are unlikely to see much reported in the media: "This week, we received more good news showing that our economy is strong and growing. The Department of Labor reports that our economy has now created jobs for 46 consecutive months. America added 132,000 jobs in June, and that means our economy has added more than 8.2 million new jobs since August of 2003. Unemployment is low, consumer confidence is high, incomes are rising, and opportunity is growing across America. Our Nation's strong economy is no accident. It is the result of the hard work of the American people and pro-growth policies in Washington. Starting in 2001, my Administration delivered the largest tax relief since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Our tax relief has left $1.1 trillion in the hands of citizens like you to save, and spend, and invest as you see fit..." [Don Surber has more]

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

Muslim Suicide Bombers Are Losers Who Can't Get Laid

Post lifted from Ace. See the original for links

Muslim suicide bombing...has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.....

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

...nearly all suicide bombers are single.

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

SCIENCE FICTION

I was for many years a science fiction devotee and if I had time to read ANY fiction these days I probably still would be. As it happens, one of my more regular correspondents publishes books -- and science fiction books are among them. He specializes in books that are out of print but which he thinks are unfairly neglected and should be republished.

When he heard that I liked science fiction, therefore, he sent me a copy of one of his books -- one which he has published in "uncut" form. The original editions left out significant sections of what the author had written. The book is called "Out of the silence" -- one of several books with that name. This one was written by Erle Cox.

It did seem to be something of a gem from my quick look at it so I handed it over to my usual book reviewer for comment. He too was very favourably impressed. You can read his review here.

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

ELSEWHERE

Charlie Foxtrot fisks a stupid attack on Fred Thompson.

Amusing. Andrew Sullivan is always going on about "Christianism". I used that word long before he did -- in 1970 -- but both of us were much preceded by James Leigh Hunt, who wrote a book called "Christianism" in 1832!

There is an article here about the widespread support for eugenics in "progressive" circles before WWII. Hitler's eugenic beliefs were normal among Leftists of his time.

There are some nice graphs of the meltdown at the whiny and dishonest NYT here

Eight Al Qaeda fanatics working for the British police (but they don't dare sack them): "Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda. Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces. The dossier was drawn up with the help of MI5 amid fears that individuals linked to Islamic extremism are taking advantage of police attempts to increase the proportion of ethnic staff. Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because - it is claimed - police do not have the "legal power" to dismiss them. We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq."

This obsequious description of John Edwards would make any normal man ill: "The hair, up close, is peppered with tiny strands of blond. Chestnut brown and so finely trimmed, mellifluous, smooth, and feathery, it could almost be a weave, the Platonic ideal as imagined by the Hair Club for Men. Along with the piercing blue eyes, slashing V-shaped smile, and a shimmering burgundy shirt tucked into stonewashed Levi's resting low on the hips, the hair completes the man: John Edwards, a populist Adonis, a golden god of a Southern Democrat." [GM is one of the nauseous ones]

A different nation: "You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism"

Richard Littlejohn on the new British Prime Mionister: "As I said a couple of days before Gordon got the job, this column doesn't do honeymoon periods. But, wary of getting submerged in the glow of post-coital adulation, I thought I'd give it a week before putting the boot in. The usual bunch of crawlers are doing their best to flatter him, but the simple fact of the matter is that when it comes to being Prime Minister, Gordon just doesn't cut the Colman's. He's certainly not what Napoleon would have called a lucky general. Since he took over last Wednesday, he's had dead soldiers in Iraq, Muslim maniacs on the rampage in London and Glasgow and a rise in interest rates, as a basis for negotiation. So why on earth has the elevation of Gordon Brown been hailed as if it were the second coming of JFK? Quentin Letts has already remarked on the BBC constantly referring to the 'new government'. This isn't a 'new' government - it's a collection of has-beens, placemen and people who weren't good enough to be in the last Cabinet. You'd be hard-pushed to find such a weird array of incompetents, dullards and social inadequates this side of the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. The Miliband brothers even look like Vulcans. Hilariously, we're asked to believe that Gordon has assembled a government of 'all the talents'. If this is as good as it gets, God help us."

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

GWB IS A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN BUT HE IS NOT MUCH OF A CONSERVATIVE

Post below excerpted from Dinocrat. See the original for links and more

President Bush made this important statement at the re-dedication of the Washington DC Islamic Center last week, via Daniel Pipes:

"I have invested the heart of my presidency in helping Muslims fight terrorism, and claim their liberty, and find their own unique paths to prosperity and peace."

This is a sentence that deserves to be read several times. The "heart of my presidency" - a very revealing phrase indeed. One must question whether the "heart" of any American presidency should be about people who are overwhelmingly not Americans, who live mostly very far away, and whose societies have so little in common with the Judeo-Christian-Enlightenment traditions passed down to us principally from England. We find the statement disturbing in its grandiosity. In electing George Bush, Americans did not elect a Pope, or Martin Luther, or the new rector of Al Azhar University, or president of the world.

