Passover Seder on 19th

As a non-Jew and an atheist, I have never attended a pesach seder but I have great respect for Judaism (note the flag that I fly on all my blogs) so I thought that I would like to attend one. The local Lubavitchers do advertise a seder so I thought I might go to that one. Alas! They are of course very strict so, even though I explained that I knew something of the teachings of their Rebbe, their person in charge told me as politely as he could that it was for Jews only.

He got a bit incoherent when I pointed out that the Rebbe preached love but that did not sway him, of course. As the Lubavitchers are very fundamentalist, I think we might perhaps conclude that we see the basic difference between Jewish love and Christian love there. Jewish love is for Jews and Christian love is for all mankind. Exclusivity is a feature of many religions so I support their right to be exclusive but I don't think it is wise -- as I have pointed out at some length elsewhere

There are not many Jews in Brisbane so I think I have now missed any chance of attending a seder this year.

Update:

Although I have been an atheist for all of my adult life, I did of course grow up into a Christian milieu -- with its characteristic devotion to outreach and proselytization -- so the attitude of the Lubavitchers was rather shocking to me. Nonetheless I should not have been shocked. There were gnostic sects of Christianity in the distant past and there are some survivals of that into modern times (Masons, Exclusive Brethren etc.).

But anyway, I think I may renew my contact with my Christian roots this Sunday by going to a service at my old church -- Ann St Presbyterian. Just the smell of old French-polished wood will make me feel good as I walk in there -- and the handshakes at the door won't hurt a bit either.

Update 2

I have of course now received a number of messages from Jewish readers in which they kindly say that I would be welcome at their seder. Sadly, none of them are anywhere near to me geographically. I hope I did make clear initially above my recognition that the Lubavitchers do not speak for all Jews.

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Another reason why McCain might win

America is NOT a libertarian country

Anxious conservatives this year are evincing a powerful nostalgia for Ronald Reagan, giving the former president credit for fathering the modern era of consistent Republican victories. Reagan, the myth goes, kept together the three "legs" of the GOP "stool": social conservatives, free marketeers, and national security hawks. As a result, Republicans held the White House for 20 of the last 28 years, broke the Democrats' stranglehold on the House of Representatives, cut income taxes, and won the Cold War.

But in 2008 the stool seems on the verge of breaking apart. Less than two years after holding the White House and both houses of Congress, the Republican Party is threatening to squander all three. Already down 33 seats in the House of Representatives, Republicans are losing 26 incumbents to retirement compared to the Democrats' five and as of early March were behind on congressional fund raising by a ratio of 5 to 1, according to The Wall Street Journal. Democrats are widely expected to extend their 51-49 advantage in the Senate....

In Comeback, one of several new whither-the-party books by traumatized Republicans, former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum points out that the very Bush policies that fiscal conservatives like him despise-the prescription drug entitlement, the No Child Left Behind Act, campaign finance reform-were overwhelmingly popular among the American people. "On issues from Social Security to healthcare to environmental protection, conservatives find themselves on the less popular side of the great issues of the day," Frum writes.

The solution? Surrender: "There are things only government can do, and if we conservatives wish to be entrusted with the management of the government, we must prove that we care about government enough to manage it well." Republicans should cave on new spending and regulations, says Frum, in exchange for tax cuts. "This is not 1964," he writes. "The ideal under threat today is not the nation's liberty, but the nation's security, its unity, its effectiveness, and.its equality and beauty."

As Sasha Issenberg wrote in a perceptive Boston Globe story last November, "With Republicans no longer preaching suspicion of Washington, a new consensus has emerged, as both parties have come in their ways to stand today for a more robust, aggressive federal government. As a result, Goldwaterism is without a natural home in the two-party system." ....

More here

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Petraeus calls for halt to withdrawal: "The top US commander in Iraq, David Petraeus, told Congress late last night that the surge of American forces to the war-torn country had resulted in a "significant but uneven" improvement in security. General Petraeus's politically charged testimony came after presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain yesterday accused his two Democratic rivals of backing a reckless withdrawal from the Iraq war. "Since ambassador (Ryan) Crocker and I appeared before you seven months ago, there has been significant but uneven security progress in Iraq," General Petraeus said in opening testimony before the Senate armed services committee. He said the drawdown of the 30,000 surge troops would be completed in July and followed by a 45-day review period to determine future force numbers and strategy. As fierce clashes between Shia fighters and Iraqi and US forces in Baghdad's Sadr City district killed at least 12 people and wounded 36, General Petraeus said Iran had fuelled violence in Iraq and that Tehran's influence on militias remained the longest-term threat to the country. Senator McCain stressed his commitment to the war in his opening address as the committee's ranking Republican."

Hillary's nutty Rabbi: "Have you heard about the Democratic presidential candidate who has links to a radical clergyman? Did you know that the clergyman was arrested for conspiracy and criminal political violence in the early 1970s? Some of the things the clergyman wrote around that time were: – "The Jewish community is racist, internally corrupt . . ." – "The synagogue as currently established will have to be smashed."  – "Black anti-Semitism . . . is not an anti-Semitism rooted in . . . hatred of the Christ-killers but rather one rooted in the concrete fact of oppression by Jews of blacks . . ." What's that you say? You had not heard that Barack Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, had been arrested for violent acts? You did not know he said these things? Wright was not the clergyman responsible for the above quotes and he was not arrested for conspiracy in the 1970s. And the candidate is not Obama. This article is about Hillary Clinton and her friendship with her "Politics of Meaning" guru Rabbi Michael Lerner; he wrote those things in a 1969 article in Judaism magazine."

UN "human rights" envoy blocked by Israel: "Israel has said it will refuse a visa for the new United Nations human rights envoy to the Palestinians after he said it was responsible for a "Holocaust in the making" in Gaza. Richard Falk, a Jewish-American law professor, is to assume the UN post of special rapporteur in June. But the Israeli government is furious as he compared it last year to Nazi Germany and has refused to retract his comments since his appointment. A spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry also accused his employers of bias. Israeli officials want the envoy to evaluate Palestinian human rights violations, including rockets fired on Israeli civilians, alongside any Israeli transgressions."



