A real father. Is this the evil Fascist the Left obsess about?

Unlike Hillary's interviews, this did not have to be scripted



US first daughter Jenna Bush appeared nervous when Ellen DeGeneres asked her to call her parents during a taping of DeGeneres's talk show on Tuesday. The show aired on Wednesday. "They're going to kill me," the 26-year-old daughter of President George Bush told DeGeneres. "I'm going to be in so much trouble."

All was well, though, when she reached her parents on speakerphone. "I'm just sitting here with daddy," Laura Bush told her daughter, to which DeGeneres chimed in: "Oh hey! It's Ellen. I wanted to say hi to daddy." So the president got on the line: "How's my little girl doing?"

"Oh, she's great. She's scared she's going to get in trouble because I just said, 'Is it easy to just pick up the phone and call your dad anytime'?" DeGeneres said. "And now she's scared she's not going to get any Christmas presents."

Bush said he was not angry. "I do want to say Merry Christmas to your audience and I want to tell my little girl I love her," the president said. "I love you too, Dad," Jenna responded.

Source

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Meet the neo-cons' neo-con

Occasionally you recognise that you are in the presence of human greatness. I had that experience this week in Jerusalem when I went to interview Natan Sharansky. Sharansky was one of the most famous dissidents and refuseniks of the Soviet Union. Refuseniks were Russian Jews who wanted to live as Jews and migrate to Israel. They were prevented from doing either of these things by the harsh, totalitarian Soviet system.

Sharansky spent nearly 10 years in Soviet prisons and labour camps, frequently on hunger strike, always defiant, insanely brave. Many people across the world campaigned for the refuseniks' freedom and, of course, Americans were critical. But Australians also played a distinguished role in this campaign, especially Bob Hawke and Jewish leader Isi Leibler. Then, on one incredible day in 1986, Sharansky went from a KGB prison in the morning to a plane to Germany in the afternoon, then on another plane to Jerusalem in the evening. "I went straight from hell to paradise," he recalls. "The rulers of Iran can only imagine such a journey. I went from hatred to love, from the darkness of prison to the bright sun. Of course, if you go straight to heaven, you can only go down from there. I still live in paradise, but paradise needs a few repairs."

He seems a man very much at ease in his own skin. He smiles frequently. A satirical cartoon of himself adorns one wall, across from a picture of another great Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov. I seek enlightenment from Sharansky on two questions: why does Israel get such a bad press in the West, far worse than it deserves, and can democracy work in Arab societies? Sharansky agrees that Israel consistently gets a far worse press than it deserves. He accepts that there are many reasons for this, from the power, money and influence that flow from Arab oil to the recrudescent anti-Semitism of recent years.

But he also nominates, especially in the case of European hostility to Israel, a particular ideological factor. He says: "Israel is at the centre of the struggle between the totalitarian and the ideological, between the fundamentalist and the unfaithful. It is an assertive nation-state at a time when the leading ideology in Europe is post-nationalism and multiculturalism, especially in respect of the EU, and building post-state institutions. So the Europeans see Israel as nationalist and the last outpost of colonialism.

"But Europe now is in a much more difficult situation ideologically than Israel. They tried to build their new society only on human rights. They believe the nation-state has human rights but no commitment to identity. They find a minority (part of the Muslim population) which has a strong identity and no commitment to human rights. "Europeans find themselves helpless in the face of this and I believe that Europe will have to go back to national identity. "Democracy must have a connection with identity. There must be a national, democratic state. Israel can only survive in this region as a democratic, Jewish state. This is anathema to Europe."

The same syndrome of disdain for religion and civic-national identity informs much European hostility to the US as well, Sharansky believes. Because the French Revolution was against religion, Europeans have mistakenly come to the view that religion is the enemy of democracy. But the US and Israel were both founded with strong religious identities and have become thriving democracies. "America is a country tolerant to both faith and identity," Sharansky says. "Muslims come to America and accept the rules of democracy. They come to Europe and don't accept the rules of democracy because it was never demanded of them."

More here

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Unrealistic "realists": "Washington pundits have an odd way of ridiculing the Bush administration's grandiose plans for remaking Iraq, while at the same time embracing ambitious designs for bringing peace to the Holy Land. Hence many Middle East hands urge the United States to take a cautiously realistic approach to achieving ethnic and religious reconciliation in Mesopotamia. But these same Realpoliticos become born-again idealists in insisting that American leaders could and should help resolve the conflict between Arabs and Jews. As in Iraq, these peoples have been fighting since the British invaded in World War I. But, hey, Americans needs to show some faith to get the peace process moving ahead, right?"

A religious country: "An overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God and signicant numbers also think that UFOs, the devil and ghosts exist, a new poll shows. The survey by Harris Online showed 82 per cent of adult Americans believed in God and a slightly smaller percentage - 79 per cent - believed in miracles. More than 70 per cent of the 2455 adults surveyed between November 7 and 13 said they believed in heaven and angels, while more than six in 10 said they believed in hell and the devil."

MPs say BBC should be more accountable: "The BBC is not properly accountable and should be open to investigation by the Auditor General, an investigation by the Commons Public Accounts Committee has concluded. The successor to Sir John Bourn, guardian of the public purse at the National Audit Office, who leaves his post next month, should be given access to the BBC’s accounts, MPs said. The report into the BBC’s risk management concluded: “There is still no satisfactory regime under which the BBC is accountable to Parliament for its value for money.” It should also do more to protect employees working in hostile environments, the report said, citing the Gaza abduction of its correspondent Alan Johnston. A survey of BBC staff with risk management responsibilities found that 29 per cent had never looked at the BBC’s guidance."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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

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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 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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Metcalf on Saletan and black IQ

Vitriolic and anti-conservative cultural commentator Stephen Metcalf has apparently put a bit of work into his recent article in Slate in which he attempts to rebut Saletan's article on IQ research. Metcalf actually appears to have read stuff on the subject! Predictably for a Leftist, though, most of what he says is ad hominem -- attempted character assassination of those with whom he disagrees. Vdare has however highlighted the shallowness of Metcalf's claims in that department rather well so I will just focus on a few of the substantive points that Metcalf raises.