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

"PAPA DOC": IN MEMORIAM

"Papa Doc" Duvalier was the "quiet country doctor" who became the grisly dictator of Haiti from 1957 to 1971

The arrest of seven doctors in the attempted British terror bombings has shocked many people. Sadly, it shouldn't. All seven are Muslims working at government-financed hospitals, their salaries paid by the British taxpayer. Dr. Muhammad Hanif practiced at Halton Hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire; Dr. Muhammad Asha, at the North Staffordshire NHS Trust's University Hospital.

So can doctors be terrorists? Can people who are financially well-off be terrorists? Absolutely. It is ideology, after all, that turns people into terrorists - not suffering. Indeed, the No. 2 leader of al Qaeda is Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri - who was previously a stalwart of the Muslim Brotherhood in his native Egypt. Zawahiri made the connections that led to his role in al Qaeda when he went to Afghanistan in 1980 to provide medical care for jihadists fighting the Soviets. Later, he was a key architect of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed hundreds of innocents, and of the 9/11 attacks.

Other Islamist MDs include two recent leaders of the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Abdel Aziz Rantisi graduated first in his class from an Egyptian university in pediatrics; he succeeded slain cleric Ahmad Yassin as Hamas' chief in March 2004 - only to perish himself a month later. After him came Mahmoud al-Zahar (who had helped found Hamas in 1987), an Egyptian-trained surgeon who today is the most powerful man in the Gaza Strip. Even before the rise of Islamism, there were secular doctor-terrorists. Dr. George Habash, a founder and for three decades leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is now still active though enjoying his semi-retirement in Syria. The PFLP was one of the most bloodthirsty terrorist groups in history, with exploits such as a 1978 attack at Orly Airport in Paris and the 2002 shooting of five (including a mother and three children) in Itamar on the West Bank.

More here

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

ELSEWHERE

More media fraud. Gateway Pundit has a roundup of the versions of the latest "horror story" in Iraq being reported by the MSM. The stories are all so different that one doubts whether anything really happened at all. Such differences would cause such a story to be thrown out in a court of law.

Comparing Economies: Two Respected Measures Put Bush 43's at or Near the Top: "Today's release of the Institute for Supply Management's Non-Manufacturing Activity Report, which measures business conditions in the 86% of the economy other than manufacturing, came in with a reading of 60.7, after recording a 59.7 last month. As has been customary, the report whipped the pants off of "expectations." This Thomson Financial article at Forbes predicted a decline to 58.1 instead of the full-point increase that occurred, as did this AFX piece. This was the 51st consecutive reported month of expansion for the Non-Manufacturing Index (any reading above 50 indicates expansion). It comes on the heels of Monday's ISM Manufacturing Report, which came in at 56, marking the 47th month of expansion in that index in the past 49 months. So 14% of the economy is expanding nicely, while the other 86% can fairly be said to be nearly booming. Who knew?"



Nearly 600 U.S. Troops Reenlist in Baghdad on Independence Day : "Hundreds of troops gathered at Al Faw Palace for the Multi-National Force-Iraq Reenlistment, Naturalization and Independence Day Ceremony today at Camp Victory. During the ceremony, 588 troops reenlisted and 161 were naturalized as American citizens. During the Multi-National Force-Iraq Reenlistment, Naturalization and Independence Day Ceremony July 4, 2007, at Camp Victory, Iraq, today 588 troops reenlisted and 161 were naturalized as American citizens"

Wilfully blind Brits: "On BBC Radio Four's Today programme this morning (0755 approx), the reformed Islamist extremist Hassan Butt patiently spelled out to presenter Jim Naughtie that Islamist terrorists carry out their acts of mass murder as an expression of religious faith and fervour. They do it, he said, `for the pleasure of God'. Far from being acts of despair, these terrible atrocities are acts of religious exultation. If we don't understand, even now, that what we are facing is a religious war, a jihad against the unbeliever and backsliding Muslims across the world we cannot possibly hope to defend ourselves against it. Yet while former Islamist extremists such as Hassan Butt and Ed Husain are urgently telling us the truth, Gordon Brown's new administration is shutting its ears and embarking on a suicidally stupid and cowardly strategy. Astoundingly, it has decided to deny the religious element of this jihad altogether, to redefine Islamic terrorism as mere criminality and to ban all terms that call this horror by its proper name"

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up. Some interesting new IQ data, among other things.

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

Economic Reds: A Diagnosis

More amusing than apocalyptic Greens are economic Reds. An economic red is not necessarily a socialist; he does not necessarily believe in, for instance, the abolition of private property, the planned economy, or treating profit as an anti-social crime. He does not necessarily think being rich is evil; in fact, some economic reds are quite rich themselves, and enjoy being rich. He is, however, gripped by three seductive fascinations--the views that 1) government is motherly and warm, 2) a halo attaches to the "leveling" of economic differences, and 3) there exists in corporations and in those who profit from commerce a residual stench of evil.