New leader for Holy Ireland: "A few pints may be sunk and a song sung tonight by Brian Cowen when he becomes leader of Fianna F il, and just a step away from replacing his boss Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach next month. Mr Cowen - known to admirers and detractors alike as "Biffo"* - has been Mr Ahern's anointed successor since Ireland's most successful party won last year's general election, for the third time in a row. It was Mr Cowen in whom Mr Ahern confided last week before springing his surprise resignation announcement, prompted by further questions about the Prime Minister's financial affairs. The seamless succession is unlikely to mean any big government reshuffles, with Cabinet ministers tripping over themselves last week to endorse Mr Cowen and name him as the only candidate in the race. The only question remaining is, who will step up to the role of Tanaiste, or deputy prime minister?"

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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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A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Leftism and hate

I often point out the hate motivation that drives lots of Leftists. That does appear to upset some conservatives. Leftists are so constantly accusing conservatives of hate that some conservatives seem to think that it is not genteel to use similar language. "We should not stoop to their level" seems to be the thinking. Or maybe they hope that by not speaking about hate they will make all talk of it go away.

But that is exactly what preachers of Leftism want conservatives to do. Leftists know full well how much hate and anger burns in their own hearts but they also know that public awareness of that would discredit them. So they do all they can to prevent awareness of their motivations from rising to the surface -- by loud cries of good intentions, shallow arguments that what they want is all "for your own good" AND by accusing others of being what they really are -- using "projection", as psychologists call it.

And projection is a very effective and very old strategy for deflecting attention from your own weaknesses. Even Jesus was aware of it when he admonished people to get the beam out of their own eye before worrying about the speck in someone elses' eye (Matthew 7: 3-5).

We can see this hate of everything that is about them most clearly in the case of extreme Leftists. Communists and their ilk openly preach revolution -- destruction of the entire "system". And in their various campaigns in democratic societies they are often calling for something to be "smashed". I remember a time in Britain when "smash Maggie Thatcher's government" was a popular Trotskyist slogan.

And their chronic anger explains why Leftist policies are so uniformly boneheaded and fail to take account of all the factors involved. When you are angry, you haven't got the time or energy for calm and mature contemplation. You just seize on the simplest available alternative to whatever it is that you hate. And you don't really care if the alternative isn't a good one. All your energies are focused on attacking the status quo.

What it is that makes the Leftist so burnt up inside could be many things -- from being born ugly to a feeling that they are not getting the recogntion that they think that they deserve for their talents. And I should stress here that I am talking about the preachers of Leftism, not necessarily the poor schmucks who get conned into voting for them.

The Leftist hatred of the existing system can show up in all sorts of ways. Even I was a little surprised to see some freaky-looking female poindexter on the Leftist "Alternet" site getting all excited by some recent egghead pronouncement to the effect that the English language as we know it is dying out(!). The claim is that English will become fractionated into mutually unintelligible dialects in the next few hundred years. The Leftist lady comments:

"Although I am the daughter and granddaughter of English teachers and spent many years in an English department earning a PhD, I relish the prospect of my language changing and becoming incomprehensible to me. Maybe that's because I spent a year learning to read Old English, the dominant form of English spoken 1,000 years ago, and I realize how much my language has already changed. But my glee in the destruction of my own spoken language isn't entirely inspired by knowing language history. It's because I want English to reflect the lives of the people who speak it. I want English to be a communications tool"

"Glee in destruction". That's pretty clear, isn't it? And it's all an absurdity. First the printed word and now the broadcast media are making English more uniform. Far from fractionating into different dialects, English worldwide is becoming standardized on the usage of the world's largest English-speaking community: popular American usage. I myself used an Americanism above that would so far be not be generally understood in my own country of Australia: "poindexter" (meaning a geek or what the British would once have termed a "swot").

I am in fact a native speaker of a form of English that meets a lot of incomprehension in America. When I am writing and when I am overseas generally, I deliberately do not use the full range of Australian expressions -- but even then I quite often get tripped up. I use expressions which I think are standard but which are not. However, much as I love my native Australian language, it is constantly borne upon me that young Australians have lost a lot of their old Australian idioms and use American expressions instead (using "guy" instead of "bloke", for instance). English is quite plainly progressing towards worldwide uniformity, not fractionation into mutually unintelligible dialects.

So our sad Leftist lady will have to put up with something important NOT being destroyed. And note the characteristically pathetic rationalization she uses for her pervasive hatred of the status quo: She wants English to be "a communications tool". As if it isn't already!

Update:

An interesting email from an American reader:

"The internationalization of English doesn't come just from the spread of Americanisms. Last week I saw "gobsmacked" used by Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit. I first learned the term reading British blogs. I've also heard youngish Americans use "bloke." We've come a long way since the American distributors of Mad Max decided they would have to have the film dubbed into American."

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The Charlton Heston the Left won't tell you about

Not very many people will remember that Charlton Heston picketed a segregated theater premiering his own movie; or that he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr on the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. All at a time when no one in Hollywood was willing to speak out against racism. It's more likely that he'll be remembered as the six foot three inch tall actor, who played Moses and Ben Hur, and later became the president and spokesman for the National Rifle Association advocating the right to keep and bear arms; or recall that he opposed affirmative action. But Heston the marcher and Heston the NRA president come closer together if one recalls that in the actor's mind at least, racial segregation helped the cause of Communism. The fight for freedom took many forms, but underneath its varied guises it was always the same thing.

Part of the problem with Charlton Heston wasn't that he was inconsistent, but that he was too consistent. And the common mistake, even of the Old Bolsheviks, was to suppose that following a set of principles was better following fashion. Those who wonder whether Heston had wandered off should ask themselves whether Martin Luther King, had he lived, might also have remarked to the nation's First Black President that "America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns." After all, King was a Republican and nobody remembers that either.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Absolut apologizes for expanded Mexico ad: "The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers. The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan 'In an Absolut World,' showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence. But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, came as the United States builds up its border security amid an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor. ... The ads sparked heated comment on a half-dozen other Internet sites and blogs."

