THE TRINITY REVISITED

This is not a religious blog -- with the fact that I am an atheist being no small part of the reason for that. I generally confine my comments on religion to profound reverence for our Christian heritage and profound dislike of Islam and all its works. I did however let my old theological interests off the leash long enough recently to post a few derisive comments about the doctrine of the holy Trinity ("So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God" in the Athanasian formulation). Naturally, I got a bit of return-fire over that. So for those who are interested, a few notes follow by way of a rejoinder:

Maverick Philosopher mentions the trinitarians' favourite text: John 1:1 "And the Word was God". Trinitarians say that John was clearly referring to Jesus in saying that but in so doing they overlook the very point John was making: That Jesus should be seen not only as a person but as a message of enlightenment from God. So it was the message or truth that was divine and eternal rather than the person. If John had meant to say "Christ", he would have. And it actually gets worse for the trinitarians if we concede that John was referring there simply to Christ. Because in the original Greek of the NT, the supreme being is always referred to as "ho Theos" (THE God). And in John 1:1, John specifically calls the Word "theos" (meaning "divine") rather than "ho Theos". So John is specifically saying that the Word was NOT the supreme being. So there is NO scriptural basis for the trinity doctrine.

{A detour here for Greek grammarians: It may be contended that John used the anarthrous form of "theos" purely because it was a predicate. It is true that there is some usage to that effect: Probably a lazy usage where the meaning is otherwise clear. But the question is: Was it John's usage? No. We see just a little later in the same text a predicative usage WITH the article: "kai ee zoe een to phos".}

The remaining point that a couple of people have made is that if Christ is not God what is he? I would have thought that was obvious -- one of the many people who have allegedly gone to Heaven.

And the comment on Northwestern Winds is just puzzling. He quotes Paul to say that you have to believe in the resurrection to be a Christian and seems to think that implies that you have to believe Christ is God. I would have thought it implied the exact opposite! Or was God dead for three days?

[Just a fun footnote: I have crazy interests for an atheist so I thought I might list the books I keep within arm's reach on my desk while I am blogging: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible; The Penguin Australian encyclopaedia; The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge; The Macquarie [Australian] Dictionary; Brewer's Politics; The King James Bible; an Italian/English dictionary; a French/English dictionary; a Spanish/English dictionary; a German/English dictionary; The Koran; The American State papers including the Federalist; an American desk encyclopedia; Pears Cyclopaedia; a dictionary of American slang; the poems and songs of Robert Burns; Mein Kampf; a Greek New Testament and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer with Hymns Ancient and Modern. So now you know what I think I often need to know more about!]

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ELSEWHERE

More on Wal-Mart. A reader writes: "My son, who is 20 yrs. old, works for Wal-Mart. He is in his sophomore year of a Business degree. His job at Wal-Mart is putting him through college and he makes good money for a kid his age, well above the minimum wage. But he plans to remain with Wal-Mart for his career. In fact he expects to move up into management this spring. His description of his work environment does not match the descriptions of those anti-capitalist Wal-Mart bashers. He laughed at these allegations. (I asked him specific questions based on the complaints I'd heard online)"

Windschuttle vindicated! Courageous historian Keith Windschuttle has stressed that support for the "White Australia" immigration policy (which excluded Asians) came mainly from the labour unions. Amazingly, the unions are still at it in 2005: "A major union has called on the Federal Government to block a move by a Victorian fruit board to import up to 10,000 fruit pickers from China.... Mr Shorten said "no growers or employers should be allowed to undermine the job opportunities of Australians and their legal wages and conditions. The Howard Government must act to ensure Australian workers are not disadvantaged by the importation of Chinese labour"."

Eurosclerosis: "While American soldiers were delivering emergency supplies to isolated disaster areas and Australian doctors were treating the injured, Europeans were having meetings or, worse yet, trying to set dates for meetings. The French Minister of Public Health, Douste-Blazy, posed a rhetorical question while visiting Sri Lanka: was it "normal" that his colleagues in Brussels held their first discussions on the subject a full ten days after the catastrophe?"

Still not good enough for the critics, of course: "Employers hired workers in 2004 at the fastest pace in five years, with overall payrolls rising by 2.2 million. December's job growth was a bit lower than expected, with the unemployment rate holding at 5.4 percent."

About time: "China is planning to make selective abortions of female foetuses illegal as a way to close the widening gap between the number of boys and girls in the country, the official Xinhua News Agency said."

The British view of other countries (poll results): "A glance down the column headed "The top five" shows the dominance of countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada and also the relevant insignificance of countries on the European continent. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are rated unusually safe and Australians unusually friendly. The USA has a more mixed reputation: dynamic and democratic, yes, but also dangerously unsafe.... most continental European countries scarcely feature in the ratings (and Spain, in particular, does not feature among the top or bottom five in any of them), Italy and France stand out as countries thought to have some of the world's most beautiful buildings and works of art. Against that, the French and the Germans are thought to be among the world's least friendly people. While Britain and several old Commonwealth countries have high ratings across the board, the survey reveals some places as being almost pariah states. Large numbers of Britons admire Indian food - but only provided they can eat it here".