Economic reds grow up believing that compassion is the highest of all moral qualities, and that it serves as a kind of plenary indulgence making up for a lot of other sins. For some, this sentiment arises from the rational "fraternity" evoked by the Enlightenment. Others learned it from Deuteronomy, or the Sermon on the Mount. These Biblical sources preceded the Enlightenment by many centuries, and may have rendered the "reason" of the Enlightenment a good deal less cold, mathematical, and self-interested than it might otherwise have been. So, at least, Bertrand Russell, Richard Rorty, and Juergen Habermas--rationalists all--have suggested.

Sociologically, economic reds seem to be found far more often among artists, writers, and professors than among engineers, surgeons, agricultural scientists, realtors, and those who deal with the public as retailers or clerks. Some hard sciences that depend heavily on government subsidies tend also to nurture many economic reds--but also a surprising number of dissenters.

Beyond fantasizing about government as motherly, and about victims as helpless without it, economic reds also fantasize that businessmen, large corporations, and especially CEOs of large corporations, are villainous or, at least, shady. Few today call such persons, as vulgarly as FDR did, "economic royalists." FDR meant to suggest that the new white knights of government were like the heroic aristocrats who obliged King John to sign the Magna Carta, or the Cromwellian republicans who drove James II from power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Royalists were for FDR the bad guys. And to call businessmen "royalty" when they were not even "barons," let alone "robbers," was a bit of a low blow.

No, the real philosophical sex change that transformed manly "liberalism" from the party of opposition to government, ever watchful against government as liberty's chief foe, into an entirely different kind of liberalism, now the party of ever bigger and more "compassionate" government, was first made by John Dewey in 1935, in Liberalism and Social Action. Dewey wrote the instruction manual for the modern liberal in how to steal a potent term--one that had meant "free, independent, and self-governing"--and change it into its opposite: Big-government "liberalism" now meant government as the mothering nurse of the weak. From David Hume, Adam Smith, and Francis Hutcheson, Dewey fled to Hegel's "spirit of government"; from Anglo-Saxon history to a world of misty, geistliche concepts; from the old conviction that the New World had much to teach the Old, to the new conviction that the avant-garde battle flag to follow is European red. Thus did the grand dream emerge: Big government is to be visualized no longer as the main threat against the rights and liberties of local communities and independent persons, but as the nurturing mother of social good, from above.

A rather substantial number of union members among what quaintly used to be called "the working classes" are no longer economic reds, even though some others remain so. Many blue-collar workers want their sons and daughters to gain college degrees, and push them to seek out jobs in the professional and upper-middle classes. These parents have become economic "blues": They are mightily in favor of upward mobility, hard work, education, and entrepreneurship. They hate those economic reds who want to level society just as their own children are at last getting a chance to climb upwards. This observation helps explain why John Sweeney and other old-line trade-union leaders are having so hard a time delivering the votes of their members. Sweeney is far too red for many of his members, who look at the blue skies beckoning their children. The number of workers belonging to unions has dwindled, and the unions cannot deliver all the votes of the remaining members.

Thus, the only recruiting ground left for economic reds these days lies among "victims." This net is cast mainly to pull in racial minorities, although to some extent, too, certain segments (single women) of racial majorities. Both single women with children and widows understandably may be more attracted than others to a big, caring government that might fill the place of the missing earners in their lives.

That is why, in politics, economic reds strive mightily to instill victimhood in fellow citizens, and to picture them as helplessly in need of government's assistance. In trying to lift these victims, however, economic reds typically engender greater benefits to benefit-providers than to the poor. There is some merit in what economic reds try to do. Still, their method is like feeding horses as a way of getting to the swallows, when there are far more direct ways to do the job.

In short, the dream of economic reds is not a vision of an America driven forward by new entrepreneurs, new inventors, and those untamed "animal spirits" that are released by a good system of incentives. Rather, it is a vision of rule-making, curbs, limitations, bureaucratic selection among alternatives, new burdens on the private sector--and larger powers unwisely given to the federal government. While Senator Clinton calls her vision "progressive," most of us would call it "regressive." Economic reds are still mesmerized by the imaginary powers that they attribute to the motherly, "caring" state--but, fortunately, this illusion is harder to sell than it was in earlier, less experienced generations

More here

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

ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON ICJS

Carter makes more money selling integrity than peanuts.
Hezbollah is a voice ofextremism, murder and hate
The three-state solution?
Nuclear Power and Anti-Semitism The Iranian threat to Israel
Crippled by paradigm paralysis
Islam the problem
Two-state solution finally works
World must join battle with hate
Seeing the truth
Hurtling into the darkness
Thirst for impact spoils political coverage
Terrorist twin
Letter re boycott of Israeli academia by British Uni union.
Response to Raphael Israeli
Where's the Outrage?
Sordid dance to a dead end with the devil we need
Desperate for Enlightenment
Israeli watchdog finds alarming level of indoctrination

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

Glorious Capitalism

It is sometimes difficult to conceive how dramatically living standards have improved thanks to economic liberalization, property rights, and the ability to trade. A column in the Wall Street Journal looks at how prosperity has improved everyone's lives:

Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of agriculture -- but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality of people's lives. Almost everyone lived on the modern equivalent of $400 to $600 a year, just above the subsistence level. True, there were always tiny aristocracies who lived far better, but numerically they were quite insignificant.