General election coming in Italy on April 13 & 14: "The Left?" asks Silvio Berlusconi. "The Left says it loves the poor". He pauses: the banner-waving supporters braving the rain in Piazza del Plebiscito, Naple's main square, wait for the punch line. "So it does. The Left loves the poor so much it creates more of them every time it gets into power". The crowd erupts, even though it has heard most of Mr Berlusconi's jokes before. He turns his fire on Walter Veltroni, the earnest, bespectacled new leader of the Centre Left and his opponent in next weekend's election. "Veltroni? He leads the Bikini Party - it shows a lot but covers up the Communist essentials". Another roar of approval, to the sound of Mr Berlusconi's campaign song "Thank God for Silvio". The two leaders are fighting a final battle for undecided voters, estimated at between twenty and thirty percent, in a country disillusioned with its chronic political instability, economic decline and self serving elite."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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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A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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One reason why McCain might win

Ask any priest, pastor, rabbi, teacher, psychotherapist, supervisor, or elected official and they will be happy to confirm that the people they deal with are all trying to work out their childhood agendas on any available authority figure.

Some of us want a `sugar daddy' and a `sugar family' who takes care of us, and we cede our personal power and freedom to this Democrat Parent/Party who promises security. The details of politics and policy positions pale into insignificance when compared to the need to escape from personal freedom and responsibility.

Some of us want a `strong daddy' who will protect us from danger and who expects us to be strong as well, and we vote for a Republican Parent/Party. We need to belong to a strong family with a strong leader so we will be safe. And once again, the details don't really matter that much.

No matter whom we are voting for we are voting for our kind of family, and our kind of parent. Most folks look at the candidate for the qualities they want that will fill their psychological needs. The issues aren't nearly as important as the personal evaluation of the person's character. If they like the person and trust them to be "their kind of parent," they will vote for them.

Some voters still embrace their personal freedom and the responsibility that comes along with it. They study the issues and they vote on the issues. But sadly, they are a distinct minority. Don't expect the American people to vote on issues. They almost never do. My guess is that more people will vote on how the candidate looks than what the candidate thinks. They vote for whoever meets their personal psychological needs. Thus someone like John McCain can lead the Republican Party even though the "party's issues" run contrary to his thinking.

Most people don't like Hillary and can't imagine her as a parent figure, unless it is the `Mommy Dearest' type. Obama isn't old enough to inspire parental psychological needs and the religious mass movement that is driving his campaign will probably falter because of weak faith.

McCain is a hero parent who will protect us from danger, and most people like him. Most Republican voters will overlook his policy positions, just like they overlooked strong and protective Rudy Giuliani's liberalness. Unless McCain screws up and shows signs of being a bad Dad, McCain will probably win.

More here

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Rich bitch represents the poor?? "New York Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband spend a lot of time on the Presidential trail deploring the "wealthy" and "well-connected." As their newly released tax records for 2000 to 2007 show, they know of whom they speak. The former, and perhaps future, first couple earned $109 million over the past eight years, putting them among the top .01% of taxpayers. Apparently the Bush years haven't been a Depression era for everyone. The bulk of the Clintons' income came from speech-making ($51.9 million) and book-writing ($29.6 million)... We can also now understand why the couple took so long to release their returns, and are still reluctant to release other information. Their political status has given them access to wealthy folks who've helped make them rich. For example, Mr. Clinton raked in as much as $15 million working as an adviser and rainmaker for billionaire financier Ron Burkle's Yucaipa firm".

Cuba getting more capitalist: "In a country where almost everyone works for the communist state, dairy farmer Jesus Diaz is his own boss. He likes it that way -- and so does the government. Living on a plot of land just big enough to graze four dairy cows, Diaz produces enough milk to sell about four quarts a day to the state. This is independent production on a tiny scale, but it has proved so efficient that Cuba has decided on a major expansion of its program to distribute underused and fallow farmland to private farmers and cooperatives. ''It's a way for the land to end up in the hands of those who want to produce. I see it as a very good thing,'' said Diaz, 45. He received his land and cows from the state in 1996, and now hopes to get access to more property. The government is preparing for a ''massive distribution of land,'' Orlando Lugo, president of Cuba's national farming association, said last week. Private farmers have begun receiving land for the cash crops of coffee and tobacco, and will soon be able to lease state land for other crops."

Brainless Illinois Democrats: "Fresh on the heels of the decision last month by Cook County to more than double its sales tax, a decision giving Chicago the highest sales tax in the US, Democrats in the Illinois State Legislature are proposing to amend the Illinois Constitution in order to double the state income tax to 6% for those making over $250,000. As one supporter of the idea, Illinois state Rep. Joseph Lyons (D-Chicago), put it: "Let's take from the rich and give to the poor." The statement by Rep. Lyons wasn't just an offhand remark: the proposal is being called "The Robin Hood Tax" by its backers. These allusions to outdated ideas from a time long ago aren't unusual in Chicago politics."

'Ruthlessness gene' discovered. Dictatorial behaviour may be partly genetic, study suggests: "Could a gene be partly responsible for the behaviour of some of the worlds most infamous dictators?"Could a gene be partly responsible for the behaviour of some of the worlds most infamous dictators? Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to have found a genetic link to ruthlessness. The study might help to explain the money-grabbing tendencies of those with a Machiavellian streak - from national dictators down to 'little Hitlers' found in workplaces the world over. Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behaviour in an economic exercise called the 'Dictator Game'. The exercise allows players to behave selflessly, or like money-grabbing dictators such as former Zaire President Mobutu, who plundered the mineral wealth of his country to become one of the world's richest men while its citizens suffered in poverty."

An amazing idea from a Leftist government: "School children in Britain could soon be signing up for controversial lessons in military drills and weapons training. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is reportedly backing the plan, which aims to improve links between the public and armed forces. The plan has been drawn up after a review of the military's role in British society found that encouraging high school pupils to join the country's cadet corps could help improve discipline among teenagers, and improve attitudes towards the army, navy and air force. The Observer newspaper said the Labour MP who carried out the review for the government, Quentin Davies, was alarmed by how many pupils had no idea of military life. He wants high school pupils to receive basic military training to help foster a greater affiliation with the defence forces. "The prime minister is very, very keen on the opportunities represented by cadet forces and we will be making a number of recommendations to increase the use of this superb national asset," Davies told the newspaper."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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How Did We Reach The Point Where Air America Calls Hillary a 'Whore'?

Randi Rhodes [of Air America] called Hillary a `f*cking whore'. In and of itself, it's shocking, but it's otherworldly when we think about what Hillary Clinton has meant to liberals for most of the past sixteen years.... And if you've read any Hillary vs. Obama thread on a liberal blog lately, you know that there have been friendlier back-and-forth exchanges in snakepits.

