His Eminence on the Koran and on the Greenies

His Eminence, the Cardinal archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Pell, advises reading the Koran as a way of knowing your enemy. He also very reasonably identifies extreme environmentalism as a religion. Muslims and Greenies are fuming, of course. Summary of Dr. Pell's speech below:



Australia's most influential Catholic has said the Koran is riddled with "invocations to violence" and the central challenge of Islam lies in the struggle between moderate and extremist forces as the faith spreads into a "childless Europe". The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said reading the Koran, the sacred text of Islam, was vital "because the challenge of Islam will be with us for the remainder of our lives - at least".

But in a speech to US Catholic business leaders, Dr Pell said Western democracy was also suffering a crisis of confidence as evidenced by the decline in fertility rates. "Pagan emptiness" and Western fears of the uncontrollable forces of nature had contributed to "hysteric and extreme claims" about global warming. "In the past, pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions."

Dr Pell said the September 11 terrorist attacks had been his personal wake-up call to understand Islam better. He had tried to reconcile claims that Islam was a faith of peace with those that suggested the Koran legitimised the killings of non-Muslims. While there was room for optimism in fruitful dialogue between faiths and the common human desire for peace, a pessimistic response began "with the Koran itself". Errors of facts, inconsistencies, anachronisms and other defects were not unknown to scholars but difficult for Muslims to debate openly, he said. "In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."...

Dr Pell said every nation and every religion, including Catholicism, had "crimes in their histories". In the same way, Islam could not airbrush its "shadows". Claims of Muslim tolerance of Christian and Jewish minorities were largely mythical and he wondered about the possibility of theological development in Islam when the Koran was said to come directly from God. "Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion and its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited," he said.

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ELSEWHERE

U.S. economy steams ahead: "Activity in both the vast US services sector and at factories accelerated more than expected, according to data that pointed to fresh economic vigour and the risk of more interest rate hikes. Most economists are expecting economic growth to slow from a torrid first-quarter pace of 4.8 per cent, yet the latest figures showed no hints of slowing and appeared likely to keep the Federal Reserve leaning toward further rate rises. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week a pause in the rate-hike cycle was possible. The Institute for Supply Management's services index rose to 63.0 in April from 60.5 in March, with new orders hitting a two-year high, confounding Wall Street estimates for a slowdown to 59.2. In addition, the government reported new factory orders rose a stronger-than-expected 4.2 per cent in March, beating estimates for a 3.5 per cent gain, as demand for transportation equipment, computers and electronics proved robust."

BNP has a win: "The British National Party (BNP), running on a hardline anti-immigration platform, won 11 seats from the ruling Labour Party in a key east London seat in local elections today. The BNP targeted working-class areas with voters who are dissatisfied with the main political parties. Opponents dismissed the party as a neo-fascist minority group peddling racism and preying on voters' prejudices. But Richard Barnbrook, a winning BNP candidate in the London suburb of Barking and Dagenham, denied being racist and said the party's success at the polls was due to the Labour party's failings on local issues. "This race concern is nonsense, it doesn't exist," Mr Barnbrook said to Sky News television. "It's law and order, education and proper housing." Some Barking and Dagenham voters said they had turned to the BNP because mainstream parties had ignored their concerns over issues such as immigration and housing. The BNP says its policies are not racist but are an attempt to return to "traditional British values". Its manifesto pledges to "stop further attempts to enforce multi-culturalism on an increasingly sceptical and unwilling populace."

Democrat oil hypocrisy: ""[Senator Chuck] Schumer and most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate-the very crowd shouting the loudest about 'obscene' gas prices-have voted uniformly for nearly 20 years against allowing most domestic oil production. They have vetoed opening even a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas production. If there is as much oil as the U.S. Geological Survey estimates, this would increase America's proven domestic oil reserves by about 50%. They have also voted against producing oil from the Outer Continental Shelf, where there are more supplies by some estimates than in Saudi Arabia... If [environmentalists have] discovered some new law of economics in which a fall in output with rising demand can cause a reduction in price, we'd love to hear it. The dirty little secret about oil politics is that today's high gas price is precisely the policy result that Mr. Schumer and other liberals have long desired. High prices have been the prod that the left has favored to persuade Americans to abandon their SUVs and minivans, use mass transit, turn the thermostat down, produce less consumer goods and services, and stop emitting those satanic greenhouse gases... So how do the sages on Capitol Hill propose to reduce gas prices? They want to slap a profits tax on Big Oil because of alleged price gouging. Here we have another head-scratcher that seems to defy even junior-high-school economics. Usually when you tax something, like tobacco, you get less of it. But somehow a tax on oil will magically lead to more oil."

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (of Maricopa County Arizona) strikes again: "A posse of 100 volunteers and sheriff's deputies will patrol the Phoenix area and arrest any illegal immigrants, the county sheriff said. The group likely will be deployed across parts of Maricopa County by the weekend, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday. Volunteers will be drawn from the department's 3,000-member posse, whose members are trained and are often former deputies. "It's important to send the message out to stay in Mexico and don't come roaming around here hoping you're going to get amnesty," said Arpaio, who in years past gained notoriety for putting inmates on chain gangs and issuing them striped uniforms and pink underwear. Arpaio's deputies have already arrested about 120 illegal immigrants using a new state smuggling law. "We're going to arrest any illegal who violates this new law," he said. "I'm not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico. I'll give them a free ride into the county jail."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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Brookes News Update

Is free trade destroying manufacturing and exporting jobs?: The trade account deficit and the movement of manufacturers to other countries has been blamed on free trade. But the picture is far more complicated than it looks
Minimum wages and capital accumulation: lefty economists fail again: The Liberal Party's labour reform legislation is taking a pounding from its critics, particularly in the media. So far the Party has been lamentably remiss in its response to these attacks. Unfortunately the situation is going to get worse as the attacks become more sophisticated
Michael Kroger's hatchet men betray Liberal Party member: Treachery comes easily to some members of the Victory state Liberal Party. The Richmond branch wanted Prodos Marinakis as their candidate. Some of the big boys in exhibitions Street didn't like that so they started smearing and arm-twisting. Some of us little people think it's time Peter Kroger had a chat with Julian Sheezel and Tony Barry. Better still -- just sack the jerks
Journalist smears President Bush over Mary McCarthy's treason: I would love to say that Geoff Elliot was the exception to the rule that most journalists are lying leftwing bigots -- but I cannot. If Murdoch had any decency he would have sacked this liar years ago
Michael Kroger gets a savaging while the Victorian Liberal Party crumbles: Peter Kroger and his gang of spineless incompetents are leading the Victorian Liberal Party into a political black hole. If his minions insist on treating Party members like dirt while they themselves treat the Party as a means of furthering their own political ambitions I fear the Party's next motto will be RIP
How the Liberal Party's labour market reforms got stuffed: The HRNS conned the Liberal Party into thinking that it is the expert on labour markets and that the Party need look no further for sound advice. The result has been a disaster for the Libs
Islamofascists want to exterminate Israel -- and guess who will be next: I had became accustomed to sympathetic posters of sadistic Che Guevara and the equally sadistic Fidel Castro. But I'm not ready for films like 'Munich' created by Stephen Spielberg and the self-hating Tony Kushner that give Muslims a platform to justify mass murder
The feminist furor has finally passed: After years of holding America a virtual hostage, old-fashioned radical feminism appears to be just about dead