Then -- just a couple of hundred years ago, maybe 10 generations -- people started getting richer. And richer and richer still. Per capita income, at least in the West, began to grow at the unprecedented rate of about three quarters of a percent per year. A couple of decades later, the same thing was happening around the world. ...

Rising income is only part of the story. One hundred years ago the average American workweek was over 60 hours; today it's under 35. One hundred years ago 6% of manufacturing workers took vacations; today it's over 90%. One hundred years ago the average housekeeper spent 12 hours a day on laundry, cooking, cleaning and sewing; today it's about three hours. ...

The moral is that increases in measured income -- even the phenomenal increases of the past two centuries -- grossly understate the real improvements in our economic condition. The average middle-class American might have a smaller measured income than the European monarchs of the Middle Ages, but I suspect that Tudor King Henry VIII would have traded half his kingdom for modern plumbing, a lifetime supply of antibiotics and access to the Internet...

(Via Market Center blog)

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

ELSEWHERE

The cringing Associated Press says that the would-be bombers in Britain were a "diverse" group! All Muslim doctors! How diverse can you get? In America, "diverse" means black. I guess in Britain it must mean "Muslim". Gateway Pundit and others are commenting on how the "M-word" is being avoided in reporting the attacks in Britain.

Seeing you read blogs, you may already have seen this story from Michael Yon about a massacre of Iraqi villagers by Al Qaeda. The mainstream media however are determinedly ignoring it so you would be unlikely to know about it unless you DO read a few blogs. To the mainstream media only Americans can be bad guys, of course. Al Qaeda is just misunderstood. Yon is an independent reporter who is actually on the ground in Iraq witnessing the events going on there and he has many pictures of it all.

Can animal rights activists behave like animals? They sure can. Read this post from Riehl World for a horrible example.

Hong Kong Benefits from Bad Policies in Europe: "Many EU residents who previously banked in Gibraltar, Cayman Islands or Switzerland have moved their portfolio to places not covered by the OECD, including Hong Kong and Singapore. The recent abolition of estate tax in Hong Kong has made it an even more attractive option worthy of consideration by those seeking to secure their assets and protect them from unfair taxation. ...More than 73,000 new Hong Kong companies were incorporated last year and there are now more than 800,000 companies on the Hong Kong companies register. ...And while the OECD continued its efforts to crack down on tax havens, the head of one Hong Kong trust company said he did not see the point. Jacques Scherman, managing director of Sovereign Trust (Hong Kong), said: "Tax havens are already intensely scrutinised and subject to strict anti-money laundering regulations. I do not think further scrutiny will achieve any useful end."

The United Kingdom Now Has a Bigger Government than Germany: "Public spending in Germany, as a percentage of total economic output, has fallen sharply in the past three years and is fast approaching British levels, according to a finance ministry study. The report, obtained by the Financial Times, shows state expenditures reached 45.6 per cent of gross domestic product last year, compared with 44.1 per cent in the UK, which is generally thought of as a low-tax, low-spending economy. . Instead of focusing on the fiscal deficit - the difference between state expenditures and revenues - the report concentrates solely on spending. The spending-to-GDP ratio fell from 47.1 to 45.6 per cent between 2004 and 2006, making Germany the fourth-smallest spender in the eurozone. The same ratio rose from 42.7 to 44.1 in the UK over the same period. . "Good progress has been made in the recent past, mainly in cutting public sector headcounts," said Winfried Fuest, economist at the business-funded IW economic institute. But he expressed worries about government being tempted "to spend more now that the economy is doing better".

Oppressed Canadians Finally Reach Tax Freedom Day: "American taxpayers worked until April 30 before they earned enough money to satisfy the rapacious demands of federal, state and local tax collectors. This is discouraging, but Americans should be grateful that they don't live in Canada. The Fraser Institute reveals that the average Canadian worked until June 20 before quenching the appetites of the political class. Taxpayers in Newfoundland and Labrador are still working as serfs for government. Their tax freedom day won't arrive until July 1"

More FEMA Incompetence: "USA Today reports that FEMA admits that it squandered $485 million on improper claims after the Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005, but that it has recovered only about 3 percent of the money. Unfortunately, there is every reason to suspect similar incompetence in the future. Rather than shrink FEMA and allow state and local governments to deal with what should be a state and local responsibility, politicians in Washington expanded the FEMA budget"

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

PEACENIKS: UNABLE TO COPE WITH REALITY

Excerpt from Dr Sanity

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc. Instead, these "pacifists" actually champion the terrorists; rationalizing terrorist behavior; refusing to call them to account for their uncivilized and barbaric actions;, demanding cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do); and have little or nothing to say about the standard terrorist operational policies that deliberately target the innocent.