There's something vaguely reassuring about all this, from the view of sitting on the right. It reveals to conservatives that the nastiness exhibited in our earlier disagreements with these folks was never personal; these people are clearly nasty to anyone who disagrees with them. Geraldine Ferraro's long service to the Democratic party means nothing to many Obama backers; she's a racist, "David Duke in drag," as Rhodes put it. I'm sure Senator Patrick Leahy thought his decades of work on the left side of the aisle had bought him some street cred from feminists, but no, he was called sexist when he called on Hillary to leave the race.

Hillary gets called a "monster" by Obama's surrogates; Hillary's surrogates wonder out loud if Obama ever sold drugs. Today Clinton surrogate Ed Rendell speculates that Americans know only half the story of Barack Obama. Day in, day out, in this race it continues.

Is there nastiness on the right? Sure. But it's hard to imagine somebody being the equivalent hero to the right the way Hillary was a hero to the left, so suddenly and severely pitched overboard - no, that's not it, denounced and demonized - when somebody else came along.

More here

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Another lie from Hillary: "Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee. The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured. "We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story," said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O'Bleness Health System. Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story"

What I mean, not what I say: "When ABC reported the scoop that Hillary Clinton told Bill Richardson that Barack Obama couldn't win in the general election, I thought it was a good nugget but not surprising. It's not as if she'd previously said she'd be a better nominee because Obama is a bad dancer. The Clinton campaign has been arguing that Obama can't win in the general election for months. ... But as thoroughly obvious as the Clinton remark is, it's the kind of plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face statement that candidates are never supposed to actually make out loud. They'll walk you up to the idea. They'll even sound out the vowels to help you say it yourself, but in primary season, no one is supposed to actually say, 'He can't win' or 'He doesn't have the credentials to be commander in chief.' Her campaign will suggest that your sleeping children could be extinguished in their beds if Obama is elected, but when Clinton is asked at a debate if Obama is not ready to be president, she'll say that's for the voters to decide."

The immoderate voice: "At the so-called Moderate Voice, Sean Mullen has an interesting concept of terrorism. Former Sen. Phil Gramm, now an adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign, is a "terrorist in pinstripes" for his sponsorship of the Financial Services Modernization Act. Mullen blames the law for the subprime mortgage meltdown. because Barack Obama says so. You really cannot get more moderate than that. Okay, so maybe Mullen could get more moderate than that. For example, Mullen could have noted that the Financial Services Modernization Act was signed into law by then-Pres. Bill Clinton. Mullen could have noted that Obama, like Hillary Clinton, has taken plenty of campaign cash from the main players in the subprime-mortgage industry. Mullen also could have told his readers that Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee has defended the deregulation of mortgage lending on the op-ed page of the New York Times."

Hey Hollywood how about a movie about winning the war? : "Hey, Hollywood people, thanks for taking this meeting. I wish I had some good news about the new movie "Stop-Loss." But I don't. It's a bomb, a major disaster at the box office despite the presence of Ryan Phillippe. Sorry. One thing: Why do you guys keep making these Iraq war films when nobody wants to see them? I mean, "Home of the Brave" went straight to video, and most theaters wouldn't even consider "Redacted." I understand that billionaire Mark CubanMark-Cuban has no clue, but come on, the guy spends more than five million bucks on "Redacted" and it grosses about $65,000. Wow, that's some write-off. As you know, even the big boys are getting hammered with these anti-American movies"

Media score keeping in Iraq: "In the opening game of the baseball season between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics in Japan, 11 runs were scored. That lead would be unsatisfying to most sports fans because it doesn't indicate which team won. But it is very like most of the reporting of battles in Iraq: "The deadliest clashes were in Basra, where at least 47 people were killed and 223 wounded in the two days of fighting," wrote the AP's Kim Gamel. Mr. Roggio said his sources in the U.S. military tell him the Mahdi Army was getting pounded. "According to an unofficial tally . 571 Mahdi army fighters have been killed, 881 have been wounded, 490 have been captured, and 30 have surrendered over the course of seven days of fighting."

Surprise! Academics like an impractical dreamer: "In state after state -- from New Hampshire and Michigan to Texas and Ohio -- Obama runs unusually strongly in counties with large universities. Academics -- and I include here those who choose to live in university towns as well as those actually in or teaching school -- seem to find Obama particularly appealing."

In Wal-Mart we trust: "While the Federal Emergency Management Agency fumbled about, doing almost as much to prevent essential supplies from reaching Louisiana and Mississippi as it could to facilitate it, Wal-Mart managers performed feats of heroism. In Kenner, La., an employee crashed a forklift through a warehouse door to get water for a nursing home. A Marrero, La., store served as a barracks for cops whose homes had been submerged. In Waveland, Miss., an assistant manager who could not reach her superiors had a bulldozer driven through the store to retrieve disaster necessities for community use, and broke into a locked pharmacy closet to obtain medicine for the local hospital. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart trucks pre-loaded with emergency supplies at regional depots were among the first on the scene wherever refugees were being gathered by officialdom. Their main challenge, in many cases, was running a gauntlet of FEMA officials who didn't want to let them through."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Oil idiocy



The latest in the series of pointless gestures that constitute Congressional energy policy came yesterday, when executives from five major oil companies were paraded before Ed Markey's House hearing on global warming. They served as political props for Members to denounce rising gas prices, ventilate Dick Cheney conspiracy theories and otherwise advertise their ignorance of the markets they purportedly oversee.

Democrats, for instance, might rejoice over higher energy costs, which is precisely the eco-policy they've been advocating for years. Until Congress finds a way to abolish the price mechanism, paying more for gasoline is the only signal that will tell Americans to cut their consumption. How exactly do Democrats think a carbon tax or cap-and-trade regime is going to work?

The oil executives performed a public service by pointing out other economic realities. About 70% of the price of gasoline is determined by the global price of crude, which is rising because of world-wide demand and volatility in the commodities markets, not to mention the Federal Reserve's easy-money policy. Congress might also look to its gas mandates and the corset it has laced around domestic production.

It's true that industry profits are at a record high, but oil is a classic boom-and-bust business, which is why billions in capital investments are folded back into exploration and production. Besides, the industry's effective tax rates are in the neighborhood of 40% to 44%. Over the past five years, Exxon Mobil's total U.S. tax bill exceeded its U.S. revenues by some $19 billion.

