Putin's Rules, or Ours?

Is it only a coincidence that Vladimir Putin launched a tank invasion of Georgia inside the week that Alexander Solzhenitsyn died? It was said countless times that Solzhenitsyn's truth-telling began the collapse of Soviet communism. As Vladimir Putin watched his tanks threaten Tbilisi yesterday, he must have thought that the post-Solzhenitsyn world is fine with him. He and the men in his orbit are unimaginably rich for seeing the world through the bloodless eyes of a Saudi prince.

Unburdened of the exhausting task of enforcing Soviet ideology, Putin's Russia got its hands around the energy-needy throats of Germans, the French, Italians and many other Europeans. London's clubs and the sunshiny resorts of Europe make for pleasant Russian playgrounds. Europe's natural-gas users will pay the tab forever.

The New Russians now in Georgia are shaping a new world with rules based on the old Russian brutalisms. Their political instruments include the eternal silence of murder, routine energy-supply blackmail, and this week a revival of the massed-tank strategies of 1956 and 1968.

Deafening is the sound of scales falling from Western eyes, though it's worth noting how few commentaries about the post-Georgia reality have mentioned the wolves already inside the West -- the terror brigades of radical Islam. Iran's mullahs watch and wait; they'll grab the Gulf once it is clear the West won't resist. Soon?

There is an alternative to this dark opposition, whose goal is to displace the order that served the world well in the 60-year postwar era. The alternative is Georgia. After Mikheil Saakashvili was elected president of Georgia in 2004 at age 36, he and his young colleagues began a crash program to integrate their nation into the global world order. Georgia has tried to become both a democracy and free-market economy. It's worth noting that like Mr. Saakashvili, a Columbia Law graduate who came to the U.S. from Georgia on a State Department Muskie Fellowship, many of his young ministers were schooled at places like Duke, Southern Methodist, Indiana or in Tel Aviv, Israel. Surely many such foreign students must ponder the evident success of the U.S. The young Georgians did.

They returned to Tbilisi and with Mr. Saakashvili began to erect, piece by piece, a political, economic and financial system that could plug itself smoothly into the ones already running in the West. On balance, they've succeeded. Growth last year was about 12%. Foreign investment flows have been high..... What Georgia represents is an independent nation that has worked hard to be part of the established civilized order, rather than contribute to the chaotic and violent frictions that seem on the verge of constantly overwhelming the world. Putin's Russia is a manufacturer of frictions.

Some argue that Georgia is not a primary American interest. They see Georgia as ultimately a place that transits oil and gas through pipelines from somewhere else to Turkey or onto Europe. Georgia is unlucky geography. This is false. When this crisis ends, Georgia will be either a model for a world that works or a world whose members do business with knives.

More here

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Russia: Georgia can "forget" regaining provinces: "The foreign minister of Russia said Thursday that Georgia could 'forget about' getting back its two breakaway provinces, and the former Soviet republic remained on edge as Russia sent tank columns to search out and destroy Georgian military equipment. Uncertainty about Russia's intentions and back-and-forth charges clouded the conflict two days after Russia and Georgia signaled acceptance of a French-brokered cease-fire, and a week after Georgia's crackdown on the two provinces drew a Russian military response."

Poland Spring: "Russia's invasion of Georgia seems to have concentrated the minds of at least some politicians in Europe. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced Thursday that his country had agreed to host 10 American missile-defense interceptors. The agreement comes along with an enhanced promise of mutual defense between the U.S. and Poland. Poland is already a member of NATO, whose linchpin is a promise of mutual aid in case of attack. But Mr. Tusk made it clear that, in light of the West's anemic initial response to the Russian invasion, he wanted more. "It is no good when assistance comes to dead people," Mr. Tusk said, as far too many Georgians have learned. NATO, he feared, would take "days, weeks" to mobilize a response to aggression against Poland. The missile-defense agreement comes after a year and a half of back-and-forth and domestic political squabbling in Poland."

America the Uncompetitive: "The new international tax rankings are out for 2008, and congratulations to Washington, D.C., are again in order. Our political class has managed to maintain America's rank with the second highest corporate tax rate in the world at 39.3% (average combined federal and state). Only Japan is slightly higher overall, though if you are silly enough to base a corporation in California, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or other states with high corporate levies, your tax rate on business income is even higher than in Tokyo. For the first time, the U.S. statutory rate is now 50% higher than the average of our international competitors"

Gloomy Leftists: "Why are optimists about the state of the world disproportionately represented by classical liberals, libertarians, and free- market conservatives, while pessimists about the state of the world are disproportionately represented by statists?This pattern is so familiar that it eludes our attention. And yet reflection on it is fascinating. There's no obvious reason why persons on the left should be biased into perceiving the state of the current world to be especially dire, and no obvious reason why market-friendly people should be biased into perceiving roses where there is really only rot."

I game the credit card system. So should you : "The beautiful thing about credit cards is how easy they make it for responsible consumers to take unfair advantage of banks and businesses. Some cards offer low `teaser' interest rates -- as low as 0 percent -- for balance transfers, purchases, or even cash advances. We take that cheap money, and when we pay off the balance before the promotion period ends, the card companies actually lose money. We also use credit cards to make shopping more convenient. Just swipe, sign, and go. By paying our bill in full each month, we earn frequent-flyer miles or even cash back without paying the company a cent in interest or fees."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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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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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Google being pesky again

It is now three days since I asked for the spam blog status of my OBAMA WATCH blog to be lifted. At least I am not blocked totally from it. I can post but to post I have to do a "copy the letters" task.

I might not mind so much if the letters were easy to copy but I had to have four goes to get it right tonight.

I don't know what they are up to. I have been through this rigamarole a few times before and it has never previously taken so long to have the nonsense lifted. I guess it does not pay to be critical of the child of light.

Americans Lose Confidence in Broadcast Media

A new Rasmussen Reports polls finds 55 percent of Americans believe media bias is a bigger problem than campaign contributions.

For some time now, it has been common knowledge that the broadcast news media are in the tank for Democrats. Specifically, they appear enamored with covering Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and appear more than willing to carry his water as he races across the country in the summer heat.

It's akin to a marathon runner who has his fans in the sidelines, ever-ready with overflowing cups of H2O for their hero as he races towards the finish line. The trouble is: It is unseemly for a purportedly "objective" reporter to behave in such an unseemly-and undignified-manner. And now, it is having an impact on how Americans perceive the credibility of those media outlets.

A recent Rasmussen Reports poll shows that 55 percent of Americans believe media bias is an even bigger problem than big campaign contributions. A full 66 percent believe that it is a bad idea to ban campaign commercials, citing "despite the annoyance factor, it's better to put up with an election-year barrage rather than rely on the news media." In other words, Americans are finally fed up with broadcast media bias, and they know they can no longer depend on it for accurate information about news and politics.

This means of course that broadcast news outlets need to begin taking a page from print journalists, who have been far more objective in their reporting and analysis of candidates and the issues surrounding the campaigns.