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ELSEWHERE

It is well-known that Americans have substantially higher average incomes than Europeans. Leftists say that Americans earn more only because they work longer hours. A recent comparison of the USA and Germany is therefore interesting. It shows that Americans and Germans work virtually the same hours overall but, because of their high taxes, Germans spend a larger proportion of their working time "Doing it yourself". For example, they may service their own car rather than paying a mechanic to do it. Since "Doing it yourself" will usually be much slower and less efficient than getting an expert to do the job, Americans will obviously get more results per unit time spent working.

Blair talks tough: "The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, yesterday unveiled plans to deport foreign criminals automatically, seeking to regain the initiative in a crisis that is threatening to topple a minister on the eve of local elections. During a rowdy session of Parliament, opponents said he was spouting "sound bites" to grab the headlines, adding that laws were already in place to protect the public but ministers were failing to do so. They stepped up calls for the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to resign over a bungle when a systemic failure meant 1023 foreign criminals who should have been considered for deportation were released."

GOP would benefit from stronger immigration stand: "California voted for Republican presidential candidates in nine of the ten elections from 1952 through 1988. The collapse of the California GOP first became evident in 1992, two years before Prop. 187, when Republicans got skunked in California in the presidential election and two U.S. Senate races. In the last dozen major contests for president, governor, or senator there, Republicans have won only the two times they appealed to voter anger over illegal immigration. The ten times they meekly avoided the topic, they quietly went down to defeat."

Mexico goes libertarian: "To the alarm of its northern neighbour, Mexico is to decriminalise the possession of nearly every drug - hard and soft - that the US has battled for decades to keep off its territory. President Fox is to sign legislation that will make Mexico one of the most permissive countries in the world when it comes to narcotics. Users will be able to possess up to five grams of marijuana (the equivalent of about four joints), five grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin and 500 milligrams of cocaine - enough for a few lines. Nor will they be prosecuted for possessing a few tabs of Ecstasy, small quantities of amphetamines or magic mushrooms, or even a kilo of so-called indigenous drugs such as the hallucinogenic peyote, a psychotropic cactus still used in shamanic rituals. The Mexican Government says the legislation will allow the authorities to concentrate on fighting the violent drugs gangs that have turned several cities into war zones.

Great stuff! "The Los Angeles Police Department is being sued in connection with its policy prohibiting officers from inquiring about an individual's immigration status, and reportedly restricting them from cooperating with federal immigration officials. The action has been filed by the public-interest group Judicial Watch, and asks the court to prohibit the LAPD from expending taxpayer funds to enforce and maintain "Special Order 40," claiming it violates both California and federal laws and puts American citizens at risk.

"A Day Without Migrants" becomes day without news: "Like most other news professionals in the Valley, I began Monday by monitoring progress of the work stoppages, boycotts and demonstrations for what had been called by organizers 'A Day Without Immigrants.' That is to say, I sat at my desk in The Arizona Republic's nice, air-conditioned downtown offices and looked out on a beautiful expanse of urbanized desert on what looked like, felt like and was a perfectly normal day. ... There were some protesters gathered at a Home Depot and at the site of a company that had been raided by federal immigration officials. There were reports of some businesses that had not opened and others that were operating short-handed. News reporters and photographers blanketed the Valley. The story was all over the news. ... And, most importantly, it was ... zzzzzzzzzz ... all over before it got started."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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THE HILDABEEST

Taranto seems to have caught Hillary Clinton out. She said of her personal history: "So I wrote to NASA and said, 'How do I sign up to be an astronaut?. And they wrote back very politely and said, 'We don't take girls.'. Taranto comments: But wait. Is that NASA story believable? First, Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, is only 3 1/2 years younger than Mrs. Clinton. Second, given that she has an epicene [unisex] name, how did NASA even know she was a girl?

Why does all that remind me of this? Bill Clinton's claim that Hillary was named in honour of the first Everest summiteer has a fundamental problem: Edmund Hillary reached Everest's peak on May 29, 1953, nearly seven years after Hillary Clinton was born.. Both Clintons would seem to be stupid liars, a prime symptom of psychopathy.

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HIGH FUEL PRICES A GOOD THING?

One Australian economist thinks so. Excerpt:

One good thing about next week's federal budget is that even though Peter Costello is flush with cash and likely to offer tax relief to families, he's unlikely to make any cut in the tax on petrol. That's a good thing because we must learn to live with high petrol prices, not find ways to duck them. With prices nudging $1.40 a litre in some cities and Costello warning that worries about the Iranian nuclear stand-off could push them up to $1.60, the motoring lobbies are looking for ways to ease the pain. The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, for instance, wants Costello to remove the GST on fuel excise, saving about 3.4 cents a litre.

But, whichever way you look at it, cutting the tax on petrol would be the wrong way to go. For a start, there's the conventional economists' argument that the best response to higher prices is higher prices. Huh? When you think about it, it's not as meaningless as it sounds. Prices rise when the demand for something is growing faster than its supply. Although part of the rise in oil prices is based on speculation about disruption in the Middle East, and so may not last long, the underlying increase in demand is coming from the rapid growth in the economies of China, India and other developing countries. This is likely to keep upward pressure on oil prices for many years.

But in a market system, a rise in the price of such a commodity prompts a change in behaviour. It increases supply by encouraging exploration for new sources, makes formerly uneconomic oilfields profitable and encourages the development of substitute fuels. At the same time, it reduces demand by encouraging consumers to use petrol more economically and search for cheaper substitutes. Put this reduction in demand together with the increase in supply and you see that a rise in prices should lead to a fall in prices. So allowing retail petrol prices to move in response to market forces is the best way to minimise the long-term rise in prices likely to come from the developing world's increasing demand for oil.

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ELSEWHERE



Froggy racism? (Or reality dawning?): "The French parliament is to discuss whether to approve a new immigration bill which would make it harder for foreigners to work in France. The proposals, drawn up by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, demand that newcomers learn the French language and culture. They also favour highly skilled workers over those who are less qualified. The draft law would make it harder for immigrants' families to settle in France and restrict residence permits".