Mr. Markey also used the occasion to threaten special tax increases, grilling the executives about $18 billion in "subsidies," which are actually a tax deduction that Congress itself extended to all manufacturers, including Big Oil. And he demanded that the companies commit 10% of profits to renewable energy. But as an Exxon vice president put it, fossil fuels are still going to account for at least two-thirds of the world's energy consumption in three decades and whatever scientific progress is made, the practical prospects for alternatives remain "very, very small."

Source. Toon via Dr Sanity

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Obama advisor says 60 to 80 thousand troops need to stay in Iraq: "A key adviser to Senator Obama's campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government "the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground)." Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign's working group on Iraq"

A new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is out on Iraq and it shows a lot of progress in Iraq: "A new classified intelligence assessment on Iraq says there has been significant progress in security since the last assessment was delivered in August, a senior military official said. In most ways the new National Intelligence Estimate hews closely to the one delivered nine months ago. That document spoke of security gains since the increase in troop levels began in January 2007, the continued high rate of violence and uneven progress on the part of Iraqi security forces."

Why top Democrats and the media want to Clinton/Obama battle to end: "Clinton is validating all sorts of things Republicans will say about Obama if he's the nominee. For example, she said Obama's not ready to be president "on Day One" or receive emergency 3 a.m. phone calls on Night One. And when the Jeremiah Wright controversy was winding down, Clinton tried to reignite the firestorm by saying that Obama's choice of ministers is fair game. This is a wonderful boon to Republicans. Clinton's criticisms of Obama's foreign-policy inexperience and his association with Wright are both perfectly legitimate. But if she weren't making them, Democrats (and much of the press) would denounce Republicans for saying the same things. If Obama had secured the nomination by now, the Democrats would surely be labeling any criticism over Jeremiah Wright as unfair, racist "swift-boating." That's hard to do when Bill and Hillary Clinton are making this criticism bipartisan.

60 minutes of slime again: "Dana Jill Simpson told "60 Minutes" she called Karl Rove in Virginia to discuss politics. She also said she was at a KKK meeting and that she was working undercover for Rove. Rove says there were no calls to Virginia. He's never lived in Virginia. Every nutty story Dana Jill Simpson told has not panned out including the story that she talked with the crooked Alabama governor... But, this didn't stop "60 Minutes" from running a Rove hit piece based entirely on her testimony."

FAA Inspectors Say Concerns Ignored: "The whistleblowers who exposed maintenance and inspection problems at Southwest Airlines told Congress their jobs were threatened and their reports of noncompliance were ignored for years. Federal Aviation Administration inspector Douglas Peters choked up Thursday at a House hearing and needed a few sips of water to tell lawmakers about how a former manager came into his office, commented on pictures of Peters' family being most important, and then said his job could be jeopardized by his actions. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., said FAA managers' actions displayed "malfeasance bordering on corruption," adding that if presented to a grand jury, the evidence would result in an indictment."

Time to scrap the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act: "Hoping to be seen to be 'doing something' about the perceived problem of Internet gambling, Congress approved the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in October of 2006. The Act, however, seems unlikely to stop Internet gambling and could even threaten the stable, smooth operation of America's banking system. UIGEA and its currently proposed enabling regulations will undermine the financial privacy of all Americans and reduce the security of their bank accounts. In short, UIGEA makes almost no financial, social, or economic sense. It deserves reexamination."

John Lilburne: The first English libertarian: "The Levellers were a group of political activists in the 17th century, who campaigned for radical change, by writing and distributing pamphlets, petitions and manifestos; and by arranging meetings in taverns to spread their ideas. Among their leading writers and pamphleteers, besides John Lilburne, were Richard Overton, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince, and John Wildman. Probably the most famous document compiled by the Levellers is one entitled An Agreement of the People. The demands listed included regular elections, religious freedom, equality before the law, an end to conscription for war service, equal electoral districts according to population, and universal manhood suffrage."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Small Victories over piranha lawyers

Foes of lawsuit abuse have been writing gleefully about the fall of Dickie Scruggs, Bill Lerach and Melvyn Weiss. All three lawyers are likely to spend time in jail for plotting to bribe a judge (Scruggs) or paying kickbacks (Lerach and Weiss). Good riddance. Locking them up will stop them from further damaging America - at least for a few years. But it's a small victory for reformers. New members of the parasite circus will just step forward to take their place. And what these aggressive class-action and securities lawyers do legally is more damaging to America than the crimes that Scruggs, Lerach and Weiss committed. They broke laws to cheat other lawyers out of some loot, but at least that barely hurt the public.

An editorial in this newspaper justifiably mocked Lerach for declaring his lawbreaking a mere "foot fault" ("I stepped over the line," he said). But at least paying off plaintiffs honestly reflects how such lawyers get rich. Often, they are less "officers of the court seeking justice" than businessmen colluding with plaintiffs in a lucrative extortion business. Legal extortion. But still extortion. Companies pay the lawyers to go away even when it's unclear that they did anything wrong.

Once companies pay, it's logical that the plaintiff/partner who helped the lawyers enrich themselves should get a cut of that loot. That's a fairer deal than what typical plaintiffs in class actions get: coupons or a check for perhaps $1.26.

A federal judge will soon decide whether to award Lerach his cut of what may be the biggest class-action legal fee ever. Lerach extorted - I mean persuaded - J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and a Canadian bank to give $695 million to him and other lawyers who claimed the banks were culpable in the Enron debacle. On March 19, 2007 an appellate court ruled that the banks were not culpable. But so what? Fairness doesn't necessarily govern this game. The game is more about rounding up lots of complainants and using America's one-sided legal system to terrorize businesses into settling. Companies could fight and win, but that distracts managers from what they ought to be doing. And they might get a bad jury and lose the entire company. It's safer to settle.

More here

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The myth of the just price: "The concept of the just price is the basis of a great deal of erroneous economic thought that permeates our supposedly free market, capitalistic society. Laws regarding usury, loan sharking, price gouging, ticket scalping, dumping, profiteering, equal pay, price discrimination, predatory pricing and lending, product bundling, and antitrust -- these are all prime examples of this fallacious way of thinking. Opinions expressed on these practices, and things like pay for supermodels, executives, actors, and athletes, as well as nebulous concepts of fairness, are likewise predicated on just price theory -- regardless of whether the opinionist has any concept of basic economics or has ever even heard of just price theory."

