Conservatives are talking about the issues and Leftists are talking about personalities

So what else is new? Some thoughts below excerpted from Jonah. See the original for links

One thing we're learning from this election: These really are different parties. First, look at the Democrats. Listen to the discussion about their strategies: Hillary Clinton needs to win more blacks and men. Barack Obama must capture more Hispanics and peel away more white women. Both need to fight for "the youth."

Now look at the Republicans and how we talk about them. Can John McCain win over conservatives? Should he apologize for his support of amnesty for illegal immigrants or his opposition to tax cuts? Will Mike Huckabee ever make inroads with economic conservatives? Were Rudy Giuliani's positions on gays, guns and abortion too liberal?

See what I'm getting at? If substance were water, the Democratic campaign would be a desert. Oh, I know, Clinton's a wonk, and Obama's got enough policy papers to fill the library at Alexandria. So what? Both insist there are no major policy differences between them, except for the war and health care.

Their disagreements on these two issues actually show how little separates them. On Iraq, Obama insists that he was right first. But both of them promise to pull troops out as fast as possible. The only argument between them is how fast that might be. It's hardly a Churchillian conversation.

Health care? Their disagreements are interesting to a few wonks and activists - she wants to mandate universal coverage, he doesn't - but it's all absurdly academic. Anybody who knows anything about how Washington works understands that presidential campaign proposals are, at best, mere discussion documents when it comes time to craft actual legislation. Just as no plan long survives actual combat, no campaign baloney survives the congressional meat grinder unscathed. And that's it. The rest of their disagreement boils down to who is a more authentic agent of "change." ...

The Republican party is a mess, absolutely. Conservatives are sorting out what they believe, what heresies they can tolerate and what principles they will not bend on. At times this argument is loud, ugly and unfortunate. But you know what? At least it's an argument about something.

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ELSEWHERE



Obama hearts a mass murderer: "As Barack Obamania heads to the next major primary, the campaign is opening offices in the barrios of Texas. And Obamaniacs are using an icon of revolutionaries to help them: Che Guevara. Well, why not? Obama is a lot like Che. His parents were elitists and maybe leftist. Sure, why not? But it is a good thing he did not campaign like this in Florida. Some Cuban-Americans might take exception to having Obamaniacs idolizing a terrorist and confidante of the dictator Fidel Castro."

Vacuous Obama rhetoric: "I was watching on television last week both Barack Obama and his wife Michelle speak about the supposedly depression-like conditions in the US, and a people strapped by students loans, near hungry, and without hope of betterment. Neither said anything of substance, though both were engaging, effective speakers. Still, never has so much talent been invested in saying so little. I have developed a bad habit up in the Sierra (Huntington Lake is hardly Tahoe) of asking strangers about their playthings-big boats, jet-skis, jacked-up four wheel-drive trucks with chrome struts that require a ladder to enter, all-terrain vehicles, recreation vehicles, racing-type snow-mobiles, etc. Most of these toys cost several thousand dollars. I am struck by the background of most that I meet who are driving them: the owners are electricians, cops, plumbers, teachers, government inspectors, etc. So far very few lawyers, doctors, and investors. In other words, the middle class that Obama assures us is bankrupt seems to have been able to afford optional consumer goods as never before"

Saudis clamp down on Valentines: "Prices for black market roses are reported to be risingReligious police in Saudi Arabia are banning the sale of Valentine's Day gifts including red roses, a local newspaper has reported. The Saudi Gazette quoted shop workers as saying that officials had warned them to remove all red items including flowers and wrapping paper. Black market prices for roses were already rising, the paper said. Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic."

Muslim mole finally outed: "In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post. Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract. The top Pentagon aide, Egyptian-born Hesham H. Islam, came under a cloud of suspicion after reports raised doubt about his resume and contacts he had made with radical Muslims. He is expected to leave the government next month, officials say.... A senior U.S. official says the life story Islam presented now appears sketchy. "His resume didn't add up, and he knows it," the official said. "He's voluntarily leaving the government in March." ... FBI officials believe Islam is involved with the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and is helping its front groups run "influence operations" against the U.S. government."

Psychotic delusions on the Left. This guy belongs in a funny farm: "In a McCain Regime, Cheney will be back in office with another stint as Secretary of War. Norman "Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran" Podhoretz will be Undersecretary for Nuclear War with General John "Nuke them" Shalikashvili as his deputy. Rudy Giuliani will be the Minister of Interior in charge of Halliburton's detention centers into which will be herded all critics of war and the police state. Billy kristol will be chief White House spokesliar."

A paid vacation for government health officials? "CDC to open an office in Honolulu. Nice to know we have a balanced budget and can afford this. I'm betting there will be plenty of conferences at the newest office for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It will be at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. Gov. Burns is listed at Wikipedia as the father of the Democratic Party in Hawaii. My Washington bureau chief weighed in: "Last month when President Bush released his 2009 budget proposal, critics decried the $5.6 billion request for the CDC as insufficient. "Yet, just last week it was revealed that CDC has decided to open a new office in Hawaii and that an employee had no real responsibilities. Clearly, a government agency that can open a new office and hire employees to do nothing can make it by on a $5.6 million budget for a year."

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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MORE ON THE FASCIST RESONANCES IN OBAMA

I note that someone else has seen the similarities between Obama's campaign and the campaigns of Adolf Hitler. See here. So I thought I might put up a few more quotes about Hitler's appeal that sound very much like Obama's:

As this writer noted:

When brainwashers spoke to Germans after the war, as part of efforts to "psychoanalyze'' the Nazi experience, they found few remembered any specific content in Hitler's speeches. Almost all could remember being part of the experience, if they were in attendance, and most remembered the "excitement'' in listening to them on the radio. The words 'hypnotic'' and "mesmerizing'' were the most used to describe the Fuehrer's voice. Even some people who professed to have disagreed with the Nazis grudgingly claimed that Hitler was a "a spellbinding speaker.''

And note this comment:

"It was a sincere Hitler that they knew, whose words burned into the most secret recesses of their minds and rebuked them for their own shortcomings. It was the Hitler who would lead them back to self-respect because he had faith in them. This fundamental conception of Hitler made a beautiful foundation for a propaganda build-up. He was so convincing on the speaker's platform and appeared to be so sincere in what he said that the majority of his listeners were ready to believe almost anything good about him because they wanted to believe it.