I should perhaps point out initially, however, that I have never received one cent from the Pioneer Fund nor do I know anything about it. For all I know it is just a Leftist boogeyman. They certainly seem to treat it that way. They claim that any association with the Pioneer Fund renders anyone outside the pale of discourse. But putting those they disagree with outside the pale of discourse is a common Leftist strategy, of course. It sure beats having to deal with inconvenient facts and arguments! My interest in this debate springs from the fact that I am a psychometrician (specialist in the measurement of psychological variables) by trade. See here.

I think it is about time that I pointed out the obvious about the "seed" analogy to black/white IQ differences. Metcalf puts it as follows:

Imagine two wheat fields. Now imagine two genetically identical sets of seeds. (The analogy was first made famous by the Harvard evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin.) Now imagine each field is planted with these two identical seed stocks. Field No. 1 is given the best possible inputs: sunshine intensity, rain, soil nitrates, etc. Field No. 2 is given much less of all of the above. Within each field, inputs are kept uniform. Inevitably, the first field grows a healthier supply of grain than the second. But here is the rub: Within each field, the variation in outcomes is entirely hereditary. Between the two fields, the variation in outcomes in entirely environmental.

The argument simply assumes what it has to prove. It assumes that the two lots of seeds (genetic inheritance) are identical to start with. So the argument comes back immediately to the problem of sorting out whether black and white IQ is genetically different. And it is precisely that question which has been the subject of decades of research. Environmental differences do have SOME effect on IQ so it is perfectly possible that the UNDERLYING differences between blacks and whites are nil. But there is NOTHING that has ever been found which suggests that -- only a lot of wishful thinking. I am not for a minute going to try to summarize the research concerned but Gottfredson and Malloy are good starting points for those who want to delve further.

Much of the research, however, has focused on examining alternative explanations for the perennial black disadvantage. Is it due to poor nutrition or biased tests, for instance? But no matter what you allow for, a substantial gap remains.

One might also note that if the environment were the cause of racial differences in IQ then we would expect impoverished and poorly nourished Chinese living in hovels to score lower on IQ tests than blacks. The reverse is of course true. The Chinese score about the same as whites, in fact. Also: East Asian immigrants to America labour under much greater disadvantages than do blacks -- not speaking English well, for a start -- but they do well generally and their children fill the universities (over 40% of students at the University of California are Asian). Environment doesn't seem to hold Asians back. How come blacks do not make such a huge leap when given the opportunity? Simple answer: Blacks don't have the genetic endowment but the Chinese do. Even if we argue that America's Chinese immigrants have a better genetic endowment than other Chinese, the argument still is in terms of the genetic given rather than in terms of the environment.

And the "No child left behind" initiative has put huge pressure on schools to lift black educational attainment -- with effectively zero results. We read in fact, "The disparity between blacks' and whites' SAT scores is larger now than it was 10 years ago". NOTHING can bring average black scores up to average white scores. If Metcalf knows a way he will make a fortune. The Chinese advantage is sometimes attributed to a superior Chinese culture. Maybe Metcalf can tell us how to give blacks a Chinese-style culture! It's quite inconceivable, isn't it? Chinese culture reflects what Chinese are to begin with (See Kagan's research) and the same is true for black culture. Why else would blacks in all environments worldwide be the same high-violence, high-criminality, low achieving group that they are in America?

That leads me to two of Metcalf's assertions: "Since the late '60s-i.e., since the heyday of civil rights and the inception of such "compensatory education" programs as Head Start-blacks have made huge gains vis-.-vis whites on a wide range of standardized tests. Evidence? Metcalf gives none. I think that must be one bit that he did not look up. He is just winging it on the basis of what they say in his own little social bubble. Head Start has in fact made just about no discernible difference to anything. See also here. That Congress continues to fund Head Start rather proves what Ronald Reagan said -- that a government program is the nearest thing to everlasting life. It may be worth noting that a similar program in Britain has also failed to achieve anything.

Metcalf also says: "Absent a national random sample for IQ data and race, researchers have looked at a range of tests that highly correlate with IQ, and extrapolated from them that the black-white IQ gap has likely been cut by a third." References? Metcalf gives none. Charles Murray, however, has noted that the black/white IQ score gap did close somewhat during the 20th century, but that the data show that the narrowing stalled sometime in the 1970s.

Finally Metcalf points to the big study of black/white IQ by the corporate body of America's psychologists, the American Psychological Association. The report of course acknowledges the 15 point IQ disadvadvantage usually found for blacks but goes on to say that the question is still not settled. In a way reminiscent of the way Greenies rely on the heavily politicised IPCC as authority for their belief in global warming, Metcalf uses the APA conclusion as authority for his belief that the question is not settled. But the APA is as politicized as the IPCC. It is heavily Left-leaning. So it is their evidence you have to look at, not their opinions, and the evidence is very consistent in showing a black white IQ gap no matter what.

And the APA report is not even a comprehensive survey of the literature. You will find no mention of him in the APA bibliography but Tanser (1939), for instance, found a large black/white IQ gap even though the children in his study had attended the same schools since 1890! It is particularly regrettable that the APA slighted older studies in its report as the great black cultural and family breakdown since the 60s does superficially look like a reasonable cause for black intellectual failure. Studies prior to the 60s, however, show much the same result as more recent studies. Whether the environment is permissive or vigilant, or anything else, that IQ gap never budges significantly. It is hard-wired.

The refusal of the APA to draw conclusions in their report on the grounds that the evidence is not yet good enough is a good example of what is called "intellectual dishonesty" -- judging a matter not on the balance of the evidence for and against it but rather on whether or not the conclusions suit the speaker. If the conclusions don't suit, NO evidence will ever be good enough, of course. I commented on that dishonesty in discussions about IQ long ago

I could go on and if no-one else takes up the cudgels maybe I will. There is, for a start, a lot more fun to be had from the Eyferth study. In his comments on both the Eyferth study and the Minnesota adoption study, Metcalf seems to assume what he is trying to disprove!