Part of the reason for this, admittedly, is that the print medium allows for more to be said about a particular topic. It lends itself to revealing nuances that are often lost in the timed segments to which broadcast outlets are constrained. Nonetheless, when reporters go on the record, admitting to NBC's Brian Williams, for example, how hard it is to remain objective in covering Senator Obama's campaign, or Chris Matthews openly admitting to tingles up his legs when Mr. Obama speaks, it's probably about time to send these "reporters" to take a refresher course in the once-revered Canons of Journalism

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Pickens's Slim Economics: "Folksy oilman T. Boone Pickens has taken to the airwaves with a $58 million campaign to publicize his plan for energy independence. His scheme apparently involves building windmills on the Great Plains to generate electricity. Natural gas that had been previously used for electric generation would then be used to fuel automobiles, thereby allowing us to "break the stranglehold of foreign oil." Pickens's commercial no doubt causes FEE readers' classical-liberal antennae to stand at attention. The word "plan" alone rightly provokes worries of coercive schemes. The notion of being independent of energy or any other commodity from foreign countries goes against the teachings of Smith, Bastiat, and others who recognize the gains from specialization and division of labor. Nor will readers knowledgeable about rent-seeking be surprised that media reports describe Pickens as "heavily invested in natural gas and wind power." And when Pickens states in his commercials that "this plan will work but it needs your help," readers familiar with Public Choice rightly suspect that the sort of help Pickens has in mind is tax dollars."

PETA loons want to advertise vegan message on border fence: "While many view the contentious border fence as a government fiasco, an animal rights group sees a rare opportunity. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plans today to announce an unusual marketing pitch to the U.S. government: Rent us space on the fence for billboards warning illegal border crossers there is more to fear than the Border Patrol. The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will - Go Vegan." "We think that Mexicans and other immigrants should be warned if they cross into the U.S. they are putting their health at risk by leaving behind a healthier, staple diet of corn tortillas, beans, rice, fruits and vegetables," said Lindsay Rajt, assistant manager of PETA's vegan campaigns."

Dems' New National Platform Opposes Defense of Marriage Act : "The 2008 Democratic Party platform draft, which will be submitted to delegates at the Democratic National Convention for approval later this month, expresses opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he wants to repeal. "We will enact a comprehensive bipartisan employment non-discrimination act," says the platform draft. "We oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and all attempts to use this issue to divide us." DOMA defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman for purposes of all federal laws. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, DOMA protects states from having to recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other states"

Britain's newest epidemic: "The knife violence in Britain has reached epidemic proportions according to an article at Dailymail.co.uk, an online news agency in England. . Americans recognize the sensational headlines and use of the term epidemic to describe the actions of common criminals because of articles by the U.S. media that use the same format but vilify guns instead of knives. The nature of this type of news reporting makes it obvious they are used to sway public opinion against guns, or knives or the use of self-defense by the average citizen. When Britain outlawed guns (and self-defense), their elected officials claimed that the impending domestic tranquility would make them the envy of the world."

Bush wants some endangered species rules extinct: "Just months before President Bush leaves office, his administration is antagonizing environmentalists by proposing changes that would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether subdivisions, dams, highways and other projects have the potential to harm endangered animals and plants. The proposal, first reported by The Associated Press, would cut out the advice of government scientists who have been weighing in on such decisions for 35 years. Agencies also could not consider a project's contribution to global warming in their analysis".

Churches ordered closed during Olympics: "An organization founded by a man who escaped from China after being persecuted for his Christian faith says it has uncovered a secret Chinese government document demanding that churches shut their doors for 90 days around the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "Should church members violate these rules they will be subject to the disciplinary actions of the Chinese government," said the report from China Aid Association, an organization dedicated to helping persecuted Christians. "Pastors were forced to sign a written agreement that they would not participate in religious services while the Olympic Games are taking place in China," the organization said. "The document, drafted by Chinese government officials, specifies that the house Churches in China: 'refrain from organizing and joining illegal gatherings and refrain from receiving donations, sermons and preaching from overseas religious organizations and groups that have a purpose.'"

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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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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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Democratic convention chooses nutcase to lead them

Her blackness makes her wise, apparently



The woman commissioned by the Democratic Party to direct its presidential nominating convention in two weeks espouses the same black liberation theology pursued by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose church presumptive nominee Barack Obama was forced to leave because of its controversies. Those included Wright's condemnation of America and a vicious attack on Hillary Clinton from the pulpit, and WND reported when, finally, the Obama campaign announced the candidate resigned his 20-year membership in the church.

Now a profile in the New York Times reveals Rev. Leah Daughtry, a Pentecostal minister who leads a congregation of 20 [Big time!] in Washington, embraces "black liberation theology" beliefs such as the "debt" the U.S. "owes" all blacks for slavery.

The Times describes the congregation in which Daughtry was raised - the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., where generations of family members, including her father Herbert Daughtry, have preached for decades: "Below the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall, a banner for slavery reparations proclaimed, 'They Owe Us.' Fliers recounted Herbert Daughtry's arrest, a few weeks earlier, as he led marchers protesting the not-guilty verdict in the police killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man. His ministry has always combined consuming spirituality with black liberation theology - the theology Jeremiah Wright invoked this spring to defend his controversial sermons - and zealous political activism. Leah holds these forces within her."

Judi McLeod, a former Toronto Sun columnist, opined it will be "Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a skirt" as Daughtry leads the Democratic National Convention in Denver. "While the media hounded Wright for his anti-American rants and while presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Hussein Obama divorced him as his personal pastor, Obama's head will be crowned by Leah Daughtry, who ardently believes in the same Marxist 'Black Liberation Theology' preached by Wright," McLeod wrote on Canada Free Press.

When Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, announced Daughtry's appointment to the post of convention CEO, he cited her "strong guidance, skilled leadership and counsel."

More here

What a lot of bulldust that last bit is. "Leadership"? She leads only 20 people! She is a failure by church standards. It is another example of the Leftist faith in verbal magic. They think that you can alter the reality by fooling around with the words used to describe it. Angry white men have given her good jobs but that says more about the stupidity of anger than it says about her

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ELSEWHERE

Israel: Rise in homosexual tourism stirs unease : "There is something incongruous about the stretch of beach just under the Hilton Hotel's high perch. For there, below the bluff, are two so-called 'specialty beaches.' The Hassidic beach, surrounded by an eight-foot concrete wall, features a polite sign at its entrance: Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays are women's bathing days, it announces. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays belong to men. It's the municipality's solution to the ultra-orthodox dilemma of how to body surf without breaking the halachic, Jewish law, prohibition on unmarried members of the opposite sex seeing one another in immodest dress. At the beach directly adjacent to the walled compound, every day is men's bathing day. This is the unofficial gay beach."