Surprise, surprise! "Ten months after it received $1.6 million from Republican Gov. Rick Perry's Texas Enterprise Fund, the Texas Energy Center has yet to create any new jobs and is without a director. Created in 2003, the center was proposed as a way to transform the energy industry by bringing together business and researches to develop new energy sources. It was to create thousands of jobs and bring millions of dollars in corporate investment to the Houston suburb of Sugar Land"

The latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx got money by deceiving relatives.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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Fun! It looks like Staples has caved in! See the last update here

WAL-MART REVISITED

An excellent email from one of my readers in response to my post yesterday about Wal-Mart:

"Sometimes economic and logical ignorance and anti-capitalist bias just must be rebutted, even though it should be obvious to everyone. In regard to the February 2004 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee concerning the "federal costs" to taxpayers of "Wal-Mart's success in holding employee compensation at low levels," the following observations:

First, where do they think Wal-Mart gets these apparently exploited and "badly paid" employees? From the ranks elsewhere of better-paid full-time employees with full benefit packages? I haven't heard about any Wal-Mart gangs shanghaiing people and forcing them to work for Wal-Mart, so Wal-Mart's employees must be there voluntarily, presumable because Wal-Mart offers them better employment opportunities than they had before.

Second, even if it is true (which I doubt) that most of these employees rely on government-provided or subsidized health care and government assistance paid for by "US taxpayers," is it not then likely these same people were also relying on government-provided or subsidized health care and assistance before they voluntarily chose to work for Wal-Mart? So Wal-Mart's employment of these people would, at worst, have no effect on the cost to taxpayers for these people's government-subsidized health care and other government assistance. More likely, at least some of these employees would now qualify for at least some employer-provided benefits and others would have improved their economic lot sufficiently to pay for at least some of their own maintenance and health care, rather than relying on government assistance.

In addition, since these employees must now have better employment opportunities than they had had before, presumably most of them are earning more than they did before, and paying more taxes! In fact, some of these employees may have had no employment before and been surviving entirely on welfare benefits. Therefore, when Wal-Mart employs these people, tax collections go up, use of government-subsidized health care goes down, and welfare benefit payments go down, which is a net benefit to everyone. The only logical conclusion one can draw is that rather than costing "federal taxpayers ... a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees," Wal-Mart's employment of these people reduces the welfare bill the US taxpayers otherwise would pay for these people.

When such obvious logic and facts are omitted from a "report" damning a successful business operation, it is clear the objective is not truth, but rather, to bash successful business and to attack our competitive capitalist system.

I can just see how this logic will play out in the Dems next report attacking not only Wal-Mart, but also all US businesses large and small, for employing anyone at all. Given the actuarial imbalance in the Social Security system, each new hire can be expected to add tens of thousands of dollars to the actuarial deficit. When summed across the entire economy, the deficit is not just a measly $2.5 billion, but rather tens of trillions of dollars! As a result, all these evil businesses in the US are shackling the US taxpayers with TRILLIONS in future tax liability by employing anyone!"

Blithering Bunny has some useful links on the Wal-Mart haters too.

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ELSEWHERE

I have had some good laughs lately, but you should read this dippy email that someone sent Keith Burgess Jackson. Keith's reply is a bit too kind. The moronic email-writer said that he could only evaluate Keith's writings by whether or not Keith's university had a chapter of a prestigious student fraternity. I would have replied that anyone who is so incapable of evaluating arguments that he can rely only on the prestige of the author's employer must be a complete mental cripple. On second thoughts, I think there is a fair chance that the email is a student joke. Keith also has up at the moment some good comments on the many defamatory things that Leftists say about Karl Rove. "The pot calling the kettle black" rather sums it up. I wonder if young people understand that analogy? How many of them have ever seen a black pot or kettle? Perhaps they think the saying should be "The pot calling the kettle Afro-American".

Rafe Champion has just scanned in a great article about the so-called cultural cringe that allegedly afflicted Australian cultural life for most of the 20th century. Knowing the robust independence of most Australians, the whole claim has always seemed rubbish to me and the article demonstrates in great detail what rubbish it is. The only basis for the claim seems to be that certain self-proclaimed Australian cultural elites were not getting as much attention as they felt they deserved. I suspect that they actually got MORE attention than they deserved. I certainly found plenty of Australian books to read when I was a kid in the '50s but I guess much of my reading at that time was distressingly "popular" -- Ion Idriess and the like. I actually think Idriess did an incomparable job of popularizing Australian and Pacific history and I am delighted to say that I think I had read every one of his books by the time I was 12. My interest in history goes back a long way. And I cannot recollect ever hearing a single derogatory word about the Australian poets -- Lawson and Patterson mainly -- whose works I enjoyed learning at school. Lawson's "The Teams" is still one of my favourite poems -- partly because I know how accurate was Lawson's description of the taciturn, hard-working teamsters. My own grandfather was one of them, I am immensely proud to say.

Iraq and Indonesia compared. An email from a reader: "I have just caught up with a friend in the Royal Australian Air Force who has recently been in the Middle East and who has been working on relief flights to Indonesia. He tells me the image we get via TV news of the Iraq situation greatly exaggerates the chaos and violence factor. He says Aceh is the opposite. Nothing on TV shows the extent of the destruction and death. He says you can easily find areas where there are dead and dismembered bodies in every direction".

There are only two Governor's races taking place in the U.S. this year -- in Virginia and New Jersey. Since there are no national campaigns, these governor's races are going to be watched intently. Commonwealth Conservative has the lowdown on the Virgina race.