References:
Eyferth, K. (1961). Leistungenverchiedener Gruppen von Besatzungskindern im Hamburg Wechsler Intelligenztest fuer Kinder (HAWIK). Archiv fuer die gesamte Psychologie, 1 13, 222 241.
Tanser, H. A. 1939. The Settlement of Negroes in Kent County, Ontario. Chatham, Ontario: Shephard Publishing Co.

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The CIA's flip-flop on Iran is hardly reassuring: "In his press conference yesterday, President Bush went out of his way to praise the "good work" of the intelligence community, whose latest National Intelligence Estimate claims the mullahs of Iran abandoned their nuclear weapons program in 2003. "This is heartening news," Mr. Bush said. "To me, it's a way for us to rally our partners." We wish we could be as sanguine, both about the quality of U.S. intelligence and its implications for U.S. diplomacy. For years, senior Administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, have stressed to us how little the government knows about what goes on inside Iran. In 2005, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report underscored that "Across the board, the Intelligence Community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors." And as our liberal friends used to remind us, you can never trust the CIA. (Only later did they figure out the agency was usually on their side.)" [VDH also has an interesting comment on the alleged Iranian non-bomb]

Israel's defense minister disputes U.S. assessment on Iran: "Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to develop a nuclear weapon, Israel's defense minister said Tuesday, disputing a U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran has halted its program. "It's apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program for a time. But in our opinion, since then it has apparently continued that program," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio".

Expensive to get the BBC to stop lying: "Training to remind staff about the importance of telling viewers the truth will cost the BBC more than œ1 million in staff time and expenses. About 17,000 BBC staff have to attend a two-hour course, in which employees are invited to discuss where the line should be drawn between artifice and deception in the wake of a series of scandals. Vin Ray, the director of the BBC's college of journalism, said that the direct cost of the course would be "a maximum of 500,000 pounds", but the cost of taking each employee out for a half day more than doubled that figure."

Democrat candidates asked "Why do Muslims hate us?" "The Democrats debated on NPR today, and were asked "Why do Muslims hate us?" If there's a more tiresome question that has arisen from the ashes of 9-11, I'm not aware of it. "Where's my aircraft carrier?" was, essentially, the vast majority of Americans' reaction after 9-11, liberal and conservative alike, but the rubber band has snapped the 9-10 left back to its former, pacifist, blame-America-first self. That NPR question arises from that attitude that all the hate directed at us must somehow be all our fault, and not motivated by anything other than our own actions. The word you may be looking for to describe that attitude is "narcissism." Liberals corner the market on that stuff. And several of the Democrat candidates betrayed their worst, most liberal, knee-jerk blame America first instincts."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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

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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 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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An ungrateful grumble

Ever since Google started including blogs in its image searches it has become quite hard to figure out how many people are actually reading a blog. Image searches show up as hits but the chance of someone stopping to read a blog when they are only looking for pictures would have to be low. But, still, as they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity. One thing that quite amuses me is the most looked-at picture from this blog. It is from a Christmas day post. See below:



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Are Lefties more mentally ill? They claim to be...

Post below excerpted from Dr. Joy Bliss. See the original for links

What are we to make of this report from Gallup?

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

Although I have no idea about whether a self-report of "mental health" has any validity at all, I would speculate that Republicans, statistically, with the Conservative and Libertarian flavorings of many Republicans, may tend to be more optimistic, hopeful, self-reliant, and to feel less needy and to feel less deprived. In other words, happier and probably better-adjusted people. That is pure speculation, but it matches my personal experience that Lefies tend to be more bitter and dissatisfied - also with no relationship to income, education, church-going or age.

Also, as I have mentioned in the past, I see a difference in the "transference" towards government between Conservatives and others. I think that those who are more prone to unconscious parental transferences are more likely to turn to, rely upon, and to trust or hope to trust, the State. Am eagerness for childlike transferences in adulthood is not a predictor of emotional well-being.

Conservative-Libertarian types like me, I think, tend to view the people involved in politics and the State as being at least if not more venal, self-serving, corrupt, egotistical, foolish and ineffective as other areas of human endeavor like business, academia, non-profits, etc. I like to think that this view has been arrived at through a lifetime of experience, a lifetime's interest in history and public affairs, and repeated (very educational) disappointments and disillusionments during my foolishly naive, idealistic, Liberal youth. Experience and psychoanalytic training powerfully introduced me to the dark side of human nature - against my will.

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Some fresh updates here in my never-ending "war" with the vastly incompetent Telstra, Australia's major telecommunications provider. It's hard to believe but I do now have yet another blog -- one solely devoted to Telstra and Bigpond, their internet provider. A big pond with a small mind would be an accurate description.

A small meditation on the Anglosphere: The Anglosphere has not one but two heavily influential members, the USA and the UK, though the influence of the UK is not what it used to be. Something that is easily overlooked however is that there is a third important Anglospheric aggregation. If one were to combine the populations of Australia and Canada, one would come up with 53 million people -- which is pretty comparable to the population of the major nations of Europe: France, Spain, England, Italy, Poland etc. That is not of course remotely to say that Australians and Canadians are the same. Australia is as conservative as Canada is "liberal". But there is great diversity within the nations of Europe too. It is even possible that Canadians and Australians are more homogeneous than are Germans, Spaniards and the French. And I won't say a word about the North/South hatred in Italy. My own trips to Canada were certainly most congenial.

Brits buy Boeing: "Another giant C17 Globemaster air transport has been bought by the Ministry of Defence from Boeing for 130 million pounds, increasing the fleet of C17s to six at a cost of 780 million. The A400M transport aircraft being built by Airbus for the RAF has suffered delays, and the first deliveries are not due until 2010."

Leftists get it right for once: "Liberal activists plan to begin airing a television ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa this week, the first non-Republican negative ad aimed at a Democratic presidential candidate. The group, Democratic Courage, has accused Clinton of making policy decisions on the basis of polls, not convictions."