You can find these these brave and loving peace activists marching in solidarity with these foul groups; proudly wearing the latest "hate couture", and imagining that their fashion statement shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are. They are unable to even appreciate the irony that it serves to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, those who are truly evil know they can get away with practically any horror; and that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity. For all their rhetoric to the contrary, the actual beneficiaries of the "antiwar" movement are the warmongering tyrants of the world whose naked aggression remains unchecked and is always rationalized away. The only outcome in the real world of all that lovely pacifism is the triumph of evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life. If you cannot consciously tap into the aggressive side of your human nature and permit the use of aggression and even violence to serve the good; you will inevitably end up serving all that is evil in the world.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth. In reality, they don't care much about human suffering, misery or even death; let alone the legacy of evil in the world. Through a variety of psychological defenses, they have managed to deny, displace, distort, and project real evil away. There cannot be found even a trace of psychological insight among all those angry marchers who violently and adamantly demand peace at any price.

For the carefree members of the antiwar movement, the triumph of evil is unimportant when compared to their own narcissistic need to appear virtuous and good. Like the parents ShrinkWrapped writes about, they will always find a way to externalize the blame for the consequences of their own self-delusion. Like Petunia, they will emphasize rhetoric over action; good intentions over actual behavior.

Antiwar activism is simply part of the left's ongoing struggle against reality; specifically, the reality of human nature. Aggression and violence are an integral part of human nature and are essential for human survival. These dangerous human qualities can either serve that which is good and decent about humanity, promoting human life and liberty and civilization; or, they can be used to support that which opposes life, liberty and civilization.

That is how the unconscious works; and how projective identification protects the user from having to come to terms with their own aggression. As these insightless fools bask in the glow of their radiant virtue, they fail to notice their own complicity with and appeasement of evil. Having absolved themselves of the requirement of making difficult moral choices in the real world; they have instead chosen the easy and facile rhetoric of self-delusion. That is why they are not bothered by real human suffering in the here and now; or by real oppression and tyranny. Their primary concern is in maintaing the fantasy that they are devoid of all those evil aggressive impulses that they, and they alone are the embodiment of perfect "peace" , "justice", and "brotherhood".

The track record of pacifism is horrendous. Not only do "peace movements" fail to bring peace; but by protecting, appeasing, and minimizing true evil, they ensure that war--when it inevitably comes--costs even more in terms of human suffering and lives.

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

Hypocrisy is basic to the Left

All they believe in is power. Everything else is camouflage. Post below again excerpted from Dr. Sanity. See the original for links

One of the wondrous aspects of postmodern rhetoric, where reality and truth are only relative, is that anybody's "reality" is as good as anybody else's. For the dedicated postmodernist, polls and opinion are the final arbiters of truth; and the results of a poll or two, constructed along ideological lines to fit a particular template, is all you need to confirm your reality. Reality is a matter of opinion (simply ignore any polls that don't agree with your reality, of course).

This type of micraculous rhetoric can even determine today, what history will say many tomorrows from now. With enough repetition and passion, "history" can be set in stone in the temporal present! Extremely convenient for anyone who wants to avoid confronting their own contradictions in the present.

The rhetorical passion and word play is mere camouflage for the inherent philosophical and psychological contradictions that the postmodern left exploits in order to achieve and maximize political power. They are perfectly aware that their positions don't make any sense and can be refuted by anyone with basic knowledge of logic and logical fallacies; but their goal is to maintain the psychological denial necessary to believe in the left's ideology.

The possibility that the relativism is primary can be ruled out with some thought. If the modern leftist truly embraced relativism, then you would not see the uniformity of their politics or their reactions to events in the world. Instead, you would be able to observe an infinite number of postmodern leftist opinions and beliefs from all over the political spectrum. And, have you? Or, have you noticed that their opinions march completely in lockstep with their political ideology?

I must conclude from that observation that the moral relativism they preach so relentlessly as part of their multicultural drivel; and which equates the unceasing and institutional barbarity of terror groups like Al Qaeda with U.S. troops in Iraq; equates the deliberate targeting of innocents with herculean efforts to spare innocent life; equates Bush with Hitler; Iraq with Vietnam; etc. etc. are simple rhetorical devices that are being used to manipulate and advance their fundamentally socialist / totalitarian agenda.

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

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

The Terrorist theology

An ex-Jihadi tells:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology....

... what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

More here

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

The U.N. Gets even worse

Where does the global human rights movement stand in the seventh year of the 21st century? If the first year of the United Nations Human Rights Council is any indication, it's grown sick and cynical -- partly because of the fecklessness and flexible morality of some of the very governments and groups that claim to be most committed to democratic values.