What is that 'windfall profits' tax? "What is a "windfall" profit anyway? I would define a windfall profit as profit without any meaningful effort. But Liberals/Socialists have a different definition. They seem to believe any profit above some arbitrary amount is fair game for a windfall profit tax. But profits are good. The profits from companies employ thousands of employees, provide needed products, pay billions in taxes and provide a stable income for investors. The Left likes to single out segments of U.S. economy to attack. These attacks include `big drug', `big agricultural', and now `big oil'. By adding the adjective `big' the Left is trying to demonize those sectors of the economy. How come big government is good and big industry is bad? Simple - the Leftwing politicians can control government but until they can totally control these segments of the economy they are bad. So these Leftwing politicians demonize and attempt to penalize these companies for making a profit. In a free market society profits are good, only in Socialist/Communist controlled societies are profits demonized. But as we slid closer to a Socialist state we will continue to hear profits demonized. There is a blind hatred of profits"

Confused Leftists: "When the War on Drugs succeeds and cocaine prices rise, you don't see the Drug Czar proposing government subsidies for addicts. I don't like his mission, but at least he's honest on this point. He's not out there disrupting supplies one day and then helping addicts pay for their fixes the next. The same can't be said, however, of warriors on oil addiction. Consider green businessman Joseph P. Kennedy II. His nonprofit Citizens Energy Corporation pushes an environmentalist agenda of reduced energy use, wind power, and carbon offsets. But it also has a campaign of giving discount heating oil to the poor and elderly. You might have seen its ads on TV, such as the one where a poverty-stricken mother and child, freezing in their unheated home, is saved by Joe and his delivery truck, bringing them oil at 40 percent off. But why is Joe bringing them oil at all, let alone cheap oil? Shouldn't he be bringing them solar panels or manuals on energy conservation, or perhaps a gold star for this family's low carbon footprint?"

Canadian knife registry idea isn't too sharp: "Some of our parliamentarians have been getting a bit too much sun during their summer holidays. That's the only explanation for the discussion by some opposition MPs about the possible introduction of a knife registry, following the gruesome, fatal attack on a Greyhound bus passenger late last month. A knife registry? Really? What would I have to declare, paring knives, a bread knife, the plastic knife I used to put tuna on crackers while I was having lunch at work the other day? Most knives are sharp. That helps them serve their purpose, you know, to cut things. There would be no way to single out knives that are used for hunting and ones used to cut chicken for that stir-fry you're making for dinner. Or ones used to, say, kill people. I'm not going to say the gun registry has turned out well, but I think there's a need to register firearms."

Partial backdown under pressure by Pelosi: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday night dropped her staunch opposition to a vote on offshore oil drilling in the House. Republicans, reacting to high gas prices, have demanded a vote on additional oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf, where drilling is currently blocked by a moratorium. Until now, Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted the idea as a “hoax.” But in an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, she indicated that she was open to a vote. “They have this thing that says drill offshore in the protected areas,” Pelosi said. “We can do that. We can have a vote on that.” She indicated such a vote would have to be part of a larger package that included other policies, like releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which she said could bring down prices in a matter of days.... She even indicated that she might support a package that includes drilling. She said her decision on whether to support such legislation would depend on how the policies are packaged. “It’s not excluded, let’s put it that way,” Pelosi 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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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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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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Vladimir Bonaparte

The farther Russia's tanks roll into Georgia, the more the world is beginning to see the reality of Vladimir Putin's Napoleonic ambitions. Having consolidated his authoritarian transition as Prime Minister with a figurehead President, Mr. Putin is now pushing to reassert Russian dominance in Eurasia. Ukraine is in his sights, and even the Baltic states could be threatened if he's allowed to get away with it. The West needs to draw a line at Georgia.

No matter who fired the first shot last week in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, Moscow is using the separatist issue as an excuse to demolish Georgia's military and, if possible, depose its democratically elected government. Russian forces moved ever deeper into Georgia proper Monday. They launched a second front in the west from another breakaway province, Abkhazia, and took the central city of Gori, which lies 40 miles from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. These moves slice the country in half and isolate its ports, most of which Russia has bombed or blockaded. Moscow dismissed a cease-fire drawn up by European nations and signed by Georgia.

Russian bombers have also hit residential and industrial areas, making a mockery of Moscow's charge that Georgia is the party indiscriminately killing civilians. Russian claims of Georgian ethnic cleansing now look like well-rehearsed propaganda lines to justify a well-prepared invasion. Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks, ships and warplanes were waiting for Mr. Putin's command.

While the rape of Chechnya was brutal, this is the most brazen act of Mr. Putin's reign, the first military offensive outside Russia's borders since Soviet rule ended. Yet it also fits a pattern of other threats and affronts to Russia's neighbors: turning off the oil or natural-gas taps to Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, and even to NATO-member Lithuania; launching a cyberassault on Estonia; opposing two antimissile sites in NATO members in Eastern Europe that couldn't begin to neutralize Russia's offensive capabilities.

Our emphasis on NATO here is no coincidence. The Georgia invasion is a direct slap at the Western alliance. Tbilisi, like Kiev, has been pushing for NATO membership. Mr. Putin decided to act while some alliance members, led by Germany, dallied over their applications. Georgia was first. Ukraine, which has been pushing Russia to move its Black Sea fleet's headquarters out of the Crimea, could be next.

More here

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How the West Can Stand Up to Russia

Given the cutthroat politics Moscow has practiced at home and abroad in recent years -- with only the softest protests from the U.S. and its allies -- no one should be surprised by Russia's decision to conquer the two breakaway regions of Georgia. Nevertheless, it should once and for all disabuse policy makers in Washington and Brussels of hopes that Russia intends to become part of the post-Cold War condominium of democratic peace in Europe. The point of the Kremlin's invasion of Georgia, which now threatens the capital city of Tbilisi, is to demonstrate to the world how impotent that security order has become.

For Moscow, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's mistake in finally taking the bait of Russian provocations and ordering his troops in South Ossetia last week was the opening they sought -- and for which they had been planning for some time.

South Ossetia is not, as some have suggested, tit-for-tat payback for American and European recognition, over Russian objections, of Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Russia has been "at war" with democratic Georgia for some time. Driven to distraction by Mr. Saakashvili's assertiveness and Georgia's desire to join NATO, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin first tried to bring the country to its knees through economic warfare beginning in 2005. He cut off access to Russian markets, expelled Georgians from Russia, quadrupled the price of Russian energy to Georgia, and severed transport links.

Georgia failed to collapse. To the contrary, it has flourished: After the Rose Revolution of 2003 ended the corrupt reign of Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, Georgia instituted far-reaching reforms to its governing structures, cleaned up the endemic corruption that infected every facet of pre-Rose Revolution life, and found new markets for its products in Turkey and Europe. It persevered with some of the most profound and thorough economic and pro-business reforms ever undertaken by a developing country -- slashing taxes and government regulations, and privatizing state-owned enterprises. All of which is reflected in Georgia's meteoric rise on the World Bank's Doing Business indicators. The irrelevance of Russian economic sanctions to Georgia made the ideological challenge that the Rose Revolution posed to Putin's vision of Russia even more profound.....

What can the West do? The first step is for the U.S. and its allies to rush military and medical supplies to Tbilisi. If we want democracy to survive there, Georgians have to believe that we have their backs. At the moment, the tepidness of the Western response has given them serious cause for doubt. In addition, Washington should lead the effort to devise a list of economic and diplomatic sanctions toward Russia that impose real costs for what Moscow has done. Russia should know that the West has a greater capacity to sustain a new Cold War than Russia, with its petroleum-dependent economy, does.