And a few short quotes from The German dictatorship by K.D. Bracher (Weidenfeld, 1971, pp. 146-148):

"The youthful following, attracted by the romantic radicalism and emotional appeal of the "movement" became a significant factor" ... "Youth was indignant over the difficult and frequently unfair conditions of life, the manifold limitations of the times. The "movement" provided them with an outlet" ... "They protested against the seeming inertia of the politicians of the older generation..." "It was a truly religio-psychological phenomemon. Just as the concept of "belief" occupied a central place.." "Hitler appeared as the exponent of a new sense of life"

I imagine that many people reading the above will just not believe how similar Obama's approach is to Hitler's. They will feel that it is easy to tell the difference. If so, try this quiz. While there are Leftists there will always be Fascists.

And anybody who thinks Fascism belongs firmly in the past should ponder Putin's Russia. One of the most powerful Fascist States the world has ever seen is right with us now. Putin is wildly popular (in Russia) too.

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ELSEWHERE

Jack Wheeler has now put up a heavy defence of his earlier doubts about McCain so the GOP may be toast this time around no matter what.

Media lies about "killer vets" hurting the troops: "Strained by war, recently discharged veterans are having a harder time finding civilian jobs and are more likely to earn lower wages for years due partly to employer concerns about their mental health and overall skills, a government study says.... The report blamed the poor prospects partly on inadequate job networks and lack of mentors after extended periods in war. The study said employers often had misplaced stereotypes about veterans' fitness for employment, such as concerns they did not have adequate technological skills, or were too rigid, lacked education or were at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. The issue of mental health has turned into a double-edged sword for returning veterans. More publicity has generated more public awareness and federal funding for those who return home different from when they left. However, more publicity - especially stories that perpetuate the 'Wacko Vet' myth - has also made some employers more cautious to hire a veteran," said Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars."

Spooked Hillary Clinton sacks campaign manager: "HILLARY Clinton has sacked her campaign manager, a day after her White House rival Barack Obama swept three state nominating contests in the US presidential election race. Senator Clinton's former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, announced to campaign staff today that longtime aide Maggie Williams would replace her in the top job. "I have been proud to manage this campaign and prouder still to call Hillary my friend for more than 16 years," Ms Solis Doyle wrote in an email quoted by the Associated Press. "Maggie is a remarkable person and I am confident that she will do a fabulous job." Senator Obama won contests in Washington state, Nebraska and Louisiana over the weekend. They were contests he had been expected to win, but the margin of his victory showed a renewed momentum to his campaign"

Good ol' U.N. corruption again: "The United Nations has wasted tens of millions of dollars in its peacekeeping operations in Sudan over the past three years, according to the findings of U.N. auditors examining the financial practices of the global body's overseas missions. U.N. officers in Sudan have squandered millions by renting warehouses that were never used, booking blocks of hotel rooms that were never filled, and losing thousands of food rations to theft and spoilage, according to several internal audits by the U.N. Office for International Oversight Services. One U.N. purchasing agent has been accused of steering a $589,000 contract for airport runway lights to a company that helped his wife obtain a student visa

The cringing British: "British athletes will be banned from competing in this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing if they criticise China's totalitarian regime. The gagging order has been imposed by the British Olympic Association. Competitors who break the rule will not travel to the games or, if they are already in China, will be put on the next plane home. It means sportsmen and women will be unable to raise concerns about China's human rights record or its occupation of Tibet. Critics accused the BOA of bowing to political pressure and said that the move raised the spectre of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which passed off without protest and were hailed as a propaganda coup for the Nazi regime. The reaction is in contrast to other countries, including the United States and Australia, where athletes will be free to speak out about China should they wish to do so".

Osprey exceeds expectations of critics : "Once derided as a white elephant, the U.S. Marine Corps' tilt-rotor aircraft, the V-22 Osprey, is proving its mettle in Iraq, military officials said. The Osprey, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a plane, was designed to replace the Corps' aging and less-capable helicopter fleet. The military, which has ordered 360 of the aircraft, said the 10 deployed to Iraq are doing what they are supposed to do -- carrying troops faster, farther and safer than the copters can.... The Osprey's speed has been a lifesaver, too, squadron officials said. For instance, they said two V-22s were dispatched to fly a more than 130-mile round trip in the remote western desert to pick up a wounded Marine and get him to a hospital. The planes were able to do so in an hour, something no helicopter in the Marine inventory could do, squadron officials said. Commanders in Iraq have allowed little media coverage of the V-22s since their arrival, wanting to get crews used to their mission and to keep insurgents from targeting the planes for propaganda purposes. The planes have not come under direct fire, officials said. Critics said the plane is lightly defended, with only one rear-mounted gun. But Marines said the Osprey has enough power and speed to get out of a hostile zone faster than any helicopter, and the aircraft can fly higher, allowing it to be out of range of shoulder-fired missiles"

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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The wonderful ways of Google

For once I am not being sarcastic about Google. Google own blogger.com and its hosting service, blogspot. I am getting the impression that there is some direct tie-up between Google's general archives and what appears on blogspot. Maybe the search service actually incorporates the blogspot archives into its own archives. As a result, anything one posts on a blogspot blog seems to be accessible to a Google search within minutes of it being put up.

That is not so with other blogging services. My occasional rambles on my personal blog (which is hosted on Australian servers) take days to appear in Google search results. That difference could be one reason to recommend blogger.com as a blogging service. Blogspot's famous service outages don't seem to happen so often these days either. They finally seem to have mastered the art of innovating without crashing the entire system.

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Peter Hitchens: Archbishop not much worse than his government



The poor old Ayatollah of Canterbury doesn't actually deserve all the slime now being tipped over his modernised mitre. Just some of it. Of course it is absurd for the chief of the Christian Church in this country to cringe publicly to Islam. But at least Archbishop Williams is open about his unwillingness to defend the faith - as is his colleague, the wretched Bishop of Oxford, who recently announced that he was perfectly happy for loudspeakers to blare the Muslim call to prayer across that city.

Even on their own liberal terms, this pair are clueless about sharia and its scorn for women. It was exiled Iranian Muslim women who defeated a similar proposal in Canada. They had travelled thousands of miles to escape sharia law and didn't want it in Toronto, thanks very much.

Compare that with the Government, which poses stern-faced as the foe of "terror" and noisily jails figures of fun such as Abu Hamza while greasily pretending that there's no connection between Islam and terrorism. Gordon Brown's Cabinet has also quietly agreed that Muslim men with more than one wife can now claim benefits for these extra spouses - while bigamy remains a criminal offence for everyone else, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

A British Muslim woman comments on the the flea-brained archbishop's support for Sharia law: "Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations. What's more, different Muslim nations claim to have their own allegedly god-given sharia. ... There is no agreed body of sharia, it is all drafted by males and the most cruel is now claiming absolute authority. In Pakistan, on the statutes are strictures on adultery introduced by the military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Women activists in that country have given their lives protesting against the injustice of those laws where women suspected of adultery, or rape victims, are punished in hideous ways and the man goes free. The Iranian theocracy changes its regulations from year to year, capriciously playing with the lives of females. .. Two Iranian friends chose to die rather than live under the demeaning religious orders. Go to Afghanistan if you fancy a 12-year-old bride – a practice approved by the mullahs. That's sharia for you. Many women, gay men and dissidents came to Britain to escape Islamic tyrants and their laws. Dr Williams supports those laws and, by default, makes the refugees victims again."