At a session in Geneva last week, the council -- established a year ago in an attempt to reform the U.N. Human Rights Commission -- listened to reports by special envoys appointed by its predecessor condemning the governments of Cuba and Belarus. It then abolished the jobs of both "rapporteurs" in a post-midnight maneuver orchestrated by its chairman, who announced a "consensus" in spite of loud objections by the ambassador from Canada that there was no such accord.

While ending the scrutiny of those dictatorships, the council chose to establish one permanent and special agenda item: the "human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories." In other words, Israel (or "Palestine," in the council's terminology), alone among the nations of the world, will be subjected to continual and open-ended examination. That's in keeping with the record of the council's first year: Eleven resolutions were directed at the Jewish state. None criticized any other government.

Genocide in Sudan, child slavery and religious persecution in China, mass repression in Zimbabwe and Burma, state-sponsored murder in Syria and Russia -- and, for that matter, suicide bombings by Arab terrorist movements -- will not receive systematic attention from the world body charged with monitoring human rights. That is reserved only for Israel, a democratic country that has been guilty of human rights violations but also has been under sustained assault from terrorists and governments openly committed to its extinction.

The old human rights commission, which was disparaged by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan for casting "a shadow on the United Nations system as a whole," frequently issued unbalanced condemnations of Israel but also typically adopted half a dozen resolutions a year aimed at the worst human rights abusers. For the new council, Israel is the only target.

More here

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

ELSEWHERE

North America's Welfare State appendage: "The Conference Board of Canada, a non-governmental, non-partisan, nonprofit think tank with a habit of stating unvarnished and often unflattering truths about Canada, came out this month with a doleful "report card" on the Canadian performance. The distinguishing Canadian characteristic, it said, is "mediocrity." Governments, businesses and people all "punch below their weight." Comparing Canada with other developed nations, it noted that "too often we trail the pack." Canadians are "unwilling to take risks." Since the nation's power to innovate is "stunningly poor," it lags seriously in the global economy. It is slow to bring out new products, though its governments offer some of the best tax breaks and subsidies in the world. "The average person," said Board President Anne Golden, "still thinks things are pretty good." The report had bad news. They aren't."

What astounding rubbish! "Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities in a bloodstained corridor along the East Coast are seeing a surge in killings, and one of the most provocative explanations offered by criminal-justice experts is this: not enough new immigrants. The theory holds that waves of hardworking, ambitious immigrants reinvigorate desperately poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods and help keep crime down. It is a theory that runs counter to the widely held notion that immigrants are a source of crime and disorder."

The tired old Leftist explanation of "poverty" for all misdeeds won't work this time either: "A suspected terror gang, at least two of whom are doctors, were being questioned today after being trapped by their mobile phones. Anti-terrorist detectives swooped on five members of the gang across Britain after gathering crucial clues from phones found in the two London car bombs. The phones were meant to trigger a blast when they were called. The bombers twice called the car outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, and the one in Cockspur Street four times, but the bombs failed to detonate for technical reasons. Traces on the mobile phones' calls led police to addresses in Liverpool, Staffordshire and Glasgow."

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

It only counts if you are killed by a professional

Post excerpted from Dinocrat. See the original for links

Apparently, it only counts, or at least counts much more, if you are killed by a "sophisticated" or "top-grade" professional, certainly not by someone whose tactics are "amateurish". Otherwise, things in London are fine. Here are selected quotes from the NYT on London:

the technology behind two thwarted car bombings in central London seemed to be amateurish.they didn't go off because there were not top-grade people putting them together.some experts have questioned the level of sophistication involved in the devices.the construction of the devices left in central London early on Friday morning "does not look very professional".a private research group, said the "amateur construction" of the devices and the way they were placed "suggest the plotter or plotters have no connection to a major militant organization".Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, declared today: "I think people are completely safe to walk about the streets of London today and tomorrow."

Apparently, it only counts if you are killed by a sophisticated, top-grade professional, which seems such an odd spin for the MSM to sell, given that the MO of the enemy has always been brutality and bloodlust, not professionalism and sophistication. Perhaps they've watched too much TV and too many spy movies....

Would the NYT have ever covered lynchings (which in total numbered over 3000 in the USA) by the KKK and others of innocent men, women and children by referring to the events in even one sentence or phrase as "amateurish" and "unsophisticated," and not the work of "top-grade people"?

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

CHARITY DOES NOT HELP GOVERNMENTS MUCH EITHER

The consensus view is that the "Marshall Plan" was the catalyst for Europe's economic revival after World War II..... While countries have traditionally revived themselves economically through lower taxes, tariffs, and regulations, along with more credible currencies, the Marshall Plan was about offering financial aid to a devastated Europe - specifically $13 billion that was distributed between 1947 and 1951. As economist Reuven Brenner pointed out in his 2001 book, The Force of Finance, total aid amounted to roughly 5 to 10 percent of European GNP, about the same amount given to Europe after World War I. Brenner noted that no miracles occurred due to aid after the first war, so it seems a bit of a reach to assume Marshall Plan funds were any more effective.