Next, the West should make use of Russia's claim that its role in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is driven by the need to protect the populations there. If so, Moscow should have no objections to U.N.-sanctioned peacekeepers and observers moving into those two regions to replace the jerry-rigged system of "peacekeepers" that, until the war broke out, consisted of Russian troops, local separatist militaries and Georgian forces. If nothing else, the goal should be to put Mr. Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, the new Russian president, on their back foot diplomatically...

More here

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Lessons from the Edwards coverup

With Edwards now admitting the affair, reporters and commentators in the mainstream media are acknowledging that they were deceived and blew it. But why is it that they always seem to miss big scandals involving Democrats? In this context, why haven’t they yet reported on the relationship that Obama had with a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member by the name of Frank Marshall Davis, a subject of an FBI investigation and several official inquiries into Soviet-sponsored activities in the U.S.? Davis was so deeply involved in the CPUSA that he recruited members for the Moscow-funded and controlled party and had personal connections to other top party members such as Harry Bridges and Paul Robeson.

The John Edwards affair is a chilling reminder that Democratic cover-ups can succeed, with the help of the media, and that even the most sophisticated “investigative” reporters are prepared to overlook potential Democratic scandals. Edwards is out of the race, but Obama is running ahead in most polls for the highest office in the land and seems confident that the media will not blow the whistle on his Marxist associate.

The implication of the Edwards scandal is that, if ABC News’s top investigative reporter could take Edwards’ side, without any serious checking of the facts, then other candidates may be concealing scandals and hoping and planning to get away with it. That is certainly the case with Obama, who is far more of a media favorite than Edwards ever was and has, with the help of the influential Associated Press (AP), carefully concealed his relationship with an identified CPUSA member.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

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

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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

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

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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On Energy, Do Everything

Democrats are killing themselves trying to prevent Americans from using proven fuels

By Charles Krauthammer

Let's see: housing meltdown, credit crunch, oil shock not seen since the 1970s. The economy is slowing, unemployment growing and inflation increasing. It's the sixth year of a highly unpopular war and the president's approval rating is at 30 percent. The Italian Communist party could win this election. The American Democratic party is trying its best to lose it.

Democrats have the advantage on just about every domestic issue from health care to education. However, Americans' greatest concern is the economy, and their greatest economic concern is energy (by a significant margin: 37 percent to 21 percent for inflation). Yet Democrats have gratuitously forfeited the issue of increased drilling for domestic oil and gas. By an overwhelming margin of two to one, Americans want to lift the moratorium preventing drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, thus unlocking vast energy resources shut down for the last 27 years.

Democrats have been adamantly opposed. They say that we cannot drill our way out of the oil crisis. Of course not. But it is equally obvious that we cannot solar or wind or biomass our way out. Does this mean that because any one measure cannot solve a problem, it needs to be rejected?

Barack Obama remains opposed to new offshore drilling (although he now says he would accept a highly restricted version as part of a comprehensive package). Just last week, he claimed that if only Americans would inflate their tires properly and get regular tune-ups, "we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."

This is bizarre. By any reasonable calculation of annual tire-inflation and tune-up savings, the Outer Continental Shelf holds nearly a hundred times as much oil. As for oil shale, also under federal moratorium, after a thousand years of driving with Obama-inflated tires and Obama-tuned engines, we would still have saved only one-fifth the oil shale available in the United States.

But forget the math. Why is this issue either/or? Who's against properly inflated tires? Let's start a national campaign, Cuban-style, with giant venceremos posters lining the highways. ("Inflate your tires. Victory or death!") Why must there be a choice between encouraging conservation and increasing supply? The logical answer is obvious: Do both.

Do everything. Wind and solar. A tire gauge in every mailbox. Hell, a team of oxen for every family (to pull their gasoline-drained SUVs). The consensus in the country, logically unassailable and politically unbeatable, is to do everything possible to both increase supply and reduce demand, because we have a problem that's been killing our economy and threatening our national security. And no one measure is sufficient.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

An amazing book here about credulous Americans in the 1930s who believed all the propaganda about Soviet Russia being a "workers' paradise" and actually emigrated there. Their fate was very unpleasant. Book review here

Leftist racism: "African Americans are leaving San Francisco because of substandard schools, a lack of affordable housing and the dearth of jobs and black culture, according to a report by a committee looking into the exodus. San Francisco's black population has dropped faster than that of any other large U.S. city's. It went from 13.4 percent in 1970 to an estimated 6.5 percent in 2005, according to the census. Nationally, African Americans make up 12.1 percent of the population. Much of the blame has been placed on the Redevelopment Agency, which intentionally drove black families and businesses from the Fillmore district in the 1960s and 1970s. Many residents who attended the nearly four-hour meeting live in the Bayview-Hunters Point area and expressed concern about the redevelopment project now under way there, saying it will continue to reduce the city's dwindling African American population."

More Leftist psychopathy: "A day or two ago, I put up the quote from Jonathan Edwards: "He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine!" Today, deliciously, John Edwards, the man who wanted to be President, proves the point. A woman apparently seduced him and hustled his campaign for some serious dough. Reports say this all happened in 2006, at the beginning of the Edwards campaign. I don't know if it's karma or subconscious guilt that made his campaign ineffective, but his status as a "major" candidate evaporated in the early primaries. And it raises the question: How could he not have known that this affair would be made public, especially if he won the Democratic nomination?

Children value brands, not Leftist obsessions: "Children who cannot afford or do not want to buy fashionable brands face mockery and bullying, says research from a teachers' union. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said children were under `huge pressure' to buy brands. The teachers' survey claims children are strongly aware of brands and logos, but pay little attention to the green or ethical values of products."

Pickens plan is based on ignorance : "Can a person be a good businessman but a lousy economist? Yes. Take T. Boone Pickens, for example. He's all over television touting his plan for wind power as a substitute for foreign oil, a plan that calls for massive government subsidies. This should immediately make us suspicious. If wind is so good, why does it need subsidies?"

The FBI anthrax hustle: "The FBI's total failure to point to a shred of evidence placing Ivins in New Jersey on either of the two days the anthrax letters were sent is a very conspicuous deficiency in its case. It's possible that Ivins was able to travel to Princeton on two occasions in three weeks without leaving the slightest trace of having done so (not a credit card purchase, ATM withdrawal, unusual gas purchases, nothing), but that relies on a depiction of Ivins as a cunning and extremely foresightful criminal, an image squarely at odds with most of the FBI's circumstantial evidence that suggests Ivins was actually quite careless, even reckless, in how he perpetrated this crime ."

Leave stores alone: "Banning legal products from being sold at privately owned businesses, as San Francisco did recently with tobacco, shows a remarkable arrogance (July 30, 'Board passes tobacco ban in pharmacies'). Regardless of whether government officials 'feel' that the sale of tobacco is contrary to values they want stores to promote, such a ban is improper government intrusion into private business decisions."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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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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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Leftists and alienation

A comment from a reader

Something I've long thought intriguing about Leftists is that the more well-read ones tend to talk a great deal about alienation, lifting it straight out of Marx, and how evil capitalism is the source of all of our alienation.