Brazilian blogger, Luis Afonso reports a couple more of ratty articles about American tsunami aid. Somehow Hiroshima and Nagasaki have got dragged in! I thought my link yesterday about the tsunami being the fault of "THE JOOOOS" was the ultimate but I am beginning to wonder.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big selection of posts

The latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx thought it essential to destroy human families -- nice guy!

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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BOYCOTT LEFTIST BIGOTS!

A fun idea over at National Center for Public Policy Research . Apparently Massachusetts-based office supply retailer Staples, Inc. has decided to withdraw advertising buys from news broadcasts on Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. television stations in response to an e-mail campaign by left-wing activists. The activists complained that Sinclair was "placing partisan interest ahead of the public interest" by broadcasting conservative and pro-President Bush commentaries. But scurrilously Leftist TV networks like CBS are apparently OK. It would seem a good time to nip such nonsense in the bud. If you want to help, email Owen Davis at Staples and tell him that you will be boycotting all Staples products until they abandon their Leftist bias. And how about a picket-line outside any Staples stores in "Red" States?

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TSUNAMI AID

An interesting email from Gene Berman (vze3rdxd@verizon.net):

"I have something I think may be of great use in the various efforts underway to aid tsunami-hit areas. It's not, unfortunately, something I am able to donate but even so, to the extent useful, would represent substantial saving over alternatives.

The basic item is an inflatable Pontoon Float. The unit consists of three inflatable tubes of heavily rubberized canvas duck (about 50 oz/yd). Each tube is 3 ft diameter X 22 ft. long. The unit package, in addition to the 3 tubes, contains nylon cord for lashing the tubes (the tubes are well grommetted), metal parts to form "edges" and to form bow and stern, and a suitable foot-pump (although any will do @ 2 psi). The entirety is export-crated and weighs right about 1000 lbs, about 800 lbs net of the crate.

When assembled and inflated, the resultant unit is a 9' X 22" X 3' high, barge-like unit, capable of supporting 12 tons. And, of course, units may be combined for larger surface area and carrying capacities as required and may be readily towed by powered craft. I've got 40 of the units ready to go @ US $4500 each. As a price comparison, nearly identical tube units are made by a US company named Demaree Inflatables. They make various configurations but one roughly similar to mine runs about $15-16G and the individual tubes themselves are priced at $5500.

These were formerly used by the US military for a variety of purposes, including the erection of temporary bridges, use as barges singly or in tandem, floating docks, piers, diving platforms, etc. They've since switched over to a different configuration and I bought them directly from the government. They're not used and all have been inspected to make sure they're in first-class condition.

I am making inquiries through USAID currently and naturally, it's tough slogging and slow--probably aggravated by demand for their attention on account of the disaster. I thought that you might have some suggestion or references as to people or agencies over there--a lot closer to the activity. (Technically, the units require clearance of the International Trade Administration before export--they're on the list covering munitions and strategic material--but I think that won't be much of a hurdle under present circumstances.)"

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HOW TSUNAMI AID SHOULD BE DONE (BUT WON'T)

An interesting email from Michael D. Greaney, Director of Research, Center for Economic and Social Justice (http://www.cesj.org)

I am concerned that aid to tsunami victims will be handled by "the usual suspects" and in the same old way. I (naturally) see a "two-prong" strategy to giving aid to the victims, to which I invite comments (mgreaney@cesj.org):

1. Immediate direct aid in the form of food, clothing and medical assistance should be given to affected individuals, regardless of borders, race, religious affiliation, or party membership. This aid should not be given to any government, state or local, except under closely supervised conditions to ensure that it reaches the intended recipients instead of brothers, cousins and uncles of the bureaucrats, who will sell it to pay gambling debts and purchase liquor, women, and pornography.

2. The rebuilding of infrastructure and businesses should be financed through local "Capital Homesteading" programs, so that ownership of even the largest enterprises becomes widespread and people own their own government and control their own incomes legally and directly, making the government accountable to them, not to international financing agencies, terrorist organizations, or foreign countries. The blueprint for Capital Homesteading can be found as a free download on the website of the Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ") (http://www.cesj.org), under the title CAPITAL HOMESTEADING FOR EVERY CITIZEN. While designed for the moribund U.S. Social Security and Medicare systems, with very little tinkering it can be adapted to any country on earth.

The only problem with using Capital Homesteading in this fashion is that it builds economic (and thus political) power into ordinary people, not bureaucrats. If you want to discuss Capital Homesteading, CESJ's president, Dr. Norman G. Kurland, can be contacted as thirdway@cesj.org

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THE WAL-MART HATERS

It is basic to the Left to envy other people's success. So they have always hated successful businesses -- as Microsoft and McDonald's well know. So their hatred of Wal-Mart is no surprise. The N.Y. Review of Books has a big review of a number of anti-Wal-Mart books and, surprise, surprise, finds not one thing to criticise about any of the books concerned -- despite the inclusion of books that have been heavily criticized elswhere, such as the Ehrenreich tome. Let us just look at just one of the misleading statements in the "Review" concerned.

"One of the most telling of all the criticisms of Wal-Mart is to be found in a February 2004 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee. In analyzing Wal-Mart's success in holding employee compensation at low levels, the report assesses the costs to US taxpayers of employees who are so badly paid that they qualify for government assistance even under the less than generous rules of the federal welfare system. For a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store, the government is spending $108,000 a year for children's health care; $125,000 a year in tax credits and deductions for low-income families; and $42,000 a year in housing assistance. The report estimates that a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store costs federal taxpayers $420,000 a year, or about $2,103 per Wal-Mart employee. That translates into a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees".