"Honor" abuse in the UK: "Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs. And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest. The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years."

The brutal murder of Daniel Pearl: "The shocking element in Danny's murder was that he was killed, not for what he wrote or planned to write, but for what he represented -- America, modernity, openness, pluralism, curiosity, dialogue, fairness, objectivity, freedom of inquiry, truth and respect for all people. In short, each and every one of us was targeted in Karachi in January of 2002. This new twist of killing journalists for what they represent has changed the course of journalism as well as the rest of society. It was through Danny's face that people came to grasp the depth of cruelty and inhumanity into which this planet of ours has been allowed to sink in the past two decades. His murder proved that 9/11 was not an isolated event, and helped resurrect the age-old ideas of right and wrong, good and evil. Moral relativism died with Daniel Pearl in January 2002."

Antisemitism resurgent: "Kafir Alalazoo over at The Jawa Report has done a great service to the free world in assembling the frightening rise in Jew hatred worldwide. You must watch it. You think you know. But you don't."

US free trade accords face rocky road: "A fresh battle is brewing in Washington over foreign trade, with the White House persevering in its pursuit of free trade agreements while congressional Democrats -- some elected two years ago on protectionist planks -- appear more inclined to take up trade issues with China than pass new deals. President Bush is ramping up efforts to get Congressional approval of free-trade agreements (FTAs) already negotiated with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Late last month, he dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Colombia, with a bevy of House Democrats in tow, to renew the push for the Colombia accord, invoking national security interests over economic ones for the agreement."

There is another debunking of FDR here. He was just another Leftist ignoramus who thought he knew it all.

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race and IQ.

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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What is an "intellectual"?

Further to my post yesterday:

In his usual memorable way, the delightful Dr. Spooner once said: "I have in my breast a half-warmed fish". I suspect that the definition I am about to offer is little better than a half-warmed fish but here goes: I think an intellectual is someone who defends popular ideas in a particularly persuasive way -- which is why the label is usually attached only to people who are much in the public eye. There are many scholars and scientists labouring away at making a contribution to knowledge and understanding but it is only when they get into the public eye that they become "intellectuals". And if the ideas they espouse are complex or difficult to follow they will simply not get into the public eye. The ideas concerned have to be readily comprehended by the intelligent layman.

And one reason why most intellectuals seem to be Left-leaning is that Leftist ideas are the ones most in need of defending. Some Leftist ideas -- such as the belief that you can provide more and better accomodation for the poor by instituting government rent-control -- are so obviously mad that not even an intellectual could defend them (except in NYC of course). But other ideas -- such as the desirability of universal government healthcare -- are attractive enough to warrant defending. And if you have been to a government hospital lately, you will very likely feel that only an intellectual could defend that idea. I am sure that Hillary Clinton goes to private hospitals.

So I think I can safely say that I am not an intellectual. I get no mainstream media exposure at all. Since I would much prefer to be regarded as a scientist or a scholar, however, I feel rather pleased about that. Most "intellectuals" seem to me to be very poor scientists and scholars -- Noam Chomsky, for instance.



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Brookes News Update

US economy, interest rates and recession: It's beginning to look like Bernanke's interest rate policy is pouring more fuel on America's inflationary economy. All in all, from last August to last January the fed rate fell by a massive 43 per cent. This looks to be stoking manufacturing output. Sooner or later, this reckless monetary policy must come to an end
Economic policy: Is something out of nothing possible?: In the real world, an artificial boost in demand that is not supported by production leads to the dilution of the pool of real savings and, contrary to the Keynesian view, to a shrinking in the flow of real wealth
Is monetary policy destroying manufacturing?: Americans and Australians have a right to be concerned about the state of manufacturing in their respective countries. But raising tariffs is no solution. It must be considered that a country whose currency has been overvalued for sometime might find its industrial structure has not only become more domestic oriented but that part of it has been shifted abroad in response to the differences in international prices cause by the inflated exchange rate
Why congressional Democrats and their fellow-travellers sabotage US intelligence programs: Those Democrats who screamed for an investigation of Bush and the CIA never thought to criticise what went on under Clinton's watch. The intelligence situation is now worse than ever because Clinton took the opportunity to place committed Democrats in the CIA. I guess the mass of Americans just cannot grasp that to these Democrats party loyalty trumps patriotism
Economic growth, immigration and Say's Law: A great many misconceptions about immigration, population size and the nature of economic growth abound, particularly among businessmen. Unfortunately some economic commentators are not much better
Scientists denounce global warming hysteria: Many scientists are now protesting against greenhouse hysteria that the greens and much of the media have been whipping up. In doing so they have exposed man-made global warming to be a fraud
Smugness of perpetuating Holocaust: The current enemies of Israel, including the Palestinian Authority, in spite of their acts of aggression and terrorism, have the full support of UN Human Rights commission. Israel is the only country which is singled out as a gross violator of human rights

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ELSEWHERE

There is a good perspective here on how the Iraq war stacks up against other wars that America has been involved in.

Sarko helps out: "President Sarkozy rode to the rescue of beleaguered Nato forces in southern Afghanistan yesterday when he offered to deploy French troops alongside Canadians in Kandahar. The French leader has been the most forthcoming of Nato leaders in answering the urgent call to help the troops fighting Taleban insurgents. After Canada’s repeated warnings that it would pull its 2,500 troops out of Kandahar if no other alliance member came to support them, France has been the only country to hint at sending reinforcements. French and Canadian officials are discussing the logistics of operating a combined force. A delegation was sent to Paris from Ottawa yesterday."

PA doubletalk continues: "The Palestinian Authority (PA) is delivering two very different messages to the Western and Arab world. The message to the West, declared in English in front of media microphones and cameras, glorifies an independent Palestinian state coexisting peacefully beside Israel. But according to documented videos of PA TV programs monitored by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), the PA is telling its Arab audience that there will be no Israel at all, rather one large Arab Palestine will rule the entirety of Israel."