Beijing backs new sanctions against Iran: "China has for the first time indicated clear support for a new package of United Nations sanctions against Iran, breaking months of deadlock inside the UN security council over how to respond to Tehran's nuclear programme. In a move that will boost expectations in western capitals that a new UN sanctions resolution could be agreed within weeks, Beijing signalled over the weekend that it was prepared to back measures that will hit Iran's banking and business sector, while also prohibiting more senior Iranians from travelling abroad."

The source of Leftist hate: "Leftists today hate freedom and democracy because those ideas have created the environment for success. Assistant Village Idiot recently noted in a comment that Arabs don't hate us because we have succeeded, but rather, because they have failed. The same is true for the leftists- their burning hatred of democracy stems from their failure to create a single instance of a functioning society that isn't a least a generation behind our own. Not even the redistribution of wealth can make up for the values and freedom that create an environment that allows for the creation of wealth."

Leftist hate is psychopathic: "This leads us to an important quesion: what does the psychopath REALLY get from their victims? It's easy to see what they are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what the psychopath is after. Without wandering too far afield into spiritual speculations - a problem Cleckley also faced - we can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath ENJOYS making others suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

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

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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 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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Sick France

Yesterday evening, three young people died in the suburbs to the north of Paris. Mouhsin (15) and Lakamy (16), two immigrant youths, were killed in Villiers-le-Bel when their motorcycle, which is said to have been stolen, collided at high speed with a police vehicle. The two youths, who were not wearing compulsory crash helmets, died on the spot. A few hours later, Anne-Lorraine (23), a young journalist, was stabbed to death on a suburban train near Creil, whilst resisting a man who was trying to rape her. The man had already been convicted for violent sexual assault in 1996. The news of the deaths of Mouhsin and Lakamy became world news, dominating today's media in France and abroad. Anne-Lorraine's death is a mere footnote, a "faits divers" in France, a non-event abroad.

After Mouhsin's and Lakamy's deaths their friends and relatives went on a rampage. They destroyed two police stations and a petrol station, torched a few dozen cars, looted stores and injured at least 25 police officers (two of them seriously) and one fireman. A spokesman of the French police union said today that the officers had been shot at by youths with firearms. According to Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the two dead youths, the eruption of violence was not what it seemed. "This is not violence," Omar told the French press agency AFP, "but just anger that needs to be expressed".

The French authorities fear that the immigrant youths in the Paris suburbs will feel a need to express another round of anger tonight. The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, is currently in China. His Interior Minister, MichŠle Alliot-Marie is in charge. She has "urged all sides to act responsibly" and has promised a full inquiry. The "all sides" refers to the angry youths on the one hand and the police on the other hand. The French judicial authorities are conducting a manslaughter investigation against the officers in the police car. According to the friends and relatives of Mouhsin and Lakamy, the officers fled from the scene of the accident, without caring for the two dead boys and without waiting for the friends and relatives to show up.

A police chief who arrived on the scene was, however, beaten up and suffered serious facial trauma. Four police cars that arrived shortly afterwards, also fled when they were attacked, leaving the entire neighbourhood under the control of the youth gangs.

More here

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Saletan's recent article in Slate summarizing the evidence for the reality and heritability of IQ was something of a dambusting event in the mainstream media. The general public previously had had few opportunities to hear what the evidence was. In the name of political correctness, IQ is one of the most lied-about phenomena of the age. The last thing anyone hears is the evidence. Saletan did of course come under heavy attack for his "immoral" article and I have commented myself on some of that criticism (e.g. here) but for a really comprehensive reply to the critics, see an article by Linda Gottfredson. Although Gottfredson and I are both psychometricians, she specializes in ability measurement while I do not. So you get a very throrough and detailed -- but still readable -- account of the matter from her. Curious how Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" but suddenly decide that an argument is "immoral" when the facts of the matter don't suit them.

Chavez defeated over reform vote: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has narrowly lost a referendum on controversial constitutional changes. Voters rejected the raft of reforms by a margin of 51% to 49%, the chief of the National Electoral Council said. Mr Chavez described the defeat as a "photo finish", and urged followers not to turn it into a point of conflict. Correspondents say the opposition could barely hide their delight and that the victory will put a brake on Mr Chavez's self-styled "Socialist revolution". Celebrations by the opposition began almost immediately in the capital, Caracas, with activists cheering, beeping car horns and waving flags."

Status symbol politics: "A pair of intellectuals, Joel Kotkin and Fred Siegel, came up with a phrase that is more fits for today's malaise on the left than limousine liberals. Writing in the Los Angeles Times today, the wrote of "gentry liberalism." Politics as a status symbol. They don't share the old concerns about the working man. "Rather, gentry liberalism reflects the interests and values of the affluent winners in the era of globalization and the beneficiaries of the `financialization' of the economy. Its strongholds are the tony neighborhoods and luxurious suburbs in and around New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and West Los Angeles," Kotkin and Siegel noted. They point out that for example the poorest 2 congressional districts in Iowa are safe Republican seats; the three richest, Democratic."

More Democrat elitism: "So, the Democratic Party - the party of the working class - is broadcasting tonight's debate from an elitist network run by billionaire Mark Cuban that requires expensive equipment and high monthly charges to access. What's up with that? Is this a signal that despite the egalitarian rhetoric, that they're actually the party of the rich and famous? Imagine the outcry if the GOP broadcast its debate from fancy network that ordinary people couldn't access. There'd be cries that the Republicans were in a "gated community." Well I'd say this is a RATHER gated community! And I'm feeling locked out by their lack of inclusiveness."