Wayne Lusvardi has sent me the following comment on the excerpt above:

"The excerpt highlights how Leftists often use statistical fallacies to deceive the public about Wal-Mart. The paragraph claims that Federal welfare subsidies to Wal-Mart employees -- because of their low wages -- amounts to $2.5 billion ($420,00 per Wal-Mart store). The statistical fallacy is one of extrapolation from individual income data while leaving household or family data out of the analysis. Many Wal-Mart employees are retired and have other sources of income that keep them from depending on welfare programs. Many other Wal-Mart employees come from two-wage earner families and also don't require welfare assistance. Many others have two jobs or additonal part time employment to supplement their Wal-Mart salaries. And, of course, many have spouses that have health insurance which covers them as well. The flaw in the Democratic Staff House Committee report cited is the fallacy of extrapolating from one hypothetical Wal-Mart employee living on an hourly wage of $8 per hour with no other income, family, or other non-government support to all Wal-Mart employees, which of course is nonsense. But an unquestioning media will morph this data into a "fact." What did social psychologist W.I. Thomas say? "A situation that is perceived as real, is real in its consequences." So expect this Leftist "factoid" to start showing up in your local newspapers as unions and NIMBY's fight Wal-Mart stores in their local communities."

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MORE FUN WITH LEFTISTS:

I guess these guys don't really matter. They can't even spell "specter", even though they use the word in their headline. And who reads Revolutionary Worker anyway? But it is instructive how they have to depend on lies to support their cause. Excerpts:

"The agenda of Bush and the Christian right is not limited to criminalizing abortion, outlawing gay marriage, forcing children to recite prayers in school, and mandating the teaching of Biblical creationist ignorance. Their ultimate goal is Christian fascist theocracy. Now, following the election, they feel emboldened-and compelled-to take their theocratic project to a whole new level... The Bible reflects and supports all that goes along with these class and social relations: wars of conquest and pillage; traditional relations of patriarchy and male domination; the division of society into rich and poor, exploited and exploiter; and the absolute power of rulers over ruled.... The Christian fascists don't believe religion should be an individual choice. They believe all of society, and indeed the whole world, must be ruled according to biblical law-in short, they believe in a theocracy with no separation between church and state".

Recognize anyone you know there? I don't. It is all just a fantasy. No Christian Church that I know of seeks such things. So what sources do they quote to back up their claims? The good old New York Times mostly. How surprising!

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ELSEWHERE

There is a "must read" story at Varifrank about European arrogance and stupidity over the tsunami. Knocking America is far more important to them than helping people. I feel acutely sorry for the Indian guy in the story. Follow Varifrank's link to Gail Halvorsen too. (Link via E-Nough)

Congratulations to A.E. Brain. He has found some loon who thinks THE JEWS were responsible for the tsunami. It was really caused by an underwater Jewish atom bomb, you see! Given that Germany is once again a largely antisemitic country, I am sure that the theory will be widely accepted there. Sie glauben doch daß Michael Moore recht hat!

It must be all that "outsourcing": "Manufacturing activity in the United States expanded for the 19th consecutive month in December, a research group reported Monday, suggesting that the industrial sector entered the new year with solid strength behind it. The Institute for Supply Management said that its main index measuring industrial activity rose to 58.6 in December from 57.8 in November. The December performance was slightly more robust than analysts had anticipated. A reading of 50 or above in the index means the manufacturing sector is expanding, while a figure below 50 represents a contraction. The index has been 50 or above since May of 2003, according to revised figures".

This Pakistani should end his days in prison: "A "British" businessman offered to sell at least 200 ground-to-air missiles for use in a deadly plot to terrorise airline passengers across America, a court was told yesterday. Hemant Lakhani, 69, from Hendon, North London, told an undercover FBI agent that the shoulder-held missiles could be used to shoot down ten to fifteen aircraft simultaneously on the second anniversary of the World Trade Centre attacks, it is alleged.... Mr Lakhani was arrested in August 2003 at a hotel overlooking Newark airport moments after delivering a sample missile to an FBI informant. He has since been held in the Passaic County Jail, New Jersey".

A lawyer's feeding trough to go: "Republicans will try for quick action on a measure that would end asbestos lawsuits in exchange for a trust fund to compensate victims, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday, despite a two-year deadlock".

The latest posting on MarxWords shows that Engels eagerly looked forward to new heights of mass slaughter. Hate-filled? You judge.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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REPORT ON THE RELIEF WORK IN INDONESIA

From one of my Australian correspondents in Indonesia:

New Year's eve in Jakarta was very humble with the locals doing more praying than partying. However it is hard to believe it has been only 10 days since the disasters. President ad V-P Kalla have each made two trips to Aceh (Jakarta-Aceh is like Canberra-Cairns) as have most of the cabinet. Aceh has already been opened up to foreign aid agencies (50 of them so far!), foreign journalists and even the Australian air force and US marines are on the ground. The Aceh provincial government was virtually wiped out so too the local administrations of Bandah Aceh and the West coast regencies, the regional police lost half their men (and families) and old-time control freaks in the central government and army are, momentarily, sidelined.