Britain: Lawyers lose for once: "Law firms that grew rich by exploiting sick miners are to be forced to repay tens of millions of pounds that they wrongly sliced from their clients' compensation. The multimillion-pound payback follows an investigation by The Times into a series of abuses linked to the Department of Trade and Industry's 7.5 billion pound coal health compensation scheme. An estimated 75,000 former pit workers are likely to receive payments under a nationwide scheme that has been agreed in principle by the Government. The cost to those solicitors who improperly deducted money from awards given to elderly and vulnerable clients may top 50 million. Claims were registered by more than 760,000 former miners with chronic lung disease or a crippling hand condition caused by their work underground. Solicitors handling each claim were paid a fixed fee by the Government, but many chose to make additional deductions from the compensation awarded to their clients. The money they sliced off was sometimes banked by the law firms themselves and in other cases was passed to miners' unions or claims handling companies."

Vicious mullah banned from Britain: "Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a controversial Muslim cleric who defends suicide attacks, has been refused a visa to enter to the UK after a campaign by David Cameron. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that it deplored the decision and accused the government of caving in to "unreasonable demands spearheaded by the Tory leader". Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the MCB, said that Dr al-Qaradawi enjoyed respect as a scholar throughout the Muslim world. "I am afraid this decision will send the wrong message to Muslims everywhere about the state of British society and culture," he said"

Channeling the wrong Kennedy: "Obama has repeatedly compared himself to JFK, and his campaign casts itself as the second coming of Camelot. Obama's supporters see in him the same youthful optimism that made JFK an iconic symbol in the decade. It was an era when anything seemed possible. But the surviving Kennedys are also symbols of the darker side of 1960s liberalism: The bloated, bureaucratic welfare state. Teddy Kennedy's liberalism gave us welfare as we knew it and spent $11 trillion on federal programs fighting poverty without reducing it. It raised taxes until they discouraged work, investment and innovation. It created an ethic of entitlement and dependence on government. In his policy positions, as opposed to his bipartisan rhetoric, Barack Obama calls to mind this side of 1960s liberalism as well. Indeed, in his appetite for big government, Obama is quite unlike JFK."

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

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

"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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Appeals to authority

It is the nature of intellectuals to think that they know better than anyone else. So they rarely defend the status quo. They mostly want to change it in some way that would suit themselves -- mostly to get the money away from those dumb capitalists and channel it in a direction that will be better for intellectuals. In short, intellectuals usually lean Left to at least some degree. Conservatives can take the status quo or leave it, depending on what the particular status quo happens to be. But a loathing of the status quo is intrinsic to Leftism -- so much so that they may often oppose a status quo that they themselves have been instrumental in creating -- with the now-common Green/Left opposition to windfarms (a shout-out to Ted Kennedy here) being one rather amusing example.

One outcome of all that it that Leftists generally find much comfort in the outpourings of intellectuals -- with G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx being early players in that field. So an appeal to authority often suits Leftists. They say, in effect: "All these wise men say we need to change the way we do things so that must be right." The most notable tendency of that today is of course the constant Greenie claim that there is a "consensus" among scientists about the human origin of the slight degree of global warming observed in the late 20th century (but which has been conspicuously absent since 1998). The Greenies luxuriate in having so many authorities on their side and they do their best to discredit the many experts who reject the Warmist view.

Sadly, of course, authorities can often be wrong. Even the smartest of intellectuals can make big mistakes when speaking outside their own field of expertise. Albert Einsten had clearly Marxist views on the economy, for instance. You can read his now mostly archaic thoughts on the matter in the old Marxist publication Monthly Review. And the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, admired Communism so much that he actually emigrated to Russia. He lasted three weeks there and came back with distinctly modified views. Albert at least was wise enough not to put his money where his mouth was.

And experts can even go wrong when speaking WITHIN their field of expertise. Almost all of my academic career was devoted to exposing the flaws in the Leftist theories conventional among political psychologists. I was repeatedly able to show that the reigning consensus was contradicted by the facts. I don't believe I changed anybody's views, however. Ideology is not easily knocked off its perch by mere facts. But for anybody willing to look, I think I was able to show very clearly that the consensus within my own field of expertise was just plain wrong. You can see therefore why I regard ALL appeals to authority as very third-rate thinking -- as a rather pathetic substitute for looking at the actual evidence.

Given that the Green/Left have so conspicuously hitched their wagon to appeals to authority, however, it does on occasion become necessary to reply in kind. If a Leftist says: "All the experts say... " one needs to reply: "But THESE experts deny ..." if one is to have any hope of making a persuasive case. In other words, although appeals to authortity have little objective merit, they do have considerable persuasive power for many people and one has to recognize that and fight back by questioning the authority concerned -- and an easy way to do that is to quote OTHER authorities with different opinions. And I do that often on my Greenie Watch blog.

It is is also because of the Leftist authority-orentation (an orientation which makes it all the more amusing that Leftist psychologists constantly brand conservatives as "authoritarian") that I occasionally make mention of my academic background and the fields wherein I can speak with some authority. I would much rather discuss ANY issue on the basis of the facts but if a Leftist insists on personalized arguments in a field where I happen to be an authority, then I feel that I might as well take the easy way out and squash the Leftist using his own hammer. It might just conceivably teach him something about the inherent inconclusiveness of relying on arguments about persons rather than on arguments about the facts. I do however draw the line at claiming any GENERAL authority. Leftist academics very often do implicitly claim that. They get credit for pronouncements made outside their own field of expertise. A linguist like Chomsky, for instance speaks on all sorts of topics outside of his field and Leftists seem to get great comfort from his "authoritative" misrepresentations. They are fools do do so. Arguing from an irrelevant authority is in fact what logicians refer to as one of the informal fallacies.

I was rather amused recently, however, when a very skeptical reader asked for my list of academic publications. He evidently thought that I must be the sort of fraud one so often finds on the Left. When he was referred to a full list of the relevant citations, he lost that battle but as a comeback complained that many of my publications were quite short. He seemed to think that you could judge the worth of a research article by its length! I am sure that a lot of acadenics wish that were true. Writing reams of waffle seems to come very easily to many of them. If there is any criteriality in the length of a research article, I would tend to think that merit is more likely to lie with short articles. If you know what you are talking about and your results are clear, you don't need to ramble on.

I certainly do strive for succinctness in all that I write. People are more likely to read and understand what one has to say that way. But there are of course some topics that NEED to be discussed at great length -- histories and literature reviews, for instance -- and for my sins I do sometimes write at length in those areas. Most notably so here and here and here.