Demon seed? "Interview with Robert Paarlberg, author of Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa. Paarlberg: "My students know just what kind of food system they want: a food system that isn't based on industrial scale monoculture. They want instead small farms built around nature imitating polycultures. They don't want chemical use; they certainly don't want genetic engineering. They want slow food instead of fast food. They've got this image of what would be better than what we have now. And what they probably don't realize is that Africa is an extreme version of that fantasy. If we were producing our own food that way, 60 percent of us would still be farming and would be earning a dollar a day, and a third of us would be malnourished. I'm trying to find some way to honor the rejection that my students have for some aspects of modern farming, but I don't want them to fantasize about the exact opposite."

Newsweak shrinking: Hooray! "The staff of Newsweek will shrink dramatically, after 111 staffers on its news and business sides accepted a buyout last week. Among those leaving are some of the magazine's best-known, most-admired and longest-service critics, including David Gates, David Ansen and Cathleen McGuigan. 146 staffers were offered the chance to leave the magazine, with as much as two years of their current salary as a departing bonus, depending on their age and length of service. More staffers than expected accepted the offer, so at least some their jobs are likely to be filled by new hires. But dozens of positions will be eliminated permanently, Radar reports. The departure of so many senior staffers at once - all of them are expected to be gone by the end of this year - will mean the loss of much of the magazine's institutional memory, as well as many of its most talented writers and editors. All of the chief researchers are also leaving, and their positions may be eliminated"

EU regulations hit orchestras: "Along with other opera and ballet companies in the UK, Covent Garden is preparing itself for amendments to EU legislation relating to noise in the workplace. For most industries the regulations came into effect two years ago, but music and entertainment were granted an extra two years to find ways to adapt to the limits. That extension expires on Sunday, and orchestral managers have been thrown into a tailspin. They are spending tens of thousands of pounds consulting acoustic engineers and compiling complex databases, installing noise-reducing screens and buying earplugs for their players. They are metering their shows and rearranging their performance schedules accordingly, so that noisier productions are shared with quieter ones during the working week. And all without leaving audiences feeling that their musical night out has been compromised as a result. The regulations are designed to protect factory workers and other employees forced to carry out their jobs against a backdrop of loudly humming machinery. The irony is that for orchestras noise is their business, which makes it doubly tricky for them to function within the EU directive, especially when a Swan Lake clocks in at 90 decibels."

McCain has a personal stake in the war: "Sen. John McCain regularly talks about his military experience on the presidential campaign trail, but he draws the line when asked about his sons' service in the armed forces. Jimmy McCain, 19, who returned from Iraq in mid-February, is stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. Jack McCain, 21, is poised to graduate from the Naval Academy and could join the Marines as a second lieutenant. At a time when Democrats are calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, McCain has refused to use his children's experience to strengthen his arguments for keeping the U.S. military in the Middle Eastern country. McCain has appeared uncomfortable when asked about Jimmy's deployment to Iraq. When asked about it last month by Fox commentator Sean Hannity, McCain replied, "We really never talk about our sons. We have two sons in the military but we never talk about it, if that's all right." McCain added, "I am so proud of both of them."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The despicable military-hating Jack Murtha

I wonder does he still have a hat? The equally despicable John Kerry does

Last week's development in the Haditha case -- the dropping of all the charges leveled against Lance Cpl. Stephan Tatum for actions related to Haditha, Iraq -- drives another nail into the shameful accusations made by Time magazine and Rep. John Murtha.

Time magazine, with an assist from the Pennsylvania Democrat, sparked a legal and media inquisition against eight courageous United States Marines. Both Time and Murtha claimed these Marines committed cold-blooded murder in Haditha during a 2005 engagement. They also alleged the Marines participated in covering up their alleged atrocities. But after years of litigation and estimated $40 million in taxpayer funds expended, none of the Marines have been found guilty of committing murder or war crimes.

On Nov. 19, 2005, during an insurgent ambush of the Marines of Kilo Company 3rd battalion 1st Marines, 15 Iraqi civilians and nine suspected insurgent ambushers were killed. One Marine was killed in an IED explosion and two others seriously wounded. Thanks to the battalion intelligence officer, Lt. Jeff Dinsmore, who monitored the daylong engagement, the entire Marine chain of command were given the full story of the engagement that very night and it was agreed that no further action in connection with the civilian casualties was needed.

Months later, a Time story based on the testimony of two known insurgent propagandists and the stories of some Iraqi civilians falsely reported that the Kilo company Marines had wantonly murdered the dead Iraqis as an act of revenge after an IED explosion took the life of a fellow Marine. On the basis of Time's unsubstantiated allegations alone, Murtha publicly charged the Marines had gone on a rampage to avenge the killing of their comrade in the IED explosion and had committed cold-blooded murder. Time has been forced to issue four different retractions of details in their report.

Before any investigation had gotten underway Murtha went on a rampage of his own, attacking the Marines in venue after venue. In his original charges against the Marines, Murtha said there was no gunfire during the incident when there was in fact a daylong battle involving heavy insurgent gunfire directed at the Marines starting at the time of the IED explosion. Typical of Murtha's rantings were his comments on a May 28, 2006, ABC News broadcast. In response to George Stephanopolis' comment that he claimed to have been briefed several times since Nov. 19 and said that that the evidence showed that the Marines had committed cold-blooded murder, Murtha said: "Well there's no question in my mind, what happened was an IED exploded. It killed one Marine. And then a taxi drives up. When the taxi comes up there's four of five people in it. And they shoot . shoot those four or five people unarmed. "And then they go on a rampage throughout the houses and kill people.

More here

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Many readers here will probably be aware of the historical role played by Margaret Mead in the Leftist attack on sexual morality. Her influential book "Growing up in Samoa" paraded Mead's libertine ideology as anthropological fact. I have made a few comments on the matter over the years and Prof. Hiram Caton has recently taken me to task over some of my comments. You can read the dialogue here. The dialogue is actually about Derek Freeman, the man principally responsible for exposing Mead's lies. Freeman had to be an unusual character to take on such an acclaimed figure as Mead was and Caton says that Freeman was a nut. I suspect that Freeman simply had a strong ego but that the furious attacks that he sustained from the Left did unnerve him at times. But, as I initially pointed out to Caton, all that is ad hominem anyway.