Australia and the US are controlling air traffic at Banda Aceh airport, trucks are moving in from Medan and the east coast ports are chockers. Unfortunately the earthquake/tsunamis double whack destroyed roads and bridges into the west side where all the suffering is. What this means is there are mighty log jams which are preventing even more aid and personnel being shifted around quickly at this stage. Despite the cruelty of the thought, transportation and engineering specialists are needed first. Once the logistics are sorted out over the next few days I am sure the medical people will be streaming in. I am more concerned with the long-term capacity problem of local, useful institutions like the Indonesian Red Cross (which is getting a pittance of the charity money raised world wide) once the internationals move on to the next big show (or abuse their welcome) . and also the, to date unaddressed, need to get thousands of Acehnese out of the province until infrastructure can be restored (as done in Darwin in 1974).

Everyone is aware of the swift Australian support and our defence force team in Aceh is doing a great job in transportation and infrastructure. The latest news from the Australian Government of an extra $500 million to help rebuild the devastated areas is amazing.

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THE HOLY TRINITY

The blogosphere is an amazing place. Over at Maverick Philosopher there has been an extensive discussion going on about the doctrine of the holy Trinity! Generally sympathetic to Christianity though I am, I cannot see that particular doctrine as anything but the most awful load of codswallop. It is a self-contradictory formulation that arose out of the controversy among early Christians about whether Christ was God or not. They thought he was but, if so, how come he himself constantly referred to God as separate from himself (e.g. John 14:28)? Were there two Gods, Jesus plus his "Father" in heaven or was there only the one God of Judaism?

There was one logical group in all this -- the Arians -- who said that there was only one God and he was separate from Christ so therefore Christ was not God. This did however stir up enormous fights among the early Christians and the Arians ended up getting the boot. So we ended up with the present ridiculous doctrine that there are three gods (Jesus plus God the Father plus the Holy Ghost) but there is still also only one God. It is conventional to describe the doctrine as a mystery but it is no such thing. It is just a theological compromise that sacrifices logic for the sake of keeping all parties to the debate happy. How anybody can take it seriously is beyond me. If you regard Christ's own words as being the ultimate authority, the Arians have the argument won hands down. In Matthew 16: 16,17 he makes it as clear as he possibly could that he is the son of God, not God himself. Ain't theology wonderful?

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ELSEWHERE

Hilarious! "Gene Expression" have up a post on Jared Diamond, the biologist who claims that race is a myth and that there is no genetic difference between the Western European whites who created the modern world and anybody else. All those "dead white males" did so well purely by accident, apparently. The "Gene Expression" post however reprints one of Diamond's scientific papers from the days before he had hopped onto the politically correct bandwagon -- a paper in which Diamond shows important inherited differences between the races! That blogospheric fact-checking sure is pesky for frauds!

My controversy with Jason Soon continues over at Majority Rights. Great fun! Jason does seem to be a bit of a dipstick. Maybe he should be renamed Jason Late! I see that he has however deleted his original defamatory post so I guess I have had a victory in the midst of having fun! Taking me on in my own area of academic specialization (political psychology) was certainly not wise of him.

A step forward: "The Bush administration is focusing on a Social Security proposal that would allow younger workers to invest up to 4 percent of their payroll taxes in private accounts, with contributions limited to about $1,000 to $1,300 a year, an official said Tuesday." [Australia has been doing much the same sort of thing for years, of course, only on a rather bigger scale]

A good article here on how the aging population problem is going to hit Europe a lot harder than the USA.

David Limbaugh: "When you look at the Left's rush to judgment against the Bush administration for not reacting precisely according to its expectations (demands) concerning the tsunami disaster, you just have to wonder what kind of psychological forces motivate this group. It's instructive that the very people who constantly call for a spirit of collegiality and bipartisanship have somehow managed to politicize the most apolitical of all events.... one is entitled to question whether people are truly motivated by compassion when they feel the need to conspicuously parade their philanthropy like an obscene badge of self-congratulatory honor."

Tom Barrett has a pretty good coverage and refutation of the lies and deceit coming from Leftists about the tsunami relief operation.

An Iraqi speaks up about how un-humanitarian are the so-called "humanitarians" of the Western Left in Iraq.

More evidence of heavy Leftist bias among journalists here

The latest posting on MarxWords shows that, like modern-day Leftist elitists, Engels thought that country people (the "Rednecks" of his day) were stupid.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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SUPERB ILLOGIC

As I have noted previously, I sometimes put up posts on a new blog called Majority Rights. I think the cause concerned is an important one. Why should minorities have rights -- including the right to celebrate their own culture -- when the politically-correct crowd are frantically trying to deny the same rights to the majority? They are even trying (often successfully) to deny us the right to mention Christmas, for goodness sake!

The blog concerned is however a group blog with a fair range of contributors and some are a bit nutty by most people's standards -- with the inevitable deep suspicion of Jews occasionally popping up. I am however one of the most pro-Israel bloggers there is so it is perfectly clear that I myself am not of that ilk. In fact, I am so outspoken on the matters concerned that I get a lot of flak in the comments section from the more paranoid types who read the blog.

So, knowing all that, note the following comment posted by Jason Soon:

Apparently there's a new blog on the block that calls itself Majority Rights. The Australian blogosphere's err. unique . John J. Ray is a contributor. While Dr Ray is undoubtedly an intelligent and erudite man, some of his opinions can be regarded as monomanical and eccentric. But his membership of this group blog which includes a genuine anti-semitic conspiracy theorist and people who just 'love their race' among its contributors really doesn't do wonders for his reputation, except insofar as one can say that he comes across as among the most reasonable and moderate of its regulars. And for his pains, in a relatively innocuous post arguing that Hispanics are not dumb, he gets excoriated by one of his readers (wintermute) as a 'far Left monstrosity' (an honour he apparently shares with our Queen). Needless to say, any blog whose readership regards Dr Ray as a 'far Left monstrosity' will be of great entertainment value to Catallaxy readers but I daren't say much else for it.