Libertarians will cheer: "The German government is planning to supply long-term drug addicts with controlled amounts of free heroin to "improve their health", the government's commissioner for substance abuse Sabine Baetzing said today. "A heroin therapy is the last hope and provides help for survival for some of those who are addicted," Baetzing said. "It can improve their health and stabilise their social situation." ... Baetzing said that pilot projects in seven German cities had shown that giving controlled amounts of heroin to long-term addicts was a more effective way of getting them off the drug than methadone, a drug used as a heroin-substitute. Baetzing said the testing in the pilot cities also showed the heroin therapy had led to reduction in crime".

Evidence not needed for a Pulitzer: "Washington Post reporter Dana Priest won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about CIA "secret prisons" in Europe that cannot be confirmed and appears to be essentially false. This puts the paper in a very difficult position. It gave back one Pulitzer, a story about a child heroin addict by Janet Cooke, after it was exposed as a fraud. So far, the only evidence that the Priest story is true is her insistence that her secret sources were telling the truth. But Priest isn't talking about the nature of those "sources" and whether fired CIA officer and John Kerry campaign contributor Mary O. McCarthy was one of them"

Mexico to make it easier for illegals: "The Mexican Red Cross (CRM) and the National Migration Agency (INM) will boost their help for Mexicans on their journey to the United States, Mexico's Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The two bodies support migrants through the Beta Migrant Protection Group, with the INM funding first aid, medical emergency and humanitarian assistance to all foreigners, regardless of their nationalities.... Since 2004, the INM and CRM have worked together to provide a mobile clinic in Mexico's Sonora state, offering help to a large number of undocumented workers."

No economic news can please the media: "The ordinary nervousness of investors and market watchers has been converted into advanced paranoia by the business media's preference for bad news. Consider this headline in the Wall Street Journal: 'Economy's Surge Stirs Questions About When Slowdown May Come.' Share prices are driven to a six-year high by rising corporate profits and commentators trot out stories about bubbles and irrational exuberance, the latter a phrase used by then-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan to describe share prices -- after which they doubled. Germany and Japan finally shake off their decades-long economic lethargy and show signs of recovery, and all talk is that, like rising share prices, this will force a recession-inducing rise in world interest rates."

I must confess to being pleased at the death of that arrogant old socialist, J.K. Galbraith. As an economist, he should have known better. Bill Buckley does his best to be generous about him in death.

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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RECENT ARTICLES UP ON ICJS

The Euston manifesto: For a Renewal of Progressive Politics
Harper urged to block UN appointment
Wolves in sheep's clothing on extremist Islam mission
Hamas in charge
Visa row on links to terror
B'nai Brith Press Release
Why `this night' is still different
The rise of the Islamist Axis
The Shabbat guest
Let's ignore Hamas
Cat and mouse with Muslim paranoia
World Bank. Money won't fix things here
ABC Parliamentary debate

I particularly recommend "The Shabbat guest"

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ELSEWHERE

There is a big Leftist whine here about GWB interpreting the constitution to suit himself. Odd that the same people don't object to the Supreme Court interpreting the constitition any way that suits themselves on matters such as abortion, affirmative action etc. So sad that the Left are now realizing that two can play their game -- the game of squeezing anything you like out of the constitution. I wonder how long it will take them to start arguing that the "original meaning" of the constitution should be respected? When the Left can celebrate a Left-dominated court denying to whites the "equal protection" explicitly provided for all U.S. citizens by the 14th Amendment, they can't squawk about GWB interpreting his "Commander in Chief" powers rather widely.

Japan: Matchmaking ads 'to boost birth rate': "Alarmed by a falling birth rate and rapidly ageing population, Japanese policymakers are thinking about allowing TV ads for matchmaking agencies in the hope that an increase in couples will result in more children. Japan's population shrank in the year to October for the first time since 1945, heightening worries about economic decline due to a smaller workforce supporting a growing number of pensioners. An official at the Trade Ministry said today that the ministry is considering allowing advertisements for matchmaking agencies to be shown on television, which is currently forbidden".

The wails over the wall: "Another little-mentioned fact has to do with the Israeli security fence -- it is the reason there haven't been any attacks for so long. The wall that separates Israeli from Palestinian territory -- and makes liberals, libertarians, and plain old bigots like Bob Novak shriek like stuck pigs -- has cut by over 80 percent the number of Israelis maimed and murdered by suicide bombers. This barrier is not a political border; it can be dismantled. But lives taken by terrorism cannot be reconstituted. Still, mention any security fence intended to prevent undesired or undesirable human acts, and the Kumbaya Crowd launches into maudlin impersonations of the sainted Ronald Reagan, RIP: 'tear down this wall.'"

Estrich nervous about Leftist haters: "'I'll take a stand in favor of hatred,' said psychoanalyst Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch. Frank was defending Susan McDougal's tirade about why she hated Bush over my more restrained approach to winning elections. Radio host and commentator Hugh Hewitt scribbled furiously. A stand in favor of hatred. Hugh could not have been happier. His theory is that 'angry Democrats' will give Republicans a victory in the midterm elections. It's probably the Republicans' only shot, given the current numbers. Do Democrats have the capacity to seize defeat from the jaws of victory? You should have heard them boo Hugh at the Palm Springs Book Festival last weekend. It was music to his ears. I found it somewhat terrifying."

TN: Realistic juries evaded: "The district attorney who reached a plea settlement with ex-teacher Pamela Rogers for having sex with a 13-year-old student says one reason he didn't want to try the case was that some men on a jury would not convict an attractive woman for having sex with a teenage boy. District Attorney General Dale Potter said he was concerned that some male jurors might not convict Rogers, a former Warren County grade-school physical education teacher, because they wouldn't view what the attractive 28-year-old woman did as having harmed the boy. 'The fact that I could not get a jury of all women did play a heavy factor in my decision not to go to trial,' Potter said. 'There's a segment of men that would say that the victim wasn't harmed, but instead got lucky..."

More anti-Wal-Mart hysteria: "Wal-Mart's proposal to offer banking services to its customers has touched off another round of anti-Wal-Mart hysteria. At the urging of community banks and some members of Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is holding a series of public hearings on Wal-Mart's application for an industrial bank charter (IBC). Never before in its seventy-three-year history has the FDIC held hearings on an IBC application, and they should not start now. Consumers would benefit from Wal-Mart's expansion of financial services, although some banks afraid of competition are trying to block the bank charter."