America Cheap on `Humanitarian Aid'?: "So, we are the "ugly American," we're always told. But to whom do they come running when they need help? Italy, France, maybe? Hardly. Still, they love to beat up on the US, and unfortunately our MSM is only too happy to act the echo chamber for anti-Americanism. This time it is Time Magazine that gleefully adds to the din of opprobrium at America with theirs titled, "US Ranked Low in Humanitarian Aid," wherein, crook and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has decided that we are cheapskates where it concerns so-called "humanitarian aid" to foreign countries. Yes, after all we've done, after all we do around the world in their time of need, Annan and his UN cronies have the gall to call us cheap"

Nasty EU: "People who rely on motorised scooters to help to cope with disabilities are to be hit with a 300 pound tax, after an EU ruling that they should be categorised along with "leisure vehicles". The electric power-driven wheelchairs with flexible handlebars are used by people with severe mobility difficulties, such as disabled ex-servicemen. They are now taxed in the same class as snowmobiles, jet skis and racing cars. A personal appeal has been made to Gordon Brown to intervene, but there has been no response from Downing Street, according to Jim Dooley, who runs the Mobility Bureau that provides motorised wheelchairs and scooters for hundreds of Service veterans. Under the EU ruling the scooters are now subject to a 300 pound import tax on top of their 2,000 pound cost. The decision by the EU was made in 2001 but it was not properly implemented by Revenue & Customs until this year, after a complaint from Belgium that the required 10 per cent import tax was not being enforced by Britain."

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

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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 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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More Google gaggle

I recently got an email from Google saying that their automatic spam detectors had detected my Marx blog as a spam blog and had blocked it from further postings. They also said that they intended to delete the blog within 20 days if I did not click a certain link. I clicked the link twice and twice I got a "task failure" response. A bit pesky! Anyway, I knew enough about the system to go to the blog itself and attempt to post something. I then got a link which enabled me to request removal of the block and the block was in fact removed a couple of days after that.

The thing that gets me, though, is why their software suddenly detected my blog after it had been up since 2004. And I had posted nothing on it since July so it was not fresh posts that they were monitoring. And it cannot have been the content of the blog that attracted automatic attention. The blog consists almost wholly of quotes from old Karl. Any algorithm that flagged that sort of content would have flagged half the Leftist blogs in the blogosphere!

The quotes from old Karl on the blog are however ones that Leftists would generally hate you to know about (showing what a racist he was, for instance). So I can only conclude that there was no automatic detection at all. It seems to me that the detection was by a Google employee who hoped to close down anything anti-Leftist. That's not at all unexpected from Google. Sites that quote the bad bits in the Koran get a hard time from Google on occasions. Google can be quite evil sometimes.

And another odd thing is that a REAL spam blog -- such as this one -- Google will not touch, despite repeated requests from me to blogger.com that they delete it. It uses one of my old addresses.

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Recently up on ICJS

The fear Factor
Anti-Semitism and the Left that Doesn't Learn
Shame on `Ha-Aretz'
LETTER TO THE WORLD
Academia, the Left, and Islamo-Fascism
We came so close to World War Three that day

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ELSEWHERE

Did you remain calm too?: "An absurd "news" story in the AP suggests that that organization wants to be numbered among the good dogs, not the bad dogs: "Clinton calm in hostage crisis. When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis. The image, broadcast just as the network news began, conveyed the message a thousand town hall meetings and campaign commercials strive for - namely, that the Democratic presidential contender can face disorder in a most orderly manner". We don't know about you, but, difficult as it is, we always try to remain calm when drunks tape highway flares to their shirts five hundred miles from our house."

Even the L.A. Times calls CNN "The Corrupt News Network": "The United States is at war in the Middle East and Central Asia, the economy is writhing like a snake with a broken back, oil prices are relentlessly climbing toward $100 a barrel and an increasing number of Americans just can't afford to be sick with anything that won't be treated with aspirin and bed rest. So, when CNN brought the Republican presidential candidates together this week for what is loosely termed a "debate," what did the country get but a discussion of immigration, Biblical inerrancy and the propriety of flying the Confederate flag? In fact, this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate raises serious questions about whether CNN is ethically or professionally suitable to play the political role the Democratic and Republican parties recently have conceded it. When one considers CNN's performance, however, the adjectives that leap to mind are corrupt and incompetent."



What a pathetic admission of fraud: "The New Republic has, at last, retracted the Scott Thomas Beauchamp stories. It takes Franklin Foer fourteen long pages to do so, waffling and tapdancing the whole time: "When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories." He blames a lot of people, including Beauchamp's wife (does she still work there, one wonders). But in the end he has tried to shuffle blame away to no avail. How long until Foer "leaves to pursue other opportunities?"

Democrats: New Party of the Rich?: "Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts. In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats. He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats. "If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions," Mr. Franc said... Mr. Franc's study also showed that contrary to the Democrats' tendency to define Republicans as the party of the rich, "the vast majoritiy of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-class districts."

British navy 'would struggle to fight a war': "BRITAIN'S Royal Navy would struggle to fight a major war because of years of under-funding and cut-backs, according to a defence ministry study leaked to a newspaper. The Sunday Telegraph said the report was ordered by Defence Secretary Des Browne to counter claims from opposition political parties and the media about a lack of resources in Britain's military. But the study concluded: "The current material state of the fleet is not good: the Royal Navy would be challenged to mount a medium-scale operation in accordance with current policy against a technologically capable adversary." A "medium-scale operation" is similar to Britain's naval involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the newspaper said. The document comes at a time of concern about the capabilities of Britain's armed forces due to a perceived lack of adequate funding for equipment and so-called "overstretch" because of commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Five of the country's former top military commanders last month criticised Prime Minister Gordon Brown for failing to fund adequately the armed forces during his 10 years as finance minister under Tony Blair."

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

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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 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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The latest IQ debate

Apparently James Flynn and Charles Murray have had another public debate about black/white IQ. Flynn is the only Leftist who is capable of sustaining an informed debate on the matter (people like Gardner and Sternberg are off with the fairies). There was another debate between Flynn and Murray a year ago. The report of the latest debate is by John Derbyshire, who is as cautious and polite as ever.