With my academic background I suppose I could be said to be an intellectual but I sedulously avoid that label. Intellectuals generally seem to me to be a rather miserable bunch who are puffed up with oversimplified theories and who are prone to parasitizing others. By contrast I have always been happy with my lot in life. I have the gift of contentment and "just the facts" will do me fine. And when I do splash out big with money (usually by giving it away. My own needs have always been small), I do it with money honestly earned in business -- not with money ripped off the taxpayer under some pretext. But being someone who has been successful in business as well as in academe does make me an odd bod, I guess.

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The company Hillary keeps: ""Valley of the Wolves Iraq" was an anti-Semitic, anti-American film featuring American actor Gary Busey as a Jewish U.S. army doctor who cuts out the organs of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and sells them to wealthy foreign clients. It also set box office records in Turkey. In "Valley of the Wolves, Iraq," American soldiers are portrayed as, "violent, brutish, trigger-happy, civilian-murdering, hyper-religious, sadistic gun-nuts." And, that is just for starters... Never mind the evil Jewish doctor selling body parts from Abu Ghraib prisoners. The Kurdish News reported that the producer of one of the most hostile anti-American films made in Turkey "Valley of the Wolves-Irak" is a Hillary Clinton mega-donor and bundler and was appointed a delegate by Hillary Clinton to the Democratic National Convention later this year"

A challenge for McCain: "McCain cannot get elected without the conservative vote. Unless he goes out of his way to assure conservatives that he is as conservative as he likes to tell them he is, many will simply stay home, as they did in 1976, 1992 and 1996, and regroup and find an acceptable candidate for 2012. Rush Limbaugh probably stated it as clearly as anybody when he told a reporter that Mr. McCain could not succeed as president, and that he'd rather see a Democrat fail than a Republican. Unless Mr. McCain makes some very definite proposals, Mr. Limbaugh could have plenty of company... Conservatives will never agree with Mr. McCain on everything. They will never forgive him for what they perceive as his abuse of the First Amendment in McCain-Feingold, for his stand on immigration, and for his initial opposition to the Bush tax cuts. But with his record as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution, his generally strong stand on spending, national security and pro-life issues, he is in a position to correct much of the damage that's already been done."

Mad black attempts aircraft hijack "A woman stabbed two pilots and threatened to blow up a plane during a harrowing mid-air drama on a New Zealand domestic flight early today, police said. The pilots reported that a passenger attacked them in the cockpit, inflicting minor injuries, before making threats that she had a bomb. Police said a mayday call was received at 7.40am (5.40am AEDT) from an Air National flight heading from the provincial town of Blenheim to the main South Island airport in Christchurch. Inspector Kieren Kortegast said a woman attacked the two pilots before being restrained. The plane landed safely in Christchurch 20 minutes later and the passengers were taken to a private room. A 33-year-old Blenheim woman of Somali descent was taken into custody... Passengers on domestic flights out of Blenheim are not subject to security checks." [Perhaps the complacent Kiwis will now learn something about aircraft security]



Muddled achbishop: "Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said on Thursday the introduction in Britain of some aspects of sharia, Islamic law, was unavoidable. His unexpected comments were welcomed by some Muslim groups, but the government was quick to distance itself from them, saying it was out of the question that the principles of sharia could be used in British civil courts. Williams, speaking to the BBC, said other religions enjoyed tolerance of their laws in Britain and he called for a "constructive accommodation" with Muslim practice in areas such as marital disputes. Asked if the adoption of sharia was necessary for community cohesion, Williams said: "It seems unavoidable. Certain conditions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system." [Even if you are]

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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America's so-called "decline"

The Left fervently hope for it and sometimes claim that it is happening but reality is pesky for them -- as usual

American "decline" is the foreign-policy equivalent of homelessness: The media only take note of it when a Republican is in the White House. Broadly speaking, declinists divide between those who merely accept America's supposed diminishment as a fact of life, and those who celebrate it as long overdue. As for the causes of decline, however, they tend to agree: declining (relative) economic muscle, due in large part to the rise of China; an overextended military bogged down needlessly in Iraq and endlessly in Afghanistan; the declining value of America's "brand" on account of Bush administration policies on detention, pre-emption, terrorism, global warming -- you name it.

Yet each of these assumptions collapses on a moment's inspection. In his 2006 book "Uberpower," German writer Josef Joffe makes the following back-of-the-envelope calculation: "Assume that the Chinese economy keeps growing indefinitely at a rate of seven percent, the average of the past decade (for which history knows of no example). . . . At that rate, China's GDP would double every decade, reaching parity with today's United States ($12 trillion) in thirty years. But the U.S. economy is not frozen into immobility. By then, the United States, growing at its long-term rate of 2.5 percent, would stand at $25 trillion."

Now take military expenditures. Yesterday, the administration released its budget proposal for 2009, which includes $515.4 billion for the regular defense budget. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this would be the largest defense appropriation since World War II. Yet it amounts to about 4% of GDP, as compared to 14% during the Korean War, 9.5% during the Vietnam War and 6% in the Reagan administration. Throw in the Iraq and Afghanistan supplementals, and total projected defense spending is still only 4.5% of GDP -- an easily afforded sum even by Prof. Kennedy's terms.

Finally there is the issue of our allegedly squandered prestige in the world. There is no doubt America's "popularity," as measured by various global opinion surveys, has fallen in recent years. What's striking, however, is how little of this has mattered in terms of the domestic political choices of other countries or the consequences for the U.S.

In the immediate aftermath of the Iraq War, nearly every government that joined President Bush's "coalition of the willing" -- Australia, Great Britain, Denmark and Japan -- was returned to power. France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, the war's two most vocal opponents, were cashiered for two candidates who campaigned explicitly on a pro-American agenda. The same happened in South Korea, where the unapologetically anti-American President Roh Moo-hyun has been replaced by the unapologetically pro-American Lee Myung-bak. Italy's equally unapologetic pro-American Silvio Berlusconi seems set to return to office after a brief holiday.

Meanwhile, McDonald's -- the icon of everything anti-Americans detest about the U.S. -- is doing a booming business overseas even as sales in the U.S. flatlined last year. Another icon, Boeing, is having no trouble booking orders (meeting them is another matter) for its new 787 Dreamliner to such customers as Spain's AirEuropa and Bahrain's Gulf Air. The quintessentially American film, "National Treasure," has earned nearly half its gross revenue -- about $160 million -- in foreign ticket sales since its release in late December. So much for America's loss of "soft power."

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For those of us who have a bit of the Irish in them (most Australians do and many Americans do ) Hibernia Girl might be worth a look. She blogs from the old sod about Irish politics and is concerned about the problems immigration is bringing to Ireland. The nation of emigrants is now becoming in part a nation of immigrants. Ireland is now a rich country. Ireland even now has an African minority!