Maybe there is something good about the U.N. after all!: "Al-QA'IDA number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has launched a blistering attack on the UN, calling it the enemy of Islam and Muslims in an online audiofile. "The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims: it is the one which codified and legitimised the setting up of the state of Israel and its taking over of the Muslims' lands," Zawahiri said. The audio released via the monitoring group the IntelCenter was the first installment in a two-part series to answer about 100 questions put to Zawahiri, known as al-Qa'ida's ideological thinker, via online militant forums. He grouped his replies into four sections - the killing of innocents, Iran, Egypt and Palestine - and denied that the al-Qa'ida network had been responsible for the loss of innocent Muslim lives."

Even dissolute Ted has some caution: "Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is jumping into the middle of an uproar within the gay community whose causes he has long championed. The Massachusetts Democrat is leading a push in the Senate for a federal ban on job bias against gays, lesbians and bisexuals - but not transsexuals, cross-dressers and others whose outward appearance doesn't match their gender at birth. "We will strongly oppose it," said Roberta Sklar of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Leaving transgender people out makes that a flawed movement."

CBS lying again: ""At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America's shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed." Thus intoned CBS correspondent Scott Pelley on Sunday night in introducing the 60 Minutes report on former Guant namo inmate and book author Murat Kurnaz...... we know from Kurnaz's declassified Combatant Status Review file that US authorities have in fact upheld his original classification as an illegal enemy combatant. More to the point, far from "agreeing" that Kurnaz had no connection to terror, starting in 2002, Germany's Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BKA) - the German equivalent of the FBI - itself classified Kurnaz as a "security risk." This classification was based on a number of pieces of information linking Kurnaz to Islamic extremist circles in Germany, including to the milieu of the "Hamburg cell" that planned the 9/11 attacks."

A coverup? "NASA shut down a massive air-safety survey project without ever properly evaluating, explaining or publicizing its purpose and results, and thus lost a chance for valuable insight into safety issues, the space agency's inspector general said Monday. The watchdog office said NASA should interpret and analyze the results of its interviews with some 30,000 pilots, but NASA in a written response continued to reject that idea. NASA will evaluate the methodology that its staff used in the $11.3 million project, but going further to actually report on the findings isn't worthwhile because the interviews, which were stopped at the end of 2004, are less relevant with the passage of time, wrote the agency's associate administrator, Jaiwon Shin. The intent of the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service was to help prevent aviation accidents by viewing air safety through the eyes of pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and air traffic controllers. Their insights would add to the picture provided by other aviation monitoring programs, the audit said.

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Hillary's lying goes back a long way

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career. Why? “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

More here

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Brookes News Update

Carbon emissions trading, the new Bubble Economy: Imposing a carbon emissions trading scheme is not justified by the science and is likely to be very costly and disruptive to the lives of all Australians. It is becoming very clear that carbon dioxide is not a key driver of earth's temperature, and attempts to reduce man's emissions of CO2 will do more harm than good
Dark Hour - a sign of the times: Earth Hour should be renamed Dark Hour during that consumers should also forgo the consumption of gasoline and diesel. Consumers should spend the hour they sit in the dark with no transport, air conditioning or hot coffee, remembering the contribution that carbon fuels have made to modern society
Buoy meets Gore: The global warming cult and its media allies suffered a severe blow when 3,000 automated ocean buoys actually detected a slight cooling. Moreover, NASA's eight weather satellites readings showed that temperature changes were well within the normal range
The Disgrace of Liberalism: The Democrats - with the indispensable aid of their media allies - successfully branded the Republicans as the 'party of corruption'. But this title rightfully belongs to the Democratic Party, that is utterly corrupt to its very core
Race card? Ask Obama... he brought it up.: Obama gave a speech to deplore the words of his trusted hatemongering preacher. Reverend Wright has been his mentor and spiritual advisor for the past twenty years. Yet, in that speech, he didn't disclaim the messenger
Race is not a factor this election: The Obama and Clinton campaigns are fostering a disconnected and artificial sense of race conflict as they desperately seek to extract a kernel of justification for their vacuous candidacies. Every comment or gesture from either side is weighed and parsed for race or gender bias
Morality and markets: Free market advocates place great store on moral frameworks and sound social institutions. Never forget that Adam Smith was first and foremost a moral philosopher

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The journalism of desperation here. They say that increasing use of food stamps is a sign of economic depression in America -- quite ignoring the fact that the government has recently expanded eligibility for food stamps. Taranto has the details.

The "recession" is a media myth: "During the 2000 election, with Bill Clinton as president, the economy was viewed through rose-colored glasses. According to polls, voters didn't realize that the country was in a recession. Although the economy started shrinking in July 2000, most Americans through the entire year thought that the economy was fine. But over the last half-year, the media and politicians have said we were in a recession even while the economy was still growing. Gas prices are going up. The economy is slowing. Talk of recession is seemingly everywhere. While the majority of people rate their personal finances positively, consumer confidence in the economy has plunged to a 16-year low, well below what it was during the last year of the Clinton administration when we were in a recession."

Nobody fears Hillary: "Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain. Be afraid. Be very afraid, for if you don't obey the Great and Powerful Oz will turn her wrath on you. Yawn. Hillary Clinton's favorite girlhood movie was the 'Wizard of Oz.' But now, as the primaries clank along, her subjects are refusing to wear the green-tinted glasses and buy her act. She's less and less terrifying every day, and fewer of those closest to her -- her Senate colleagues -- are intimidated. Despite their best efforts, the Clintons' powers seem to have gone on the fritz, and those Democrats who know Hillary best have strayed off to follow a new, more congenial character. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr. was the most recent U.S. Senator to endorse Barack Obama for President. But he certainly is not the only one."

Limiting executive power: "Should the World Court be imbued with the authority to determine how Texans run their justice system? Does the president have the authority to impose an international court ruling on a state? Would such a notification have altered the outcome of the trial? During Medellin's appeal process, the consulate issue was raised in both Texas and federal courts. To this point, every court has found that notification was irrelevant to the case itself and to Medellin's richly deserved death sentence. And this week, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the president does not have the authority to order states to follow international agreements in the courts."