It is really sad to hear that Flynn is still leaning heavily on the old Eyferth study. Flynn himself knows the problems of generalizing from that study and I point them out with my usual brutal frankness here. Flynn is a perfectly competent IQ researcher so why he clings to something so unhelpful to his case is quite a mystery. It must just be that curious Leftist inability to cope with the world as it is. In Flynn's case it is denial on a pathological scale.

If anything, the Eyferth study shows the central role of genetics in IQ. The study found that the children of black American GIs and white women had similar IQs to whites. But blacks at the time had to pass the same IQ test as whites to get into the army. So what the study shows is that what IQ tests test for is genetically transmitted! And it shows that it was genetically transmitted AMONG BLACKS! Nasty! Putting it another way, it shows that only a subset of blacks especially selected by IQ tests will get results similar to whites. Why Flynn thinks that study helps his case is rather a mystery. It does make him look like some sort of mental case. It might be worth noting that Leftists themselves are much less confident of their mental health than are conservatives.

The other study mentioned by Derb is the Ogbu ("Shaker Heights") study. Black researcher Ogbu found that the children of middle class blacks did not do as well at school as the children of middle class whites. Ogbu himself attributed that to an anti-intellectual culture among blacks and there is no doubt that such a culture exists. A more straightforward explanation of his findings, however, is that affirmative action makes it easy for blacks of only average ability to rise into the middle class whereas whites have to be above-average to get there. So the children simply reflect the genetic endowment of their parents.

There is also a statistical effect known as regression to the mean that could be at work in the Ogbu study. The effect says that parents who are exceptional within their group will IN GENERAL have less exceptional children. That regression to the mean effect has always been a bit of a teeth-grinder for me, in fact. It has always had me wondering about how bright my son would turn out to be. His recent achievements in mathematics have allayed such doubts rather convincingly, however.

Reference:
Eyferth, K. (1961). Leistungenverchiedener Gruppen von Besatzungskindern im Hamburg Wechsler Intelligenztest fuer Kinder (HAWIK). Archiv fuer die gesamte Psychologie, 1 13, 222 241.

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Bloodthirsty Muslims

Post below lifted from Taranto. See the original for links

The behavior the Associated Press describes in this report from Khartoum, Sudan, does not strike us as completely normal:

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad." In response to the demonstration, teacher Gillian Gibbons was moved from the women's prison near Khartoum to a secret location for her safety, her lawyer said. The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes. . . .

Meanwhile, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have had the following to say about Gibbons's plight: . It's a statement that is all the more powerful for its brevity.

Note that, courtesy of the wicked Bob McCarty, you can now buy "Mohammed the Bear" -- as below:



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ELSEWHERE

Pure bias at CNN: "Eason Jordan famously sullied the reputation of CNN by trading journalistic integrity for access in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. That wasn't his only transgression of course - things of this sort are rarely, if ever, single events. We should have remembered that lesson when it came out the other day that the CNN audience for the Democratic presidential debate was full of plants - Democratic Party activists and campaign workers. If we had remembered the lesson, we wouldn't have been surprised at the news that the CNN Republican presidential debate was also full of plants - and that these too were Democratic Party activists and campaign workers. This is shocking behavior on the part of a company that calls itself a "news" network. That this behavior is partisan is not really the point - the shocking part is that CNN has utterly dispensed with any pretense of journalistic integrity"

Arab apartheid at work: "This week the Bush Administration legitimized Arab anti-Semitism. In an effort to please the Saudis and their Arab brothers, the Bush administration agreed to physically separate the Jews from the Arabs at the Annapolis conference in a manner that aligns with the apartheid policies of the Arab world which prohibit Israelis from setting foot on Arab soil. Evident everywhere, the discrimination against Israel received its starkest expression at the main assembly of the Annapolis conference on Tuesday. There, in accordance with Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs."

Useless diplomacy: "But does modern diplomacy actually work? Careful consideration does not make for comfortable reading. Kosovo, Darfur, North Korea and Iran suggest that more progress might have been made had a little more stick been employed than endless talk. All the main aid agencies estimate about two million innocent civilians have been the victims of the Sudanese Islamic militias that have waged a genocidal campaign against the Christian and Animist tribes that predominantly inhabit the south of the country. There are 700,000 people in refugee camps in the Darfur province of western Sudan and eastern Chad and it is universally agreed that this is the one issue that demands immediate and effective attention. But four years after the start of a conflict former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called "little short of hell on earth", the killing and deprivation goes on"

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

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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 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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The Palestinian "Right of return" claim in context

During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.

What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.

The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.

The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.

The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.

Source

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Brookes News Update

Economics sank the Howard Government: It is very likely that an autopsy will reveal that the principal cause of the Liberal Government's demise was its grotesque mishandling of labour market reform
Recession, the dollar and the US economy: Once again the US economy is defying gravity as well as the pessimists. Predictions that the 'mortgage crisis' would bring down the economy have been confounded, much to the disappointment of the Democrats. So what is really happening?
Protectionism and " free-market absolutism": Once again Terry McCrann demonstrates why he should give up economic commentary. Unfortunately his incompetence in the field of economics is shared by other media commentators. People - including McCrann - need to learn that economic laws do exist, and ignoring them can be a wealth hazard
The Al Qaeda-Iran axis has been beaten in Iraq: Al Qaeda has been thrashed in Iraq and its Iranian alliance broken. It now seems that it might by the mad mullahs turn to get a beating
Truthless in Gaza: the al-Dura scandal exposed: Western journalists have a long record of collaboration with the Arab propaganda machine. It is Western journalists who suppress the truth about the Palestinian Authority. It was the same journalists who lied about the Iraq. This is the same scum that pushed the al-Dura affair that has now been exposed as a vicious anti-Semitic hoax
How global warming activism hurts the poor: The Religious Left - a group of socialists posing as Christians - is using the myth of man-made global warming to launch a thoroughly dishonest attack on the US economy. It's calling for more taxes, spending and greater control of the economy

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ELSEWHERE

Michael Gerson has a very strange view of conservatism. He is a retired GWB speechwriter and he has written a book called "Heroic Conservatism". There is a review of his book here which points out how off-beam it is. (H/T KBJ)