What I find intriguing about this is it seems that the Leftists eagerly push for things that are bound to produce alienation. In the US, they really like to push a loathing of our history and in particular a loathing of the concept of patriotism. They talk endlessly about the values of "diversity", want as many immigrants as possible, and recoil violently against notions such as a national language. They despise churches. They despise large sporting events. They despise ideas about "core knowledge" as espoused by E.D. Hirsch.

All of these are things that connect people to their fellow citizens. Actually, in the US I am beginning to believe that church attendance remains strong simply because many people are looking for a way of connecting to their fellow citizens.

Even leftist spirituality, and by that I mean the concoction of new age doctrines that find some popularity amongst many leftists, is itself a very narcissistic and isolated approach to spirituality. God (or enlightenment) is to be found INSIDE. Turn IN.

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The grasshopper mentality of the political class

What McCain and Obama -- and we -- should be urgently focused on is not the budget deficit in any given year, but the crushing national debt that all those deficits cumulatively add up to: currently $9.6 trillion, and climbing rapidly. Just paying the interest on that debt will cost the government nearly $250 billion this year, making debt service the fourth-largest item in the federal budget. And since Washington not only has no plan to pay down its debt, but routinely increases it, those interest payments will keep mounting.

Yet the surging cost of interest is nothing compared with the tidal wave of entitlement spending about to crash over us. This is the year that the first of nearly 80 million baby boomers become eligible for Social Security payments; within three years, they will begin drawing Medicare benefits as well. Those two programs alone already account for one-third of the federal budget -- 42 percent if you add Medicaid, which is also focused largely on the elderly. But in the years ahead, their costs will explode. If nothing changes, the Concord Coalition warns, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt will consume every penny of federal revenues in less than 20 years.

Clearly, things will change. They have to. Either taxes will be hiked to unprecedented levels, or spending - especially on entitlement programs - must be forcefully reined in. There is no other alternative short of continuing to run up the national debt, thereby loading our children with an unconscionable financial burden, and imperiling the entire economy in the process.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Will consumer spending drive the US economy into recession?: Until the Keynesian orthodoxy is overthrown and the monetary actions of central banks have been properly analysed the so-called trade cycle will continue to be a recurring feature of our economic landscape
Obama: The coming socialist America: on Voight is one Hollywood star who has kept both his common sense and his patriotism. He cogently points out that the US is going through a 'perilous time, and more than ever, the world needs a united and strong America. If we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way'
The anthrax attacks and the media's political bigotry: Roy Eccleston is a politically bigoted leftwing activist with a visceral hatred of President Bush and conservatives in general. Like his leftwing colleagues, Eccleston is apparently unable to detect his own mendacity. Or perhaps he thinks readers are so ignorant of American political affairs that they are unable to detect his lies
Rewarding terrorism: Israel treats terrorists as ordinary criminals, entitled to Miranda warnings, due process, legal representation, and longwinded trials. But terrorists are neither combatants nor common criminals and should be treated as neither. Doing otherwise only results in the deaths of more Israelis
Al Sharpton: Castro Foe?: A couple of week's ago a remarkable event occurred. Al Sharpton he held a protest outside the Castro regime's offices at the United Nations to publicize the plight of Cuba's black political prisoners. As expected, the mainstream media spiked the story. One can only hope that with respect to Castro's political prisoners Sharpton's small protest will grow into something much bigger
What do you get when you combine narcissism and megalomania?: Obama traveled with the largest entourage of any non-president in history. The foreign policy advisers, campaign aides, advance staff and Secret Service agents filled 20 vehicles in motorcades. And that doesn't count the more than 50 American journalists - including the anchors of all three television network news shows - who accompanied him in Europe, Israel and Jordan
Those McFabulous Rainbow Arches: Why do allegedly intelligent, bottom-line-obsessed corporate types abandon the fiscally secure milieu of political neutrality and take sides, officially, on deeply polarizing, socio-cultural issues of the day? This is precisely what McDonald's has done with respect to 'homosexual marriage'

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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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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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Another lying Leftist claim that reverses the truth

In 1944, historian Richard Hofstadter published "Social Darwinism in American Thought", an aggressive and widely influential critique of the libertarian philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and his impact on American intellectual life. In Hofstadter's telling, Spencer was the driving force behind "social Darwinism," the pseudo-scientific use of evolution to justify economic and social inequality. According to Hofstadter, Spencer was little more than an apologist for extreme conservatism, a figure who told "the guardians of American society what they wanted to hear." The eugenics movement, Hofstadter maintained, which held that humanity could improve its stock via selective breeding and forced sterilization, "has proved to be the most enduring aspect" of Spencer's "tooth and claw natural selection."

A hit upon publication, the book helped make Hofstadter's name, doing much to secure him his prominent perch at Columbia University, where he taught until his death in 1970. But there's a problem with Hofstadter's celebrated work: His claims bear almost no resemblance to the real Herbert Spencer. In fact, as Princeton University economist Tim Leonard argues in a provocative new article titled "Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism," [pdf] which is forthcoming from the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Hofstadter is guilty of both distorting Spencer's free market views and smearing them with the taint of racist Darwinian collectivism.

So what happened? As Leonard notes, Hofstadter was no neutral observer. Rather, he "wrote as an opponent of laissez-faire, and also as a champion of what he took to be its rightful successor, expert-led reform." A one-time member of the Communist party, Hofstadter himself later admitted that the book "was naturally influenced by the political and moral controversy of the New Deal era."

At the heart of Hofstadter's case is the following passage from Spencer's famous first book, Social Statics (1851): "If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die."

That certainly sounds rough, but as it turns out, Hofstadter failed to mention the first sentence of Spencer's next paragraph, which reads, "Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated." As philosophy professor Roderick Long has remarked, "The upshot of the entire section, then, is that while the operation of natural selection is beneficial, its mitigation by human benevolence is even more beneficial." This is a far cry from Hofstadter's summary of the text, which has Spencer advocating that the "unfit...should be eliminated."

Similarly, Hofstadter repeatedly points to Spencer's famous phrase, "survival of the fittest," a line that Charles Darwin added to the fifth edition of Origin of Species. But by fit, Spencer meant something very different from brute force. In his view, human society had evolved from a "militant" state, which was characterized by violence and force, to an "industrial" one, characterized by trade and voluntary cooperation. Thus Spencer the "extreme conservative" supported labor unions (so long as they were voluntary) as a way to mitigate and reform the "harsh and cruel conduct" of employers.

In fact, far from being the proto-eugenicist of Hofstadter's account, Spencer was an early feminist, advocating the complete legal and social equality of the sexes (and he did so, it's worth noting, nearly two decades before John Stuart Mill's famous On the Subjection of Women first appeared). He was also an anti-imperialist, attacking European colonialists for their "deeds of blood and rapine" against "subjugated races." To put it another way, Spencer was a thoroughgoing classical liberal, a principled champion of individual rights in all spheres of human life. Eugenics, which was based on racism, coercion, and collectivism, was alien to everything that Spencer believed.