The Estonian example: "Estonia is the ninth economically freest country in the world. Today, many people find it difficult to remember the days of the Soviet Union, when the Estonian economy was completely dominated by the state and marked by endless lines and shortages. Mart Laar replaced the "dead hand" of the government with Adam Smith's "invisible hand." His government eliminated import tariffs (a decision that was partly reversed by Estonia's membership of the European Union) and established a flat income tax. Corporate taxes on reinvested profits fell to zero and a currency board was established to combat inflation. The government also undertook extensive privatization of state companies. Though Estonia experienced a sharp but short recession that was shared by all transitional economies, by 1995 the economy was roaring again. According to the World Bank, between 1995 and 2004, Estonia's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a compounded average annual rate of 6.6 percent. During that decade, Estonia's GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity rose from $6,847 to $12,773 in constant 2000 dollars, an increase of 86.5 percent. Estonia's sustained, high growth rate was among the region's highest and set the country on course to join the rest of the developed world.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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AN EXTRA TAX ON OIL COMPANIES WILL RAISE FUEL PRICES

The companies will just add the tax into their cost base and proceed as before. Politicians huffing and puffing will HURT Joe Average, not help him. Excerpt from a comment by an economist below:

As gas prices top $3 per gallon, politicians are cashing in big - by throwing bombs at the U.S. oil industry. As in every crisis, Washington is suffering from a predictable case of "do something" disease. Products of the ready-to-eat microwave culture, Americans want an instant solution to high energy costs, and this lends itself to grandstanding and election-year maneuvering by politicians of all stripes. Numerous lawmakers, from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), are lining up to support a new federal windfall profits tax, with the aim of redistributing profits from "greedy" oil companies.

But lawmakers could benefit from a history lesson. The last time this country experimented with such a tax was the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980. According to a 1990 Congressional Research Service study, the tax depressed the domestic oil industry, increased foreign imports and raised only a tiny fraction of the revenue forecasted. It stunted domestic production of oil by 3% to 6% and created a surge in foreign imports, from 8% to 16%.

Politicians calling oil companies "greedy" is more than a little ironic. Tax Foundation studies have shown that state and federal treasuries profit handsomely from oil industry sales. The average American motorist pays taxes of 46 cents a gallon on gasoline, of which 18.4 cents a gallon goes to the federal government. States and localities pocket the rest. The nation's energy companies are already providing a "windfall" of taxes. According to Department of Energy data, from 1977 to 2004, federal and state governments extracted $397 billion by taxing the profits of the largest oil companies and an additional $1.1 trillion in taxes at the pump. In today's dollars, that's $2.2 trillion - enough to buy a Toyota Prius for every household in the nation....

It would be unfair and absurd to tax workers at different rates, based merely on the industry they work in. Similarly, it makes no sense to tax an industry punitively based on the volatility of its profits. Oil will always be a boom-or-bust business.

The U.S. debate over which group of people - workers, shareholders or consumers - ends up paying the bulk of these corporate taxes will go on forever. But the undisputed and most important point is that individuals pay taxes, not corporations. Therefore, attempts to punish oil companies for "obscene" profits by instituting additional taxes ultimately cause all of us to pay the price. Consumers will pay more at the pumps, and the five oil-producing states that suffered in the oil bust, including hard-hit Louisiana, won't benefit from the boom.

More here

Some more comments below:

Republicans target "economic crimes": "Should anyone doubt that the Republicans have become the sworn enemies of the forces of supply and demand, as well as free enterprise, the following statements should change the minds of most skeptics: Congressional GOP leaders on Monday formally called on President Bush to launch an investigation into possible price gouging by oil companies, as gas costs shot up nearly 25 cents a gallon in two weeks. 'Anyone who is trying to take advantage of this situation while American families are forced into making tough choices over whether to fill up their cars or severely cut back their budgets should be investigated and prosecuted,' House Speaker Dennis Hastert [R-Ill.] and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist [R-Tenn,] wrote in a letter to President Bush."

Scapegoating big oil is not the solution: "Oil prices continue to rise. Why would anyone expect otherwise given current circumstances? Let us start with the issue of destabilising the production of oil. The invasion of Iraq harmed oil production and everyone knows it. Military invasions are not good for production under most circumstances. Then we have Bush sabre rattling with Iran pushing prices up even more. We can't factor out the fact that a large amount of oil, in Venezuela, is under the control of a lunatic either. The supply of oil is very tenuous at best. Between the bad policies of George Bush and those of Hugo Chavez the world's oil supply is in trouble."

Real relief on gas prices: "Let them eat cake -- or wait in line for a Prius. The high price of gasoline is the talk of the nation. But there is little talk about government's piece of the action -- the revenue collected from federal and state gas taxes. Why not temporarily roll them back? That would provide instant consumer relief -- not the future, fantasy relief suggested this week in Washington. 'Gasoline price increases are like a hidden tax on the working people,' President Bush said in a speech that called for a federal inquiry into possible price-gouging, an easing of environmental rules on gasoline production, and a halt to new purchases for the nation's energy reserve. Bush conveniently ignored one built-in cost: Government levies include a federal 18.4 cents-a-gallon tax on gas; and the states tax on top of that. In Massachusetts, the gas tax includes a 21-cents-a-gallon excise tax and a 2.5-cents-a-gallon fee to reimburse gas stations for environmental cleanup."

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ELSEWHERE

"Don't ask, don't tell" suit dismissed: "A federal judge in Boston yesterday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, ruling that Congress has the authority to exclude gays from the armed services. US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. found that Congress made a rational decision to adopt the policy in 1993 after holding lengthy hearings and concluding that openly homosexual service members would have a negative impact on the military. The policy prohibits the military from asking about sexual orientation, but orders the dismissal of personnel who disclose that they are gay, engage in homosexual activity, or are outed by someone else. 'The legitimacy of the end Congress sought to serve -- maintaining effective military capability by maintaining high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion -- cannot be doubted,' O'Toole wrote. But, in his 41-page decision, O'Toole added that 'deciding that Congress has made a rational choice is not the same as deciding it has made a wise choice.'"

Government pesters wounded soldiers over debts: "Nearly 900 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have been saddled with government debts as they have recovered from war, according to a report that describes collection notices going out to veterans with brain damage, paralysis, lost limbs and shrapnel wounds. The report from the Government Accountability Office, to be released at a hearing today, details how long-recognized problems with military computer systems led to the soldiers being dunned for an array of debts related to everything from errors in paychecks to equipment left behind on the battlefield."

Mexican corruption: "Mexican politicians continuously demand more visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and "regularization" of illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. While neglecting to mention that the United States admits nearly one million legal newcomers each year, they also fail to publicize: (1) the extremely high salaries they receive, often-in the case of federal and state legislators-more than their counterparts in developed nations that have substantially longer annual sessions, (2) the generous stipends that they grant themselves, including year-end aguinaldos and end-of-term bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars known as bonos de marcha, and (3) the generous sums that party leaders in legislative bodies have to spend with few or any strings attached. For example President Vicente Fox ($236,693) makes more than the leaders of France ($95,658), the U.K. ($211,434), and Canada ($75,582)."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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NATIONAL ANTHEM LOGIC

Post lifted from Getting Elected

Now we have a Spanish version of our National Anthem and a call to allow crossing the border as the only qualification for citizenship. At first I was angered by all this. Why can't we all get along and speak (and sing) English? English was good enough for our Founding Fathers, why not us Americans today?