Bans on Muslim garb in Flanders: "Belgium's third largest city Ghent has banned its employees from wearing Muslim headscarves and other religious or political symbols. All city personnel, such as librarians and child care workers, will not be allowed to wear such garments or symbols if they come into contact with the public, a city spokesman said. Similar measures have been imposed in other European countries like France, where there are growing numbers of Muslim immigrants. The council voted 26 to 23 yesterday for the ban, with the Liberals, Christian Democrats and far-right Vlaams Belang in favour and the socialists and Greens against. "It is really not clear who counts as an employee in contact with the public, but we will have to carry it out," said the spokesman. The city has 4700 employees and is aware of two women wearing headscarves who work on counters dealing with the public. It was possible they might be offered work elsewhere, the spokesman said. The ban would not affect teachers and police officers. Ghent follows Belgium's second city Antwerp, which banned its workers from wearing headscarves and religious wear earlier this year. Antwerp has since said Muslim women in nurseries would be allowed to cover their heads with bandanas instead."

McCain opposes waterboarding: "It is a matter of controversy whether waterboarding constitutes torture. McCain's position is certainly a defensible one, but we find his instinct unsettling. There are going to be gray areas in the war on terror, and we'd rather have the man at the top be someone who, when faced with difficult questions, errs on the side of protecting American women and children from being murdered rather than protecting terrorists from being treated unpleasantly.

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

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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 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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A small personal note



Life is not all politics (Thank goodness) so I cannot resist a little note of satisfaction here about the results my son has just got in his university examinations for the final year of his B.Sc. All his subjects were in mathematics and he got 7s (the maximum possible mark) in all subjects. He will be heading for his doctorate in mathematics now. I am sure it is very evil of me to say so (according to Leftists anyway) but it is a great satisfaction to have a very bright son. His mother is over the moon too.

Neither of us have ever "pushed" him in any way. He is just a natural-born academic. I can't imagine where he gets that from! Since IQ is not genetically inherited (according to Leftists) it must just be a random event! I will be going to his graduation ceremony in a couple of weeks. I wonder if I should wear my doctoral robes?

We will be having a small family celebration of the occasion this Sunday -- at which I will of course be opening a bottle of Penfold's Grange.

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"HATE" PICTURES

I mentioned recently that the Religion of Peace site has been "filtered" by several internet censoring companies as "hate speech". To get the filtering lifted they had to remove certain pictures. Following are links to the censored pictures. One depicts Iranian punishment for adultery and the second Iranian punishment for homosexuality. See here and here

Reality must be censored! You are too immature to be told the truth. Our wise Leftist guardians know best!

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ELSEWHERE

Iran has built a new submarine, with which it is threatening the world. A picture of it below:



It looks about the same size as a World War I submarine. Details of the huffing and puffing here

Qualifications for top job?: "If a CEO of a fortune 500 company were to retire, would anyone seriously consider his wife to be an adequate replacement simply because she was married to him when he ran the company? What about a Super Bowl winning football team? What do you think the reaction of their fans would be if their coach's wife was being seriously discussed as his replacement? It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Yet, Hillary Clinton has practically been anointed by the press and the punditocracy as our next President, despite the fact that her run at the presidency is almost entirely based on being Bill Clinton's wife. By that, I mean that if Bill Clinton had meant the sweet nothings that he whispered in Monica Lewinsky's ear and he had divorced Hillary and married Monica, today Monica would be planning her Senate reelection campaign while Hillary would probably be working as a lobbyist for the Chinese toy manufacturers association."

Muslim paranoia: "Doctors treating an Indonesian man known as "Tree-man" - because of root-like growths on his hands and feet - have been slammed by the country's health minister. Indonesian health minister Siti Fadilah Supari has criticised the US doctor treating 35-year-old Dede for taking blood and tissue samples out of the country, the UK newspaper The Telegraph reported. Dede, who lives in a village to the south of Jakarta, is believed to be suffering from a rare strain of the Human Papilloma Virus. The US dermatologist treating the fisherman, the University of Maryland's Dr Anthony Gaspari, told The Telegraph that money had nothing to do with taking the samples out of Indonesia. "We did take samples, and the reason we did was to render a diagnosis," Dr Gaspari said. "We did it for humanitarian reasons, to help the patient." [More here]

More Muslim paranoia: "A British teacher in Sudan faces lashes and deportation as she languishes in police custody accused of insulting the Muslim prophet for allowing young children to name a teddy bear Mohammed. Sudanese police arrested Gillian Gibbons in Khartoum on Sunday after parents complained that she allowed six-year-old boys and girls at an expensive English school to name the bear, and so insult the Prophet Mohammed. The penalty carries the death sentence for Muslims in Sudan, where Islamic Sharia law is enforced in Khartoum and the north, but a non-Muslim could face a maximum penalty of lashes, prison, a fine and deportation if found guilty. A shaken Ms Gibbons, whom a British embassy spokesman said overnight had not yet been charged and who never intended that naming the bear would cause offence, was poised to spend a second night in police custody."

NYC Murders Drop, Democrats Call for Cop Pull Out : "As the number of murders in New York City reached a 40-year low, Democrats in Congress introduced a measure calling for an immediate and total pull-out of law enforcement personnel citing the high cost of fighting crime, the risk to those in uniform and "lack of political progress" in the city. In a typical Congressional maneuver, Democrats attached the redeployment measure as an amendment to an unrelated bill, sponsored by Republicans, which would provide senior citizens with a taxpayer-funded MediCare prescription golf benefit. Official statistics show the Big Apple's murder rate is now less than a quarter of what it was in 1990, but Democrats in Congress say the reduction has nothing to do with the actions of the New York City Police Department or the policies of the last two Republican mayors. "The dip in the murder rate is certainly temporary," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, "and it presents us with a window of opportunity to safely extract our brave men and women in uniform before the slaughter returns to normal levels." [With grateful thanks to the inimitable Scrappleface]

OK to abort kids but not to spank them? "Parents who spank their kids - even in their own homes - would be slapped by the long arm of the law under an Arlington nurse’s proposal to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to outlaw corporal punishment. Kathleen Wolf’s proposed legislation will be debated at a State House hearing tomorrow morning. If signed into law, parents would be prohibited from forcefully laying a hand on any child under age 18 unless it was to wrest them from danger, lest they be charged with abuse or neglect. Rep. Jay Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat, submitted the 61-year-old Wolf’s petition at her request, but is not taking a position for or against corporal punishment."