The post shows some attempt at balance but I posted a comment about Soon's use of the term "monomania". I said: ""Monomania" is a clinical term associated with paranoid psychosis. Don't you think some more moderate term might become you better...?"

Soon replied:

"As for monomania, call that poetic licence. Your obsession with associating leftism with nazism (a rhetorical ploy now undercut by your association with actual nazis) is a monomania though your means of expressing it may be outwardly coherent".

I replied:

I guess Galileo was a monomaniac too with his ridiculous idea that the earth revolved around the sun. In Galileo's case, you just had to look through his telescope. In my case you just have to read the historical documents. But both actions were/are "absurd" according to the contemporary wisdom. Galileo was still right, though. And his campaign to educate people in the facts WAS important.

You also seem to be overlooking the fact that I reduce the "Nazis" on the blog concerned to what is apparently teeth-grinding rage. I guess that by Jason Soon logic, if I oppose Communism, I must be a Communist.

The amazing thing is that Jason had himself noted how much the antisemitic commenters on the blog dislike my posts but he still seems to think that it discredits me to post stuff that enrages them! Jason Soon logic is definitely too deep for me to follow. I think it will be a long time before I read any more of his posts.

Jason was once a Gene Expression blogger so would have been seen by most people as pretty Rightist. In recent years, however, elitism seems to have lured him to the Left, with all the devotion to argument-by-abuse that is customary in such circles. I suppose quoting out of context will come next. Maybe as he gets older, however, he will re-establish contact with reality and logic.

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TUESDAY ROUNDUP

What I think are the best posts on my various blogs for this week:

Dissecting Leftism explains why Libertarians should support the GOP

Political Correctness Watch shows that the ACLU is really anti-liberty

Greenie Watch says that buying the cheapest is environmentally friendly

Education Watch says that Americans are diploma-mad

Socialized Medicine says that doctors are being driven to labor union-like tactics by the high costs of litigation

Leftists as Elitists shows that Leftist elitism leads to Leftist hate

Gun Watch shows how horrible was history's most successful attempt at a complete ban on guns.

MarxWords shows that Hitler and Karl Marx agreed about the Jews

But the post that generated most emails was my fun Greenie Watch post on steam cars (scroll down)! That really brought the technophiles out of the woodwork! They all had better ideas of course. But nobody mentioned orbital engines. Shame!

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I got an interesting email yesterday. Someone in Iran plans to translate some of my writings into Farsi -- presumably for circulation in Iran. The young people over there are a feisty lot. The Iranians now appears to be the most pro-Western population in the Middle East (Israel excepted, of course). They have had a gutful of the Ayatollahs. Note: "The grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has condemned his country's clerical regime and suggested military intervention by the United States as a possible path to liberation".

I understand that some of my writings have also been translated into Russian -- for the benefit of Russian-origin Israelis -- who are generally a conservative lot. They KNOW what real socialism is like.

Abortion: Kudos to Australian Catholics. I have been advocating this sort of thing for years and GWB advocated it in the Presidential debates too: "One of the last announcements Cardinal George Pell made before taking his annual leave this week was to introduce a program, new to Australia and only the third of its kind in the world, to provide support to pregnant women who are contemplating abortion. "We want to respond to the needs of women facing an unexpected or difficult pregnancy by providing them with life-affirming options," he said. "Through the program, expectant mothers and, if required, their families, will be provided with social, emotional and practical support to enable them to continue with their pregnancy to full term. Women need real alternatives to abortion, and this new program is targeted to meet the specific needs of women contemplating abortion."

If there is anybody who is by now not totally fed up with the U.N., this post about the "Toyota Taliban" should settle the matter. It might even put one or two Leftists off the U.N.

How much will reach the victims? "The United Nations has received a record $US1.5 billion ($1.93 billion) in one week in donations after the devastating tidal waves in the Indian Ocean, a UN official said".

It looks like Al Capone's dictum of "vote early and vote often" is the reason the Democrat finally got over the line in the Washington State Governor's race.

There have been a fair few comments recently about the death of Susan Sontag. I have said nothing so far because I think the stupid old bitch's own words about the white race being "the cancer of human history" condemn her more effectively than anything I could say. No doubt she also said that races don't exist.

Betsy Newmark has been doing well. She deserves the kudos. I like her choice of template too, though the colours could be improved. The Newmarks are a whole family of bloggers, of course. Betsy has an excellent post here about how the media ignore successful conservative blacks while constantly pushing Leftist ones.

Wayne Lusvardi looks at the Leftist claim that the war in Iraq is "unconstitutional".

The Policeman is still one of the funniest blogs on the net. You have to "get" dry British humour, though.