Then I started thinking about it. Wow, did my Polish and Welsh ancestors get a raw deal. They had to go through a complicated immigration procedure, take a difficult test and then they were even expected to speak and read English and have a job. To top this all off, there was no Polish or Welsh version of the National Anthem.

I say, this is the time to correct some of this injustice. Let's be fair to all. We need a federal law to require that the National Anthem be translated and recorded in the language of the country of origin of all Americans. To do this right, let's create a new agency to oversee this project. Hmmm, let's call it the FAOOB. (Federal Anthem of Origin Bureau). Ted Kennedy or some other liberal Dem would make good head of this new agency.

Of course, this would not correct all of the injustice, but it would be a start. The only drawback I can see would be the extra time it would take to sing the various versions of the National Anthem at football or baseball games.

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Some May Day thoughts and observations

May Day demos could bomb: "Rumors of immigration roundups have prompted thousands of illegal immigrants to stay home this week and are making some afraid to participate in a national immigration protest planned for Monday. Though federal immigration officials said they were unfounded, rumors of random sweeps were rampant from coast to coast Friday, prompting thousands of immigrants to stay home from work, take their children out of school and avoid church. The absences caused the rumors to build, as some thought their missing friends and co-workers had been arrested. Construction and agriculture were among the industries most affected. Len Mills, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of South Florida, said he estimated at least 50 percent of workers on construction jobs in the region hadn't shown up for work. He said he believed even some legal workers were afraid."

Muslims back illegals: "Muslims in Los Angeles and elsewhere are being urged to join millions of Latino protesters in the streets May 1 to demonstrate in favor of leniency toward illegal aliens currently living in the United States unlawfully. "In solidarity with immigration activists around the country, the Muslim Public Affairs Council as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Los Angeles, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, the L.A. Latino Muslim Association, the Muslim American Society - Los Angeles, and the Muslim Students Association - West are calling on American Muslims to participate in a day of action on May 1, 2006," says a statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "Islam's message is one of social justice, economic fairness, and fair treatment in the workplace. The Quran urges the proper treatment and respect of workers."

Anti-illegals push in California: "As Congress debates the polarizing issue of immigration, the founder of an anti-illegal immigrant group is pushing for San Bernardino to outlaw day labor sites and bar the undocumented from renting property. Joseph Turner, executive director of the group Save Our State, submitted voter petition signatures this week that would force a City Council vote or a citywide election on the measure, which would also deny city permits, contracts and grants to businesses that employ illegal immigrants, and require that city business be done in English".

Senate diverts war funds to border security: "The Senate voted today to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation's borders and provide the Coast Guard with new boats and helicopters. An amendment was adopted, 59-39, to cut Bush's Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new aircraft, patrol boats and other vehicles, as well as border checkpoints and a fence along the Mexico border crossing near San Diego."

No more excuses for Mexico: "Why do Mexicans only have one-third the per capita income (on a purchasing power parity basis) of Canadians and only one-fourth that of Americans? The answer is that Mexicans are relatively poor because have been plagued by semidespotic regimes that have ignored the rule of law and often engaged in destructive economic policies. Mexicans have been free of their Spanish colonial masters for almost 200 years (almost as long as their American neighbors and far longer than Canadians have enjoyed independence). Mexico has a better growing climate than Canada, and it is rich in natural resources -- oil, gas, and metals. Yet Mexican politicians frequently resort to blaming their northern neighbor for their economic woes but would not dare answer the question: 'If the U.S. were as poor as Mexico, would Mexico be better off or worse off?'"

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ELSEWHERE

Construction begins at ground zero: "After months of disputes over the future of ground zero, state and city officials finally brought in the heavy equipment and began construction Thursday on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower that will rise at the World Trade Center site. 'It is going to be a symbol of our freedom and independence,' Gov. George Pataki said after three yellow construction trucks -- driven by workers wearing hard hats emblazoned with the American flag and the words 'Freedom Tower, World Trade Center' -- rolled down a ramp to applause from politicians."

Republicans run dry: "Do my eyes deceive me? Am I reading that President George W. Bush has joined with the Republican leadership to call for investigation of the oil companies in light of soaring oil and gas prices? Oil hit $75 a barrel recently and apparently transformed the Republicans into Democrats, Democrats of the Charles Schumer and Jean-Francois Kerry variety."

Biased British official history: "A battle royal has broken out over a potted history of Britain that was written as a guide for immigrants wanting to become British citizens. Historians have condemned the Home Office booklet as being "riddled with errors" that risks misleading the public.... certain passages in Life in the United Kingdom are guaranteed to raise historians' hackles. Professor Coward, a specialist in 17th-century history, took particular exception to the document's description of Cromwell as a "God-fearing dictator". He said: "It's historical interpretation. I don't think he was a dictator - that is a contested adjective. A more balanced and independent account would have avoided using that word."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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ARAB PSYCHOLOGY

Excerpt from The Autonomist:

Although I'm weak in anthropology, I did get an 'A' in biology years ago, and what I learned has given me insight into these strange organisms we call Middle Eastern Muslims. Every organism alive on the planet is good at something. Each has some sort of defense or capability or behavior that gave them an edge over other organisms of past eras and allowed them to evolve to overcome life's challenges and survive to this day.

Rabbits are fast runners and fast breeders. Tigers are amazingly skilled hunting machines. Elephants are immensely tough and powerful. Monkeys are highly intelligent and adaptable. Frogs have poisonous skin. But Muslims, like the stick bug and the chameleon and the stone fish, have developed, to an amazing extent, the ability to deceive. And it is that ability that confounds their environmental competitors (you and me) the most.

These types of organisms -- "lie-in-wait" predators -- must know the full range of behaviors of the organisms they wish to defeat, so as to position themselves correctly for the strike. They are not necessarily strong or powerful, so they must know what frightens, arouses, lures, relaxes, and weakens that which they intend to destroy. For the Muslim, the idea is to exploit our greatest vulnerability -- PC thinking.

It is no accident that the Muslims chose to openly start attacking the West on their own turf in the '60s and '70s, right around the time when PC ideology in our culture was starting to pick up steam and cloud our collective judgment. Would Muslims have attacked New York while U.S. Grant was president? Or London while King George III was on the throne? How about the Paris riots during Napoleon's time? I don't think so.

The Deceiver picked up on this latest dominant PC, therapeutic, Leftist strain in Western culture, and, patient and shrewd as he is, has successfully exploited it for the last few decades. The only time they seem to have paid any price was when the United States had good old-fashioned cowboys at the tiller -- Bush I and Bush II. They continue to try and deceive by maintaining their false cries of victimhood, blustering lies, and ridiculous charades, for they have internalized and mastered what Sun Tsu's considered the most valuable tactic in warfare:Deception.