More realistically, Brenner points to the influx into West Germany of 12 million mostly well-trained immigrants escaping the "promise" of the Communist-bloc countries, not to mention rapidly falling income-tax rates, as the cure for what ailed Germany. In 1948, the marginal tax rate there was 50 percent for annual income of $600 and above, and those who made more than $15,000 were taxed at 95 percent. Conversely, by 1955 the top tax rate was lowered to 63 percent for incomes of more than $250,000, and the 50 percent bracket started at $42,000.

Though Japan did not fall under the Marshall Plan umbrella, the U.S. offered the nearly destroyed country financial aid, along with lots of economic "solutions" including wage and price controls, greater government oversight of industry, and a heavily devalued yen. But as Nathan Lewis wrote in Hard Money, it was only when Japan ended "wage and price controls, liberated industry from government control, demolished subsidies, ended U.S. economic aid, and brought the central government's budget into balance" that its economy began to grow.

According to Lewis, Japan's government cut taxes every year from 1950 to 1974, and contrary to those who liken tax cuts to "free lunches," government revenues skyrocketed. Though revenues were 1.8 trillion yen in 1960, they rose to 7.75 trillion yen in 1970, despite the yearly cuts in taxes.

Source

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

ELSEWHERE

See here for the latest bogus media "news" story from Iraq.

Congress condemns Iranian leader: "On June 20, the US House of Representatives passed HConRes21, calling for indictment of the President of Iran for incitement to genocide, based on his calls to wipe Israel off the map. by vote of 402 to 2. This is a landmark resolution, because it probably is the first time ever that there is a call for legal action by a major legislative body to prevent genocide by holding those accountable for incitement and hate language, which are known predictors and catalysts of genocide. Its wording is a template for the prevention of all genocides, and is based on previous research, work and statements by the Hebrew University from its Genocide Prevention Program"

Blair speaks out: "Tony Blair has launched a powerful attack on 'absurd' British Islamists who have nurtured a false 'sense of grievance' that they are being oppressed by Britain and the United States. In his most outspoken remarks on Islamists, the former Prime Minister warns that Britain is in danger of losing the battle against terrorists unless mainstream society confronts the threat. Blair's remarks, in which he also attacks some civil liberty campaigners as 'loopy loo', were made in a Channel 4 documentary recorded last Tuesday on the eve of his departure from Downing Street. 'The idea that as a Muslim in this country that you don't have the freedom to express your religion or your views, I mean you've got far more freedom in this country than you do in most Muslim countries,' Blair told Observer columnist Will Hutton, who presents the documentary. 'The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."'



Numerous cartoons recently published in the Arab press dealt with the Hamas takeover of Gaza: Some of the cartoons condemned the brutal murders perpetrated by Hamas, implied that they have led the movement, as well as the Palestinian cause, to a dead end, and presented the fighting among the Palestinians as shocking and pointless. Others presented the civil war as the result of an American-Israeli plot carried out with the collaboration of Fatah. And one cartoon even depicted Gaza as an Iranian nuclear outpost. In the cartoon above the newspaper headline says "The Internal Palestinian Conflict." The Jew holding the paper is laughing "ha ha ha." [Note that the cartoonist seems to have a low opinion of Arab IQ. He identifies the orthodox Jew by his big hat, big coat, big nose and hair ringlets but is still not sure his readers will get the message so he adds a star of David on the hat!]

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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

Conservative Process Leads To Conservative Results

A classically conservative statement excerpted from Democracy Project below. See the original for links

Conservatism is not about transitory results or means. Conservatism is about process. As I wrote yesterday, conservatism requires that we "move forward based on solid evidence, means, plans, purpose, and competence." When one has that process, the results that merit survival will survive. That is essentially conservative governance. It entails more the avoidance of poor choices than, even, the making of good ones. It recognizes that grand designs are most often not so grand, as they fail to encompass the very diversity of legitimate means and ends of a democratic and free society, particularly one so large and vibrant as ours, and instead stifle individuals' circumstances and, thus, the adaptation and ingenuity upon which continued personal and national success depends.

Mark is correct to point at the Internet as an embodiment of that civic discussion, serving to remind otherwise imperious legislators. Ed is correct to bemoan the extent of intrusion into our daily affairs by such legislators and seek their reversal. Mark and Ed are invaluable resources in those struggles. Both, however, miss that it is process that matters more than results. Rich Lowry, of National Review, reminds us that, "Now, there is really no such thing as an "inside game" anymore, since bloggers make sure it gets "outside." Both the right and the left will take advantage of this, for good and ill policy ends. But it's clearly an enhancement of democracy."

Conservatives, and America, can survive the openness of democracy, and rise with it even when disagreements or disappointments occur. We can't survive the absence of democracy, which rests upon and is bereft without an informed and active citizenry and an open process. This past week was a triumph for democratic process, which is what is most beneficial to conservatives and which we should care most about. The results may not always be consistent with a conservative's desires, but they will have been arrived at in a conservative way -- meaning respectful of true diversity as the well-spring of progress, compared to the stultification, and in totalitarian extremes the bloody repression, from imposition of self-serving and grand designs.