The latest posting on my MarxWords blog shows that Engels despised both liberty and democracy.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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ROCKWELL'S "RED-STATE FASCISM"

The libertarian blog Liberty and Power is at the moment in the throes of debating (generally sympathetically) an article by Lew Rockwell which calls for libertarians to cosy up to the Left because American conservatives have become "Fascist". In a way Rockwell is correct. ALL modern Western governments have more in common with Mussolini's Fascist state than they do with (say) Lord Salisbury's British government of around 100 years ago. Governments in all the Anglosphere countries are far more intrusive and dominant today than they once were. And the dictatorial "political correctness" movement seems mainly to emanate from government-funded institutions too, particularly the judiciary and the universities. So there is every reason for libertarians to be dissatisfied with that. Lots of conservatives are dissatisfied with it too.

But the amusing thing is that the libertarians on L&P and elsewhere seem to think that have found a way of doing something about it. Rockwell and his ilk think that the Left would notice if the libertarians were to "ally" themselves more with the Left. But why should the Left care? They already have Chomsky and Michael Moore to feed them all the catnip they want. Why would they take more than passing notice of a handful of irascible libertarians? The sad truth about libertarianism is that NOBODY WANTS IT. It is not an accident that the U.S. Libertarian party gets only about 1% in national elections. Human beings are tribal and tribes always have some sort of government. And handing over responsibility for lots of things to somebody else is NOT stupid. It is in fact just one aspect of that great human trick of division of labour. Division of labour means that you specialize in just one thing and somebody else has to do all the rest. Only some lower animals do everything for themselves. So people don't WANT to make all their own decisions. They want somebody else to look after everything outside their own sphere of activity -- and an elected government is readily handed all those unwanted responsibilities. As a libertarian myself, I wish all that were not true but it is.

So what is a libertarian to do? It depends on your priorities. Libertarians have always opposed conservatives on issues of sexual morality and Leftists on issues of economic regulation so libertarians have always had to make a choice if they wish to do more than spend all their time talking to one-another. As I see it, however, the battle against restrictive sexual morality has been won long ago. Many good Christian people still advocate it but the percentage of the population who still practice (say) pre-marital chastity would have to be tiny. And among young Republicans in particular sexual freedom is simply modern -- not something particularly Rightist or Leftist. So issues of sexual morality ought not to decide anybody's allegiances these days.

Which leaves issues of economic management and foreign policy. Hard-line libertarians like Rockwell are furiously anti-war on ideological grounds -- because they believe that only governments can make war and they are against governments. What individuals by themselves could do about it if the Islamic nutjobs were to get hold of a few nukes and detonate them in America's big cities they do not say. GWB's strategy may not be perfect but knocking over a couple of Islamic regimes that were pillars of support for Islamic terrorism certainly seems better to me than sitting at home and hoping for the best. The Left are advocating that but Leftist interest in reality has always been small. For them too ideology is all that matters. So it seems to me that any libertarians living in the real world would be doing what they can to help the GOP -- and one way of doing that effectively would be to get inside the GOP and nudge it more and more in the direction of the free-market thinking that has long been its greatest strength. The two major political parties that characterize the Anglosphere are always of necessity centrist parties so NOBODY -- not even libertarians -- can hope to have more than marginal influence on actual policy. But GWB's various tariffs on steel, shrimp etc show that there is still plenty of need in the GOP for free-market advocacy. And it is free market prosperity that makes so much else possible.

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A good comment from a reader: "If the rainfall on Los Angeles these past few days had landed on a third world country, thousands would have died and hundreds of thousands would have been homeless - and the same rains ten years later would have had the same results. A government that does not advance its people is unworthy of respect. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he depletes your fisheries. Teach him to be a capitalist and he will sell you the fish".

Another interesting email just in: "A radio station in Sydney took the initiative and recruited celebrities to bolster support for the appeal to people to open up their wallets for the tsunami disaster. The "host" was Johnny Young, formerly of the "Young Talent Time" program. To everyone's surprise, he started raving and ranting about America and Iraq -- stating that all the money spent by America in arming itself in Iraq should be spent on the disaster. If America had started the war, you could understand some ill will. But that rich Arabs and some Leftoid psychopaths in other governments, supply billions of dollars to fund terrorists and arm them to the teeth to kill Israelis and Americans for the sake of killing was not mentioned. There was no suggestion that the Muslims ought to disband their idea and donate THEIR money to the appeal. Mr Young and his ilk obviously support genocide and not the people trying to end it."

Tim Blair notes disgusting United Nations claims to be doing relief work in Indonesia that is actually being done by American and Australian organizations. More on the Australian effort here

Nasty ideologues: "The political and ideological exploitation of perhaps the worst natural disaster in all our lifetimes is almost beyond belief - were it not for the fact that nothing these days is beyond belief. Even as tears spring into the most hard-hearted person's eyes at both the unimaginable scope of the tragedy and at the wrenching individual stories of loss, opinion leaders just can't help themselves. They are using this cataclysm as little more than cheap debate fodder about the nature and character of the United States, its president and its citizens..... Secretary of State Colin Powell found himself in the position of having to remind the world that over the past four years the United States has provided more such aid than all other nations on the planet combined. It is appalling that he had to mention this, and that President Bush was compelled to cite the same information on Wednesday, because you're not supposed to brag about how charitable you are. But once a United Nations official decried the American aid pledge as "stingy," the administration had little choice." And Tim Blair points out the sheer lies being told by the Left about the huge American aid going to the tsunami victims.

La Shawn Barber seems pleased that there is now a Leftist "hate" site devoted to her. She points out that Ann Coulter has hate sites aimed at her too and welcomes "her" hate site. I linked to La Shawn not long after she started her blog so I agree that Leftists should be bothered by her but it had not occurred to me that an "anti" site is a sort of a backhanded compliment. It shows that you are bothering them. Since some Leftist nerd put up a spoof site of "Dissecting Leftism" a little while ago, I guess that I am now in distinguished company too.