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ELSEWHERE

Appalling British Conservative leader: "Laying himself bare to the men’s magazine GQ, David Cameron painted himself yesterday as an achingly trendy nappy-changing metrosexual who wins prizes for his vegetables and shares a hairdresser with Robbie Williams. But for the Tory Right, cringing as “Dave” declares his love of Shameless, a Channel 4 drama about an alcoholic father who abandons six children to live with another woman, there was one crumb of comfort. Asked which living politician he most admires, the Tory leader replied: “It’s got to be Margaret Thatcher.”"

Saudis waking up: "Saudi officials refuse to accept that Wahhabism, the extreme form of Islam which has dominated the kingdom for 70 years, provides a theological justification for terrorism by preaching the absolute renunciation of all non-Muslims. None the less, in the past year, the government has barred a thousand clerics from teaching, in the first concerted move to foster a more tolerant brand of Islam. Moderate imams have been deployed to enter the chatrooms of radical jihadi websites and persuade extremists that their ideology is wrong, as part of a campaign called al-Sakinah (Tranquillity)."

Rare commonsense: "[Black] U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson shed little light Monday on the future of public housing in hurricane-battered New Orleans, but said that 'only the best residents' of the former St. Thomas housing complex should be allowed into the new mixed-income development that replaced it, according to the information-restricted NOLA.com newslog. ... 'Some of the people shouldn't return,' Jackson said. 'The (public housing) developments were gang-ridden by some of the most notorious gangs in this country. People hid and took care of those persons because they took care of them. Only the best residents should return. Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked.'"

Bush should stop grandstanding, get serious on gas prices: "President Bush seems desperate to find someone to blame for continuing high demand for gasoline, which is the result of high economic growth and continuing supply problems. He should take credit for his policies that have contributed to strong economic growth and put the blame for high gas prices where it belongs. He should be traveling across the country blaming the obstructionist minority in Congress that continues to block legislation that would increase domestic energy production. And the president should be building public support for pro-energy, pro-consumer policies."

Solzhenitsyn loses his marbles: "Nobel laureate and former Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn has accused the US and NATO of seeking to encircle Russia, and praised President Vladimir Putin for working to restore a strong state. In a rare interview, the reclusive 87-year-old author, who rose to prominence for his accounts of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's repression and labor camps, told the liberal weekly Moscow News that NATO's ultimate aim was the loss of Russia's sovereignty, according to a full text of the interview posted on the publication's internet edition".

Big upset for evolution timing research: "Variability in mitochondrial (mt)DNA is often used to infer population size, history, and diversity on the assumption that mtDNA is essentially evolutionary neutral. Bazin et al. compared a wide range of animal species for polymorphisms in allozymes, nuclear DNA, and mtDNA. Within-species allozyme and nuclear DNA variability correlated with expected species abundance and ecological variables, whereas essentially no difference was observed between a broad range of taxa in terms of mtDNA variability. Instead, mtDNA seem to have undergone recurrent fixation of beneficial mutations and loss of variability at linked loci. Thus, mtDNA is far from a neutral marker; its diversity is essentially unpredictable and may not reflect population history and demography."

GM eat your heart out: "Mazda Motor Corp today said its full-year net profit soared almost 46 per cent to a fifth consecutive record high and predicted further growth ahead led by robust sales in overseas markets. Japan's fifth largest car manufacturer, one-third owned by US giant Ford Motor, said net profit reached Y66.7 billion ($A773.24 million) in the 12 months to March. With sales rising in major markets in North America, Europe and China, Mazda forecast a sixth year of all-time high earnings. The Hiroshima-based company said operating profit jumped 48.8 per cent to Y123.4 billion ($A1.43 billion) on revenue which increased by 8.3 per cent to Y2.92 trillion ($A33.85 billion). Both operating and net income are all-time highs. Global vehicle shipments rose 4.0 per cent to 1.15 million units as sales of Mazda brands grew in China, Australia and the Middle East. Sales in China of Mazda brand vehicles jumped some 36 per cent from a year earlier to a record 130,000 units, giving it a 2.1 per cent share of the auto market there".

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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SAUDI ATTACK ON CONSERVATIVE BLOGGERS

Readers who logged on to TONGUE-TIED at various times in the last 12 hours or so found the blog "down". The firm hosting the blog -- Hosting Matters -- hosts a number of big-time conservative blogs such as LGF and Powerline and they came under a DOS (Denial of Service) attack from cyberjihadis in Saudi Arabia. Michelle Malkin has the details. Hosting Matters blocked the attack after a while and restored service, but as I write TONGUE-TIED is down again.

Readers who had bookmarked this site were able to continue reading, however.

In the four years I have had this blog up on blogspot, I cannot recall a successful DOS attack on them. Maybe they are too big for it, or something. They do have plenty of service outages, of course, but that always seems to be the result of their own bungling.

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Brookes News Update

The US economy: things about manufacturing and free trade that you have not been told: "Economists argue that when the NAICU (non-accelerating inflation rate of capacity utilisation) reaches 82 per cent inflation will pick up in the US economy. Their thinking is badly flawed
Unemployment and wages: facts the Liberal Party ignores and the unions refuse to debate: "Union leaders, labour politicians and most journalists argue that the Liberal Party's labour reforms will have terrible consequences for real wages. Not true. Labour reforms will create jobs for those able and willing to work
Mexico screwed up on illegal immigrants -- listen up Republicans: "Democrats abandon their pro-immigration policy in an attempt to beat bush in 06 and take the White House in 08
The myth of technological unemployment: another Liberal Party failure: "The fallacy that technology destroys jobs has re-emerged. This is based on the fallacy of composition, confusing the part with the whole. In fact, technology creates more and better paid jobs
Castro and "truly repellent" minorities: "The Boston elite's belief in witches eventually dissipated. Yet their belief in another fable, that 'we bullied poor little Castro into the arms of Mother Russia,' persists
Bracks' outrageous attack on the Australian dream: "The Victorian Labor Party is going to what it does best whenever it gets power -- it's going to rip off the little people. Its new zoning laws appear to be designed to help the better off at the expense of the least well off
The Iranian head fake: "Iran's dictator says he will use `whatever it takes' to destroy Israel and bring ruination to others in the non-Moslem world. And he means it
How the other half lives: "A luxurious cruise on the Queen Mary 2 sure beats a home for the aged

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ELSEWHERE

Given my great interest in 20th century history, I was quite floored when I recently received an press release from a Sgt. Gehlen of the U.S. Central Command public affairs office in Iraq. If you don't know why I was floored, Google "Reinhard Gehlen". A truly legendary surname. Sgt. Gehlen wanted to draw my attention to the recent Zarqawi Video.

Ex-Spanish premier calls on NATO to add Israel as member: "Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar called for far-reaching NATO reforms to combat Islamic extremism, including expansion of the alliance membership to include Israel, Japan and Australia. The appeal came in an article published Thursday. Writing for the Jerusalem Issue Brief series of the Jerusalem-based Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Aznar said "it is imperative to defend our values and way of life against a new threat: Islamic extremism and terrorism." The article was based on a presentation he made at the institute on March 16. To transform NATO from a military alliance against the now-extinct Eastern bloc into a force that can counter the current threat, he wrote, "NATO must refocus itself on fighting terror, the major threat today".