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

ELSEWHERE

Bush is shrinking the deficit too fast: "Darn you, George Bush. Bloomberg reported that the federal budget deficit is shrinking so fast that there is a shortage of government debt: "That's because the unexpected surge in tax receipts may pare the budget deficit by 39 percent to $150 billion this fiscal year, causing a relative scarcity of four-week, three-month and six-month bills. The result is the biggest bull market for Treasury bills since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 drove investors to the safety of the securities. This is driving down the interest that taxpayers have to pay, Bloomberg reported"

More Ted Kennedy dishonesty: "Mr. Kennedy is responsible for our immigration mess more than any other human being on the planet. But last night he was on ABC News complaining that the borders are porous! That is unmitigated gall. Who has been the most powerful Senator on immigration for four decades? Who has left the door open, with malice aforethought, to change American democraphics? Who has surely blocked enforcement more than anyone else? For Ted Kennedy to spin the defeat of the Senate immigration bill as a defeat for border enforcement shows the same lack of conscience that we saw displayed in the case of Mary Jo Kopechne, so many years ago. It is high time for the people of Massachussetts to throw out Kerry and Kennedy, and start from scratch. They can't possibly do any worse. With leaders like this, it is no wonder the Democrat Party has adopted American defeat in the war on terror as its overriding foreign policy goal."

The peasants are revolting: "The liberal media cannot believe that the immigration bill was defeated by people concerned about little things like mass violations of our sovereignty and rewarding law-breakers. It just has to be racism on the part of the unwashed... Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light, with one of the best eyes for photography on the web, caught the Los Angeles Times in full sneer mode a couple of days ago. Today, he caught the Washington Post blaming small town Americans from places "where men take their sons deer hunting and moms call out to one another in the supermarket in cheerful Southern drawls... [and] the highways leading out of the city have been colonized by the usual sprawl of Home Depot, PetSmart and OfficeMax big-box stores...." Once again, liberals who fashion themselves good people for their concern over the little guy can't help displaying their disdain for those who shop at Wal-Mart."

Leftist denial of reality in full spate: "When he was in office and responsible for protecting us, Al Gore was absent from the war on terror. As Vice President, he was part of an administration that failed to respond to the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993; that cut and ran when al-Qaeda ambushed US Army Rangers in Mogadishu; that called for regime change in Iraq when Saddam expelled the UN weapons inspectors but then failed to remove Saddam or to get him to allow the UN inspectors back in; that failed to respond to the murder of US troops in Saudi Arabia or the attack on an American warship in Yemen; that reacted to the blowing up two US embassies in Africa by firing missiles at an aspirin factory in the Sudan and empty tents in Afghanistan; that refused to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden when it had a dozen chances to do so; and that did not put in place simple airport security measures, its own task force recommended, that would have prevented 9/11.... Yet, it is characteristic of Gore's myopic arrogance that he would wag his finger at the Bush administration for its failure to anticipate the 9/11 attack."

Church destroyed in Gaza, Gaza's Christians fear for their lives: "Christians living in Gaza City on Monday appealed to the international community to protect them against increased attacks by Muslim extremists. Many Christians said they were prepared to leave the Gaza Strip as soon as the border crossings are reopened. The appeal came following a series of attacks on a Christian school and church in Gaza City over the past few days. Father Manuel Musalam, leader of the small Latin community in the Gaza Strip, said masked gunmen torched and looted the Rosary Sisters School and the Latin Church. "The masked gunmen used rocket-propelled grenades to storm the main entrances of the school and church," he said. "Then they destroyed almost everything inside, including the Cross, the Holy Book, computers and other equipment." Musalam expressed outrage over the burning of copies of the Bible, noting that the gunmen destroyed all the Crosses inside the church and school. "Those who did these awful things have no respect for Christian-Muslim relations," he said."

Note from a Marine in Iraq: "As I'm sure most of you are aware, a planned dual car bomb attack was foiled in the early morning hours (EST) in downtown London. I'm watching FoxNews/SkyNews on AFN here and it's horrible to watch. Two car bombs (here in Iraq we call them "suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices" or SVBIEDs... pronounced "ess-vee-bid") in different blocks of the city. They were only foiled by the vigilance of an ambulance crew and alert police. God bless those who turned up on-scene here and defused the bomb and saved possibly scores or hundreds of innocent lives. The parallels between the attempted attack in London and SVBIED attacks in Iraq are striking. Parking a vehicle loaded with explosives near crowded civilian population areas, not to achieve a tactical victory but solely to strike fear into the hearts of the innocent. It happens frequently and its biggest effect is to highlight the inhumanity of these monsters who deliberately and repeatedly target people just trying to go about their daily lives. One might hope this is the last attack we'll see like this -- anywhere -- but it is doubtful."

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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 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".

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