The same can't be said, however, for the progressive reformers who lined up against him. Take University of Wisconsin economist John R. Commons, one of the crusading figures that Hofstadter praised for opposing laissez-faire and sharing "a common consciousness of society as a collective whole rather than a congeries of individual atoms." In his book Races and Immigrants in America (1907), Commons described African Americans as "indolent and fickle" and endorsed protectionist labor laws since "competition has no respect for the superior races."

Similarly, progressive darling Theodore Roosevelt held that the 15th Amendment, which gave African-American men the right to vote, was "a mistake," since the black race was "two hundred thousand years behind" the white. Yet despite these and countless other examples of racist pseudo-science being used by leading progressives, Leonard reports that Hofstadter "never applied the epithet `social Darwinist' to a progressive, a practice that continues to this day."

And that's the trouble. Once Hofstadter's smear took hold, it was an uphill battle to set the record straight. Unfortunately, Leonard's persuasive and compelling article alone won't do the trick. But as an explanation of what really happened to Spencer's reputation and as a resource for those who'd like to learn more about his ideas, it's a great place to start.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Obama idea takes flight. A new Fascist America is proposed: "To begin this journey, Service Nation will unite leaders from every sector of American society with hundreds of thousands of citizens in a national campaign to call on the next President and Congress to enact a new era of service and citizenship in America, an era in which all Americans will work together to try and solve our greatest and most persistent societal challenges. This campaign will launch with a Service Nation Summit, Sept. 11-12 in New York City, and build with a national grassroots movement aimed at inspiring widespread public support for a new and transformational National Service Act that will encourage all Americans to step forward and take the lead in bridging our divides, strengthening our communities, and building a more vibrant democracy." Jim Lindgren dissects it in detail

The Edwards affair: "The reaction over on Daily Kos runs the gamut, but this one left me howling. "He makes mistakes, too. Kudos to him for owning up to it." You see, he deserves kudos for admitting the affair after about a year's worth of denials." Prairie Pundit has more on the Edwards affair

Wrong then, too: "On July 15, 1979, Pres. Jimmy Carter gave a televised address to the nation about America's 'crisis of confidence' and how that crisis was feeding 'a fundamental threat to American democracy' -- reliance on imported oil. It was derided at the time as the 'national malaise' speech (Carter never actually used the phrase), and according to legend it was the most politically disastrous speech ever given by a sitting president. But rehabilitation is in the air. If only we had listened to Jimmy Carter back then, we are increasingly told, we wouldn't be in the energy mess we're in today. Before we get too deep into this revisionist cup, it is worth looking closer at the policy road supposedly not taken. It turns out that much of what Carter proposed was subsequently adopted, and much of what wasn't was unnecessary."

The FBI killed an innocent man: "Former colleagues of Bruce Ivins, the man blamed for the 2001 anthrax attacks, accused federal agents Wednesday of hounding the government researcher and his family to the point where Ivins took his own life. A source with knowledge of the case told CNN that federal agents searched Ivins' home in Frederick, Maryland, and questioned his children. They offered Ivins' 24-year-old son the $2.5 million reward for information about his father and showed his twin sister pictures of the anthrax victims, telling her, "Your father did this," the source said. Ivins' former colleague, Jeffrey Adamovicz, said Ivins gave him a similar account of events. "One of the statements that he relayed to me -- that his children were, in fact, told by FBI agents that were doing the interview that their father was a murderer," said Adamovicz. "And that I could tell greatly disturbed Bruce, as it would anybody.... And though FBI officials deny harassing Ivins or his family, another researcher who got caught up in the investigation -- only to be exonerated -- described having been subjected to similar tactics."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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

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

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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What McCain Should Do Next

By KARL ROVE

Notwithstanding the hype about Barack Obama, here is where the presidential race stands: John McCain was within an average of 1.9% of his Democratic opponent in last week's daily Gallup tracking poll. It shouldn't be this close. Sen. Obama should be way ahead. It's not that Sen. McCain has made up a lot of ground. Pollster.com shows that the Republican steadily declined from March through June as the Democratic contest dominated the news. Mr. McCain stabilized in July, and then ticked up slightly. But the most important political fact of July is that Mr. Obama has lost altitude. Gallup now projects that 23% of this year's electorate will be swing voters, more than twice the share in 2004.

It seems that each candidate is underperforming with his base. Mr. Obama's problem is that only 74% of Democrats in the latest Fox Poll support him, while Mr. McCain gets 86% of Republicans. But Mr. McCain's support lacks the same intensity Mr. Obama receives. The latest Pew poll found that 24% of voters "strongly" support Mr. Obama, compared to 17% for Mr. McCain.

Old doubts about Mr. Obama remain. In a late June Washington Post poll, 46% said Mr. Obama lacked the experience to do the job, the same number as in March, before he spent $119 million to run ads extolling himself. In February 2000, 59% said George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, had the experience to be president. That number grew as the campaign wore on. Now Mr. Obama faces new doubts over perceptions that he's arrogant, self-centered and calculating.

So what should Mr. McCain do? He's rightly raising questions about Mr. Obama's fitness to be president, starting with his failure to admit that the surge in Iraq worked. Mr. McCain should stay at it, though he'll need help to make the case.

Mr. McCain was correct to seize on Mr. Obama's insinuations that the GOP would mount racist attacks against him. Now Mr. McCain needs to find ways to describe an Obama who is running on empty rhetoric. He needs to do to Mr. Obama what Walter Mondale did to Gary "Where's the Beef?" Hart in the 1984 Democratic primaries. Given Mr. Obama's thin r‚sum‚ and accomplishments, this can be done, with a sustained effort.

But to win, Mr. McCain must also make a compelling case for electing John McCain. Voters trust him on terrorism and Iraq and they see him as a patriot who puts country first. But they want to know for what purpose?

In the coming weeks, he needs to lay out a bold domestic reform program. He gave a taste on energy, but with a few missteps. He should appear in front of manufacturing plants where jobs depend on affordable energy, small businesses affected by fuel prices, and farms hurt by skyrocketing fertilizer costs -- and not in front of oil rigs. He needs to describe the consequences of specific domestic policy decisions. He must explain how his proposals on energy, health care, jobs and education will make a difference for ordinary families.

Mr. McCain also needs to elevate his arguments. It's not only that he opposes tax increases and Mr. Obama favors them. Mr. McCain must also make the principled case that there should be a limit to what government can take from its citizens. This argument will appeal to a large majority of voters. The top income tax rate is 35% and, according to the Tax Foundation, 89% of Americans believe that government should take no more than 30% from anyone's paycheck.

Mr. McCain should also talk about issues that increase Republican enthusiasm and win over independents, such as earmarks and judicial activism. And he should not shy away from appeals for bipartisanship. He's done it -- and talking about it undermines Mr. Obama, who hasn't. It also explains who Mr. McCain is. Mr. McCain should welcome opportunities to go against the grain. Defending free trade in manufacturing states is gutsy and feeds his maverick, straight-talk image. He will be pleasantly surprised to find out how many people in Ohio and elsewhere understand that their state's prosperity depends on knocking down trade barriers.