Newt Gingrich on immigration: "There has been a breakdown of will on the part of America's leaders to control our borders and ensure that new immigrants learn to be American. The thousands of people we now see marching in the streets of U.S. cities over immigration policy is the product of two decades of a fundamentally dishonest immigration system. For two decades, the U.S. government has failed to control the borders while many U.S. businesses have profited by breaking the law. In turn, the U.S. government failure to enforce the immigration laws has encouraged outright defiance of federal authority by certain state and local jurisdictions. Adding insult to this state of affairs is an immigration bureaucracy that has been slow, cumbersome, rude, heartless, and incompetent in the discharge of its duties. This dishonest system has lured millions to enter our country illegally and to obtain work here illegally...."

GOP fuel hypocrisy: ""Few things are less becoming in a political party than desperation, as Republicans are now demonstrating as they panic over rising oil and gas prices. If blaming private industry for Congress's own energy mistakes is the best the GOP can do, no wonder its voters may sit out the November election. Oil prices hit $75 a barrel last week, while gas has reached a national average of about $2.85 a gallon. The Republican response has been to put on Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi fright wigs and shout about corporate greed and market manipulation. House Speaker Denny Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist fired off a letter to President Bush yesterday demanding the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department investigate 'price fixing' and 'gouging.' Senator Arlen Specter wants to go further and impose stricter 'antitrust' laws for oil companies, as well as a 'windfall profits' tax. Mr. Hastert also delighted the class warriors in the press corps by lambasting recently retired Exxon CEO Lee Raymond's pay 'unconscionable.' There's been unconscionable behavior all right, most of it on Capitol Hill. A decent portion of the latest run-up in gas prices-and the entire cause of recent spot shortages-is the direct result of the energy bill Congress passed last summer"

Pulitzer Prizes for traitors: "There's nothing wrong with caustic criticism, but two of the award winners went further, into areas that may hamper our battle against Islamist terrorism. The Washington Post's Dana Priest won a prize for revealing the existence of secret CIA-operated prisons in Eastern Europe, and the New York Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau won for revealing the existence of a secret program to intercept communications between terrorists abroad and their domestic contacts. The full repercussions of these security breaches remain unknown because, just as in 1942, intelligence officers are loath to publicly reveal the harm done to their activities. But there is no doubt that these were among the government's most tightly held secrets and that, despite personal pleas from Bush, both newspapers decided to publish them anyway - to the approbation of their peers."

Abolish FEMA: "Hurricane Katrina turned FEMA into a "symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy" so far beyond repair that it should be scrapped, senators said Thursday. They called for creation of a new disaster relief agency as the next storm season looms on the horizon. The push to replace the beleaguered agency was the top recommendation of a hefty Senate inquiry that concluded that top officials from New Orleans to Washington failed to adequately prepare for and respond to the deadly storm, despite weather forecasts predicting its path through the Gulf Coast."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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JEWISH LEFTISM

Excerpt from Dennis Prager

Liberal Jews fear most religion. They identify religion -- especially fundamentalist religion and especially Christianity -- with anti-Semitism. Jews are taught from birth about the horrors of the Holocaust, and of nearly 2,000 years of European, meaning Christian, anti-Semitism. They therefore tend to fear Christianity and believe that secularism guarantees their physical security. That is what animates the ACLU and its disproportionately Jewish membership, under the guise of concern with the Constitution and "separation of church and state" (words that do not appear in the Constitution), to fight all public expressions of Christianity in America.

Despite their secularism, Jews may be the most religious ethnic group in the world. The problem is that their religion is rarely Judaism; rather it is every "ism" of the Left. These include liberalism, socialism, feminism, Marxism and environmentalism. Jews involved in these movements believe in them with the same ideological fervor and same suspension of critical reason with which many religious people believe in their religion. It is therefore usually as hard to shake a liberal Jew's belief in the Left and in the Democratic Party as it is to shake an evangelical Christian's belief in Christianity. The big difference, however, is that the Christian believer acknowledges his Christianity is a belief, whereas the believer in liberalism views his belief as entirely the product of rational inquiry.

The Jews' religious fervor emanates from the origins of the Jewish people as a religious people elected by God to help guide humanity to a better future. Of course, the original intent was to bring humanity to ethical monotheism, God-based universal moral standards, not to secular liberalism or to feminism or to socialism. Leftist Jews have simply secularized their religious calling.

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ELSEWHERE

Data on illegal immigrants kept secret: "Two federal agencies are refusing to turn over a mountain of evidence that investigators could use to indict the nation's burgeoning work force of illegal immigrants and the firms that employ them. The Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration routinely collect strong evidence of potential workplace crimes, including names and addresses of millions of people who are using bogus Social Security numbers, their wage records, and the identities of the bosses who knowingly hire them. But they keep those facts secret... The IRS doesn't fine even the most egregious employers who repeatedly submit inaccurate data about their workers. Social Security does virtually nothing to alert citizens whose Social Security numbers are being used by others... One internal study found that a restaurant company had submitted 4,100 duplicate Social Security numbers for workers. Other firms submit inaccurate names or numbers reports for nearly all of their employees. One child's Social Security number was used 742 times by workers in 42 states. "That's the kind of evidence we want," said Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney in Arizona. He regularly prosecutes unauthorized workers, but says it's hard to prove employers are involved in the crime".

What happened to limited government? "For some reason, Republicans are scratching their heads and wondering why their poll numbers are crashing, their public support waning, and the fact they might lose seats in Congress during the mid-term elections. Well, here is a reason or two why; over the last six years our Republican-controlled government has produced the highest levels of government spending in history, soaring deficits, excessive government regulation that intrudes even further into the lives of regular Americans, the belief that the best way to solve the problems of a massive, government bureaucracy is to make it even larger, and the systematic replacement of the promises made to the Conservative base with lip service."

Bombs rule: "The 'occupation' to which Hamas refers is not the one that occurred after the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza (which it left last year). Hamas is talking about the 'occupation' that resulted from the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The position of the Palestinian Authority, which was created as a result of negotiations aimed at achieving a lasting settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, is clear: All Israel must do to stop the terrorist attacks -- excuse me, the perfectly legitimate acts of self-defense -- is cease to exist. Not a lot of room for negotiation there."

The ACLU has lost another Ten Commandments case: "The American Civil Liberties Union suffered another defeat in its quest to bar the Ten Commandments from the public square today as the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a display of the Decalogue in Kentucky is constitutional. In the case ACLU of Kentucky v. Mercer County, Kentucky, the court voted 9-5 to uphold the Foundations of American Law and Government display at the county courthouse. The display includes the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Charta, the Star-Spangled Banner, the National Motto, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, and a picture of Lady Justice."