The latest posting on my new MarxWords blog shows that Marx loathed the Jews but was willing to use them to undermine Christianity.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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AFRICA TAKES ANOTHER LURCH DOWNHILL

"Namibia has begun expropriating white-owned farms, the New York Times reported this weekend. The story brought me back to a 2003 flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta, at the end of a trip in South Africa. A white passenger was acting as the worst bigots do: It wasn't enough that he didn't like black people -- "those people," as he put it -- he had to broadcast his scorn loudly so that the other passengers would be in complicit agreement with him unless they took the uncomfortable step of challenging him. I did. He then told the story of how he was losing his farm in Zimbabwe, slowly slaughtering livestock he would not replace and laying off workers. He had to grab work with airlines on other continents to earn a living, then return home to fight to hold onto property he was losing bit by bit.....

Zimbabwe, on the other hand, is a land of despair and retribution. Its economy has eroded. Life expectancy at birth in Zimbabwe was less than 34 years in 2000. It was 40 years in 1990, according to U.N. statistics. Between one third and one half of Zimbabwe's population goes hungry, according to the New York Times. The Mugabe government has discouraged commerce and driven outsiders away. To tighten his political control, Mugabe told the World Food Program to cease most emergency deliveries of grain. His government won't sell corn to families that don't belong to his party. The very policies that embittered the white farmer I met on the plane have brought starvation to a country once known for its farms.

Nonetheless, Zimbabwe has a copycat -- Namibia now also has begun to seize white-owned farms, under the pretence of expropriating from whites who are perceived to have fired workers wrongfully. "If you aren't already a racist, they make you a racist," Andreas Wiese, a fourth-generation white farmer, told the New York Times. He reminds me of my fellow traveler from Africa. Wiese's mother says of the family farm that once exported 100,000 flowers a year, and employed many Namibians, "Everything will be destroyed. Just give them two years, and everything will be gone." The Weise family's pain is the least of it. Redistribution is supposed to share the wealth, but in Zimbabwe it spread starvation and poverty -- and no small measure of hate".

More here

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There is a very well-balanced article here which says that the "death" of God in many people's minds has caused many of the same people to seek secular authorities to blame for things like the Tsunami. And when you are looking around for someone to blame who is the first candidate? America, of course! Logic is not needed. And they call religion illogical!

For those who take an interest in such things, I have recently put up on Majority rights my explanation of why the Chinese score above our average on IQ and the Indians score below.

IQ and liberal hypocrisy "A Yankee leftist acquaintance of mine sent me an email shortly after the election telling me that before I gloat about Bush's victory (I replied that my candidate, the Libertarian, lost too), I might find the attached chart of interest--he attached that chart showing IQ by red and blue state. The chart is pretty striking in that the average IQ of almost every red state is below that of the blue states. No doubt this is intended to show that Democrats are smarter than Republicans.... What is hypocritical about this chart is that it is circulated by the same people who bristled at Charles Murray's comments about race and IQ in "The Bell Curve". [The list of State IQs is of course a hoax]

There is an article here that points out that the vast U.S. defence bureaucracy is no better than any other vast bureaucracy. It wastes money prodigiously on things that don't make Americans any safer: "The defense budget is rife with weapon systems that are unneeded, perform poorly, or were designed to fight the now defunct Soviet Union. A few examples follow. After the dramatic decline of the only potent adversarial submarine threat, the U.S. Navy has designed and is producing a new generation of Virginia-class attack submarines. The Marines have sunk billions into developing the accident-prone V-22 tiltrotor transport aircraft, which is designed to take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a plane. Despite all of the billions slathered on the program, the aircraft's design may be fatally flawed. The Air Force's stealth F-22 fighter, originally designed to counter advanced Soviet fighters that were never built, has only a few remaining enemies to fight -- a limited number of porkbusting congressional representatives."

Coddling killers: "Will Victoria Jo Stinnett ever celebrate a happy birthday? I very much doubt it. As soon as she is old enough to understand, she'll be haunted by the trauma of her birth -- ripped from her dead mother's womb by alleged killer Lisa Montgomery. Yet monster though she undoubtedly is, Montgomery is already reaping the benefits of the insidious root-causes racket. Root causes are the rationalizations liberals give -- usually after the fact -- for their immoral actions or for the immoral actions of others. The paradox at the heart of the root-causes fraud is that causal theoretical explanations are invoked only after bad deeds have been committed. Good deeds have no need of mitigating circumstances."

The Spectator has a very sarcastic article here about the recent arrest of Britain's Nick Griffin -- a leading anti-immigration politician. The grounds for the arrest were about as flimsy as those the old Soviet KGB might have used -- making it apparent that the British police are now a political police.

The film "Team America: World Police" has just opened in Australia. Miranda Devine has a good review of how it skewers the Left.

If British readers think that the British Conservatives are hopeless these days, it might perhaps be a small consolation to note that the Canadian conservatives are just as gutless.

Cheat-seeking Missiles has a big summary of the blogospheric response to the Tsunami.

For half a century, Leftist psychologists have been preaching the gospel that conservatives are "authoritarian". We learn on my new MarxWords blog, however, that Engels thought the opposite -- that revolutionaries are authoritarian.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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