Then there's character. Mr. McCain is the most private person to run for president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith. The McCain and Obama campaigns are mirror opposites. Mr. McCain offers little biography, while Mr. Obama is nothing but.

The Republican Party's convention next month is Mr. McCain's biggest chance to improve his posture. The best minds in his campaign should be carefully working on its script. Everyone knows conventions are show, but voters want to see if a candidate can put on a good one that rings true.

Mr. Obama has the easier path to victory: reassure a restive electorate that he's up to the job. Mr. McCain must both educate voters to his opponent's weaknesses and persuade them that he has a vision for the coming four years. This will require a disciplined, focused effort. Mr. McCain has gotten this far fighting an unscripted guerrilla campaign. But it won't get him all the way to the White House.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Gutsy little Georgia: "Georgia claimed today to have downed two Russian warplanes over its territory after the former Soviet neighbours came into direct conflict over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Tbilisi mobilised its army reserves and launched a major military offensive overnight to regain control over the province, raising fears of an all-out war that could draw in Russia. Moscow backs the separatists, most of whom are Russian citizens, and has its own "peackeepers" in South Ossetia. Fighting raged around the city of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, as Georgian troops backed by tanks and warplanes pounded separatist forces today."

From Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Literature Prize lecture in 1970: "The spirit of Munich has by no means retreated into the past; it was not merely a brief episode. I even venture to say that the spirit of Munich prevails in the 20th century. The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people, it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people -- and there are many in today's world -- elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so as not to step over the threshold of hardship today -- and tomorrow, you'll see, it will all be all right. (But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.)"

More regulation will invite worse behavior: "Paul Krugman is too sophisticated to think that more regulation will temper excessive risk-taking in financial markets. ('Another Temporary Fix,' July 28) He should know that the more restrictive the regulations, the more opportunities conniving executives have to work the system. Look at the case of Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide. Mozilo and his company thrived on regulation, and they used it to their advantage."



Nine passengers on every British Airways jumbo lose their bags: "British Airways loses more bags and operates more delayed planes than any other big airline in Europe, a confidential report seen by The Times has found. On the day that BA launched its first advertising campaign to rescue the reputation of Terminal 5 at Heathrow using the tag line "Terminal 5 is working", it emerged that BA customers were 80 per cent more likely to lose their luggage than average in the first half of 2008. Britain's third largest airline, bmi, also had one of the worst records for lost luggage this year, beaten only by BA in a table of 29 European airlines. Nine passengers travelling on a typical BA jumbo jet flight between January and June found that their bags were missing when they arrived at their destination. The research found that one third of BA's short-haul and medium-haul flights and roughly one third of its long-haul arrivals and departures were at least 15 minutes late this year, well below the European average. According to the Association of European Airlines (AEA), which carried out the study, Tarom Romanian Airlines was the most punctual airline."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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

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

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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Lots to catch up with today so short excerpts only:

China: I believe that all blogspot blogs are accessible in China at the moment. An Olympic games concession to be withdrawn as soon as the games end, I would think.

An Israeli rat!: "The report published by two Palestinian newspapers - one of which, "Al-Hayat Al-Jadida" is an official Palestinian Authority organ directly controlled by the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas - are accusing Israel of releasing rats to chase away the Arab residents of Jerusalem." According to the PA papers on July 18th, this amazing creature, the "Israeli-Jerusalem" rat, no doubt secretly developed in Dimona, or other secret place is: - Immune to rat poison - Aggressive and larger than usual - Unafraid of cats and able to scare them away - Highly fertile, with females giving birth to 140 young rats a year, four times the normal average. And now best of all!! - Able to distinguish between Jewish and Arab neighbors!!."

Archbishop compares homosexual relationships to marriage : "The Archbishop of Canterbury has claimed that active homosexual relationships are "comparable to marriage" in the eyes of God. [Thus showing complete contempt for the Bible]

Leftist racism is OK, apparently: "The campaign of Democratic attorney Nikki Tinker is increasingly using issues of race and religion to attack freshman Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a white Jewish congressman representing a majority-black Memphis district. Just days after airing a racially charged ad connecting Cohen with the Ku Klux Klan, the Tinker campaign is up with a new ad not-too-subtly questioning his religious convictions.... Cohen planned to hold a press conference Wednesday morning to respond to the new ad. Cohen already has been the target of an anti-Semitic mailer was distributed earlier this year in the district. The flier said that "Cohen and the Jews HATE Jesus" and called upon "Black Christians" to support one "Black Christian" and oppose "this opponent of Christ and Christianity." [Tinker is a black female]

Saudi Arabia threatens Nissan boycott over Israeli ad: "Saudis may be known for a lot of things, but let's face it - comedy is not one of them. Israelis on the other hand... have you seen The Zohan? In any event, it's not surprising that people in Saudi Arabia are outraged at something from Israel, but this time it has nothing to do with military actions or residential construction, and to be fair, while talk of boycotts is filling the air once again, they're not actually blaming Israel itself for anything. Instead, Nissan is the boycott target. The spate was started by a commercial Israeli TV that depicts Arabian oil sheikhs getting medieval on a Nissan Tiida. The implication is that the car's fuel efficiency is harming the sheikhs' business interests. The Saudi regime, along with other oil-producing Gulf states, is threatening to boycott Nissan - which itself is collaborating on the development of the Project Better Place electric car system in Israel - if the automaker doesn't apologize."

Texas thumbs its nose at international meddlers: "A Mexican man at the centre of an international legal dispute has been executed in Texas for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in 1993. While protestors both for and against the death penalty demonstrated outside the Huntsville Unit near Houston last night, Jose Medellin, 33, died after being given a lethal injection. The execution came just before 10pm shortly after the US supreme court denied a last request for a reprieve. Pleas for a stay came from Washington, Mexico and the international court of justice (ICJ). They had all urged Texas not to execute Medellin until a hearing had been held to determine whether or not his original trial was sound."

Big Unions Continue to Dock Employees' Wages for Liberal Political Causes : "Imagine for a moment that your boss forcibly docked your paycheck each week in order to contribute to politicians or candidates whom he or she favored, and whom you opposed. Obviously, that would be not only unfair, but illegal. But should it be any different when big labor unions, rather than employers, are the ones doing it? Unfortunately, it happens every day, despite federal laws prohibiting it. And according to the National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) merely provides the latest illustration. This month, the NRWF filed a formal complaint with both the Department of Labor and Department of Justice, alleging that the SEIU violated federal law by requiring local members to fund the SEIU's Political Action Committee. Under a new amendment to the SEIU's constitution, every local must now contribute $6 per member each year to its central PAC. Further, the SEIU's national organization will now impose a 50% penalty against locals that fail to satisfy these political fundraising goals. In other words, play or pay".