Obama as a Rorschach blot: "It's a truism that a presidential candidate acts as a vessel for the dreams and beliefs of his followers. We've seen this for years with Madame Hillary, and more recently with Mike Huckabee. But nowhere has it been more evident than in the case of Barack Obama. With Obama it appears at least in part to be a matter of strategy. His campaign persona is so vague, and slogans such as "the audacity of hope" and "the politics of unity" so generic that they could mean anything, which is exactly what they've been taken to mean. Commentators, pundits, and voters look at Obama and see what they want see -- a "healer", an "agent of change", the "new JFK" -- a new persona each week. It follows directly that everyone also believes that Obama's ideas on policy and the issues are the same as that of the beholder, that the issue dearest to the candidate's heart happens to be the one that's most important to the individual voter. No matter what the constituency or what their concern, no doubt exists that Obama will get straight to work on their particular issue as soon as his shoes hit the oval office carpet."

Racist Democrats: "Yesterday's primary voting laid bare a profound racial and ethnic divide among Democratic voters, with African Americans overwhelmingly preferring Sen. Barack Obama and Latinos largely favoring Sen. Hillary Clinton.... The divergent choices by minority voters reflect broad issues of loyalty and identity, observers said, rather than specific differences in the candidates' stances on issues. "There is so little distance between the policies, it comes down to personality, style and name recognition," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, based in Los Angeles. "No one has said, 'This is the black Democratic agenda, the Latino Democratic agenda,' " Vargas said. "This is just, who do people know, who do they identify with, who are they comfortable with?"

The choice between liberals: "I suppose I could be accused of over-dramatizing, but I truly worry about the direction this nation is headed when contemplating a presidential race where the choices are liberal and liberal-light. If John McCain is the GOP nominee, that's what we'll be faced with, despite the Herculean efforts of some to spin it otherwise. In that case, the presidential candidates of both parties would be willing to use the bully pulpit and governing power of the presidency to suppress political speech, punish producers, oil companies and drug companies, open wider our borders, cater to the whacko environmental movement and its junk-science-driven pseudo-consensus on global warming, nominate judges who don't "wear their conservatism on their sleeve," close Gitmo, confer constitutional civil liberties on enemy combatants, end life-saving interrogation techniques, demonize evangelical conservatives, and obstruct efforts of conservative Republican legislators."

Why suicide bombers are now killing few Israelis: "The difference has come because of Israel's increasingly successful antiterrorist efforts. Key to that success has been the construction of its ostensibly "illegal" security fence, its equally "illegal" targeted assassinations of key terrorist leaders, its "disproportional" attacks on terrorist enclaves in Jenin and elsewhere, and other actions that saved innocent lives but which much of the international community deplored. One of the most common arguments against Israel's actions is that it would feed a "cycle of violence." It's fair to say that what happened is closer to the opposite. As Israel put pressure on terrorist leaders, they were forced to spend their time running for their lives rather than planning the next attack. As Israel set up physical obstacles to terrorism, the need for large-scale military incursions declined, allowing a semblance of normal life to return for Israelis as well as Palestinians."

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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Hillary's "Shared Prosperity" scam

Excerpt from Tibor Machan

When I was about 12 years old, I was taking a class in my Hungarian elementary school on Marxist economics. One day we were being told about Marx's famous goal for the communist paradise he envisioned for us all: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." As with most kids back in Budapest, I didn't pay much attention to these lessons since they were nothing but pure propaganda for the ruling communists who ran the country. But I did happen to be listening to this particular presentation and once the "teacher" was done, I didn't have the good sense to resist raising my hand to ask a question: "What if my pal here next to me and I both start the week with a fixed amount of money but he purchases some wood and builds a nice table while I buy some wine and drink myself under a table? Will he have to share with me whatever he can earn when he sells his product?" As I recall, I was severely rebuked for my counter-revolutionary remark...

One of the most prominent presidential hopefuls has penned an article for The Wall Street Journal, titled, "My Plan for Shared Prosperity." Its author, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, makes no secret of her plan for massive wealth redistribution should she get the chance to implement her ideas. As she puts it, "My measure of economic success will never be a single, dry statistic. Rather, success means an economy that allows those at the bottom to work their way into the middle class, without pushing anyone out. It means leaving people better off when I finish than when I start. In short, success means an economy that shares its prosperity with all." ...

Of course, Mrs. Clinton isn't much interested in freedom, only in regimentation for the country to meet her standards of economic success. This is revealed in how she talks of "an economy that shares its prosperity." She doesn't appear to grasp that it is not economies that are prosperous, nor engage in sharing anything with anyone. That is what people are and do. And for Mrs. Clinton to get her way, she will have to order the level of prosperity that people will be allowed to attain and force people to share their resources with others, like it or not.

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Obama a socialist ignoramus: "Obama told the newspaper the top priority of the next president should be the creation of a more lasting and equitable prosperity than achieved under Presidents Bush and Clinton. Obama apparently missed the class that teaches government doesn't create prosperity; people do. During last Thursday's debate with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he would pay for his proposed new programs, including health insurance, by imposing higher taxes on "the wealthy" and raising the tax on Social Security wages. He added, "What we have had right now is a situation where we've cut taxes for people who don't need them." Should government determine how much money people "need"? This is Marxism: "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need."

Iranian tantrum over India's launch of Israeli satellite: "Iran said Tuesday it had lodged an official complaint with New Delhi over India's commercial launch of an Israeli spy satellite last month. The satellite, blasted into orbit from southern India on January 21, is reported by the Israeli press to have the ability to see through clouds, carry out day and night all-weather imaging and will be used to spy on Iran's suspect nuclear programme. "The Indian government says the issue is a technical and commercial one, but we hope that the matter can be considered from the point of view of protocol," Iran's ambassador to New Delhi, Sayed Mahdi Nabizadeh, told reporters. "We hope that an independent and wise country like India will not give their space technology to launch any instruments of espionage. Our officials have expressed our point of view," he added. The launch was carried out under a commercial contract between Israel Aerospace Industries and Antrix, the marketing arm of India's space agency, and is seen by India as another boost for its bid to win more international satellite launch business".