Fascist Hillary: "In her recent address to the Economic Club of Chicago, Senator Hillary Clinton advocated a version of the New Deal's state-corporatism that was patterned on Mussolini's fascist Italy of the 1920s. State-corporatism, as practiced by Mussolini and Hitler, was the economic aspect of Fascism. What the New Deal termed "saving capitalism from itself" and liberals today call "industrial policy" is just fascist state-corporatism under different names. Fascism's essential economic feature is centralized planning, euphemistically called "harmonizing." Activities of businesses and labor unions are to be coordinated by government planning boards. Individual economic liberty must be subordinated to the national interests as defined by the ruling party.

Muslim "thinkers" at work: "On Saturday past in New York City, the Muslim population of the United States revealed exactly how and where they stand for all of Americans to see. This was not just a small group, this was a large crowd; perhaps not as large as the crowd of illegals marching in California but large enough to let everyone here know what they stand for. In front of the Israeli Consulate in New York City, they demonstrated.... The Islamic Thinkers Society marched outside the Israeli consulate Saturday, on the Sabbath and chanted, "The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way!" We have given to the Islamic world time and again in terms of troops and aid and this is the thanks we receive."

Turkey's Islamist Dailies Spread Anti-American, Antisemitic Incitement: "Since the AKP rose to power in Turkey, the country's Islamist media has freely disseminated venomous anti-American and antisemitic allegations, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. This campaign has been led by Islamist Turkish dailies such as Vakit, Milli Gazete, and Yeni Safak (which is close to the AKP government and especially to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan). These newspapers have published stories about the U.S.'s alleged use of chemical and low-grade nuclear weapons in Iraq and U.S. soldiers' alleged systematic rape of Iraqi girls, and have blamed the U.S. for the December 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia and for the August 1999 Istanbul earthquake."

Strange Justice has just put up a good post about the craziness that passes for justice in Britain these days.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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STRANGE NEW IQ STUDY

We read:

"Girls have big advantage over boys on timed tests

"Vanderbilt University researchers Stephen Camarata and Richard Woodcock discovered that females have a significant advantage over males on timed tests and tasks. Camarata and Woodcock found the differences were particularly significant among pre-teens and teens....

Though males and females showed similar processing speed in kindergarten and pre-school, females became much more efficient than males in elementary, middle and high school." The researchers found that males scored lower than females in all age groups in tests measuring processing speed, with the greatest discrepancy found among adolescents. However, the study also found that males consistently outperformed females in some verbal abilities, such as identifying objects, knowing antonyms and synonyms and completing verbal analogies...

The researchers found no significant overall intelligence differences between males and females in any age groups. The research will be published in the May-June 2006 issue of the journal Intelligence. Camarata and Woodcock compiled their results through an evaluation of three sets of data collected from 1977 to 2001 as part of the Woodcock-Johnson Series of Cognitive and Achievement Tests."

Source

That is a really strange set of findings. Higher mental speed on a whole range of indices is normally associated with higher IQ so girls should have shown up as more intelligent but they did not. Among adults, males show up as having slightly higher IQ scores than females but not in this study. And strangest of all is that males outperformed females on verbal abilities. Probably the least disputed finding in the whole of IQ research is that FEMALES score highest on verbal abilities, with males doing best on visuospatial abilities.

So what the heck is going on here? It would be easy to dismiss the study as too much of an outlier to be anything but a product of poor methodology but I believe that the results are not as mysterious if we are aware of Lynn's huge summary of all the past research on these questions.

What Lynn showed was that results obtained with schoolchildren are not the same as the results obtained with adults. And I am now going to say why. And I am going to say why in a way that will offend a lot of people. But I am going to say it that way because it is true and the truth concerned helps us to see a particular finding in a way that all scientists seek -- as being part of a larger pattern. And that fact is that maturation speed is inversely correlated with final level obtained. Since that is a hopelessly academic way of saying anything, however, I will now say it in another brutally frank way: Chimpanzees, blacks and women grow up faster than white males and the faster they mature, the lower is the intelligence level that they finally reach on average.

Yes. I know that most people will accuse me of being worse than Hitler for saying that but, as the old Scottish saying has it: "Facts are chiels that winna ding" (Roughly translated: "Facts are children that cannot be disciplined"). I am sorry to be the messenger of a deeply unpalatable truth but somebody somewhere some day has to tell it to the general public.

And the authors of the study above do note that their results vary with age so that is clearly the decisive factor. In other words, if the study had been repeated with adults, the results would have been different. Females scored equally with males on average simply because males had not reached their peak at the ages studied.

There are still some puzzling parts of the study, though. Although the slower maturation of males explains the male/female parity in average IQ at the ages studied and perhaps explains the higher female processing speed observed, the unprecedented findings with verbal abilities remain to be explained. My best guess is that the tasks used to assess verbal abilities were atypical -- though it does not sound as if they were. Maybe Richard Lynn or J.P. Rushton may be able to shed some light on it in due course.

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ELSEWHERE



Film Banned for Anti-Guevara Sentiment: "Movie star Andy Garcia's controversial new movie The Lost City has been banned in parts of South America because it depicts romantic revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in a terrible light. The Ocean's Twelve star spent years trying to get the project made, only for film festival bosses and cinema chains to shun the movie because it tells the truth about the Marxist guerilla leader and the Cubans slayed as he fought to revolutionize the country and hand Fidel Castro leadership. Garcia, who wrote, directed and stars in the film, says, "There have been festivals that wouldn't show it. That will continue to happen from people who don't want to see the image of Che be tarnished and from people who support the Castro regime. He still has a lot of supporters out there. Some people think Castro is a savior, that he looks out for the kids and the poor. It's a bunch of hogwash. In the 45 years since Castro came to power, Cuba has been in the top three countries for human rights abuses for 43 of those years. People turn a blind eye to his atrocities."

The Supremes vs "We the People": "Since 5 'supreme' people in our entire nation declared the demise of U.S. private property rights, and since this was not an issue upon which the nearly 290 million American citizens were permitted to vote, 'appointed' power becomes dangerously problematic. Most people are now realizing that America is no longer operating Constitutionally, but rather according to the dictates and profits of elitist intellectuals. Historically speaking, freedom is, and always has been, based upon land and gun rights."

Schizophrenia inborn: "For the first time, scientists have confirmed in human brains what they had already suspected: A large gene that regulates many brain functions is abnormal in people with schizophrenia. The finding, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides clues to how the gene, neuregulin-1, might disrupt brain development and function and put people at risk for all sorts of thinking problems."

I have recently put up another article by wicked Swedish economist Lennart Sjoberg. It deals with the amazing mental contortions accomplished by "fellow-travellers" with totalitarian regimes -- people who were not themselves citizens of the countries concerned but who nonetheless could never find anything to criticize in the deeds of Hitler, Stalin etc.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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