Another crooked black?: "U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson quit following calls by lawmakers for him to step down amid a federal criminal probe into contracts the agency awarded. ``There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters,'' Jackson, reading from a statement, told reporters in Washington today. ``Now is such a time for me.'' His resignation takes effect April 18." [Conservatives once had some hopes of Alphonso Jackson]

Another TSA abuse: "You may have heard, recently, of a woman, undergoing security procedures at one of this once-free nation's airport gulags, who was forced by Transportation Safety Administration goons to remove a pair of decorative metal rings from her nipples with pliers, even though the jewelry demonstrably posed no threat to anybody -- and she was reportedly willing to show them to appropriate female security personnal. There was no reason for this treatment. It's the kind of routine violation and harassment members of America's Productive Class have been increasingly subjected to by otherwise unemployable minimum wage thugs. It is, of course, only the latest in what the Founding Fathers would have called 'a long chain of abuses and usurpations"

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 OBAMA WATCH, 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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A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Quite marvellous: An Individual With a Strong Voice Makes a Difference

Post below lifted from Bruce Kesler. See the original for links

Both houses of the New York State legislature have now passed what some are calling "Rachel's Law." It provides protection to American authors against "libel terrorism," seeking to enforce judgments in New York State that were granted in other countries without our level of free speech protections. The law now just awaits signing by NYS's new governor, David Paterson.

One of the co-sponsors of the law, Senator Skelos, says, "The truth is a critically-important component in the War on Terror.This important new law will protect American authors and journalists who expose terrorist networks and their financiers."

I spoke briefly with Rachel Ehrenfeld tonight. She is, of course, elated at this victory, which she stubbornly waged as an individual transplanted to our shores because of her belief in America's freedoms. Ehrenfeld agrees, "this is what America is about" when individuals can have this impact. Now, there remains a long road through the courts to overturn the "libel terrorism" judgment's enforceability in our courts. Financial help is needed. Click here to help, at the American Center For Democracy. David Siegel, longtime editor of the New York State Law Digest, wrote in the March 12 New York Law Journal,

[A]ny bill that tries to address any situation as complex as Ehrenfeld is going to pose constitutional issues. If I may be allowed a flippancy, so what! It will boil down to the classic situation in which a statute toils near the border of constitutionality and leaves it to the courts to draw the line. Far worse than that would be to do nothing in the face of what seems to me an egregious effort, in a forum with libel laws offensive to our own and a dubious venue for the Ehrenfeld case to boot, to let an alleged libel victim pull off a coup in which he makes it too expensive for a New York writer to contest his foreign lawsuit.

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ELSEWHERE

More bad history from Hillary. She condemns what Japan did in response to its credit crisis of the '90s but gets ass-backwards what they did. So what she advocates for America is exactly what failed in Japan. Those who will not learn from history.... Details here

Hamas's open ethnic and religious bigotry: "In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew. "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted," Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. "They have been traitors to all agreements - go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us." At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the "Crusaders," or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs," while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control."

Growth is in the "red" States, not the senile Northeast: "Four Texas metropolitan areas were among the biggest population gainers as Americans continued their trend of moving to the Sun Belt in 2006 and 2007, according to Census Bureau estimates to be released Thursday. Dallas-Fort Worth added more than 162,000 residents between July 2006 and July 2007, more than any other metro area. Three other Texas areas - Houston, Austin and San Antonio - also cracked the top 10. Atlanta saw the second-largest population jump with just over 151,000 new residents. Phoenix was third with more than 132,000, and was followed by Houston, Riverside, Calif., Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas and San Antonio. Of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas, 27 were in the South and 20 were in the West. Two were in the Midwest, one - Fayetteville, Ark. - straddles the South and Midwest and none was in the Northeast."

Military families: "Military families are different from civilian families, and multi-generation military families are extraordinary in ways difficult to comprehend. I married into one, and as a civilian still find myself marveling at the sacrifices involved. My wife's borther, George Philip, is an Annapolis grad and retired after a 20 year career as a Marine Corps officer. Her dad, Col. Wilbur Helmer, retired as a colonel in the USMC,and fought in some of the toughest battles of the Pacific War. Her grandfather and great grandfather were Annapolis men and admirals. Her uncle, then-Ensign Joseph Taussig, left his leg on the Nevada. Her mom's first husband, Commander George Philip, went down with his ship at Okinawa. His cousin, John Waldron, led a famed torpedo bomber attack at the Battle of Midway. All of which is to say that they are different from you and I, and that difference should be honored by civilians again and again."

Altruistic Twist in Market Economies: "Democratic societies with market economies have a reputation as cauldrons of competition, materialism, and greed. There's another side to that coin, though. These societies also foster cooperation among strangers in order to achieve a common financial goal, say economist Benedikt Herrmann of the University of Nottingham, England, and his colleagues. In contrast, nondemocratic and other societies without market economies-marked by low civic involvement and distrust of public authorities-promote an ethic of punishing strangers who demand cooperation in a joint economic effort, Herrmann's group reports in the March 7 Science."

A Belgian Utopia: "Inadvertently, the Belgian government has proven that government is best which governs least. After spending 9 months in a political deadlock, the country found itself chugging along without so much as a hiccup. The Financial Times reports: "For all its regional rivalries, Belgium went about daily life as normal. Its famed bureaucracy chugged along under its own power. Guy Verhofstadt, the long-serving and outgoing prime minister, proved just as capable as a temporary caretaker. Social security benefits were paid and the trains ran on time. Politicians should take note. Belgium has opened the door to an enticing possibility. Non-government has attractions. Imagine living without fear of new taxes being levied or of a daily diet of attention-grabbing policies"."

Hopeless Brits still cannot run an airport terminal: "Five days after Terminal Five opened, ministers criticised anger at the chaos which has engulfed the multi-billion pound facility, while it also emerged that the turmoil had triggered a diplomatic incident. "It is extremely regrettable to say the least that passengers using T5 have had to suffer an unacceptably poor travel experience," Aviation Minister Jim Fitzpatrick told the House of Commons. British Airways - the only airline using the new terminal - cancelled another 54 flights on Monday after a nightmare weekend, while a spokesman said another 50 flights will be cancelled on Tuesday. "We continue to work towards increasing the number of services we are operating to and from Terminal 5 in the days ahead," he said. Terminal Five has been blighted by logistical troubles ever since it opened to much fanfare on Thursday, with problems compounded by a major computer glitch in the luggage handling system. The luggage backlog has so far grown to 28,000 bags, and could take up to a week to return them to owners, the minister said. Earlier BA said there were 15,000, while the BBC published photos of the bags piled on top of each other. BA chief executive Willie Walsh was forced to make his second apology in three days on Sunday, as the airline scrapped dozens of flights over the weekend."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, 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

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

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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