Comeback for Major Coughlin: "Rep. Myrick confirms that Major Coughlin will now be retained by the DOD, and [be] "associated with another office program within the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he will continue to spread his message." The Congresswoman, one of the handful of stalwart individuals on jihadism in either the House or Senate, also highlights in her statement, the seriousness of what she terms, ".the nature of the radical Islamist enemy that we face today and how they are seeking to infiltrate all elements of our society." Rep. Myrick further lavishes deserving praise upon Major Coughlin's thesis, "Major Coughlin's thesis must be read by everyone responsible for ensuring the safety of America," for which we now learn he has been retained, and arguably even promoted, within the DOD. "

Cheapskate Brits run out of machinesguns, ammo: "The Army has run out of machine guns. The crisis is unlikely to be solved before JUNE, a leaked report reveals. British troops “desperately” need 400 of the jumbo 0.5in calibre heavy machine guns – the weapon most acutely missed. The Army has also run out of the 7.62mm GPMG and Minimis. Supply has collapsed partly because of a dispute with the manufacturers, Manroy – which also provides weapons to Saudi Arabia. The leaked report – prepared for the Army’s command centre in Wilton, Wilts – reveals that generals have urged the Ministry of Defence “to prevent Manroy delivering Saudi weapons ahead of our requirement”. Generals asked the US to help but were snubbed by the Pentagon – who have dubbed British colleagues “The Borrowers”.

The politically correct liberals behind the credit debacle : "Perhaps the greatest scandal of the mortgage crisis is that it is a direct result of an intentional loosening of underwriting standards - done in the name of ending discrimination, despite warnings that it could lead to wide-scale defaults. At the crisis' core are loans that were made with virtually nonexistent underwriting standards - no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant's ability to make payments; no down payment. Most people instinctively understand that such loans are likely to be unsound. But how did the heavily-regulated banking industry end up able to engage in such foolishness? From the current hand-wringing, you'd think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards - at the behest of community groups and "progressive" political forces."

Saudi sex cops throw woman in jail for having coffee at Starbucks: "A Saudi mother of three, who works as a business partner and financial consultant for a reputable company in Jeddah, didn't expect that a trip to the capital to open the company's new branch office would have her thrown behind bars by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Yara, a petite 40-year-old woman, was in tears yesterday after she narrated to Arab News her encounter with a commission member that ended in high drama. Yara, who has been married for 27 years, said she spent several hours in the women's section of Riyadh's Malaz Prison, was strip-searched, ordered to sign a confession that she was in a state of "khulwa" (a state of seclusion with an unrelated man) and for hours prevented from contacting her husband in Jeddah. Her crime? Having a cup of coffee with a colleague in a Starbucks."

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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Mark Steyn on the candidates

Excerpt

President McCain? Or Queen Hillary? Henry Kissinger said about the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s that it's a shame they both can't lose. Conservatives have a slightly different problem: it's a shame that neither of them will lose; that, regardless of who takes the oath come next January, the harmonious McCain-Clinton consensus policies on illegal immigration and big government solutions to global warming will prevail. Where's Neither-of-the-Above when you need him?

Democracies get the political leaders they deserve, and that's particularly true in the US, where the primary system allows rank-and-file citizens to choose not merely which party to vote for (as in Britain, Australia and Europe) but also which individuals will be the candidates of those parties. True, it helps to be wealthy. Up to a point.

But it wasn't enough for John Edwards, the curiously unconvincing "angry populist" muttering darkly that "they" would never stop him telling the truth about nine-year-old girls shivering without a winter coat because daddy had been laid off at the mill. "They" didn't need to stop him. The champion of America's mythical coatless girl laid himself off last week. High on a hill, the lonely coatherd suddenly realised he was yodelling to himself....

Michael Ledeen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, suggests that the rise of McCain through New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida indicates that for many voters the war is still the issue, because, after all, what else has the senator got going for him? Surely it's not his global-warming hysteria or illegal-immigration amnesty or demonisation of capitalism. It's because he's Mr Surge.

Well, maybe. The senator is an eloquent defender of the US armed forces. A president McCain will not permit a military defeat in Iraq. But it's not clear to me he has much of a strategic vision for the ideological struggle, for the real long-term battlefield in the mosques and madrassas of Pakistan and Indonesia and western Europe. McCain's lead is no evidence of popular commitment to the long war and, absent any surprising developments, this will not be a war election.

The Clintons are nothing if not lucky, and Hillary must occasionally be enjoying a luxury-length cackle at the thought of being pitted against a 71-year-old "maverick" whose record seems designed to antagonise just enough of the base into staying home on election day.

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There is a fairly convincing refutation here of Jack Wheeler's allegations about McCain in Vietnam. I said when I noted Wheeler's story that it could be old Soviet disinformation and that now seems the most probable origin of the story.

A backhanded endorsement? "California first lady Maria Shriver said she arose Sunday feeling inspired by an Eleanor Roosevelt quote: "Do something every day that scares you." "Eleanor Roosevelt," Shriver said, "This is my one thing for today." With that, Shriver, who wasn't even on the program, made a surprise appearance at the close of a raucous UCLA rally for Barack Obama and endorsed the Illinois senator for president in Tuesday's presidential primary."

Fraudulent Franklin Foer recommends McCain: "I think that McCain has certain political virtues that other Republicans don't, which is that he actually has kind of a record of being, of being conciliatory - that there's actually - I mean, I don't what it means for the electoral future of the Democratic Party, but there are the possibilities for doing some interesting things with McCain as a leader, and I'm mostly thinking about global warming - where McCain has the best track record on energy and environment on the Republican side in the Senate," Foer concluded. "So, I think you have some really good possibility for a Nixon-to-China type solution to climate change if he decides that that's going to be the thing he is going to use to build a bridge."

McCain would be good for SCOTUS: "We believe that the nomination of John McCain is the best option to preserve the ongoing restoration of constitutional government. He is by far the most electable Republican candidate remaining in the race, and based on his record is as likely to appoint judges committed to constitutionalism as Mitt Romney, a candidate for whom we also have great respect.... On Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70. Most of them could be replaced by the next president, particularly if he or she is re-elected. Given the prospect of accelerating gains in modern medical technology, some of the new justices may serve for half a century. Even if a more perfect candidate were somehow elected in 2012, he would not be able to undo the damage, especially to the Supreme Court... In fact, there is no reason to believe that Mr. McCain will not make excellent appointments to the court. On judicial nominations, he has voted soundly in the past from Robert Bork in 1987 to Samuel Alito in 2006. His pro-life record also provides a surety that he will not appoint judicial activists."

Iraqis supporting Americans now, not Jihadis: "The dramatic decline in US casualties in Iraq has been one the great untold story of recent months. With thirty-nine lost in January, twenty-three in December, thirty-seven in November and thirty-eight in November, a young American male would have been safer in Iraq than in some of America's inner cities... This may come as a shock to some, but our low casualty rate clearly shows that the Iraqi people have taken the side of America and that on a mass scale. The perception that the Iraqis detest our soldiers as oppressive occupiers has been falsely created by American liberals and their collaborators in the Democrat Party and the mainstream media. It was them who fabricated the notion that our military is a cesspool of wanton torturers, lust-filled rapists and unscrupulous thugs preying on the people of Iraq. Because American liberals loathe our military, they want to make every one else loathe it as well. Eager to drum up hatred, they have been spreading their slander either by direct accusation or by insinuation. Liberals have shown their true nature by choosing the side of evil in the great struggle of our time."