Poor countries reject cheap food: "The latest round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations foundered last week over policies that seek to "protect livelihoods." On one side stood India and China who insisted that they be allowed use a special safeguard mechanism (SSM) to boost tariffs to prevent surges of cheap food into their countries. Why? As Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath explained, "The main issue was the security of livelihood of millions of poor farmers in India and other developing countries against import surges which could take place." Specifically, India and other developing countries want to impose additional duties to protect their poor farmers from agricultural product price declines caused by import surges. "When I am negotiating, I am willing to negotiate commerce. I am not willing to negotiate livelihood security, I am not willing to negotiate subsistence, I am not willing to negotiate poverty," insisted Nath." [Sounds like they want to stay poor]

Where there's smoke, there's ... government intrusion: "This is still a free country, right? Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to more closely regulate the wages that firms pay workers and to more strictly regulate tobacco products by putting them under FDA supervision. The Los Angeles City Council also approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile low-income area in the city; the poor, after all, have 'above-average rates of obesity' and must be protected from themselves. ... Barack Obama promises a national ban on smoking in public places. Such micro-managing of people's behavior will likely only get worse."

Moronic ACLU says that more blacks arrested proves bias: "Legislators should toughen a law passed in 2001 to prohibit racial profiling by Louisiana law enforcement agencies, the American Civil Liberties Union said.... Grote said the study, entitled "Unequal Under the Law" and released Wednesday, was conducted in the first three months of 2007, using arrest data from sheriff's and police departments from St. Tammany, Avoyelles, and DeSoto parishes. Legislators have not yet seen the report. Using demographics of communities and parishes taken from the U.S. Census, the ACLU determined the rate at which people of color were arrested compared to whites. "In every town, city and parish examined, people of color were arrested at a higher rate than their representation in the population," the report 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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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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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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Bruce Ivins Wasn't the Anthrax Culprit

By RICHARD SPERTZEL. (Mr. Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-99, was a member of the Iraq Survey Group)

Over the past week the media was gripped by the news that the FBI was about to charge Bruce Ivins, a leading anthrax expert, as the man responsible for the anthrax letter attacks in September/October 2001. But despite the seemingly powerful narrative that Ivins committed suicide because investigators were closing in, this is still far from a shut case. The FBI needs to explain why it zeroed in on Ivins, how he could have made the anthrax mailed to lawmakers and the media, and how he (or anyone else) could have pulled off the attacks, acting alone. I believe this is another mistake in the investigation.

Let's start with the anthrax in the letters to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. The spores could not have been produced at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked, without many other people being aware of it. Furthermore, the equipment to make such a product does not exist at the institute.

Information released by the FBI over the past seven years indicates a product of exceptional quality. The product contained essentially pure spores. The particle size was 1.5 to 3 microns in diameter. There are several methods used to produce anthrax that small. But most of them require milling the spores to a size small enough that it can be inhaled into the lower reaches of the lungs. In this case, however, the anthrax spores were not milled.

What's more, they were also tailored to make them potentially more dangerous. According to a FBI news release from November 2001, the particles were coated by a "product not seen previously to be used in this fashion before." Apparently, the spores were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle. That's what was briefed (according to one of my former weapons inspectors at the United Nations Special Commission) by the FBI to the German Foreign Ministry at the time.

Another FBI leak indicated that each particle was given a weak electric charge, thereby causing the particles to repel each other at the molecular level. This made it easier for the spores to float in the air, and increased their retention in the lungs. In short, the potential lethality of anthrax in this case far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program. In meetings held on the cleanup of the anthrax spores in Washington, the product was described by an official at the Department of Homeland Security as "according to the Russian recipes" -- apparently referring to the use of the weak electric charge.

The latest line of speculation asserts that the anthrax's DNA, obtained from some of the victims, initially led investigators to the laboratory where Ivins worked. But the FBI stated a few years ago that a complete DNA analysis was not helpful in identifying what laboratory might have made the product.

Furthermore, the anthrax in this case, the "Ames strain," is one of the most common strains in the world. Early in the investigations, the FBI said it was similar to strains found in Haiti and Sri Lanka. The strain at the institute was isolated originally from an animal in west Texas and can be found from Texas to Montana following the old cattle trails. Samples of the strain were also supplied to at least eight laboratories including three foreign laboratories. Four French government laboratories reported on studies with the Ames strain, citing the Pasteur Institute in Paris as the source of the strain they used. Organism DNA is not a very reliable way to make a case against a scientist.

The FBI has not officially released information on why it focused on Ivins, and whether he was about to be charged or arrested. And when the FBI does release this information, we should all remember that the case needs to be firmly based on solid information that would conclusively prove that a lone scientist could make such a sophisticated product.

From what we know so far, Bruce Ivins, although potentially a brilliant scientist, was not that man. The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparations, not powdered products.

The FBI spent between 12 and 18 months trying "to reverse engineer" (make a replica of) the anthrax in the letters sent to Messrs. Daschle and Leahy without success, according to FBI news releases. So why should federal investigators or the news media or the American public believe that a lone scientist would be able to do so?

Source. A Soviet origin would seem the only possibility

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ELSEWHERE

Britain: 'Fakeproof' e-passport is cloned in minutes: "New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports. Tests for The Times exposed security flaws in the microchips introduced to protect against terrorism and organised crime. The flaws also undermine claims that 3,000 blank passports stolen last week were worthless because they could not be forged. In the tests, a computer researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and implanted digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. The altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports."

Iran faces new sanctions after missing deadline: "Six major world powers agreed Monday to seek new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program after the country failed to meet a weekend deadline to respond to an offer intended to defuse the dispute, the United States said. Representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany decided in a high-level conference call that Iran's lack of response to an incentives package aimed at getting it to halt sensitive atomic activity left them no option other than to pursue new punitive measures, the United States said."

Oil prices dropping: "Oil prices plunged to a three month low Monday, briefly tumbling below $120 a barrel in another huge sell-off after Tropical Storm Edouard seemed less likely to disrupt oil and natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, gasoline prices continued their downward trend, with the common price in Tulsa falling 7 cents from the weekend. Crude's steep drop - prices fell more than $5 at one point during the day - dragged down other commodities and mimicked the big nosedives of the past three weeks. Also weighing on prices Monday was a report by the Commerce Department that consumer spending after adjusting for inflation fell in June as shoppers dealt with higher prices for gasoline, food and other items. That fed investors' expectations that a U.S. economic slowdown is sharply curbing U.S. demand for fossil fuels."

Moqtada Packs It In: "Good news out of Iraq is becoming almost a daily event: In just the past week, we learned that U.S. combat fatalities (five) dropped in July to a low for the war, that key leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq have fled to the Pakistani hinterland, that troop deployments will soon be cut to 12 months from 15, and that Washington and Baghdad are close to concluding a status-of-forces agreement. Now this: Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr plans to announce Friday that he will disarm his Mahdi Army, which was raining mortars on Baghdad's Green Zone as recently as April. Coupled with the near-total defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, this means the U.S. no longer faces any significant organized military foe in the country. It also marks a major setback for Iran, which had used the Mahdi Army as one of its primary vehicles for extending its influence in Iraq. The story, broken yesterday by the Journal's Gina Chon, marks the latest of serial defeats for Mr. Sadr"

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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

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

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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