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

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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 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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Arrogant Afghan still ignoring the basic facts

Cosma Shalizi is a rather egotistical-sounding young man of apparently Afghan ancestry. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. On his blog, Three Toed Sloth, he has a long post demonstrating that a popular form of mathematical analysis generically called factor analysis cannot be used to demonstrate the existence of IQ (or 'g' as we psychometricans call it).

His criticisms are perfectly correct. Factor analysis cannot prove ANYTHING in fact. It is just a convenient but rather arbitrary way of summarizing a set of correlations. Factor analysis is such a weak technique that I myself in my more than 200 published academic papers have used it only rarely -- even though I normally present my research results in correlational form. Shalizi is also correct in saying that much of the research into IQ has used factor analysis as a way of summarizing findings. That the findings are not DEPENDANT on that descriptive technique is the point he appears to overlook.

The underlying finding for 100 years or more is that ability to solve one sort of puzzle generalizes strongly to the ability to solve other quite different sorts of puzzle. Problem solving ability is general, no matter how you choose to summarize that. And problem-solving ability is what IQ or 'g' measures.

OK. What I have just said above is an excerpt from what I said on October 25. I emailed Shalizi a link to the October 25 post and I hear that others did so too. He has completely ignored it. In fact he has a very inflated recent post here in which he uses his previously demonstrated "wisdom" to attack the article on IQ in Slate by Saletan. Shalizi is so sure of his wisdom that he can only ascribe discreditable motives to Saletan and his editors for publishing what they did. And other bloggers (e.g. here) have taken Shalizi and his conclusions at face value. They seem to think that Shalizi has made lots of large correlations between different types of ability tests suddenly disappear!

A matter I did not address in my previous post is heritability. Once again in this case, Shalizi uses perfectly legitimate concerns about the statistical techniques used in summarizing the findings to claim that no firm conclusions at all are possible. In so doing he is using an old Leftist dodge that I commented on many years ago. He sets the standard so high for what he will accept as satisfactory evidence that nobody could prove anything to him under such standards.

In most of science, maybe ALL of science, you cannot prove things beyond all shadow of doubt -- so someone who does not want to believe something will always be able to say that the evidence is still not good enough. But if we normally behaved that way we would disregard most science. But we don't. And that is because we get a lot further by accepting that science is an enterprise that deals in probabilities rather than in certainties. If you want certainty, you need to turn to either theology or mathematics and you might not even find it there.

So what Shalizi is doing is what is called "intellectual dishonesty" -- judging a matter not on the balance of the evidence for and against it but rather on whether or not the concusions suit him.

And again, when you look at the underlying evidence about heritability that the various statistical techniques try to summarize, there is a lot there that Shalizi just cannot make go away. The IQ scores of identical twins will almost always be strikingly similar, for instance -- much more similar than the IQs of normal brothers and sisters or even of fraternal twins -- and certainly much more similar than the scores of random strangers. The facts on the ground just don't go away, no matter how you choose to summarize them. And those facts show that IQ scores are clearly tied to your genetic inheritance.

Razib makes further points about Shalizi's shilly shallying. Razib shows that, if you look hard enough, Shalizi does in fact to a degree acknowledge the underlying realities in his writings. But you would never guess that from his dismissive conclusions.

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ELSEWHERE



Iraq involvement ending: "With the eyes of the world focused on the Middle East peace talks in Annapolis, Md., President Bush's war tsar, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, quietly announced that the American and Iraqi governments will start talks early next year to bring about an end to the allied occupation by the close of Mr. Bush's presidency. The negotiations will bring to a formal conclusion the U.N. Chapter 7 Security Council involvement in the occupation and administration of Iraq, and are expected to reduce the number of American troops to about 50,000 troops permanently stationed there but largely confined to barracks, from the current 164,000 forces on active duty. "The basic message here should be clear. Iraq is increasingly able to stand on its own. That's very good news. But it won't have to stand alone," General Lute yesterday told reporters in the White House."

More rocket attacks on Israel during Annapolis peace conference: "With the opening of the Annapolis Conference, Palestinian organizations in the Gaza Strip are sending a clear message to those gathering in Maryland. Tuesday morning the Popular Resistance Committees announced the beginning of operation "Autumn Storm" in which the organization plans to launch rocket attacks at Sderot and the western Negev during the conference. Meanwhile, fighting in the field has not ceased for a moment: in the last 24 hours at least eight Palestinians have died in a string of clashes with the IDF, including attempts to launch rockets and plant bombs near the border."



Muslim riots in Paris worsen: "French police beefed up security yesterday after riots continued for a second night in flashpoint Paris suburbs despite the launch of a judicial probe into the deaths of two teens, which sparked the violence. Police said yesterday 64 officers were injured in clashes with youths in and around the suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, adding that five were in critical condition. "One policeman was wounded in the shoulder after being hit by a high-calibre bullet," a security official said. The injuries followed rioting in Villiers-le-Bel and the nearby towns of Sarcelles and Garges-les-Gonesses, police said. Riots intensified in the town and neighbouring areas, police said yesterday. Six hours of violent clashes erupted in Villiers-le-Bel on Sunday after the teenagers' motorbike crashed into a police car. Yesterday, about 100 youths crouching behind bins in Villiers-le-Bel hurled objects at 160 riot police, who responded with rubber bullets and teargas. Police said young rioters in other towns were armed with baseball bats, Molotov cocktails and bottles of acid."

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.

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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 and here.

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