U.N. can't kick the antisemitic habit: "Last week the U.N. Human Rights Council held an emergency session, organized by Arab and Muslim nations, to condemn Israel for its military actions in the Gaza strip. That the council is capable of swift and decisive action is a welcome surprise; that Israel remains the only nation to provoke such action is not. In the 17 months since its inception, the body has passed 13 condemnations, 12 of them against Israel. The council replaced what was widely viewed as a cancer on the United Nations -- an ineffectual "Commission on Human Rights" that also had a single-minded focus on Israel. According to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "the selectivity and politicizing of its activities [were] in danger of bringing the entire U.N. system into disrepute." The removal of the diseased commission two years ago was heralded by U.N. officials as "the dawn of a new era." Its replacement was designed to have stricter standards for membership, and rules to prevent politicized voting. But such safeguards were neutered by the time the new Human Rights Council was approved, and the results are that the council is no better than its predecessor."

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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More on Obama as the heir to Fascism

Message to Leftists: Bush=Hitler is reasonable but Obama=Hitler is not?

Let's look at some evidence bearing on the above question. I won't spend any time on the first equation above because I think that by any objective assessment Bush is simply a fairly conventional center Rightist who has acted well in accordance with the policies ("compassionate conservatism") that he proclaimed before gaining office. I actually see GWB as more a Christian gentleman than a real conservative.

The Left-dominated educational system has ensured that it is now known only to historical specialists but Hitler, by contrast, gained power on promises that were to a large extent the direct opposite of what he eventually did when he gained office. He actually campaigned on an ANTIWAR platform! See two of his 1930s election posters below. The first one reads: "Mit Hitler gegen den Ruestungswahnsinn der Welt" ("With Hitler against the armaments madness of the world") and the second reads: "Mit Adolf Hitler "Ja" fuer Gleichberechtigung und Frieden" ("With Adolf Hitler "Yes" for equal rights and peace").



There is a fuller picture from which both the above images were taken here. Hitler's British counterpart, Sir Oswald Mosley, of the British Union of Fascists, campaigned on a very similar platform. See below:



Obama eat your heart out!

I am perfectly confident that Obama will never gain the unrestricted power that Hitler did or that he will do as much damage as Hitler did but to place him in an accurate historical context should nonetheless help to predict the directions in which he will move if he gains office as POTUS -- something that is otherwise difficult because of the high generality of what he says in his speeches and his very limited voting record as a political office-holder.

I have previously pointed out how Obama's constant calls for unity above all are very much like what Hegel, Hitler and Mussolini preached. As I said on that occasion:

In fact, with his constant inspirational calls for national unity, Obama is eerily reminiscent of the Fascists. If he spoke German he might well be inclined to adopt as his slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer -- as Hitler did ("One nation, one government, one leader")....



Put very briefly, the Fascists were (following Hegel) the "one big happy family" Left while the Communists were the deeply embittered "class war" Left. Hitler only hated the Jews. Marx, Trotksy, Lenin and Stalin hated just about everybody -- Marx particularly so. You can readily see why the two types of Leftist despised one-another.

And presenting oneself as the man of the "middle way" -- which Obama does -- is also of course classic Fascism. It was a major theme of Mussolini's. So there are good reasons to compare Obama to the prewar Fascists. And it is therefore also no surprise that this sounds VERY much like a common reaction to Hitler's speeches among pre-war Germans:

Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.

The other great leaders I've heard guide us toward a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.

Hitler's speeches had a similar effect. As Elie Wiesel noted:

"The fact is that Hitler was beloved by his people — not the military, at least not in the beginning, but by the average Germans who pledged to him an affection, a tenderness and a fidelity that bordered on the irrational. It was idolatry on a national scale. One had to see the crowds who acclaimed him. And the women who were attracted to him. And the young who in his presence went into ecstasy.

So, once again we see that Fascism is not dead. It is now called "Progressive" -- as indeed it always was.

But Obama is a warm and kindly figure, you might say -- not a madman like Hitler. To say that is to ignore history, however. A warm and kindly figure is exactly how most prewar Germans saw Hitler. See here for instance. It's just snake-oil skillfully sold by someone who is very good at it.

So what do I predict if Obama gains office? I predict a maximum attempt to extend the reach of government into all aspects of American life. So the only hope that remains for what is left of America's freedoms (and it is a hope with reasonable prospects) is that the Senate will thwart him. SCOTUS could also be of some help but nobody would want to rely on it.

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ELSEWHERE

Pentagon Seeking $20 Billion to Increase Size of Army, Marine Corps: "The Pentagon is seeking more than $20 billion in its 2009 budget to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps as the military struggles to fight wars on two fronts, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The proposed budget, which will be unveiled Monday, will call for $15.5 billion to boost the size of the Army by 7,000 soldiers, to a total of 532,400. And it will propose spending $5 billion to add 5,000 Marines to the Corps, for a total of 194,000. Separately, the budget will call for nearly $11 billion to cover the costs of training, recruiting and retention. Both services have been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting Pentagon leaders to seek money to increase recruiting and bonuses in a broad effort to add soldiers and Marines.... Plans are to increase the number of the active duty Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve by 74,000 overall, with the active duty force growing by 65,000 to a total of 547,000. Army leaders plan to complete the increase by 2010, and about half of the 65,000 has already been achieved".

The Leftist influence on history has understandably caused it to be seen as just propaganda: "Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist."

Suicide bomb suspects held at British airport: "Scotland Yard is braced for a fresh wave of possible terrorist attacks against public transport after a group of suspected Islamist suicide bombers were arrested in a secret security operation at Gatwick airport. Six Pakistani men were held under anti-terrorism laws 10 days ago after they flew in from Barcelona. The arrests were prompted by a tip-off from the Spanish intelligence services after the discovery of a suspected Al-Qaeda terror cell in the city. The cell is alleged to have planned to detonate suicide bombs on the Barcelona Metro. The Spanish warned a similar attack was being planned here. The six Pakistanis were taken to Paddington Green police station in west London and were questioned by detectives from the Yard's counter-terrorism unit. After being held overnight they were driven under police escort back to the airport and escorted onto a flight back to Pakistan. Soon after the arrests MI5's Centre for the Protection of National Infra-structure warned of a possible terrorist attack on bridges, tunnels and the Channel tunnel."

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

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

"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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